‘A gut punch’: COVID surge leaves fewer than 50 hospital beds free in Horry County
As South Carolina surpasses 10,000 deaths from COVID-19, Horry County hospitals are once again seeing their beds fill up with patients infected with the virus.
Hospital bed occupancy in Horry County is at around 93%, according to the latest measures from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, which updates occupancy rates periodically as information comes in from local hospitals. Of the 667 beds occupied across the county, 133 are for COVID-19 patients. Fewer than 50 beds are unoccupied in Horry County, DHEC figures show.
The highly contagious Delta variant has been overwhelming hospitals across the country, largely in areas with low vaccination rates, and Horry County is no different.
“Short of beds, short of staff. Staff’s looking exhausted,” said Dr. Paul Richardson, chief medical officer at Conway Medical Center. “It’s heartbreaking.”
At Conway Medical Center, 33 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, 27 of whom aren’t vaccinated. The hospital has 16 coronavirus patients in the ICU with six on a ventilator as of Wednesday, according to spokesperson Allyson Floyd. The healthcare system recently brought back its triage tents in order to accommodate the number of coronavirus patients.
For some local hospitals, the current surge isn’t quite as extreme as past spikes in cases and hospitalizations, but doctors are clear that if the increase continues, the hospital systems could easily become overwhelmed. Tidelands Health has 41 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, six of whom have been fully vaccinated. Of those hospitalized, 12 are in the ICU and seven are on a ventilator. None of the patients in the ICU were vaccinated, according to spokesperson Jane Arthur.
“We’re not stretched ... If we got a lot more [patients], I think that would be a different answer,” said Dr. Gerald Harmon, vice president of medical affairs at Tidelands Health. “Take measures now in the public, so that we don’t stress the healthcare system. If we get stressed, everybody gets stressed.”
Both Richardson and Harmon encouraged people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus during this spike in cases, and urged vaccinated people to encourage people they know who haven’t gotten the shot to be “part of the solution” by getting inoculated.
Individual hospitals typically don’t have the ability to test for the Delta variant specifically, and DHEC selects a random sample of cases to test for the variant in order to estimate the spread of the variant. DHEC had identified 118 Delta cases in the Pee Dee region as of Aug. 4, more than any other region in the state. The actual number of Delta variant cases is likely much higher because of DHEC’s random testing strategy.
The percent of intensive care unit beds used has shot up in recent weeks in Horry County, according to the CDC. Earlier this summer, ICU bed occupancy was near 0%, compared to more than 40% occupancy as of Sunday. Richardson said hospitalizations increased quickly, instead of a slow uptick as seen in previous surges.
“It’s a gut punch,” Richardson said. “Every day, the same thing over again. That to me is what’s very, very disappointing, demoralizing to the healthcare system.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
