AUSTIN, Texas — More than 500 Texas medical workers are heading to El Paso to help assist with a recent surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations that is anticipated to only get worse in the coming weeks.
Of those is 40 local nurses and medical personnel from St. David's Hospital in Austin, who have been deployed to assist at Las Palmas Del Sol hospital in El Paso.
Dr. Natasha Kathuria, an ER physician at Austin Emergency Center, describes how patterns impacting other regions will also impact Central Texas.
"Once they reach capacity, we are going to have to absorb some of those patients and we are also going to inevitably lose some of our staff to go help out in that emergency just like they would do for us," said Kathuria.
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo addressed the surge of cases in a press conference on Thursday.
"It's serious, ladies and gentlemen. It's imperative that we do what we need to do and change our behaviors," said Margo
A recent report from researchers at the University of Texas shows that El Paso could run out of hospital beds by Nov. 8.
"I think what we found in this report after looking at all of these individual regions is that, that new pandemic surge is already here. Many of these regions are in the mix of a big pandemic surge. The time to act isn't next week, the time to act is now," said UT researcher Dr. Spencer Fox.
The report also highlights a few other regions of concern.
"Amarillo, Lubbock, Wichita Falls, San Angelo, Galveston, are showing the most alarming trends," said Fox.
Fox and his team at the University of Texas will continue to track the numbers across Texas and how this will potentially impact hospital space for the Central region.
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