Number of COVID-19 patients continues to drop, Beaufort Co. hospitals say
Beaufort County hospitals again reported a decrease in COVID-19-positive patients this week.
As of Thursday, there were 27 coronavirus patients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, according to spokesperson Courtney McDermott. On Aug. 6 there had been 35. A week before that there were 45.
McDermott on Thursday said the hospital’s ICU capacity has not changed since Aug. 6. But, she said, only four COVID-19-positive patients were in ICU beds as of Thursday. There had been five a week prior.
Three people who had contracted COVID-19 were on ICU ventilators Thursday, McDermott added. There are 34 ventilators at the hospital in total.
The Hilton Head Regional Healthcare system, meanwhile, was treating eight coronavirus patients as of about 2 p.m. Thursday, according to a spokesperson for Tenet Healthcare, which owns Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals.
That’s also a drop from Aug. 6, when the system had 13 patients with confirmed coronavirus infections.
Just one of the eight COVID-19 patients was in an ICU bed as of Thursday, wrote Tenet spokesperson Daisy Burroughs in a statement. There had been three patients in those beds Aug. 6.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital and Hilton Head Regional Healthcare have not requested assistance from the S.C. Emergency Management Division in recent weeks, the spokespeople added.
Other hospitals, however, turned to the state for help in July amid a spike in COVID-19 admissions.
The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized at one time in South Carolina peaked on July 23, when over 1,700 people were admitted, according to S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control data. There have been small decreases in those daily numbers since.
As of Friday, DHEC said that more than 1,200 of the state’s 8,437 occupied inpatient beds were filled by COVID-19 patients. Just under 200 of those patients were on ventilators.
About 81% of all inpatient beds in South Carolina were in use Friday, DHEC data show.
Since the pandemic began, Beaufort County has recorded a total of 214 coronavirus hospitalizations, according to DHEC. The state agency also says 5% of the county’s cases have resulted in hospitalization.
