ODESSA, Texas — While we're still seeing some new cases of COVID-19, the good news is local hospitals are starting to see less patients.
"The vent numbers are down almost half from that too, which is also good because it tells us that the patients we do have in house aren't quite as sick as they were before," said Stacey Brown, CEO of Odessa Regional Medical Center.
It couldn't come at better timing as hospitals prepare for flu season.
"The last couple of weeks we've been seeing a decrease in those that are being submitted tour our facility," said Christin Timmons, the CNO for Medical Center Hospital.
On Friday, 34 people were recovering from COVID-19 in a hospital bed. 19 of those were in ICU and 10 on a ventilator.
Doctors believe that it's possible numbers have plateaued though, at least for now. In weeks prior, they were seeing nearly 50 COVID-19 patients at a time.
ORMC, MCH and Midland Memorial are all seeing the same trend.
"We will be merging out central 7 and 8 units into one just because of the lower volume to conserve on resources," said Timmons.
"It allows for us to have more bed capacity for those patients with the flu who are maybe needed it as well as maybe you have less COVID testing that uses the same machines as flu testing so you have more resources in all aspects"
While the numbers are looking better, medical officials are warning that the numbers could spike again, and at any time.
"I don't think in the long term this is over. I think in the very near short term that it seems to be a downward trend and I don't see an indicator at the moment that it's going to jump back up tomorrow or three days from now, but two weeks from now could be a different story," said Dr. Tim Benton, Co- Interim CMO at MCH.
Officials caution that as long as the virus is in the community and people are still getting together, there's a chance that case numbers could start to rise again.