AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Health experts from across Austin are warning that hospitals could reach capacity by mid-July if we don't start bending the curve on the latest spike in COVID-19 cases.
A number of leaders from Austin's medical community joined Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott for a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
Based on projections, if the current pace of new COVID-19 cases holds, Travis County could see more than 13,000 total cases in just the next 18 days.
Officials say the majority of new cases right now are coming from people not following the safety guidelines and protocols - not isolating, not social distancing, and not wearing face masks.
Escott warned that the situation is becoming dire. Tuesday, while briefing the Travis County Commissioners Court, Escott spoke of the rising hospitalizations across the area. "Our hospital admissions have increased 90 percent since May 31. Our ICU bed occupancy have increased 150 percent since May 31, and our ventilator use has increased more than 75 percent since May 31," Escott told commissioners Tuesday.
According to a joint statement from Ascension Seton, Baylor Scott & White and St. David’s Healthcare, there are 3,250 licensed beds available in the metro area. About 75 percent of those, or 2,470, are "staffed", meaning set up and ready to use. The hospital groups would need to pull staff and equipment from other locations to surge to their licensed capacity, officials said.
As of Wednesday, the three hospital groups said their staffed beds were at 71% capacity. The three groups combined have 483 intensive care beds, which are 70% occupied.
"If we don’t make significant change right now... if the situation doesn’t improve in the next week to two weeks, I’m going to have to make a recommendation to the mayor and the [Travis County> Judge that we shut down. And I don’t want to do that," Escott said.
Right now, under Gov. Greg Abbott's statewide orders, local jurisdictions have limited ability to enact stricter rules of their own. However, as the outbreak has continued to grow, Abbott has indicated himself that stronger measures may be necessary in specific, harder-hit areas.
Dr. Kirsten Nieto, a pediatric specialist at Dell Children’s Medical Center, said that a large part of the increase in cases is due to many who have "abandoned" physical distancing measures. "The new cases that we're seeing in our community are because people are actively choosing to congregate, and to not isolate or mask. I'm also concerned that this choice is based on a false hope that we have comparatively low deaths rates in Austin and in Texas compared to other cities."
Escott summed up the press conference with a look ahead to the July 4 holiday. "If you don’t need to go out, don’t go out. If you don’t need to to congregate or get together with people, don’t do it," Escott said. "We really have to transition our mindset back to what it was in April so that we can get control of this, so we don’t endanger the healthcare system and our first responders and healthcare workers, and so that we can keep businesses open (and) keep the economy going. But we need action."
