(WWJ) The number of COVID-19 cases is growing in Michigan, and hospital leaders are sounding the alarm.
The CEOs of Beaumont Health, Henry Ford Health System, Spectrum and others warn that the COVID-19 positivity rate is up substantially statewide -- with cases doubling every two, to two-and-a-half weeks in the state.
Hospitalizations are up more than five-fold in the past six weeks, and are expected to top spring peak hospitalizations later this month, the officials said.
Beaumont Health CEO John Fox said inpatients at Beaumont have tripled in less than 30 days, with 400 COVID-19 patients now being treated across eight hospitals.
The problem, he said, is "accelerating."
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"It's a difficult situation people do not appreciate," Fox said, during a Zoom news conference with other Michigan hospital group CEOs on Thursday.
"We see it out in the community; we see it in our own lobbies," Fox said. "People come in, we ask them to wear masks, to do the basic protective activity and we get resistance. We have to work that through."
Henry Ford Health System CEO Wright Lassiter said their hospitals are packed with COVID patients.
"In the last 14 days, our COIVD admissions have risen by 128%," Lassiter said, "So we're seeing significant escalation across all of our Southeast Michigan hospitals and our centreal Michigan hospitals."
"We have a significant burden in our emergency department," he added.
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Hospital leaders are basically doing what Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been doing in recent weeks: pleading with people to wear masks in public, stay at least six feet apart from other people, avoid gatherings and wash their hands.
"Again," Fox said, "this is a controllable pathogen if we do the basic infection control step."
Also on the all was Spectrum Health CEO Tina Freese Decker, who said the West Michigan hospital system's positivity rate is now at 15%, up from just 3% in September.
Spectrum expects its 14 hospitals to reach capacity in a matter of days, Freese Decker said.
Dr. David Elmochi, President of Spectrum Health is concerned about the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
“Given what we’re seeing here in West Michigan, we are very fearful that if big groups start getting together the spread will go on even further," Elmochi said,
This comes as the U.S. hit a record number of coronavirus hospitalizations this week, also surpassing 1 million new confirmed cases in just the first 10 days of November.