BANGOR — Penobscot County has been hit hard by the current surge of COVID-19 cases.
Northern Light Health spokesman Dr. James Jarvis was asked if this could explain why Eastern Maine Medical Center now has the highest percentage of COVID-19 cases in the state.
He said the data has yet to be analyzed but it might be attributable to just a sheer volume of the number of cases being diagnosed in Penobscot County.
“We do have some surge plans that we can activate at any given time. And we actually continue to review those almost on an hourly basis, due to the way things are going right now,” Dr. Jarvis said. “But right now we do not see that we have a capacity problem or that we will have an issue with what’s going on right now.”
Jarvis said currently 27 people are hospitalized at EMMC with the virus. The hospital has opened two more wards to COVID-19 patients to handle the potential overflow.
Jarvis said the number of COVID-19 patients at the Bangor hospital is constantly changing and has since the surge started.