Local hospital officials have issued a clear warning to the community as COVID cases threaten to exceed their capacity to treat patients.
In a release Tuesday, Deaconess Health System officials said that local and regional COVID-19 trends are “very concerning.”
It’s easy to see why they’re so concerned. Deaconess has had more than two hundred positive coronavirus test results for each of the past six days. About twenty percent of positive cases end up in the hospital, and about a quarter of those will require intensive care.
Hospital admissions are usually necessary about ten to twenty days after diagnosis. That means the surge from all those positive tests results will hit area hospitals in about two weeks.
Deaconess said the increasing positive cases will like lead to hospital capacity that is strained or could be exceeded. Deaconess has now passed the number of COVID patients seen in the early days of the pandemic. They said many other hospitals in Southwest Indiana are also approaching capacity.
