Local Hospital Capacity Decreases as COVID-19 Cases Surge in St. Louis County

The increase in cases is caused by county-wide community transmission that's been growing over the last two months.

DULUTH, Minn.– The Northland has also been hit with a surge in Coronavirus cases. In St. Louis County, cases keep going up and the increase in cases around the state is impacting local healthcare providers.

As cases increase around the state, St. Louis County set another daily record with 320 new cases of COVID-19, 60 percent of those cases are coming from the Duluth area.

The increase in cases is caused by county-wide community transmission that’s been growing over the last two months. The increase has led to 54 hospitalizations in St. Louis County and 15 people in the ICU.

County health experts are urging people to limit social gatherings, especially people who are 18-35 years old.

“That’s where we are seeing across the state the highest number of infections. And in St. Louis County that’s where we see about a third of our cases,” said St. Louis County Public Health Division Director Amy Westbrook.

Healthcare providers are struggling to meet the extra demand in cases. They are moving less risk patients to other care facilities to create more beds at the main campuses for COVID patients.

“This virus is spreading rapidly, and if we don’t act decisively, it threatens to spiral out of control,” said Dr. Jon Pryor, President of Essentia Health.

Essentia Health has been taking in patients from the Twin Cities, Wisconsin, and Michigan to help ease other overwhelmed facilities. Because of this, the hospital has been postponing or moving elective surgeries to other Essentia hospitals in Superior, Virginia, and Moose Lake.

“Regardless of whatever metric you use, COVID-19 has never been this pervasive in the Northland,” said Pryor. “Cases, hospitalizations, including ICU admits, death rates, and positivity rates are at all-time highs.”

At St. Luke’s, there won’t be any surgeries at the main campus until further notice as they focus more resources to COVID patients.

After making a plan with state health experts, the hospital has now dedicated 40 beds for patients with Coronavirus and nearly doubling the number of ICU beds as cases increase and hospital capacity shrinks.

“We’ve done a lot in the state to establish supply chains and to identify the space and now the challenge is keeping everybody healthy so that they can do the work we need to do,” said St. Luke’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nick Van Deelen.

While elective surgeries may be put on hold, both hospitals are still providing urgent surgeries to those who need them.