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Austin hospitals taking in non-COVID-19 patients from El Paso, mayor says

In Mayor Steve Adler's "Got a Minute?" Facebook Live update, he said hospitals in the area were taking in an overflow of patients from El Paso without COVID-19.

AUSTIN, Texas — Editor's note: The video above is from when Mayor Adler joined KVUE Daybreak on Nov. 16.

In his "Got a Minute?" Facebook Live update Monday, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said hospitals in our area were accepting patients from El Paso who do not have COVID-19 to help El Paso-area hospitals with its capacity. 

"We have patients in our hospitals right now from El Paso because there wasn’t room for them in El Paso," he said. "We have people in our hospitals right now that don’t have a virus but needed hospitalization and they are here from El Paso because there was no room in the El Paso hospitals."

RELATED: US coronavirus hospitalizations hit new record, up 23% in one week

This comes as El Paso is seeing a substantial increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. 

As of Nov. 16, the El Paso COVID-19 dashboard showed that there are currently about 34,000 active cases. More than 1,100 people are hospitalized and about 300 people are in the ICU due to coronavirus. In total, 769 people have died from COVID-19 in El Paso. 

RELATED: Military in El Paso to help with surging COVID-19 cases

Three U.S. Air Force Medical Specialty Teams started deploying to El Paso at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Nov. 6. Each team is comprised of about 20 military medical providers. 

Adler said Gov. Abbott sent approximately 900 additional medical workers to help the hospitalization surge in El Paso. 

“That’s really where our systems get stressed,” Adler said. “We have physical space, but as we learned in June and July, the real threat to us is having [not enough] people so that our staffs are overwhelmed and we can’t even fill up the beds we have.”

In Travis County, there are 1,975 active cases of coronavirus. Since the start of the pandemic, 34,769 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 466 people have died. There are 182 people hospitalized with coronavirus in the Austin area, according to the dashboard

Here is a look at the latest numbers in Texas and the Austin area: 

WATCH: Central Texas doctors concerned about COVID-19 and holidays | KVUE

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