(WWJ) -- Michigan has officially hit another grim pandemic milestone.
The Michigan state health department said nearly 4,386 patients across the state are now hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases.
This is the highest number of patients since the start of the pandemic, with the previous record being set during this year's spring wave.
And it's not just adults, 139 children are hospitalized with COVID across the state -- which is also a record-high.
More than half of these hospitalizations are being reported outside of southeast Michigan.
As far as Beaumont Hospitals go, officials said there are 563 COVID patients total at eight of their locations.
At Beaumont-Royal Oak there are 131 patients.
Dr. Chris Carpenter said that more than 70% of COVID patients are unvaccinated, and that a higher percentage of unvaccinated patients with COVID are in the ICU.
Dr, Matthew Simms told WWJ's Sandra McNeill that Beaumont hospitals are filling up at time when there are staffing shortages and waits in the ER can be up to 12 hours.
Compared to last spring, he said: "There's things that we were doing in the beginning that we don't do not."
"We can treat it better," Simms explained, "but we don't have a magic bullet, right? It's not like when you come in with bacterial pneumonia, you get antibiotics, and you get better."
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These record-breaking numbers are especially more especially concerning when thinking about the new COVID variant, Omicron.
Omicron, which was first detected in South Africa, had since been detected in a number of countries, including Canada.
Health experts expect the this variant may be more contagious than the Delta variant.
Dr. Dennis Cunningham, the medical director of infection prevention at Henry Ford Health System, said the COVID-19 vaccine "should offer some protection" against the new variant.
"I'm really most concerned about people who've never had any doses of the vaccine -- I think they're at the biggest risk," said Dr. Cunningham.
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Cunningham said Omicron has more mutations than any other variant they've seen before -- these mutations make the virus a lot easier to transmit and spread.
Experts say the odds are good the Omicron is already in the U.S.