Beaufort Co. hospitals report another decrease in admitted coronavirus patients
Beaufort County hospitals have reported another decrease in COVID-19 admissions.
As of Saturday, there were just nine coronavirus patients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, according to spokesperson Courtney McDermott. On Aug. 27, there were 20. A week before that, there were 22.
McDermott said Saturday 11 patients were in the hospital’s 12-bed intensive care unit, which can expand to 14 beds if need be. Five of those people had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Three of them were on ICU ventilators. There are 34 ventilators at the medical center in all.
The Hilton Head Regional Healthcare system, meanwhile, was treating six COVID-19 patients as of about 10 a.m. Friday, according to a spokesperson for Tenet Healthcare, which owns Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals.
That’s a slight decrease from Aug. 27, when the system had eight patients with confirmed coronavirus infections.
Two of the six COVID-19 patients were in ICU beds as of Friday, wrote Tenet spokesperson Daisy Burroughs in a statement.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital and Hilton Head Regional Healthcare have not requested assistance from the S.C. Emergency Management Division in recent weeks, the spokespeople previously said.
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 about 10.9% of the state’s 8,278 occupied inpatient beds — 910 people — were filled by COVID-19 patients. Over 200 of those people were in ICU beds.
Almost 82% 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 254 coronavirus hospitalizations, according to DHEC. The state agency also says 5.2% of the county’s cases have resulted in hospitalization.
Experts worry that another COVID-19 surge could follow the long Labor Day weekend if residents don’t take public health recommendations seriously.
Dr. Stephen Larson, owner of Sea Pines Circle Immediate Care on Hilton Head Island, said if there’s an uptick in disease spread, cases might start to rise again within seven days.
Hospitalizations would possibly increase within 10 to 14 days.
“A backyard barbecue could be a ‘superspreader’ event,” he said.
