El Paso and Surrounding Area Down to Just 9 Available ICU Beds

El Paso continues to see a spike in positive COVID-19 cases, and it's affecting the amount of ICU beds in the Borderland. New data was released on Tuesday from the state of Texas that said there are just 9 ICU beds in the El Paso area, which includes El Paso County, Hudspeth County, and Culberson County. The data also showed that the number of hospitalizations and available ICU beds are past the level of concern for the state of Texas. In the three counties, the level of COVID-19 related hospitalizations was up to 17.72%. The state's threshold for concern is 15%.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has sent reinforcements to the area that include nurses, respiratory therapists, and personal protective equipment. In just the past week, hospitalizations in El Paso have increased 134%. In El Paso hospitals there are currently 353 coronavirus patients with 101 of them in intensive care.

What does all of this mean? It means COVID-19 hasn't gone away and isn't going away anytime soon. This is why we still have to take this pandemic seriously and continue to follow the guidelines set forth by the CDC and other officials. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance. If everyone was willing to just do those simple things, we would start to see the numbers go back down. We got too comfortable and forgot that COVID-19 was still a thing. We need to snap back to it and do what we can to get those numbers back down. Otherwise, we can plan on another shut down.