'Critical time': 101 hospitalized here, 25 on ventilators
EVERETT — Heading into Labor Day weekend, Snohomish County — in fact, most of Washington — logged some of the most alarming COVID-19 metrics of the pandemic.
Infection rates are high, hospitalizations are rising and deaths are continuing to mount. Collectively, hospitals and health care providers are getting pushed to their limits.
“We are absolutely at a critical time in our health care system,” state Secretary of Health Umair Shah said during a Thursday media briefing. “There is a point where our system cannot continue to go in the mode of stretching, stretching, stretching.”
At the end of August, about 15,000 COVID tests were administered over a seven-day period in Snohomish County. Fifteen percent of them came back positive — the highest positivity rate since spring 2020.
As of Friday, 101 county residents were hospitalized due to the virus. Twenty-five required ventilators to breathe.
Meanwhile, deaths from the virus are on the rise, though they haven’t reached previous peaks seen during the winter.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/critical-time-101-hospitalized-here-25-on-ventilators/