Waco and McLennan County could see a peak in COVID-19 hospitalizations in as little as two weeks or up to two months from now, depending on the forecast model used and on how well residents adhere to social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
A University of Texas at Austin report predicts a peak in Waco cases as late as June, even without social distancing measures that have been put in place by the city of Waco, McLennan County and the state. Another forecast developed by the Covid Act Now website also predicts a peak in hospitalizations in June, while a statewide forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington predicts a much earlier peak for the state — April 26.
Local health officials said these forecasts are helpful, but they are not predictions of when McLennan County will hit a peak of COVID-19 hospitalizations and when local hospitals will reach maximum bed capacity. Both Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center and Ascension Providence hospital are prepared to more than double their intensive care units’ bed capacity, if necessary.
Between both hospitals, they have a total of 54 ICU beds, 40 of which are in use, and a total of 521 hospital beds, as of Wednesday afternoon. But the projection models use different figures for hospital beds and do not account for the possibility of increasing the number of hospital beds.
Dr. Farley Verner, local health authority for the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, said the projection models give him a gauge of how bad the situation may get here and how soon that might happen.
“What you have is a number of best guesses out there, and you can take those in summary and say that what’s going to happen is probably somewhere within those ranges,” Verner said. “But there isn’t something that helps you decide whether this projection is more accurate than another, and there’s quite a variability amongst them.”
The University of Texas report predicts a peak in COVID-19 hospitalizations by mid-July, with the need for almost 2,000 hospital beds, if schools remain closed and people reduce their contacts with others outside their households by 50%. The model assumes Waco’s estimated hospital capacity is about 500 beds.
If schools remain closed and people reduce their contacts with others by 75%, the peak in hospitalizations would not hit until mid-August and about 1,500 hospitals beds would be needed, according to the model.
That model’s only scenario in which the local hospital systems would not be overwhelmed, unless they more than double their bed capacity, is if schools remain closed and people reduce their contacts with others outside their households by 90%. In that scenario, the number of hospitalizations would remain below 500.
But the Covid Act Now website predicts Waco hospitals will be overloaded by June 9, assuming hospital bed capacity of 600, three months of school closures and a loosely enforced stay-at-home order. The prediction also estimates that 48% of McLennan County residents will become infected and more than 1,000 will die.
If the stay-at-home orders are strictly enforced, Covid Act Now predicts hospitals will not be overloaded and that about 7% of the population will become infected, with fewer than 1,000 deaths.
— WACOTRIB