According to Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 dashboard, county hospitals have only 25 remaining ICU beds available before they reach capacity. Ninety-three percent of available ICU beds are full. Currently, 43 percent of ICU beds have COVID patients in them.
Regular hospital beds are cited as having reached 89% capacity, with 220 available for incoming patients. Twenty-eight percent of regular beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
COVID case numbers have worsened in the aftermath of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, as people disregarded expert advice to avoid travel and gatherings with those outside of their own households.
To date, 78,683 Santa Clara County residents have tested positive for COVID, and of those, 815 have died. At present, on average, 1,196 new cases are logged per week in Santa Clara County.
In Milpitas, 2,254 residents have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, which is just shy of 3% of the city’s population of 77,562.
Health experts continue urging people to wear masks in public, engage in regular hand washing, shelter in place whenever possible, and avoid travel or gathering with those outside of their own households. Although COVID-19 vaccines are currently approved for use in the United States, the rollout has been slow and most people will not have access to them for months.
