Reno hospital starts treating Covid patients in parking garage ward as Nevada hits 100k cases

Site expected to house 40 people by end of Thursday

A Reno hospital has confirmed it admitted its first coronavirus patients to a parking garage previously converted to a deployable medical structure as hospitals in the state of Nevada grapple with a surge in hospitalisations.

Renown Health told The Independent that they are “currently caring for 33 patients in the Alternate Care Site at Renown Regional Medical Center and expecting to go to 40 by the end of the day.”

The projected figure marks an increase of 30 patients admitted to the ward in the space of three days, as The Reno Gazette Journal first reported on Monday that the hospital was “currently caring for 10 patients" in the Alternate Care Site.

Earlier on Thursday, the Associated Press reported that the garage was currently housing 27 patients.

“People are being hospitalised and dying at higher rates than before,” Reno Health CEO Tony Slonim said at a press conference with Gov Steve Sisolak last week, The Gazette Journal reported. “I am very, very concerned.”

A spokesperson told The Gazette Journal that “these patients are clinically stable or improving, and do not require critical care.”

The healthcare company is said to have set up the alternate care site at the parking garage seven months earlier as a precautionary measure amidst the pandemic but has not admitted patients until now.

The temporary medical structure cost $11m and allows the hospital to accommodate an additional 1,600 beds in a heated atmosphere pressurized for adequate airflow, reports said.

The use of the structure comes amidst reports that overwhelmed hospitals in areas with surging cases are also converting chapels, cafeterias, waiting rooms and hallways into patient treatment areas.

The number of people in the hospital with Covid-19 across the country has doubled in the past month. As of Tuesday more than 76,000 hospitalised with the virus.

In Nevada alone, coronavirus hospitalisations have spiked to their highest since the start of the pandemic as the state surpassed 100,000 cases of the disease. 

Health officials reported on Wednesday that 1,246 confirmed or suspected coronavirus patients were hospitalised in the state.

The number marks more than twice as many as three weeks ago and 79 per cent of staffed hospital beds in the state are currently occupied as the area battles the outbreak alongside flu season.

“To be blunt, our state is surging and continues to surge,” Gov Sisolak, who tested positive for the virus on Friday, said.

Across the US coronavirus cases have surpassed 11 million since the outbreak gripped the country in March, leading to the deaths of over 250,000 people.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press