PROVIDENCE – As COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Rhode Island, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo said at the current rate, Rhode Island will “need the Cranston field hospital in the next couple of weeks.”
“Our hospitals are overwhelmed,” said Raimondo.
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Raimondo invited three health care professionals to her weekly coronavirus press conference on Thursday, which included Dr. Selim Suner, who works in the emergency department at Rhode Island Hospital, Dr. Otis Warren, an emergency physician at The Miriam Hospital and president of the Rhode Island Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and Dr. Laura Forman, the chief of emergency medicine at Kent Hospital.
Dr. Foreman will also serve as the Medical Director of the Cranston field hospital if it opens. She compared her experience in Rhode Island in the past several months to refugee hospitals.
“This pandemic has pushed us to the brink,” said Dr. Foreman, who said “none among us is invincible.”
Rhode Island currently has 84% of its existing COVID-19 capacity beds filled.
“We believe that our hospitals will be completely filled within three weeks,” said Raimondo.
Each hospital has a surge capacity plan, which would increase the number of beds available for COVID-19 patients to about 600. However, Raimondo said this would put a major strain on hospitals.
Providence hospitals are already participating in this surge plan, but it’s creating longer wait times in the emergency department and longer waits to be admitted.
Raimondo said she instructed the R.I. Department of Health to begin running drills at the Cranston field hospital similarly to the drills in the spring. She said the field hospital was built specifically for patients with COVID-19, so there are oxygen connected to every bed so it isn’t a field hospital.
While no further restrictions were announced, Raimondo said she was “giving one last plea” to Rhode Islanders to follow the new restrictions, such as closing break rooms, pushing employers to have employees work from home and smaller groups.
However, she mentioned that many places around the world, who are also seeing another surge of COVID-19, are shutting down their economies again.
“That’s where we’re headed, folks—total lockdown—if we don’t get more serious and follow the rules,” said Raimondo.
In addition, as hospitals are feeling a strain, Raimondo said that the new wave of cases is also stretching testing and contact tracing systems to their limits.
“The volumes are pretty intense,” said Raimondo.
However the test results are becoming more accessible. As of Thursday, the state will allow those who took a test to access results on portal.ri.gov/results. It does not matter how the test was scheduled, said the governor, in order to receive results on this portal.
The governor’s press conference comes as cases of COVID-19 in Rhode Island increased by 936, with seven more deaths, on Wednesday, according to the R.I. Department of Health Thursday.
“This is very real. We are in a terrible spot,” said Raimondo.
Cases in the state have totaled 40,764 to date, an increase of 988 from figures reported on Wednesday, accounting for both the day-to-day increase, as well as data revisions for previous days.
The increase in cases was the second-highest day-to-day rise in the state to date, second to only a revised 969 cases on Tuesday.
Deaths due to the virus in the state have totaled 1,250 to date.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 in Rhode Island totaled 232, a rise from 220 one day prior. Of those hospitalized, 28 were in an intensive care unit and 17 were on a ventilator.
There were 19,841 tests processed Wednesday, with an overall positive rate of 4.7%. When excluding both repeat positive and repeat negative test results, the positive rate was 26.7%.
There have been 1.3 million tests administered in the state to date to 474,414 individuals.
Raimondo said that while the state is more prepared to deal with this surge, the next few months will be much harder than it was in the spring.
Next week, Raimondo said she will be announcing rules for celebrating Thanksgiving and said to “expect to stay home.”
This story has been updated to include information from the governor’s press conference.
