July 30, 2021 – State health officials in Mississippi have told the state’s hospitals to delay many elective surgeries beginning August 1, and are forming a central command to help search for ICU beds, according to Bloomberg.
As of Tuesday, 28 hospitals in the state didn’t have any ICU beds available as COVID-19 admissions rise, said Jim Craig, senior deputy for the Mississippi Department of Health.
As cases and hospitalizations rise, Mississippi is also enacting a COVID-19 rotation, effective July 29, to help ensure patients are properly assigned to an appropriate hospital based on geography and resources available in the area, said Craig.
That rotation, as well as the order regarding elective procedures, will be effective through Aug. 15.
Other states are facing similar situations. In Louisiana, the state is seeing daily new Covid hospitalizations reach levels it hasn’t seen since March 2020, said Joseph Kanter, the state health officer.
While Louisiana has enough ventilators and protective equipment now, its workforce, like Mississippi’s, is not at full staffing levels, Kanter said.