As the number of COVID-19 delta cases swells, only two pediatric ICU beds — out of 285 total — were available Tuesday in the 19-county North Texas area.
Dallas County hospitals reported 3,270 new cases over the weekend compared with 2,750 cases in a 14-day period last month.
Hospitals are at 90% capacity and experiencing staffing shortages, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. As of Tuesday, there were only 28 adult ICU beds available in Dallas County, according to W. Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council.
On Monday, there would have been 588 total ICU beds available if no one was admitted in the county and 1,556 in the region, according to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council.
As of Tuesday, there were only 329 staffed intensive care beds left in the state out of 7,451 total ICU beds, according to a Texas DSHS spokesperson. This is the lowest number of available ICU beds the state has had during the entire pandemic, when cases first started popping up here in March 2020.
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott asked for out-of-state help for COVID-19 operations and sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association asking hospitals to voluntarily postpone elective surgeries. He issued an executive order last month that bars local governments from enacting mask mandates.
About 65% of new cases in Dallas County are in people under the age of 40, and 80% of new cases stem from those who are unvaccinated, Jenkins said.
“If you’re not vaccinated, it’s only a matter of when, not if, you will get COVID,” Jenkins said.
About 54% of the state’s eligible population and Dallas County’s is fully vaccinated, according to Texas Health and Human Services.
Unvaccinated flooding hospitals
The same scenario is playing out across the state, where the majority of hospitalizations and ICU patients are those who are unvaccinated, said Dr. Emma Dishner, an infectious disease doctor at North Texas Infectious Disease Consultants, a Dallas clinical research center.
“This virus is continuing to get more contagious and more deadly,” Jenkins said. “The delta variant won’t be the last one we face, so get vaccinated.”
Love said the low number of ICU beds is concerning not only because of rising COVID-19 cases, but other medical needs that require intensive care.
If the beds are full and someone comes in after a car wreck, for example, there may be nowhere for them to go. Some hospitals in more rural counties have already closed their emergency rooms. Love said if hospitals fill up, they could be forced to send patients out of state.
“This is extremely critical,” he said. “If you start running out of capacity, if you start running out of staff, it becomes a safety issue.”
In 19 North Texas counties, over a third of adult ICU patients have COVID-19. Hospitalizations have more than quadrupled in 30 days.
There are 82 staffed adult ICU beds available in the region, and the breakdown by counties is as follows: 28 in Dallas, 33 in Tarrant, 12 in Collin and nine in Denton. These four counties are the only ones in the region with available adult ICU beds — rural counties’ intensive care units are at full capacity.
On Tuesday, 64 confirmed COVID-19 pediatric patients were hospitalized in the region. Love said this is the highest level of pediatric COVID-19 patients ever treated.
Central Texas hospitals reported only having two staffed beds for intensive care in the region and are witnessing a tripling of pediatric patients, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
While lower than all other age groups, the number of pediatric patients hospitalized with the coronavirus is growing too. Asked directly whether masks should be mandated for children 12 and under, who are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt said that’s a “leadership decision.”
“The medical recommendation is that all of these measures are additive and that masking in an indoor environment will absolutely increase the safety in that environment,” he said.
Dr. Joseph Chang, chief medical officer of Parkland Memorial Hospital, told senators that primarily unvaccinated people are showing up at the hospital. From mid-January to mid-July, he said, 1,100 COVID-19 patients were admitted and 27 of them were vaccinated.
Jenkins urged residents to mask, whether vaccinated or not, in high-risk situations and said people should be vigilant about getting COVID-19 testing.
“Masks suck, but it’s a small sacrifice to save lives.”
Officials voiced concern about the school year beginning as those under the age of 12 cannot get vaccinated yet. They urged all students to wear masks in schools. On Monday, Dallas ISD announced it would require masks in defiance of Abbott’s executive order. Jenkins said he hopes other school districts follow suit.
“I don’t know when people in this country became so weak in their patriotism that they cannot stomach the idea of wearing a mask in the grocery store or having their child wear a mask at school,” Jenkins said.
Middle-aged people at risk
Middle-aged Texans are now driving the surge in hospitalizations, taking the place of the elderly, whose rates of hospitalization fell after Texas’ vaccination drive, according to data presented to the state Senate on Tuesday by the Health and Human Services Committee.
”It is clear the delta variant is spreading very fast in our communities, it is quite dangerous, and it is now producing the need for hospitalization in, if you will, relatively young age groups,” Hellerstedt told senators.
The delta variant is a stronger, more contagious strain of the virus. Even vaccinated people who may not get a severe case of COVID-19 could spread it to eight or nine others, Love said, including those who are unvaccinated.
Dr. Philip Huang, Dallas County’s health director, said he’s heard stories from hospital doctors about patients expressing regret and wishing they had gotten vaccinated.
“This is heartbreaking,” Huang said. “This is preventable. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated, please do. It is safe. It’s effective.”
