This Is The State With The Fewest ICU Beds Left

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 15, 9:46AM EST

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This Is The State With The Fewest ICU Beds Left — © JazzIRT / E+ via Getty Images

Some studies show that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is less dangerous to health than the earlier variants. Vaccinated people who have been given boosters tend not to get very ill at all. However, people who have not been vaccinated can still become extremely ill and a number of these people die.

COVID-19 currently infects about one million people in America today. That figure is much higher than at any other stage of the pandemic. Because of this surge, many hospitals have run extremely low on ICU beds. The number of people in the hospital due to COVID-19 infections recently crossed 150,000 as it continues to rise higher.

Some hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients have become understaffed, often because doctors, nurses, and other personnel are out because of infection. In some parts of the country, nurse shortages have been worsened because of strikes due to poor work conditions. To fill in staff shortages, some states have even called up members of the National Guard.

Bed shortages vary considerably by state. Last week, 85% of ICU beds nationwide were in use. Almost 32% were for COVID-19 infected patients.

In Rhode Island, 95% of ICU beds were filed and of these 38% were for COVID-19 infected patients.

It should come as no surprise that Rhode Island tops the list of high ICU bed use. Among all states, Rhode Island has the highest number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people based on the average of the last seven reported days. The national figure is 243. Rhode Island’s is 486. While the national number by this measure is up 113% nationwide in the last 14 days, in Rhode Island, the number has risen 160%.

Rhode Island’s hospitals have been given some relief. The federal government has sent a medical team to the state.
Dr. Saul N. Weingart, president of Rhode Island Hospital commented to the Providence Journal: “Having 20 or so skilled personnel will help a lot.” To truly help with the problem, that figure will need to be higher.

Click here to read: COVID-19: Where Is And Isn’t Getting Vaccinated By Income

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.