TENNESSEE, USA — Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said a post-Christmas or New Years surge similar to what the state has seen post-Thanksgiving, "will completely break our hospitals."
State health officials are asking Tennesseans not to gather with people from outside their household over the holidays.
Thousands of people were infected in small household gatherings over Thanksgiving, often through asymptomatic spread, the officials said.
The Tennessee Department of Health said healthcare across the state is struggling with the post-Thanksgiving surge due to staffing challenges that have stretched hospitals past their limits.
"We are running out of options" to bolster staff, Piercey said.
A quarter of patients in Tennessee hospital beds are COVID-19 positive.
Forty percent of all ICU beds in the state are filled with COVID-19 patients.
"Knoxville hospitals are nearing capacity," Piercey warned.
Piercey said this strain on hospitals reduces the available capacity for non-COVID-19 patients, such as those in car wrecks or cardiac arrest.
TDH said it has received requests from two hospital systems in West Tennessee for emergency ventilator supplies.
At five other hospitals, including Blount Memorial in Maryville, it approved plans to lift regulations to allow staff to work in parts of the facility they would otherwise not be allowed to work in an effort to alleviate staffing concerns.
Piercey said there are no plans to open field hospitals or alternative care sites because there is no staff available to work them.
The state has identified 650 people in its "Medical Reserve Corps" and nearly 90 medically-trained teachers who might be called upon to work in hospitals during winter break.
The state has now deployed the National Guard to work inside two hospital systems in the state, one in Memphis, the other in northeast Tennessee.
A FEMA team is also working in a hospital in northeast Tennessee.
Piercey said long-term care facilities or nursing homes with COVID units can now allow COVID-19 positive staff who feel OK to work in those facilities. It’s not a mandate, but it’s an option.
The health department said it has not received any requests for hospitals to be able to do the same thing.
Tennessee now has the highest COVID-19 infection rate in the country and is more than 40 percent above the national average, according to CDC data.