LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- While health officials in Louisville are hopeful that the city has reached the peak of the COVID-19 Delta variant surge, hospitalization rates are still increasing.
In an update from the city's health department Tuesday, doctors said hospitalizations will likely increase for at least another two weeks.
"Our case counts have stopped that doubling every week and are starting to level off and trend down," said Dr. Sarah Moyer, Louisville's chief public health strategist. "We know that hospitalizations will hopefully follow."
Since the pandemic began, hospitalization trends lag between two and three weeks behind case counts. As of Monday, 380 people in Louisville were hospitalized with COVID-19. The most the city has ever seen was 399 last December.
Norton Healthcare has 227 COVID-19 positive patients in the hospital over the holiday weekend. That's the most the hospital has seen to this point in the pandemic. Ninety-percent of the patients in the hospital with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, Norton said.
Baptist Health in Louisville has 79 COVID-19 positive patients in the hospital. Baptist said system-wide, 83% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated.
UofL Health said it was treating 162 COVID-19 patients as of Monday. Approximately 95% of them are unvaccinated, according to a spokesperson.
Meanwhile, health leaders are also emphasizing the impact the pandemic has held on mental health as part of National Suicide Prevention Week.
"It's that they're having isolation problems," said Geneva Robinson with Seven Counties Services. "They're cut off from their normal support systems because of the pandemic."
Robinson said calls to help lines are increased drastically since the pandemic began.
"In 2020, the full year of the pandemic, we answered just around 71,000 calls," she said. "Just in the first seven months, so just over a little over half of the year, we've handled 51,000 calls."
In all of 2019, the mental health crisis center saw around 62,000 calls, Robinson said.
Here are several mental health help lines:
- Crisis Text Line
- Text LOU to 741741
- Seven Counties Services
- 24/7 Adult Crisis Line: 502-589-4313
- 24/7 Child Crisis Line: 502-589-8070
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- 800-273-8255
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Spanish)
- 888-628-9454
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Options for Deaf and Hard of Hearing)
- 800-799-4889
- Veterans Crisis Line
- 800-273-8255 Press 1
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