Centra Health says the recent COVID surge driven by the Omicron variant has peaked. On January 25th, Lynchburg General hospital had 186 patients. Since then they’ve seen a steady decrease to 147 today. As a result, Centra has updated its visitation policy beginning MOnday February 7th. Patients will be allowed to have one visitor at a time in acute care facilities. Visitation time will shift to 2pm-7pm for ALL Centra Hospitals.
Here is the entire news release from Centra Health:
Centra Updates for February 2, 2022
• Centra’s inpatient COVID census for 02.22.22:
o 147 Total Patients: 15 are ICU patients, 7 are ventilated
o 123 Lynchburg General Hospital
o 18 Southside Community Hospital
o 6 Bedford Memorial Hospital
• It appears more definitive now that we have reached our peak census during the current
COVID surge, driven by the Omicron variant. This peak occurred on January 25th, with the
census at LGH/VBH cresting at 186. We have seen a very significant, consistent fall since
then (over 60 patient total difference), which has been sustained for over 1 week.
While this is now allowing us to pivot towards de-escalating some of our COVID responses,
we realize that we still have a very significant strain on all of our facilities and caregivers with
continued high COVID patient volumes (see below).
• With the continued decline of COVID-positive patients in our facilities, we will be updating our
visitation policy as of Monday, February 7th
. We understand how important visitation is to our
patients and their healing and feel it is safe to loosen these restrictions moving forward. We will
continue to monitor our system-wide positivity rate and community impact to make future
visitation decisions.
Visitation may vary depending on your location due to regulatory and capacity mandates, so
we ask that you please be aware of your individual location specifics. Here are a few highlights
of these changes:
o Patients will be allowed to have one (1) visitors at a time in acute care facilities. This
individual can interchange during the patient’s hospital stay. Exceptions based on
patient experience or end-of-life care may apply depending on location.
o Visitors must be 16 years of age and older.
o Visitation time will shift to 2pm-7pm for ALL Centra Hospitals.
We encourage visitors to check the Centra website for current visitation guidelines before
arriving at the hospital.
This ONE visitor per patient:
o Will only be allowed if they do not have COVID-19 symptoms (fever, cough, shortness
of breath)
o Will be screened each time they enter hospital facilities
o Must wear a mask while in any Centra building
o Will be expected to comply with CDC guidance in place at the time of their visit
• As the demand for COVID testing has continued to increase, opportunities for testing have
been made available:
o Virginia Department of Health is offering testing on the following dates and times:
▪ 2/3/22: 1:00-4:00 at Lynchburg Health Department. Rapid PCR and send off
PCR available
▪ 2/10/22: 1:00-4:00 at Lynchburg Health Department. Rapid PCR and send off
PCR available
• We encourage our communities to visit centrahealth.com/where-go-care to determine the
options available to receive care at Centra based on symptoms and geographical location to
offset longer wait times and capacity challenges in the ED.