NEWPORT News, Va. — More than 3,300 people are battling COVID-19 in hospitals throughout Virginia, in accordance to Friday’s update from the commonwealth. That’s the highest count given that the pandemic began.

The past file was at a position in January 2021 with around 3,200 hospitalized sufferers statewide. 

Related: Virginia hits history large in COVID-19 hospitalizations, affecting healthcare operations

Present day surge driven by the Omicron variant is placing a strain on overall health care systems and their workers.

“Really substantial, the worst it really is ever been more than the class of the past two years,” mentioned Riverside President and Chief Functioning Officer Dr. Mike Dacey. 

On Friday, Dacey instructed 13News Now that about 400 of the wellbeing system’s 10,000 employees could not arrive in simply because of COVID-19. Mathematically, that may possibly appear tiny. Even so, Dacey claimed it is not.

“Which is a large deal, specially in vital parts, emergency medicine for example, intensive care medicine. Just a number of men and women getting shorter there, that would make a major difference,” he mentioned. 

Riverside is capable to preserve shut to its standard ratio of workers to people, but it will come at a cost — to workforce.

“That is only simply because individuals are working overtime and they’re doing work substantially more challenging and which is only sustainable for so extensive. So, we are starting to ratchet down the number of non-unexpected emergency circumstances, surgical cases, that we’re executing,” stated Dacey. 

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