PENDLETON — Health officials around Oregon have raised concerns about hospital capacity in the state during the current surge of COVID-19 cases. Local officials and hospitals are confident in the ability to keep up with increases in hospital admissions, but are keeping an eye on the number of available beds filling up elsewhere in the state.

State health officials warned in late October that the increasing rate of new cases could result in hospitals reaching capacity by mid-December, and that was before the Oregon Health Authority reported the state’s highest weekly case count last week and daily numbers repeatedly broke records.

“It’s something we’re always worried about,” Umatilla County Public Health Director Joe Fiumara said. “With that being said, even through our big uptick in the summer, the hospitals in our area made specific arrangements to expand capacity and it was never really tested.”

From Thursday, Nov. 5, to Monday, Nov. 9, 4,160 new cases of the virus have been reported, or an average of 823 per day. There have been 126 new cases reported in Umatilla County during that span.

“We’ve been nervous with how these rates are going,” Fiumara said. “I think we’ve felt here that we’ve been able to stay on top of it — our hospitals have been able to stay relatively available, our tracers have been able to follow up within 24 hours — but you never know when you’re going to get to that point where you’re not doing that anymore.”

Public data from the Oregon Health Authority showed that only three people with confirmed or presumptive cases are hospitalized and over one-third of hospital beds were available as of Friday, Nov. 6, in Region 9, which includes Umatilla, Morrow, Union, Wallowa, Baker and Malheur counties.

The Umatilla County Public Health Department no longer publishes a running tally of active hospitalizations of COVID-positive residents, but the Oregon Health Authority reported there were three within the region as of Nov. 6. At the peak of virus cases surging locally in July, data showed that 15 people were hospitalized in the region.

At Good Shepherd Health Care System in Hermiston, new CEO Brian Sims is still getting familiar with all the specifics about the hospital’s capacity and resources, but said health officials in the county are still meeting together weekly on COVID-19, including discussing hospitalization levels.

He said it’s important to think of hospital capacity not just in terms of one specific hospital, but region-wide, as it is not uncommon for patients — with COVID-19 or otherwise — to be transferred between hospitals. Someone from Umatilla County may need more specialized care and be flown to a Portland hospital, for example.

“You have to look at this holistically, across the state,” he said.

In early July, when Umatilla County Public Health was reporting 12 residents hospitalized with COVID-19 and the majority of the county’s COVID-19 cases were in Hermiston, spokesperson Caitlin Cozad said in an email at the time that Good Shepherd had been able to care for all COVID-19 patients in its regular Critical Care Unit and had not needed to open the 12-bed COVID-19 unit it had created as a contingency in the event the ICU reached capacity.

For St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, Marketing and Communications Director Emily Smith indicated in an email that its maximum capacity is 30 people, though its contingency plan is to begin transferring patients before ever reaching that number.

“We feel confident in our preparation to handle a COVID surge should one arise, as well as the possibility of transferring patients out if that becomes a necessity,” she stated. “But again, we recognize that ICU and CCU levels are increasing at tertiary hospitals and this is something we are watching.”

According to Smith, hospitals that often take patients from Pendleton were reporting occupancy levels at “70% and rising” for ICU and CCU beds as of Monday, Nov. 9.

While local beds are open for new patients needing treatment for COVID-19, local health and hospital officials urge residents to continue following health guidelines to keep it that way.

“We believe in the work of scientists who tell us that diligent masking and physical distancing will help us to curb the spread of COVID-19,” Smith stated in an email. “We ask everyone to do their part and avoid gatherings, stay home when you are sick, and wear your mask when you are not with people who live in your own home.”