well, doctors, we talked to say medical clinics and emergency rooms are filling up fast, but right now hospital beds are not. And today we've learned that one of our major hospitals in the state is already facing some big challenges. We definitely started seeing a sharp uptick uh the week after Christmas and are continuing to kind of see that rise. Dr. Lee Johnson is an emergency room physician in Fort Smith and Van Buren, he says COVID-19 patients are turning to emergency rooms for help. This is the urgent cares and people's family doctors get overwhelmed. People are trying, you know, people are nervous and worried about this pandemic appropriately. So and so um I think that sends them sometimes to the emergency room, the people that I'm seeing right now from the standpoint of what they're looking like. You know, it's people with with a bad cold flu like symptoms, but not that severe respiratory distress that we were seeing earlier in the pandemic. Only one of the monoclonal is work. So only the stateroom a map works with omicron. We are anticipating that are stock of that antibody will run out today and we will not get any more for a week. In addition to monoclonal antibody treatment shortages. Dean of um S College of Medicine Dr Susan smith says today, hundreds of healthcare workers system wide could not show up to work due to covid 19 infections or exposures and she expects it to get worse. We're anticipating that pretty soon we're gonna get to 20% of our workforce will not be able to come to work. The the truth is, is that, you know, it's a burden on our hospital system right now in Arkansas, we have a nursing shortage. I think everyone is aware of that now. Uh, you know, that's something that is there with or without the pandemic. Right now, healthcare leaders are concerned that the sheer number of new covid 19 cases across the state Could overwhelm hospitals. Even if the symptoms are less severe. It will not surprise me if we break 10,000 by the end of the week, each one of those 1000 new cases generates a certain number of new hospitalizations. Delta was harder, right? We were seeing young people in their twenties and thirties come in with with severe respiratory illness ending up in the hospital ending up on ventilators dying of Covid. Um that's not something that I've been seeing the last week and a half, two weeks with, with this new surge to help see more patients here in the river valley. The ford smith Mercy Covid care clinic will open on friday now to help with that demand and it's hard to get at home rapid tests that are in short supply. Right now, Governor Hutchinson says the state's order of 1.5 million tests that have been back ordered. He hopes to start getting those distributed sometime early next week and there for free for people who need them Live in Fort Smith Brett Rains. 29 News