DULUTH – Local hospitals are nearing capacity as COVID-19 continues to surge in northeastern Minnesota, and health officials on Tuesday again found themselves pleading with residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine and adhere to mask recommendations.
"This is a really big deal," said Dr. Andrea Boehland, an emergency department physician at Essentia Health in Duluth. "Our situation today is quite serious."
Just 7% of staffed ICU beds and 13% of non-ICU beds in the region were available at the beginning of the week, according to the state Department of Health. That's due not only to the increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations but from an expected rise in summertime injuries and a spike in sickness resulting from people not seeking preventive and routine care, Boehland said.
Capacity is even tighter in the Twin Cities, and some metro-area patients have been sent to hospitals in northeastern Minnesota as a result.
On Tuesday, 53 patients were hospitalized with serious COVID-19 cases across Essentia's facilities from Fargo to Superior, Wis. — an increase of 10 from the day before.
"None of us want to be in this situation, but here we are and here we go again," said Amy Westbrook, St. Louis County's director of public health.
Last week St. Louis County reported 273 new COVID-19 cases, an increase of 52% from the week before. Federal guidelines consider that a high rate of transmission, and they say masks should be worn indoors regardless of vaccination status.
The recent spread is almost entirely attributable to the highly contagious delta variant and is affecting mainly unvaccinated people, though some rare breakthrough cases have been seen in fully vaccinated residents.
