WACO, Texas — COVID numbers and hospitalizations are still extremely high but doctors in Central Texas say that it appears to be trending down a little bit.
According to DSHS, Bell County has seen the hospitalization rates drop from over 16 percent to just over 12 percent in the past week.
While McLennan County is at around 16 percent, it is a decrease from the over 23 percent they were seeing just a week ago.
”It’s absolutely the case that our COVID numbers are going down and we are very grateful for that,” said Dr. Erin Reed, Hospital Director, AdventHealth Central Texas.
Some doctors feel that the downward trend could be a sign that the community is starting to take more precautions again.
”I think it’s a sign, an implication, that folks are out there getting vaccinated. They're taking precautions, they're wearing masks that the community is being more mindful of the virus and being healthier overall,” said Dr. Reed.
The drop in hospitalizations is also being noticed at the Mclane Children's Hospital in Temple although not at quite as fast of a rate.
”It’s a very, very slow decline. It didn’t drop precipitously. It's sort of two steps forward and one step back as far as the decline goes but, we’re certainly in a better place than we were say a month ago for sure.” said Dr. Dominic Lucia M.D, Chief Medical Officer for Mclane Children's Hospital.
Mclane Children's is seeing fewer COVID patients being hospitalized but, COVID isn’t the only virus they are worried about right now.
”We’re still really busy with other viral illnesses. We’ve seen a big outbreak of GI bug, RSV is still lingering and we have the Flu season coming up.” said Dr. Lucia.
Doctors are happy to see the downward trend but, they are still stressing that we are not out of the woods yet.
”The trend is a decrease in COVID hospitalizations. Having said that, the virus still remains a threat. We need to be wary of it, we need to continue to mask, to take precautions to social distance when we can and continue to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Reed.
Even though vaccination rates are still pretty low, with McLennan County at 51 percent and Bell County at 43 percent of eligible people fully vaccinated, doctors said the fact that the rates are going up could be contributing to the hospitalization rates going down.
