ND hospitals reach capacity, every county moved to moderate Covid-19 risk

Entire state placed under high risk

BISMARCK, N.D. — Governor Burgum, alongside the Department of Health addressed the public on the state’s conditions and where it stands with resources concerning the continuous rise in COVID cases.

“We’ve moved this press conference up today in part because we know that we could be facing a situation in our state in the next two to three weeks where we would be severely constrained on hospital capacity, some parts of the state we’re already seeing that,” Burgum said.

Burgum says the best way to slow the spread and keep hospital capacities at bay is to follow the precautionary guidelines.

“You don’t have to believe in a certain political party or not, you don’t have to believe whether mask work or not. You can just do it because you know that there’s one thing that’s very real and that’s that 100 percent of our capacity is now being used and you could make a difference,” Burgum said.

Due to hospitals in the state being at full capacity with 20 percent of beds full of COVID positive patients, Governor Burgum has implemented a health order to increase hospital staffing.

“We took a step to help address the staffing issue with an amended state health officer order that now is going to allow asymptomatic COVID positive healthcare workers to work in COVID units of licenced healthcare facilities,” Burgum said.

Although with the severity of the pandemic, Governor Burgum has not placed further restrictions throughout the state other than increasing the awareness of it all.

“We’re moving all remaining counties from yellow to orange. This would indicate the seriousness of the situation where the whole state is at high risk and this means that all 53 counties are under the guidelines of the North Dakota smart restart,” Burgum said.

Burgum adds he is trying to find an approach to slow the spread, but shutting down the economy will not stop the spread.