Open ICU beds abound in RNC host city Jacksonville, says Mayor

Jacksonville is in the throes of a wave of COVID-19 infections, but some good news: the ICUs are not overflowing.

That was the assurance of Mayor Lenny Curry, who also chairs next month’s Republican National Convention, on Thursday.

“ICU capacity is available. They are not running out of beds. Some have seen recent declines in ICU patients,” Curry tweeted. ” While we’ve seen increase in COVID19 patients in the hospital In July, some systems seemed to have plateaued while others are managing some daily increases. All hospitals tell me what they are experiencing is manageable.”

At 3:45 PM Thursday, Jacksonville had 21.64% of its adult ICU beds open, including 18 of 100 beds at the main campus of UF Health, the city’s safety-net hospital that, like its peers elsewhere, bears the heaviest burden of this crisis.

Duval County by and large has avoided the capacity crunches of South Florida, even as the virus has overwhelmed calls to stop the spread of late.

Wednesday’s rate of positive tests was a robust 10.1%, down from most previous days in the last two weeks but still high enough to require the RNC Host Committee to make some unprecedented changes to next month’s event, which already is a rush job by any reckoning.

The event will be held largely outdoors and with capacity caps, according to a memo from the Host Committee.

“We plan to utilize a number of indoor and outdoor venues in this multi-block radius of Jacksonville, including the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, TIAA Bank Field, Daily’s Place Amphitheater, 121 Financial Ballpark, and several others.”

As well, expect that for much of the event, crowd size will be limited.

“Admittance to the convention venue for the first three days of the convention celebration in Jacksonville (August 24, 25, 26) will be limited to regular delegates only. For the final day (Thursday, August 27) when President Trump will publicly accept the nomination, we plan that each delegate, their guest, and alternate delegates will be permitted to attend.”