CentraCare and St. Cloud Hospital continue to see a surge of COVID-19 patients.  CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON today.  He says they now have 133 COVID patients within CentraCare with 110 of those at St. Cloud Hospital.  He says they also have 42 of those patients in the ICU/Critical Care Unit.   The biggest difference from last week to this week is the ICU/Critical Care patients.  St. Cloud Hospital went from 25 in the ICU last week to 42 this week.  Dr. Morris says at their peak earlier this week they had 49 in the ICU.  Last week CentraCare had 136 COVID-19 patients hospitalized with 102 at St. Cloud Hospital.

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Dr. Morris says the overall patients they have at CentraCare this week is more than 400 with 380 being a normal number.  He says 25% of their hospital beds are being taken up by COVID-19 patients.  Morris says this is still part of the Delta surge.  He says the COVID positive patients spread throughout the regional CentraCare facilities are being asked to care for critical COVID-19 patients now which they hadn't done as much of in the past because they don't have enough staff at St. Cloud Hospital to handle the needs.

Dr. Morris described the situation with ICU beds as more often than not the way to get an ICU bed is when someone passes away.  He says there are occasions when someone with COVID does get healthy enough and can leave the ICU but not often.  Dr. Morris says it is more likely that an ICU patient not there with COVID were to get healthy enough to leave.

If you'd like more information about COVID-19 vaccines you can find it at CentraCare.com or call 320-200-3200.  If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Dr. Morris it is available below.

 

 

 

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