INDIANAPOLIS — It's no secret the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19 is rapidly spreading across the United States. The virus has largely become a disease of the unvaccinated with 98% of hospitalizations and nearly all coronavirus deaths being patients who haven't gotten a shot in the arm.
Indiana's latest surge in COVID-19 infections has pushed hospitalizations and intensive care unit treatments for the illness to levels last seen in January.
The virus is claiming an increasing amount of Hoosier lives, too.
Between April 1 and Aug. 11, the state for the most part reported no more than 10 coronavirus deaths a day, many of the days reporting four or fewer deaths.
The state health department on Tuesday added 57 coronavirus deaths over the past week to the state’s pandemic toll, including 20 on Saturday and 17 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the state's short-staffed hospitals are struggling to keep up with increasing coronavirus patients.
Indiana hospitals were treating 1,956 patients for COVID-19 as of Monday — a nearly 30% jump in one week and up almost five times the state's level in early July.
The Indiana Hospital Association said last week that the dramatic increase in hospitalizations was straining health care workers and causing some hospitals to reschedule non-emergency surgeries.
IHA President Brian Tabor said hospital staff is stretched thin as the delta variant surges in the state.
"It's really difficult to staff all our beds," Tabor said.
State hospitalizations are a little more than half of what they were at the peak of the pandemic in November, but Tabor said the staffing shortage Indiana is experiencing now is greater than when COVID-19 first emerged in 2020.
"What we’re seeing right now is the result of many, many months of being on the front lines of this pandemic," he said. "We're at the end of a marathon, it feels like, and now, it feels like we're going to have to start running again."
Tabor reiterated hospitals in the area are still able to treat patients but urges Hoosiers to get vaccinated so staff can continue to treat everyone who comes in through the door.
