The number of people being treated for COVID-19 in Virginia hospitals is down 7.4 percent since Friday, and the number of COVID-19 patients who have been discharged is up 9.2 percent over the three-day period.
The key data points that will guide Virginia to the beginning of the three-phased reopening are tracking better than expected, by the Monday morning update from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.
The VHHA COVID-19 dashboard lists the number of COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized, and hospitalized patients whose COVID-19 test results are still pending, at 1,504.
There were a combined 1,625 patients meeting those criteria as of the Friday, May 8 VHHA update.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized and have since been discharged is at 3,273 in the Monday dashboard update, up from the 2,997 reported as of May 8.
The dashboard offers that just 21 percent of the ventilators on hand for use in Virginia hospitals are currently being used, and there are 4,677 hospital beds available, representing 25.7 percent of the aggregate capacity in Virginia hospitals, with an additional 3,695 beds available that were added under an executive order from Gov. Ralph Northam directing hospitals to increase their licensed bed capacity.
The availability of beds is consistent with numbers from the past several weeks, and what’s significant there is that this is happening as hospitals have begun scheduling and performing elective surgeries that had been shuttered for six weeks under another Northam executive order aimed at preserving space for an expected COVID-19 patient surge that never materialized.
Story by Chris Graham