Cleveland Clinic and UH Virtual Media Briefing About COVID-19 Situation in Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Medical experts from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals provided an update on state-of-affairs with current COVID-19 surge, patient capacity levels at hospitals, omicron variant, vaccines, unvaccinated patients, testing and therapeutics. A Cleveland Clinic nurse shared personal experience caring for COVID-19-positive patients and a UH nurse talked about why she chose to get vaccinated after initially being hesitant.

The media briefing on Dec. 21 featured:

• Dr. Daniel Simon, President, Academic & External Affairs and Chief Scientific Officer, University Hospitals;
• Dr. Raed Dweik, Chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Respiratory Institute;
• Dr. Claudia Hoyen, Pediatric Infection Control, UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and Co-Director Infection Control University Hospitals;
• Shannon Pengel, chief nursing officer for Cleveland Clinic Institute;
• Stephanie Harper, RN, Clinical Nurse in OB/GYN, UH MacDonald Hospital for Women

In accordance with their ‘Stronger Together’ pledge to collaborate for the benefit of the community to address challenging public health needs, leaders and experts from Cleveland Clinic and UH provided an update on the current COVID-19 surge. Northeast Ohio is in the midst of another spike in cases that is putting considerable pressure on the local health systems’ hospital capacity and staff.

Watch the joint news briefing by clicking here.