[Seguin, Texas] July 7, 2020 — As of July 6, 2020, Texas Department of State Health Services is reporting 963 COVID-19 cases in Guadalupe County (including 380 reported to the County and 584 DSHS Pending Cases). Per Guadalupe County, 333 of cases reported to the County have recovered with 47 active cases.

Numbers of COVID-19 patients at GRMC: Currently GRMC has 41 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. This number changes frequently.

Trends in Numbers at GRMC, New Unit, and Capacity: GRMC is closely monitoring COVID-19 activity at our facility. Based on a rolling seven day average of hospitalizations our number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has increased 39% over the prior week. Last week GRMC averaged 6 COVID-19 inpatient admissions per day. GRMC is capable of caring for patients at our main campus as long as the daily rate of patient admissions does not significantly increase for an extended time.

In order to care for the increased number of COVID-19 patients GRMC has added a new COVID-19 patient care area that we are referring to as “Surgical ICU.” This space can accommodate 10 patients and increases our capacity to care for COVID-19 patients.

The word capacity appears in the news a lot lately. A healthcare facility’s “capacity” does not just mean the number of beds it has but rather refers to the capability to care for patients. When COVID-19 began to challenge health systems in the United States federal and state agencies issued waivers allowing hospitals to care for patients in patient care areas that would not typically be utilized for inpatient care. During this disaster GRMC has increased its ICU capacity from 9 to 30 beds by repurposing non-traditional care areas for the care of patients with COVID-19. GRMC is being stretched and challenged during the increase of COVID-19 activity in our community but we will continue to care for as many patients as our resources safely allow.

Voluntary Limitation of Elective Procedures: Today GRMC’s surgical committee met to discuss elective procedures during the current COVID-19 increase in our area. It was determined that effective immediately GRMC will only be performing urgent/emergent surgical procedures to conserve resources (both staffing and materials) that may be needed to treat COVID-19 patients.

STRAC Allocation of Resources: STRAC fulfilled our request for nursing assistance by allocating a total of 10 travel nurses to GRMC. Over the weekend STRAC also provided GRMC with 10 high flow oxygen ventilation kits to be used for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Breakdown of the Numbers: Texas health care providers are required to report positive COVID- 19 test results to Department of State Health Services who then investigates positive cases and shares the information with the county officials from the county where the person resides. Positive case numbers are attributed to the person’s county of residence regardless of where the patient is located when they are tested and/or treated. Due to the flow of information, the volume of COVID-19 testing, and the volume of reporting to DSHS there are delays in the time it takes for the numbers to reconcile between DSHS and Texas counties. Guadalupe Regional Medical Center treats the patients who present themselves for care here regardless of where they come from. As a result, the number of our patients and numbers of deaths of patients with COVID-19 will not mirror Guadalupe County numbers precisely as we treat people that are residents of other counties.