With ICU beds up to one digit, Austin sounded alarmed Saturday, using its emergency warning system to give residents in Texas Capital City to know that local pandemic conditions were “terrible.”
With nearly 2.4 million people, the Austin area only has six beds intensive care units, displayed state health data. A total of 313 ventilators are available.
“The situation is very important,” said the DESMAR WALKES Public Health Medical Director in a Saturday statement, warned “disaster” for sending notifications to the population during the day through text messages, e-mail, and telephone calls. “Our hospital is very stressed and there is a little we can do to ease their burden with soaring cases.”
The warning that came only two days after the City Health Department hit the level of risk to the highest level in stage 5 because the Delta variant was very contagious, encouraging residents to get vaccinations, stay at home and cover even if they had a shot.
Raised the level of risk after the average moving average for new hospital admissions increased by more than just 600% in the past month. While the patients in the intensive care unit jumped 570%. Covid patients in the ventilator jumped to 102 on Saturdays from only eight on July 4, the health department said. More can follow because cases in the Austin area increased 10 times.
“The availability of hospital beds and critical care is very limited in our hospital system,” Walkes said, rallying residents to help “prevent disaster.”
The leap in the case also looks national. New infection at A.S. It has rebounded to an average of more than 100,000 a day, returning to the level of winter surge six months ago. According to Johns University Hopkins and Bloomberg data, weekly cases on Friday passed 750,000, the most since the beginning of February.
Cases increased even as the rate of U.S. vaccination began to beat after months of decline. Death Daily Death More than doubled in the past month, even when remaining far below the last winter level, health care experts warn that new infection rates can trigger more deadly mutations.
“It has clearly taken up a very bad turn,” Anthony Fauci, head of medical advisory to President Joe Biden, said in Quicktake Bloomberg interview earlier this week.
He also chose Texas and Florida as two states that “are accounting for very disproportionate proportions – something like 40% of infection.”
With a population of around 29 million, Texas has 439 ICU beds available – and 6,991 ventilators. The Houston area, with a great population of nearly 6.7 million, only has 41 ICU beds left. The Greater Dallas area, which has more than 8 million people, has 110 ICU beds.
The number of infections jumped at 23,096 in Texas on Friday, the most since February, and added 11,072 more cases on Saturdays – often, the amount reduced because processed fewer tests on weekends.