El Paso hits extreme high in virus hospitalizations as available ICU beds dwindle
EL PASO, Texas -- State health officials late Thursday afternoon reported that only 28 intensive care unit beds and 388 hospital beds are available in the region encompassing El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties.
That's the lowest number of available beds since the state began publishing such data in the spring as the start of the pandemic, according to Bob Moore at El Paso Matters.
The reason for the bed shortage? Covid-19 cases are rising significantly, and those cases requiring hospital care and treatment in the ICU continue to set records. It reached new highs again on Thursday, with El Paso hospitalizations at 180 and 74 of those patients in intensive care.
ABC-7 reached out to all the hospitals in the area — but University Medical Center was the only facility to confirm the number of virus patients it is currently treating. It has climbed from 40 patients at the start of this week to 52 as of Thursday.
"We're still doing well with our capacity we're still able to accommodate the patients going in," Amy Daher, UMC's chief nursing officer told ABC-7. "We haven't had to go to that level yet and say 'we're out of a bed here what's our next step?'"
In a jump that City/County Health Authority Dr. Hector Ocaranza describes as "alarming," El Paso for the first time has exceeded 1,000 newly confirmed Covid-19 cases in a week. That milestone came on Thursday, with two days still remaining.
El Paso public health officials reported 265 new cases on Thursday, bringing the weekly count to 1,059. That surpassed last week’s all-time high of 990 cases.
El Paso is on pace for between 1,400 and 1,500 new Covid-19 cases this week, according to Moore's analysis. Until the surge that began last week, El Paso’s weekly high was 594 cases.
As with last week, just over half the new cases reported this week are among people in their 20s and 30s. That age group comprises about 30 percent of El Paso County’s total population.
