CINCINNATI —

The omicron surge is pushing hospitals to capacity as they struggle to keep up with the highest number of COVID-19 patients on record.

“We’re certainly at our highest water mark to date,” St. Elizabeth Dr. Jim Horn said.

St. Elizabeth surpassed their highest number of COVID-19 patients set last year at 219. The new number set this week is 232.

“It just means that everyone is extremely busy, and everyone is stretched to the max,” Horn said.

Every facet of hospital operations is affected from pharmacy to supply chain to the thin ranks of the staff.

“They’re tired, they’re demoralized, they’re emotionally stretched,” Horn said.

There are so many health care workers out sick, even those who are not normally on the front lines are called into action to help.

“Every, every hospital from our rural hospitals to our urban core hospitals are hit by this,” the Health Collaborative’s Tiffany Mattingly said.

Mattingly said almost every hospital in the region is hitting historic high number of COVID-19 patients.

“Definitely as bad as we’ve seen since the start of the pandemic. They’re operating at a whole new level of surge right now,” Mattingly said.

CINCINNATI —

Hospitals being pushed to the brink of capacity are looking for ways to decompress as the delta-driven COVID-19 surge shows no signs of backing down.

“It's taking a toll, it is causing a lot of strain on the caregivers and the ability to give that care,” said Ohio Hospital Association spokesman John Palmer.

Palmer said physical hospital beds are not the most pressing issue to reducing capacity.

“We have facilities and equipment to help accomplish that, but at the end of the day, the health care is delivered by the caregivers,” Palmer said.

Hospitals are looking for any way to decompress.

“Elective procedures, those surgeries that can be safely moved or rescheduled, whether that’s a couple of days, a couple of weeks, hospitals are starting to look into those opportunities,” Palmer said.

TriHealth is using the method saying it’s “proactively scheduling fewer elective surgeries each day that require inpatient stays.”

St. Elizabeth is among the hospitals now treating some COVID-19 outpatients with monoclonals.

“Because of our ability to treat outpatients with monoclonal antibodies I think we are seeing a decline in terms of our total inpatient escalation,” said St. Elizabeth Dr. John Horn.

FLORENCE, Ky. —

As another surge of COVID-19 pushes across the region, nurses are finding most of the latest patients to be very sick, unvaccinated and many have a misconception in common.

“They still don’t believe that it’s real,” said St. Elizabeth nursing supervisor Lee Ann Ernst. “People will say, ‘I didn’t think this was going to hit me. I didn’t think I was going to get it.’”

Ernst has been working with COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic.

“In the past 10 days, two weeks, our numbers have just skyrocketed again,” she said.

The delta variant is blamed for the dramatic increase.

The Northern Kentucky Health Department reports 117 new cases and 10 deaths overnight between Monday and Tuesday.

The COVID-19 map of Northern Kentucky shows that nearly half of the region is now considered a red zone which indicates there have been 25 cases reported per 100,000 people.

“People, I guess, think they are immune from it even when they aren’t vaccinated,” said St. Elizabeth nurse Madison Otte.

Some people who did not believe the virus was real, changed their minds after they were hospitalized with it.

“It’s kind of a ‘come to Jesus,’ regretful, this is happening,” Otte said.

COVINGTON, Ky. — If you live in Northern Kentucky and still need to get your COVID-19 shot, a free vaccination clinic will be held Saturday at First Baptist Church in Covington.

Walk-ins are welcome for the clinic at 120 E 9th St. from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The clinic, presented by the Northern Kentucky NAACP in partnership with NKY Health and St. Elizabeth Healthcare, will focus on diversity and immunizing underserved populations.

Two-dose Moderna and single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines are available at Saturday's clinic.