MIAMI (WSVN) - Over the last 24 hours, more than 21,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Florida with 16,832 hospitalizations.
Hospitals across South Florida are packed with patients as 28 ICU beds are available in Broward County while 946 ICU beds are available in Miami-Dade County.
“At the end of the day, our job is to take care of the sick and to do it well and to do it as best as we can,” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio with Emory University.
Doctors and nurses at hospitals across the U.S. continue to treat COVID-19 patients at an alarming rate.
“It’s been very tough, and it’s been very tough because we have a sense of, ‘We should not be here,'” said Del Rio.
More than 88,000 people in the U.S. are currently at a hospital with COVID-19.
Nearly 16,000 of those patients are here in the Sunshine State.
“We are here. We have an increase in hospitalizations, the overwhelmed healthcare system, the increase in deaths because people are unvaccinated,” said Del Rio.
Experts point to data showing the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine is 91.6% and 85% effective in preventing hospitalizations, respectively.
In Broward County, 1,756 people are hospitalized with COVID, with 230 of those patients on ventilators.
As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, only five pediatric and 28 adult ICU beds are available in the county.
“We have squandered an opportunity in our country to vaccinate people,” said Del Rio. “If we had vaccinated people like we should have, we would not be where we are right now.”
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