COLUMBUS, Ohio — The number of available hospital beds is holding steady throughout Ohio.
Each week, Spectrum News 1 speaks with Eye on Ohio: The Ohio Center For Journalism about the latest hospital bed data. The organization collects the latest data from the state health department and looks for possible trends.
According to the Lucia Walinchus, Executive Director for Eye On Ohio, the overall trends are positive.
“All together doing a much better job,” Walinchus said.
Overall, the latest data shows the state is fluctuating between 6,000 and 2,300 available hospital beds and between 1,500 and 501 available ICU beds.
Walinchus said the state’s future depends largely on whether or not the current vaccines can protect people from new COVID-19 variants.
“So, they’ve already found these variants in Columbus and Cincinnati. We really don’t know right now.,” she said. “They’re still doing preliminary studies in terms of, ‘Is this going to be something that the vaccine is going to take care of or is this going to be something that’s going to be long-term?’ Unfortunately now that’s our big question.”
While most of the state is seeing positive increases in the number of available beds, certain areas continue to struggle.
“Obviously, it depends on where you live,” Walinchus said. “For example, Van Wert still has not had an ICU bed since July.”
