Austin: With ICU’s bed to one digit, Austin sounded alarm Saturday, using his emergency warning system to give residents in Texas Capital City to know that local pandemic situation was “terrible.” Austin area – with a population of nearly 2.4 million people – 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 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.
The level of risk was raised after the average moving average for new hospital admissions increased by more than 600% in the past month, while 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 increase 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 infections in the US have rebounded to an average of more than 100,000 a day, returning to the level of winter surge six months ago.
Weekly case on Friday passed 750,000, the most since the beginning of February, according to data compiled by Johns University Hopkins and Bloomberg.
Cases increase even when the US vaccination rate starts ticking after months decreasing.
Death Daily Death More than doubled in the past month, even when remaining far below the last winter level, with health care experts warn that new infection rates can trigger more deadly mutations.
“It was clearly a very bad turn,” Anthony Fauci, head of medical advisory to US President Joe Biden, said in Quicktake Bloomberg interview this week.
He also chose Texas, along with Florida, as two states that “are accounting for very disproportionate proportions – something like 40% of infection.” Texas, with a population of around 29 million, has 439 ICU beds available – and 6,991 ventilators.
The Houston area, with a population of 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 11,072 more cases were added on Saturdays – often the amount reduced because fewer tests were processed on weekends.
‘Dire’ covid emergency: US city with 2.4 million populations only has 6 ICU beds left
