West Tennessee sees record number of hospitalizations, COVID-19 cases

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — There is a new COVID-19 update from local health officials.

Health officials say there’s major concern as COVID-19 cases continue to rise, including a significant increase in COVID-positive cases in the last week, plus a new record high number of hospitalizations.

“We’re up this morning 138 cases from yesterday’s number, which is a significant increase. So in just a week’s time, we have gone up 565 new cases,” said Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department Director Kim Tedford.

Amy Garner, with West Tennessee Healthcare, says hospitals are seeing a record number of patients.

“I don’t have any good news. We are at another record high here at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital. This morning we have 125,” Garner said.

Officials say this spike in cases could be from gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday, something Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris says isn’t’ a surprise.

“I think we will continually see the results of those gatherings for another week or so,” Mayor Harris said.

Health officials say they expect to see the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine sometime next week.

“Hopefully that will help the situation, but it is definitely hard right now because this is definitely a peak we are seeing,” Garner said.

“The goal is to immunize those high-risk health care workers so that they can be in good shape to continue to take care of the ones that are critically ill and need hospitalization,” Tedford said.

Tedford says the vaccine will eventually be available to everyone, but she doesn’t expect to see that before March or April of next year at the earliest.

She also says there are no plans to add restrictions at this time. However, a mask mandate remains in place until the end of the month.