COVID hospitalizations on the rise at PBRMC

Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center has its highest number yet of COVID-19 positive patients.

The facility currently has 20 COVID positive in-patients, Johnna Craft, PBRMC chief compliance officer, said at the weekly briefing Wednesday afternoon.

The number has increased over the past several weeks; however, this is a new high.

Caring for these patients takes a lot of resources, she said. “(It takes) a lot of dedicated caregivers to those persons because we want to mitigate the risk exposures, and it takes a lot of personal protective equipment to protect the person who’s caring for them,” Craft said.

That is not considering the potential resources of ventilator and respiratory support treatments, she added.

PBRMC treats patients from many counties in the region and those hospitalized are not only from Butler County.

There are 11 Butler County residents currently hospitalized for COVID-19, according to Butler County Health Department data.

The county added 34 new positives Wednesday, bringing the total since the end of March up to 734.

Of those, 601 have completed isolation and eight have died. That leaves 159 active cases, including those in the hospital.

The state has seen 126,113 positive cases to date, with 2,118 deaths. The U.S. has reported more than 7.2 million cases and over 206,000 deaths.