LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Hospitalizations broke records for the second day in a row. On Wednesday, 1,600 people were being treated for COVID-19 in a hospital.
Arkansas hospitals are seeing the impact of these numbers as they break records of their own.
As of Wednesday morning, UAMS had 94 patients with COVID in the hospital... a new record for them.
"We are in a bad place in the COVID pandemic right now," said Dr. Bob Hopkins, Chief of Internal Medicine at UAMS.
Dr. Hopkins said UAMS was also down 350 health care workers. Nurses are taking on extra patient loads and staff are trying to find creative ways to help get patients the resources they need.
"We asked volunteers among our workforce to answer call lights on the floors, to help with screeners at the doors, and to help with our drive-thru screening area," said Dr. Hopkins.
CHI St. Vincent had a record-high of more than 100 COVID patients. That's double the number they had 8 days ago.
"I've been on the phone today [Wednesday] with members of our medical staff asking, 'Please let's go talk to our patients and discharge folks that can be discharged and go home as quickly as possible,'" said Dr. Gerry Jones, CHI St. Vincent's Chief Medical Officer.
Baptist Health had a record of more than 300 patients. Arkansas Children's had a record of 46 kids hospitalized with COVID-19.
"We are seeing thousands of kids in Arkansas with COVID. The ones ending up being most sick, from talking to my colleagues at Children's and pediatric practices around our community, are mostly those children that are unvaccinated... either too young to be vaccinated or haven't been vaccinated yet," said Dr. Hopkins.
On Wednesday, Arkansas had nearly 15,000 new COVID-19 cases reported.