Aspirus is increasing its ICU capacity due to the high number of COVID patients.
As of Wednesday morning, there were 91 COVID patients hospitalized for COVID-19.
43 of them were in the intensive care unit.
That exceeds the number of ICU patients on any given day during the COVID surge last fall.
“We’re seeing with this most recent surge, with the Delta Variant, that patients are somewhat younger than they have been in the past with prior surges. They’re coming into the hospital sicker or more critical and needing much higher level of care,” Dr. Susan Schneider, senior system physician executive of primary care for Aspirus.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Services data, all hospitals in the Northern Central Region are reporting ICUs at peak capacity as of Wednesday afternoon.
This problem is affecting health care systems across the country.
More ICU patients requires more staff and resources.
That can cause non-emergent procedures to be delayed.
“It’s important for everyone to realize that there are a lot of resources right now that we devote to taking care of patients that have COVID,” said Dr. Schneider. “These are critical, sometimes critically ill patients that require additional resources that do draw from other parts of the hospital.”
Dr. Schneider says most of these hospitalizations could have been avoided if the people were vaccinated.
She also encourages people to wear masks in public to avoid spreading the virus.
“If you’re seeing what looks like normal daily life right? We now, businesses are open, we’re able to do some of the things we could not do, year, year and a half ago at the beginning of the pandemic. Realize that we are still in the middle of a pandemic,” said Dr. Schneider.
