Weekly Update: Stay positive

Friends,

 

Over the last several weeks, the Memphis/Shelby County COVID-19 Joint Task force has been meeting every day to make sure we are as prepared as we can be during this pandemic.

 

One data point we look at every morning is the number of available hospital beds at all our local hospitals. This information is updated daily by each of the local hospitals and loaded into the state database called the Hospital Resource Tracking Source or HRTS.

 

This is one more data point we will be including in our daily updates to keep you as informed as we are during this situation.

 

Below is the aggregated data from our local hospitals as it stands through 4/9/2020.

 

Hospital Resource Tracking Source
hospital beds	748
emergency department beds	307
Intensive care unit (ICU) beds	154
Total beds	1209
COVID positive inpatient	65
Patients under investigation inpatient	278
COVID positive ICU	35
Patients under investigation ICU	85
COVID positive ventilator	19
Patients under investigation ventilator	27

 

Please note that Dr. Manoj Jain (an infectious disease specialist the City of Memphis is contracting with during this pandemic) advised that roughly 20 percent of the “patients under investigation” will test positive for COVID-19.

Bottom line—the number of patients in hospitals infected with the virus has doubled over the last two weeks.

Stay positive: In these serious and uncertain times, we must remind ourselves to also see the good in our daily lives.

For me personally, as the weather has gotten nicer and the sun staying out longer, I’ve been going on a lot more walks around the neighborhood. I’ve been spending more quality time with my family, and generally just taking more time to appreciate the world around me.

This time of year, life is springing up everywhere around us. The flowers are beginning to bloom, and the trees are budding out.

What better sign of new life as we move into Easter and Passover--two of the largest religious holidays in the world.

They serve as a reminder that during the darkest of times we have been delivered from darkness into the light—a reminder of hope instead of despair.

During this time, I strongly encourage our religious leaders in Memphis and Shelby County to remain vigilant and provide services through livestreaming or if you can’t do that, please don’t hold services. 

I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it’s the right thing to do to protect our citizens and your congregation.

This Easter and this Passover, we must come together by staying apart.

Yours,