COVID-19: US city down to 6 ICU beds as Delta spreads tentacles

Authorities in the US city of Austin on Saturday pressed the panic button, shooting off text messages, emails and phone calls to residents to alert them the COVID-19 situation in the Texas capital was dire with ICU beds down to just six.

Texas on Friday (August 6) reported 23,096 cases, the highest since February, while adding 11,072 more cases on Saturday (August 7).

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A Bloomberg report, quoting state health data, said that hospitals in the city of 2.4 million people had a total of six ICU beds and 313 ventilators left, two days after the health department raised the risk level to Stage 5, the highest, due to a surge in cases of Delta variant. The department had instructed residents to get vaccinated on priority, stay at home and wear face masks even if they have been vaccinated.

Warning residents of a “catastrophe”, Public Health Medical Director Walkes in a statement on Saturday said, “Our hospitals are severely stressed and there is little we can do to alleviate their burden with the surging cases.”

The health department had raised the risk-level to Stage 5 after the seven-day moving average for new hospital admissions increased more than 600 per cent in the last month. The same for admission of patients to the ICU increased by 570 per cent. While only eight patients were on ventilators on July 4, the number went up to 102 as of Saturday.

While the cases have increased by 10 times, the health department expect a surge in the coming days.

“Hospital bed availability and critical care is extremely limited in our hospital systems,” Walkes said.

The US has been reporting a surge in cases with new infections hovering over 10,000 cases a day. According to data by John Hopkins University and Bloomberg, the weekly cases crossed 750,000 on Friday, the highest since early February.

Data accessed by Bloomberg says the daily average of deaths has more than doubled in the past months.

This despite, the increased pace of vaccination in the US. Health experts have also warned that the pace of the fresh infections may also lead to deadlier mutations, Bloomberg reported.

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Stating that the pandemic has “clearly has taken a very bad turn,” Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden told Bloomberg that Texas and Florida are two states that are “accounting for a very disproportionately high proportion – something like 40 per cent of the infections.”

According to Bloomberg, Texas has only 439 ICU beds and 6,991 ventilators available for its population of 29 million. Houston, which has a population of 6.7 million has just 41 ICU beds left.