COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — COVID-19 patients have packed Colorado's intensive care beds at a rate not seen since the pandemic began, state data shows, and Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday that unvaccinated residents are being hospitalized "for no good reason."
"Some won't even make it, some will die," he told reporters of the 710 unvaccinated Coloradans hospitalized with COVID-19. "Some will make it, but it will be a harrowing few days and weeks. We wish them well in their recovery, but we also wish that their misery helps get the message out on why people should be vaccinated."
Ninety percent of Colorado's ICU beds are in use, according to state data last updated Tuesday.
Of 1,649 intensive care beds in the state, 149 are available, Polis said. On average, 91% of intensive care beds were in use over the past week, the highest point in the pandemic by 5 percentage points.
The current levels top even the last winter's surge, when more residents were hospitalized. There were, however, 200 to 300 more ICU beds available in November 2020, as hospitals triggered plans to open extra beds.
Many ICU patients aren't infected with COVID-19. But officials have long said that the virus exacerbates intensive care units loaded with patients treated for other maladies, rather than overwhelming bed space on its own.
Polis called the ICU capacity figures "startling" and that the state has "very few ICU beds left, relative to the norm."
The number of Colorado residents infeccted with COVID-19 dipped in recent weeks after a fifth wave that surged in August and early September. But the number of afflicted residents remains high, and more than 6 percent of residents tested for the virus have proven infected, state statistics show.
Two Colorado public health experts told the Gazette this week that the percentage of tests coming up positive was concerning, even as the number of infected residents falls.
Despite the hope brought by the declining infection numbers, hospitalizations have remained high. Polis said there were 922 hospitalized patients being treated for the virus of Wednesday.
Another 101 on people were hospitalized with symptoms of the virus and awaiting test results.
The virus is spreading the fastest among the state's youngest residents, but Polis said those pediatric cases haven't overwhelmed hospitals. In general, older residents suffer the worst symptoms of the virus.
Twenty-six people children were hospitalized in in Colorado because of COVID-19, officials said.
Polis said Wednesday the current crisis is driven and dominated by the unvaccinated.
He said even if residents don't love themselves enough to get immunized, "hopefully" they love the people around them sufficiently to do so.
"But if everybody was vaccinated and for some reason the virus was still spreading the way it is, I've projected the number of hospitalizations we'd have: We'd have about 265 people in the hospital," he said.
Researchers for the Colorado School of Public Health wrote in August that improved vaccination rates could keep hundreds of people out of hospitals
As of Tuesday, 77% of eligible Coloradans had received at least one dose of the vaccine. More than 70% were fully immunized, according to state data.
Elizabeth Carlton of the Colorado School of Public Health said in an email that high hospitalization figures concern her.
"To be clear, the good news is that the rapid growth in hospital demand that characterized most of August/early September has stopped," she wrote. "But we aren’t seeing a rapid decline in hospital demand that has characterized prior waves. To use a wildfire analogy, the wildfire appears to have stopped growing, but it’s still a pretty big blaze."
She and Glen Mays, another School of Public Health expert, warned that the coming cold weather, which drives more residents indoors, could lead to another coronavirus surge.
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