COVID-19 Data Release Shows Where Hospitals Around The Country Are Filling Up

New data released by the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday gives the most detailed picture to date of how COVID-19 is stressing individual hospitals in the United States.

The information provides nationwide data on hospital capacity and bed use at a hospital-by-hospital level. This is the first time the federal agency has released the COVID-19 hospital data it collects at the facility level. Previously, HHS released data aggregated at the state level only.

"The new data paints the picture of how a specific hospital is experiencing the pandemic," says Pinar Karaca-Mandic, a professor at the University of Minnesota who worked with HHS to vet the data before it was published, through her work with the COVID-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project.  

The dataset — which includes capacity reporting from hospitals in 2,200 counties in the U.S. — spotlights areas where hospitals are getting dangerously full. In 126 counties, the average hospital is at least 90% occupied, according to an analysis of the data by the COVID-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project. The states with the most counties above this threshold are Kentucky, Georgia, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas.

Hospitals both large and small are feeling the strain, the data show. In Texas, for example, both the Memorial Hermann Hospital System, with its 250 beds, and the Hereford Regional Medical Center, with its 31 beds, were above 90% capacity in the past week. ...