Central Washington Hospital Now Has Record Number of COVID-19 Hospitalizations

Confluence Health is reporting a record 49 COVID-19 patients at Central Washington Hospital.

The new pandemic high was reached with six new hospitalizations over the Labor Day weekend.

Luke Davies with the Chelan Douglas Health District says hospitals in the region are at their highest level of stress since the pandemic began.

"We are in a really terrible position right now with our hospital system being stretched as thin as it's ever been," said Davies. "And trying to do everything that we can, and trying to get out information to the public so they mask up and get vaccinated to try to reduce the amount of hospitalizations we have."

Statewide, there’s been a 7 percent increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last week.

The rise comes as the Washington Department of Health says there’s likely been a lag in reporting of data because of the holiday weekend.

There are currently 1,674 COVID-19 hospitalizations across the state.

The state Health Departments notes hospitals have been under an incredible amount of strain in recent weeks as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rose sharply during August because of the delta variant.

Davies says the high level of hospitalizations in Wenatchee would be even higher if it weren't for increasing deaths.

"The reality is that we had more hospitalizations in August than we did in all of December last year," Davies said. "And the reason why we're not seeing it go up into the 50s and 60s is that we are having a lot of people pass away. A lot of people aren't making it."

The number of patients on ventilators at Central Washington Hospital is unchanged at 9 from a week ago.

Confluence is reporting a 16.5 percent positivity rate for people being tested for COVID-19 in the past week, which is much higher than the 4-5 percent positivity rate reached at the end of June by the health care system.

Confluence is also reporting an increase in the number of COVID-19 tests performed, from roughly 100 per week in June, to 240 in the last week.