Abilene, Bryan-College Station, Laredo have no ICU beds available

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Health officials in Laredo – one of three regions in Texas whose intensive care unit beds are full – are calling on residents to stay home and prevent the spread of the coronavirus as city hospitals are full of patients.

“Hospitals are also overwhelmed with capacity as the number of COVID-19 cases increases. At this time, patients need to be diverted to independent local facilities, “the city of Laredo said on Sunday to residents in an emergency message, according to Texas Public Radio. “Lives are at stake. We ask you to stay home if it is not absolutely necessary. ”

Also, the Abilene and Bryan-College Station areas did not have ICU beds available as of Sunday.

The Texas Department of Health said in a tweet Friday that the pandemic has never been more severe in Texas and it has never been easier to catch COVID-19 in the state. The department is “very concerned” about the capacity of hospitals and stressed that “Texas ICUs can’t last much longer.”

The health authority in Laredo, Dr. Victor Treviño, said in a statement On Saturday, more than 36 patients will be referred from the emergency room to independent facilities across the city. Laredo’s health department reported nearly 4,900 cases of coronavirus last week, and the area set a record for daily infections reported in more than 2,000 cases on Wednesday.

“We advocate with the community to stay home and limit activity to key goals,” Treviño said.

Patients with COVID-19 occupy almost 49% of the hospital’s capacity in the Laredo region, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. This is a much larger number than any other trauma service region in the state.

The Abilene and Bryan-College Station areas have frequently reported no ICU hospital beds available since mid-November. Health officials in these areas were not immediately available for comment.

“We are unable to keep up with this increase in cases that are positive,” Dr. Seth Sullivan, Brazos County Health Authority, said in late December at the end of December, according to KBTX. “Certainly the last few weeks have taken a turn for the worse and I’m very worried about the next two to four weeks.”

According to the Laredo Morning Times, the Laredo region has led the state in the rate of hospitalized patients treated for COVID-19 since mid-December.

“The amount of COVID-19 spread exceeds the ability to cope with hospitalizations resulting from people who (continue) to participate in high-risk, high-contact activities,” Treviño told the Morning Times.

Texas has reported more than 1.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. More than 32,000 people in the state have died of coronavirus since Saturday. Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas have grown steadily since October, as people travel for the winter holidays, gather indoors to avoid the cold weather, and experience “COVID-19 fatigue” due to restrictions and precautions.

In the summer, some Texas hospitals ran out of drugs, beds and ventilators as they faced a statewide increase in coronavirus cases. Now, cases in Texas have surpassed the number hit in the summer, and Laredo is one of many cities facing overwhelmed hospitals with coronavirus hospitalizations.

Austin health officials opened the Austin Convention Center on Tuesday to prevent overcrowding of ICU admissions – which have broken records in the area. The UV-Austin COVID-19 modeling consortium recently projected that ICUs should reach capacity in Austin soon.

“The state is booming. The state is in crisis, “said Dr. Mark Escott, the interim health authority for Austin and Travis County, at a news conference in early January. “It seems very clear to us that we will run out of hospital beds and that we will have to allocate resources to meet the needs of our community.”

Some emergency rooms in North Texas have patients because there is no room for intensive care, Dr. Robert Hancock, president of the Texas College of Emergency Physicians, told The Tribune. Dr. Justin Fairless, an emergency physician in Fort Worth, said earlier this month that there are coronavirus patients in hospital halls “because there’s nowhere else to put them.”

Treviño warned that Laredo would become “medically obsolete” unless people took steps to stop the virus from spreading, including wearing masks and avoiding gatherings.

Disclosure: The Texas College of Emergency Physicians was a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization, partially funded by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial backers play no role in Tribune journalism. Find a complete list of them here.