Beds in intensive care units (ICU) can be hard to find in Boone County, which is part of the reason why one Jefferson City hospital is opening its ICU to others.

“We realize our neighbors to our north and to our east are very full in their ICUs. Someone reached out to me, yesterday, from Columbia asking about our capacity because they were at 100 percent capacity," said Regional Vice President Medical Affairs Dr. Lenora Adams at SSM Health.

Adams noted COVID cases in Cole County have been declining for a couple of weeks.

“The numbers have been lower, so we feel like we’re really coming down here at least off of that surge. Although, you know it’s very concerning that only 30 miles north they’re not having the same experience," Adams said.

During a University of Missouri curators meeting, Monday evening, President Mun Choi said ICU units at MU Health Care were at 100 percent capacity. He added in general Boone County hospitals are at 60 percent capacity.

A spokesperson from MU Health Care said 78 out of 98 ICU beds at University Hospital are filled, and 15 of those patients have COVID-19. The spokesman said he isn't sure if the remaining 20 beds are able to be staffed.

MU Health Care also has 60 NICU beds and13 pediatric ICU beds, and some of those pediatric patients are currently COVID positive.

Dr. Adams added St. Mary's Hospital has 12 beds in their ICU but can expand to 16 ICU beds.

She said Tuesday morning they had five patients in their ICU.

“Three of the patients have a history of COVID, but they’re not currently actively viremic, so they’re not on isolation. Other patients in the ICU have been re-admitted. [They’ve] previously suffered from COVID [and are] in that hyper-inflammatory phase. They’re generally getting admitted with bacterial pneumonia, so some kind of bacteria causing their pneumonia, not a virus," she said.

Adams said St. Mary's is in a good place, currently.

Our capacity in the ICU has been stabilized for more than a week and in light of that, we’ve decided to offer to accept patients from other hospitals who are overloaded.

She noted the hospital accepted two patients from Illinois who needed ICU care.

Dr. Adams added most of the infections they're seeing are rhinovirus and enterovirus. For virus infections, she said 11 percent of patients are testing positive for COVID and 32 percent are testing positive for rhinovirus or enterovirus, which are common cold viruses.