Augusta Health has seen the number of COVID-19 positive patients increase five-fold since October. At the same time, its overall daily census is actually down 14.8 percent from its recent 10-week high.
The Monday update from HealthData.gov has the Fishersville-based regional hospital averaging 39 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 positive tests for the week of Dec. 25-31.
Overall census in the 258-bed hospital averaged 142.4 last week, according to the healthdata.gov report.
This total represents 55.2 percent of the hospital’s overall capacity, which is 258 in-patient beds.
The high-water mark in the last 10 weeks in terms of overall census was the week of Nov. 6-12, which saw an average of 167.1 in-patient beds in use at the hospital.
The average of COVID-19 positive hospitalized patients that week was 13.4 – up from an average of 10 the week of Oct. 30-Nov. 5, and 8.1 the week of Oct. 23-29.
The COVID-19 patient number nearly doubled over the course of the next week, to 26, for the week of Nov. 13-19, but overall census dropped from 167.1 to 153.4.
This is the trend in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on resources at Augusta Health as local COVID-19 positive test reports continue to pile up.
Over the 10-week period from Oct. 23-Dec. 31, the three localities served by Augusta Health – Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro – reported a total of 4,699 positive COVID-19 tests among their populations, according to the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 data dashboard.
This total represents 70.8 percent of all of the COVID-19 positives reported in the three localities now 10 months into the public health response.
At by far the busiest time of the past 10 months in terms of the impact of COVID-19, the daily census at Augusta Health has trended between 55.2 percent and 64.8 percent of overall capacity over the past 10 weeks.
Story by Chris Graham
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