US City Has Just 6 ICU Beds Left Amid Delta Surge, Sends Out Public Alert

With ICU beds down to a single digit, Austin sounded the alarm Saturday, using its emergency alert system to let residents in the Texas capital city know that the local state of the pandemic is "dire."The Austin area -- with a population of almost 2.4 million people -- has just six intensive-care unit beds left, state health data show. A total of 313 ventilators are available. "The situation is critical," Public Health Medical Director Desmar Walkes said in a statement Saturday, warning of a "catastrophe" as it sent the notification to residents at noon through text messages, emails and phone calls. "Our hospitals are severely stressed and there is little we can do to alleviate their burden with the surging cases." The warning came just two days after the city's health department bumped up its risk level to its highest at stage 5 due to the highly contagious delta variant, pushing residents to get vaccinated, stay home and mask up even if they have had their shots. The risk level was raised after the seven-day moving average for new hospital admissions increased more than 600% in the past month, while patients in intensive-care units jumped 570%. Covid patients on ventilators surged to 102 as of Saturday from just eight on July 4, the health department said. More may follow as cases in the Austin area increased 10 times.