North Texas hospital officials advised local residents on Wednesday not to panic about the recent rise in Chinese coronavirus cases, as the area’s hospital system has plenty of capacity to handle a surge in COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization.
The full statement from Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council President/CEO Stephen Love reads:
“We want the people of North Texas to please not panic regarding the COVID-19 virus. The virus has created increased hospitalizations over the past two weeks, but we have capacity in North Texas in our hospitals.
“The 19-county area (to include Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin counties) covered by ‘Trauma Service E’ has a little over a 1,000 COVID-19 patients with roughly 35% of those patients being in ICU beds. We have approximately 38 percent of our ventilators in use so, we have 62 percent available if needed. The COVID-19 patients hospitalized represent less than 10 percent of our hospitalized patients. While we acknowledge the COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased recently, we currently have over 5,200 available beds within our North Texas trauma service area, running approximately 69% hospital occupancy rate.
“We all need to work together to slow the COVID-19 virus spread and at the same time keep our economy open. Some individual actions would be to wear facial coverings in public, wash your hands frequently, utilize social distancing and practice good personal hygiene. We are all in this together and if we do our part, we will prevail.”
Following this statement, Dallas County officials decided for a second time not to open an overflow hospital facility in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson tweeted on Thursday:
The DFW Hospital Council and Dallas County informed us this morning that they do not want to stand up the @KBHCCDallas pop-up hospital at this time. They believe they are capable of handling a COVID-19 hospitalization surge in their existing medical facilities.
— Mayor Eric Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) June 25, 2020
Harris County hospitals also released a joint statement on Thursday advising area residents not to be alarmed about hospital capacity for COVID-19 patients, “which is not an immediate concern.”
Texans can follow coronavirus case data, including regional hospital capacity, via the Texas Department of State Health Services COVID-19 dashboard.