Butler Health System saw an increase in hospitalizations this week due to COVID-19 as the county added 54 new confirmed cases and two deaths over the past two days.

“We have more cases now than we did then (in the spring),” said Dr. John Love, a BHS specialist in infectious disease. “I know we've all just got through Election Day and things are still developing on that front. We have to move past this pandemic as a political problem and understanding it as a real illness.”

According to a report Wednesday by BHS, all 18 inpatients being treated for COVID-19 at Butler Memorial Hospital have confirmed cases of the virus, an increase of two from Monday's report. Six of those patients are being treated in the intensive care unit.

Last Friday, Butler Memorial had only seven hospitalized COVID-19 patients. From Oct. 23 to Oct. 29, Butler County averaged about two hospitalizations per day, which had increased from one hospitalization per day for many weeks before that, according to the COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard.

“Even I was a bit surprised about how quickly the numbers escalated on the inpatient side,” Love said. “Some of them are related to nursing home outbreaks, but most of them are not.”

Butler County's COVID-19 numbers continued to grow, but at a slower rate than the 180 new confirmed cases reported over the weekend, according to Wednesday's report by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

According to multiple reports, Butler County added 36 new confirmed cases Tuesday and 18 on Wednesday. The county also added two new deaths, bringing the current death toll to 30.

According to a different BHS official, there were two deaths at Butler Memorial. The official said both were county residents and will likely appear in Friday's statistics.

“This is what we've been warning about,” Love said. “We have to work together on this. There's no other way we're successful.”

Love said the hospital has been tracking and preparing for a fall surge as it has watched the community case levels rise over the past six weeks. He said at this time, the hospital has continued its normal operations.

To accommodate the latest hospitalizations, the COVID-19 floor has been converted entirely to handling COVID-19 patients. As of last week, the floor was securely segregated, housing both COVID and non-COVID patients. Now, the non-COVID patients are in designated overflow floors that have yet to be used.

Love described the range of COVID-19 symptoms as a spectrum, varying from those moderately ill who were hospitalized largely for supervision to those who need constant oxygen relief or even ventilators.

As for the six patients in the ICU, not all six of them are on ventilators, but any patients on ventilators are housed in the unit.

Love said BHS continues to monitor its capacities multiple times each day, but currently he said the levels are “stable.” Early in the pandemic, the hospital halted elective procedures and converted those surgical units to additional overflow, beyond what is already being used.

In April, BHS worked with the county commissioners and Butler Area School District to set up an off-site overflow facility in the Broad Street Elementary school. The facility has yet to be used in the pandemic, but has the needed equipment for this and future pandemics.

Love said the hospital is still in a good place with COVID-19 patients, but staffing continues to be an area of concern moving forward. He said the hospital did not have much extra staff to begin with, but with some having to quarantine, it may be difficult to handle more patients with current staff levels. “That's a typical hospital issue. That's not special to Butler,” he said.

And Love said the situation could worsen if people continue to act as they have recently by attending mass gatherings and refusing to wear masks.

He said too many people are buying into the belief that the virus will burn itself out.

“Some people think this is OK. I don't. I don't like seeing our hospital wards filling up with COVID-19 patients,” Love said. “I don't like notifying the administrative team when another person dies.”

Love said he will continue to give people the same message he and other health officials have throughout the pandemic. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay home if you're sick. Avoid large gatherings. Love said with some luck these precautions will maintain their importance for another six to nine months, until a vaccine is found to be effective and is widely available to the public. Until then, this is the best form of prevention.

“Sooner or later, it's going to be someone that they know, and I don't want people to look back and regret (not) taking more precautions or responsibilities at this point, when it was preventable,” Love said. “I encourage people to be thoughtful and supportive.”