Dr. George Morris

The number of COVID-19 positive patients within CentraCare hospitals in Central Minnesota continue to be high. CentraCare Spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON today.

CentraCare issued a vaccine mandate for employees in August. CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON this week. He said in the past week they started the vaccination process of another 120 employees bringing their total vaccination numbers to just under 80% of their staff vaccinated.

CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris says CentraCare and St. Cloud Hospital is "at capacity for all patients". Morris says they have approximately the same amount of COVID-19 patients within CentraCare and at St. Cloud Hospital as they had last week but with all other non COVID-19 care needs they just don't have the beds or enough staff to handle the pressure they are facing due to COVID.

CentraCare has more than 1,300 openings. CentraCare Spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON. He says they have lost a significant amount of employees over the last year plus due to COVID. Morris says this started in January because COVID has "been so hard, the hours have been long and the challenges have been immense."

The COVID-19 numbers at St. Cloud Hospital and within CentraCare have increased to the point where they have now surpassed the spring surge numbers. That according to CentraCare Spokesman Dr. George Morris. He says they have 75 positive COVID-19 patients within CentraCare with more than 60 at St. Cloud Hospital.

Last week CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON and said unvaccinated CentraCare employees would not be fired. That is still technically the case. This week when I talked with Dr. Morris he got into more detail as to what the result would be for employees who choose not to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The latest Delta variant driven COVID-19 surge at St. Cloud Hospital continues this week. CentraCare Spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON this week. He says they have 60 COVID-19 patients within CentraCare with 50 of them at St. Cloud Hospital.

CentraCare enacted a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine in August. Dr. George Morris says "we are not firing anybody". He says they are not using the vaccine mandate as an opportunity to fire anybody for not getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

CentraCare is reporting 38 people hospitalized with COVID-19 this week. Those numbers are up from 15 from 2 weeks ago. CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris says 33 of the 38 are at St. Cloud Hospital and 9 of those are in the ICU/Critical Care unit. Morris says 15 of the 38 hospitalized people are under 50 years old.

COVID-19 positive patients at St. Cloud hospital continue to drop this week. CentraCare spokesman Dr. George Morris joined me on WJON. He says they have 25 positive COVID-19 patients with less than 5 in the ICU/Critical Care unit. Morris says St. Cloud Hospital is back to being busy with "regular care".