At least 89 hospitals in Texas ran out of intensive care beds last week, according to the latest federal data. Look for those near you.

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As the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19 spreads and sends unvaccinated Texans to hospital with critical illness, hospitals are under tremendous pressure to make room for an increasing number of patients.

Each week, Texas hospitals report their current critical care bed capacity to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Here is the last situation between Friday August 13th and Thursday August 19th:

Hospital staff have never been in short supply, putting pressure on all services, including emergency rooms, respiratory therapy, and even labor and delivery. Without the ability to take on new patients – and equally limited resources elsewhere to transfer them – doctors fear they will have to start making heartbreaking decisions about care in order to save as many lives as possible.

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According to the federal government, the weekly capacity figures for intensive care units should not discourage patients from seeking medical care in these facilities. “Hospitals have protocols in place to protect patients from exposure and to ensure that all patients are given priority for care,” the agency said in December.

The vast majority of COVID-19 patients in hospitals and intensive care units are not vaccinated. Doctors say wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing are the best ways to slow the number of hospitals in the short term, and that monoclonal antibody therapies for people with symptoms of COVID-19 can keep them out of the hospital in many cases. They also say the only way to permanently slow the record peak in hospitalizations is to immunize the majority of the state.

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