{"id":44053,"date":"2021-10-28T00:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T06:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/covid-surge-in-montezuma-county-puts-pressure-on-cortez-hospital\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:17:09","slug":"covid-surge-in-montezuma-county-puts-pressure-on-cortez-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/covid-surge-in-montezuma-county-puts-pressure-on-cortez-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID surge in Montezuma County puts pressure on Cortez hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tanya
Tanya Daughtry, a pharmacy intern at Southwest Memorial Hospital, shows a vial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine available at the Cortez hospital. A co-worker fills syringes.<\/span>Journal file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A continuing surge in coronavirus infections in the past week has put pressure on Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez as cases have become more severe and hospital stays have become longer.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 26, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported 183 new cases in the county since Oct. 19, an increase of 10% compared with the previous seven days\u2019 total of 166 new cases.<\/p>\n

One new death from COVID was reported this week.<\/p>\n

CDPHE reported 3,181 positive cases and 37 deaths from COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began in March 2020.<\/p>\n

Southwest Memorial reported an increase in COVID patients, averaging five to seven per day, said Marc Meyer, director of Pharmacy and Infection Prevention at the hospital.<\/p>\n

The patients\u2019 length of stay has increased to an average of 12 days because of more severe symptoms, up from a stay of five to seven days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is starting to put the crunch on hospital capacity, but so far services have not been cut,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

Regular hospital services, including all surgeries, continue, and new patients have been admitted, he said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Last week, the 20-bed hospital was full, and this week, several beds have been available each day. The hospital has isolation rooms for COVID patients and 12 ventilators if needed.<\/p>\n

Southwest Memorial does hundreds of COVID tests per week for the region. Last week, the positivity rate was 25%, or one in four testing positive for the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is back to the high point from last winter,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

Once or twice per week, Southwest Memorial transfers more severe cases of COVID to hospitals that can provide a higher level of care in Grand Junction, Denver and Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

After reaching full capacity, Southwest Memorial can transfer new COVID patients to other Colorado hospitals as part of a statewide agreement.<\/p>\n

The deal also requires Southwest Memorial to accept COVID patients with less severe conditions from hospitals that have reached capacity.<\/p>\n

Meyer said the hospital has accepted COVID patients from hospitals that have run out of room, but the number and names of the hospitals were not immediately available.<\/p>\n

Southwest has been administering 80 to 100 vaccines and booster shots per day. The vaccination rate for staff is 84%, Meyer said.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County has an average one-week positivity rate of 15% according to CDPHE, which is at the red \u201csevere risk\u201d level. La Plata County has an average one-week positivity rate of 7%, which is the yellow \u201cconcern\u201d level.<\/p>\n

The overall vaccination rate for Montezuma County is 71%, and for La Plata County, 78%.<\/p>\n

Active outbreaks in Montezuma County<\/div>\n
On Oct. 1, Cortez Middle School reported that 20 students and two staff members had tested positive.<\/div>\n
On Oct. 1, Kemper Elementary reported 13 students and one staff member had tested positive.<\/div>\n
On Oct. 1, Montezuma-Cortez High School reported nine students and two staff members had tested positive.<\/div>\n
On Oct. 4, the Dolores middle and high schools reported 18 students and four staff members tested positive.<\/div>\n
On Oct. 8, Dolores Elementary reported five students and one staff member tested positive.<\/div>\n
On. Oct. 8 the Montezuma County Detention Center reported 27 inmates and six staff members had tested positive.<\/div>\n
On Oct. 22, Cortez Public Works Department reported seven staff members had tested positive.<\/div>\n
Vaccines available<\/div>\n

The Montezuma County Public Health Department and Southwest Memorial Hospital offer COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots at no cost.<\/p>\n

The health department offers COVID vaccines on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Call 970-565-3056. Southwest Memorial offers free COVID vaccines at its retail pharmacy Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 970-564-2280 for questions.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Increase in number and severity of cases puts Southwest Memorial Hospital near capacity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,21,28,60,29,668,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85952,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44053\/revisions\/85952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44053"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}