SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Fear of a post-holiday surge in COVID-19 cases has quickly become reality for some Sacramento area hospitals, which are now preparing for even more cases to reach the hospitalization point soon.
According to Dignity Health, their hospitals in the Sacramento region have seen a "significant increase in COVID-19 patients."
The increase, reflected in data from the Sacramento County Department of Public Health, has forced the hospital system to reallocate staff and move some elective procedures.
The issues at Dignity Health hospitals due to an increase in COVID patients are being proliferated by existing staffing issues, according to a statement issued by Dignity Health. In the statement, officials with the hospital system expressed that while they are seeing an increase, they are not currently overwhelmed with COVID cases.
In the event of a surge in COVID patients, Dignity Health officials say, "we are prepared to care for our community just like we have throughout this entire pandemic."
According to the Sacramento County Department of Public Health's dashboard, 33 out of the county's 283 surge capacity beds are currently in use. 109 ICU beds are available across the county as hospitals are seeing 57 cases of COVD in ICUs as of Tuesday.
Meanwhile, at hospitals such as UC Davis Medical Center, officials are not reporting a significant increase in COVID patients.
"We have roughly the same number of COVID patients as we did a few weeks ago," hospital spokesperson Liam Connolly said in a statement.
At UC Davis, the emergency room has seen a record number of patients in recent weeks, but those patients have been coming to the emergency room for issues other than COVID-19.
While the increase in emergency department visits can not be attributed to an increase in COVID cases, there has been an increase in patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19, according to UC Davis Health.
At Kaiser hospitals, COVID hospitalizations have also increased but not as quickly compared to other surges, according to a statement issued by Kaiser Tuesday.
As a result of the increase in COVID hospitalizations, Kaiser says they have employed travelling nurses and are also adjusting elective and non-urgent procedures.
Health experts are encouraging Californians to get vaccinated, receive booster shots, wear masks in public and test for the coronavirus in order to stop its spread.
California residents can visit the state's My Turn website to schedule an appointment to receive a vaccine or booster shot.
Watch more from ABC10: Dr. Payal Kohli: 'Cast a wide net' to find local COVID-19 testing sites
