Coronavirus hospitalizations are rising in 39 states, which have experienced an increase over the past two weeks in the percentage of available hospital beds occupied by patients suffering from the coronavirus, Axios reported on Monday.
Sixteen states have reached or are close to the highest hospitalization rates they have experienced during the pandemic, with Wisconsin faring the worst at 9.4% of the state’s beds occupied by patients with coronavirus.
However, despite the concern, no state is anywhere close to the worst-case situation of not having enough capacity to deal with an outbreak of the coronavirus.
The most dangerous such situation so far of any state during this pandemic occurred in New Jersey in the spring, when 40% of the state’s beds were taken up by coronavirus patients.
That being said, Axios pointed out that the upswing in hospitalization rates remains a sign that the situation is getting worse, just as cold weather starts to arrive in some regions of the country, which experts have long warned as a potentially dangerous period of rising cases of COVID-19.
Although experts maintain that most areas of the United States will not need to scale back their treatments of non-coronavirus patients, as hospitals had to do in the spring, there is concern that in rural areas, even a modest outbreak will strain the capacity of local medical care.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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