CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — With COVID-19 passing through the Coastal Bend in high numbers, the concern remains in whether there is enough staff to handle the surge.
Health Director Annette Rodriguez told 3News that the rapid spread was something that was anticipated by health officials. Due to the Omicron Variant, Coastal Bend hospitals recently made at least a half dozen requests to the State for more medical staff to be brought in.
"All of the hospitals are asking for additional nurses," Rodriguez said. "They're asking for additional respiratory therapist. We're also asking for additional testing kits."
Rodriguez said everyone is preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. As our COVID-19 positive numbers continue to rise, Rodriguez said she's also looking closely at the increasing number of people having to be hospitalized.
"Two weeks ago we had 33 hospitalizations," Rodriguez said. "Yesterday I think we had 60 hospitalizations that were COVID-19 specific and so I'm looking more at are the hospitalizations with Covid-19 patients going up the answer is yes but it is not as rapid as we saw with Delta."
Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales told 3News that the transmission rate for the virus is in the red right now, and that a reverse alert will be sent out to individuals alerting them to that fact. The County Judge is also working on putting in another County COVID-19 testing site because of the surge.
"I'm also going to be talking about doing some testing for Port A as well," Canales said.
The judge is also urging anyone who needs to get a booster shot to go and get one. Rodriguez said those boosters will raise your protection against getting COVID-19 to over 80%. Experts also believe that the booster shots will greatly help to keep you from ending up seriously sick.
More from 3News on KIIITV.com:
- Where to get a free COVID-19 test in Nueces County
- Woman walks from Wisconsin to Port Aransas
- Coastal Bend 9-year-old looking to clean up area beaches as her New Year's resolution
- '100% this year': CCPD breaks down efforts into solving homicide cases of 2021
- Health officials expect omicron surge in first weeks of January
- Here are the top 10 most clicked on stories of 2021
Want to send us a news tip?
Put your name and contact information below so we can get in touch with you about your story should we have questions or need more information. We realize some stories are sensitive in nature. Let us know if you'd like to remain anonymous.
If you do not have a photo/video to submit, just click "OK" to skip that prompt.