MIDLAND, Texas — Concern about the Delta variant is reaching a new high this weekend as a higher numbers of patients are being admitted to local hospitals by the hour.
"I've never seen anything like what I've seen in the last 24 hours at our hospital. I don't know how we can sustain this," said Dr. Lawrence Wilson, Midland Health's chief medical officer.
Hospital staff are in emergency mode and they say they expect to stay there for a while if West Texans continue not wearing masks and spreading the virus.
"This weekend, we've watched in the last 24 hours we've had over 15 admissions to the hospital over COVID-related infections. Many of them, critically sick requiring ventilators and respiratory support at a very high level," Wilson said. "This virus spreads so readily that the next two weeks we'll see what's going on today, but if we change our behavior today maybe we can slow it down for the following couple of weeks, so I'm really asking that people do the right thing and get back to the behaviors that were helpful. If you want to get out and get about, do so, but wear a mask."
Help is coming in from the state this week. They're sending more nurses, but that's about all they're getting this time around.
State funding isn't big enough to foot the bill.
"They didn't materialize because there's not enough of them around and the cost of procuring them has been accelerated just because of supply-demand dramatically. It's costing 5x, 10x more than ever before. It's ridiculous. It's close to $200 an hour to get a nurse," Wilson said.
The nurses that are available are going to bigger cities.
So Midland Health is calling out to the community to step up if they have any critical care medical experience.
Over in Odessa, they're in the same situation.
Medical professionals say the remedy to this whole thing: Vaccines. This, along with all the other safety measures we know by heart.
Dr. Wilson says he believes some respiratory therapists have arrived from the state this weekend.
Midland Health is not clear on the number of nurses they'll get from the state this week.