Door County Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jim Heise is still encouraging you to come to the hospital if you are sick, but the wrong ailments could land you in a facility hundreds of miles away. The recent surge of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin has started to overwhelm the state’s hospitals. In northeast Wisconsin, 90 percent of hospital beds and over 93 percent of ICU beds are currently in use. That has forced many Green Bay hospitals to turn away patients from other facilities like Door County Medical Center and refer them to places as far as northern Illinois and Minnesota. Heise says just as hard as finding a bed for patients that they do not have the means to treat is figuring out a way to transport them.

Heise does offer some good news as Wisconsin has started to see cases of Omicron variant pop up. So far, the cases of the Omicron variant have not been as severe as those who have experienced Delta. It is too soon to determine how well the vaccines and natural antibodies perform when fending off the Omicron variant.