Local COVID-19 surge rages on

The surge in COVID-19 cases in Hunt County hospitals has created a logjam of patients and forced officials to setup tents to manage the flow of people seeking care.

The same day officials recorded the county's second death attributed to the virus in a week, medical staffers transitioned to the outdoor triage operation to cope with an overflow of emergency room patients waiting for hospital beds.

Lisa Hill the Director of the Foundation Development and Marketing Communications for Hunt Regional Healthcare said as of 9 a.m. Friday, the Hunt Regional Medical Center in Greenville had 57 COVID-19 patients.

“Fifty-six of these are unvaccinated,” Hill said. “There are 12 patients holding in the emergency rooms in Greenville and Quinlan waiting on

inpatient beds. There are 11 ICU patients on ventilators – none are vaccinated.”

Hill said Hunt Regional expects an additional 20 traveling nurses to arrive Monday then 20 more a week later.

“Once the traveler nurses on Aug. 23 have been oriented, which will take about a week, our expectation is we will then be able to reopen Hunt Regional Emergency Medical Center at Commerce,” Hill said.

She said the State of Texas has approved staffing support to the area.

“More than 700 nurses will be deployed to our region, which includes Dallas and Collin counties,” Hill said. “We have made requests for additional staffing and hope to hear next week how many might be

allocated to Hunt Regional.”

Hunt County has recorded its second COVID-19 death in a week.

Richard Hill, the executive director of the Hunt County Emergency Management Department, as well as the Hunt County Health Department, said there is no immediate call to establish any field hospitals to deal

with the swell.

“We talk about that every day,” Hill said, noting that there still is a need for additional medical personnel both in Hunt County and across North Texas.

“I think that staffing is the biggest problem,” Hill said. “If you don’t have the medical staff, there’s no use setting anything up.”

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported Thursday evening that Hunt County had 5,908 cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases, an increase of 47 cases since Wednesday, with 1,137 probable cases, 13 more than had been reported the previous day.

The state agency reported Hunt County had 184 deaths attributed to COVID-19, one more than on Wednesday and two more than reported Sunday..

Hunt County had 6,733 estimated cumulative recoveries of the virus, 85 more than Wednesday.

There was a spot of good news, as there were 312 active cases of the virus reported in Hunt County Thursday, 25 fewer than had been reported Wednesday.

The surge in COVID-19 cases continues statewide.

The hospitals in Trauma Service Area E, a 19-county region of North Texas, which includes Hunt County, reported 2,528 patients were in hospital beds with COVID-19 as of Tuesday, which accounted for 23.42% of

the 10,791 patients hospitalized due to the virus across Texas. The hospitals in Trauma Service Area E reported that as of Tuesday, 15.62% of all hospitalized patients in the region were due to COVID-19.

There were only 88 available ICU beds across the service area as of Tuesday.

“We have a whole region that is in the same situation,” Hill said. “Everybody is having the same thing.”