Tag: Minnesota COVID-19 cases spiking

‘No beds anywhere’: Minnesota hospitals strained to limit by COVID-19

Open ICU beds were down to single digits in some parts of Minnesota last week, when Gov. Tim Walz ordered a four-week shutdown of bars and other venues. 

One walk through Regions Hospital’s COVID-19 intensive care unit reveals the scope of the medical crisis emerging from a fast-spreading pandemic.

Sixteen sliding glass doors are all closed, and behind each lies a patient struggling to breathe. Almost all are on ventilators because their lungs are too weak to work on their own. Clear tubes carry oxygen into their throats and chests, which mechanically rise and fall as their bodies lie still.

On this Thursday morning, 28 COVID-19 patients are in intensive care, with 12 spilling beyond the designated unit to areas designed for heart problems, strokes and surgical recoveries. A total of 97 COVID-19 patients have been admitted to Regions, which is almost full. Continue reading.

‘The time is now, Minnesota.’ Leaders plead with public to curb COVID.

This is it.

The moment experts feared and predicted. We avoided it for months, but it eventually came.

Minnesota is about to enter, as Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota put it a few days ago, “COVID hell.”

State and hospital officials say we’re as prepared as we have ever been — but that it very well might not be enough. Continue reading.

‘Red alert’ for hospital ICU beds in Twin Cities amid COVID-19 surge

Only nine intensive care beds were available in the Twin Cities on Wednesday morning amid a surge in COVID-19 that is sending more Minnesotans into hospitals.

Metro ICU bed space grew scarce as nurses and other caregivers were unavailable because of their own infections or viral exposures that required quarantines in central Minnesota and other parts of the state.

“We’re at a red alert for ICU beds,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “It’s bad.” Continue reading.