Bay Area hospitals see slight rise in bed capacity

As of Monday night, the number of available adult ICU beds was just under 19% in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, according to data from the Agency for Health Administration.

That is an improvement compared to Sunday's numbers, which showed Hillsborough County's ICU bed availability at around 17% and Pinellas at less than 13%.

Tampa General Hospital says it increased the number of dedicated hospital rooms for patients being treated for COVID-19. Advent Health says it is closely monitoring positive cases in its facilities and has a sufficient amount of ICU beds.

The situation is worse in Polk County, though. Lakeland Regional says about one-third of its coronavirus patients are in the ICU, and administrators are looking at ways to find more beds for ICU and COVID-19 patients.

"It does seem that things are starting to pick up and we attribute that to the community spread that we are seeing of the coronavirus," said Caroline Gay, the senior vice president for Lakeland Regional Hospital.

RELATED: 6,300 new Florida coronavirus cases reported Monday; 47 new deaths

In a press conference on Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis says one of the biggest needs for hospitals right now is personnel support.

"Someone gets into a car accident, they get swabbed, they're positive, they don't need to be hospitalized for COVID but they do need care for other things, that still requires kind of COVID procedures to be put in place," said Governor DeSantis.

The governor says his administration is working to get more COVID-19 tests to hospitals and other test sites so they do not run out.

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Editor's note: A previous version of this article said a third of the patients in the ICU at Lakeland Regional Hospital had coronavirus. Our story has been corrected to reflect that one-third of their coronavirus patients are in the ICU.