It is the first week of December 2020 and the COVID-19 outlook in the United States for the next several months is looking very grim pending widespread vaccinations. Overall, the number of hospitalized patients now exceeds 100,000, with over 25,000 of these souls in ICU beds. Unfortunately, many of those in ICU beds will either die or suffer permanent injury.

But how does this translate to La Plata County? How many infected are currently hospitalized in acute care beds and how many in specialized ICU beds? When will this capacity run out? The sad answer is that we do not know. The local source of information, San Juan Basin Public Health, merely says there have been about 60 people hospitalized with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

But neither SJBPH nor the State of Colorado provides any detail about how close we are to having acute and ICU beds completely filled, either through lack of physical space or through lack of necessary staff.

Therefore, we urge our elected representatives to require Mercy Regional Medical Center, the primary local source of hospital beds, to compile such data and publish it as soon as possible. We note that most jurisdictions in the country already have access to such information and we should, too.

Joel PearlmanDurango