Capacity remains limited across Mesa County hospitals

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) - As the winter holidays continue and families and friends gather, Mesa County Public Health and local hospitals want to remind everyone that COVID-19 is still a health crisis impacting hospitals and communities on the Western Slope.

Mesa County has seen recent slowing in new cases and hospitalizations from record highs just one month ago. However, health officials say hospital capacity is critically limited. Right now, hospital bed availability in Mesa County is less than ten percent for both intensive care unit and medical or surgical care beds.

Hospital capacity is reported by facilities to a statewide database called E-M-Resource. It is a capacity and planning tool that has been used in hospitals for some time and is not specific to COVID. Reports to this database are made daily. Mesa County’s hospitals say they have been working in close collaboration since the beginning of the pandemic.

The Omicron variant has already been detected in Colorado, and the experience from other parts of the world is that this variant will spread quickly. Mesa County saw the swift and devastating impacts of a variant as the first community in Colorado to identify the Delta variant, which is now the dominant and still more concerning variant.

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