PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Delaware now has more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than ever.
There are 338 patients being treated for the coronavirus in Delaware hospitals — one more than the previous peak of 337 from April 17.
At his weekly news briefing, Gov. John Carney estimated the state's hospital capacity is 400 to 500 COVID patients.
He said with case counts skyrocketing, the concern isn't necessarily having enough beds — it's having enough staff to treat the patients.
"Those hospitalization numbers are as real as real can be," Carney said. "They're there. They're present in the hospitals. It's not a hoax. This is real and it's serious."
Delaware reported 10 more deaths in the past week, to push its total to 803.
Carney has issued a stay-at-home advisory and an indoor mask mandate that takes effect next week. He's also recommending that Delaware schools teach entirely remotely until Jan. 11.
State Health director Dr. Karyl Rattay also said as Delaware prepares to receive its first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, possibly next week, it has just obtained a special cold storage unit "which might look just like a basic but skinny refrigerator but it is an ultracold freezer, so it can store the Pfizer vaccine. And in fact, it can store almost 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine."
Rattay said the first doses, about 9,000, could arrive as early as next Tuesday.
