Lane County Public Health officials say COVID-19 cases have plateaued to an average of 150 a day— but still an unreasonably high number for communities. Hospitalizations from the virus continue to stress the health system.
In Lane County, there are currently 87 patients hospitalized with the virus and 27 of them are in Intensive Care. Spokesperson Jason Davis said 50% of all ICU beds are taken up by COVID patients.
“We have two ICU beds available,” he stressed. “So obviously quite a few other reasons to be in the ICU and COVID is conflating with those.”
Davis said 20% of the ventilators in county are being used by patients fighting to breath with SARS-coV-2. He warned even as new case numbers drop off, there is a lag with deaths and hospitalizations. This is because of the time it takes --for a person to develop symptoms bad enough to be hospitalized-- and then for that individual to die.
