Five Pinellas County Hospitals Reach ICU Capacity: Coronavirus

ST. PETERSBURG, FL —Five Pinellas County hospitals' intensive care unit availability have reached maximum capacity, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. This comes after the state saw a record spike of coronavirus cases over the weekend.

St. Petersburg General Hospital, Mease Dunedin Hospital, AdventHealth North Pinellas, Morton Plant Hospital and Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg are all at ICU capacity. The hospitals were reported on the Monday morning data list by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration of as not having intensive care unit beds available.

The report shows that more Pinellas County hospitals are reaching close to max capacity, such as St. Anthony's. It reported as of Monday morning that its ICU availability was 3.39 percent. Mease Countryside Hospital has 11.54 percent of its ICU capacity left.

As of Sunday, the Florida Department of Health reported 740 hospitalizations for coronavirus in Pinellas County; 198 County deaths due to coronavirus and 8,533 confirmed positive cases. At the time of this publication, officials have not updated their website, so those numbers are likely to increase.

The Florida Department of Health reported 200,111 confirmed coronavirus cases statewide on Sunday; 15,895 coronavirus hospitalizations and 3,731 deaths.

The New York Times reported Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, insisted there would be no new shutdown, but a piecemeal rollback is still underway: The state banned drinking at bars. Miami-Dade County ordered entertainment venues to close again and imposed a curfew.

“If everyone is enjoying life but doing it responsibly, we’re going to be fine,” DeSantis said on Thursday in Tampa after a visit from Vice President Mike Pence.

Florida’s cases began climbing in June, about a month after the start of the state’s economic reopening. The surge came after Memorial Day and several weeks of protests against police brutality, though public health officials had not publicly tied any outbreaks directly to the beaches or the demonstrations. Instead, they said people resuming their normal jaunts to bars, restaurants and parties had spread the virus.