Texas intensive care unit beds are showing shortage during the pandemic Omicron, only 259 staffed beds open across the state, as hospitals face staffing crisis and need of hospitals bed by unvaccinated people, infected by Omicron reports texas tribune.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, during the deadly delta variant of COVID-19 in the previous September, 11 fewer beds are shortage compared to the previous one. An average of 295 beds’ availability shows the shortage than previous records again.
Highly Transmitted Omicron Leads To Staff Shortage
On Wednesday, more than 13,300 patients hospitalized were infected by the virus. The chief medical officer, Bryan Alsip from the University Health of San Antonio, said, “Because of the high level of transmission and infectivity of the omicron variant, so many of our staff are getting positive”. He added that University Health of San Antonio is one of the third largest of its kind, reaching numbers of hospitalized COVID- 19 patients had not seen since the last two years.
Most of the cases had been seen increasing since December, as the omicron variant of COVID-19 is not much serious but more contagious than the delta variant.
Vice president of advocacy of the Texas Hospital Association, Carrie Kroll, said that the state is facing such a shortage as the number of virus infections jumps from the cases of delta variants, which leads to an increase in beds requirements. Kroll added, “A lot of our state wasn’t necessarily done with delta when omicron came on”.
Fewer Ventilators Required
There is no doubt that ICU admissions for COVID patients need fewer ventilators than delta variants. But Omicron is quite calmer in putting patients into ICUs than previous variants. In Dallas-Fort Worth area hospitals, most of the city’s hospitals show ICUs level 90 per cent more than the previous month. But there are several other patients like trauma, strokes and heart attacks, and a few more critical illnesses requiring the ICU bed. Alsip said, “when you have lower capacity …. it’s harder and harder sometimes for patients to access those services”.
