Only six intensive care beds are available in the entire state of Mississippi, which typically has more than 900 in inventory. Just north of the state, in Arkansas, only 25 ICU beds in the state’s hospitals are open for severely ill patients.
NBC News reports that as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus has swept through the region, hospitals are filling up with unvaccinated patients who decided to take a chance with the virus.
“We are at the cusp of this. We know that we aren’t at the crest of this wave,” Dr. Jonathan Wilson, chief administrative officer at the University of Mississippi Medical Center said Wednesday. “It’s bad, but it’s probably going to get a little worse.”
Only 35% of the residents of Mississippi are fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates in the United States. In Arkansas, only 42% of eligible people are vaccinated.