On Tuesday, the City of Lubbock announced that due to the recent surge in Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, mobile medical tents will be erected outside University Medical Center (UMC) and Covenant Health starting this week.
The first medical tent arrived Tuesday for deployment at Covenant Health, and the second will arrive at UMC for deployment on Thursday.
Both hospital systems continue to implement surge plans to help expand capacity to meet the current needs of the community and region. These medical tents provide additional needed beds to help meet the increase in hospitalizations.
Trauma Service Area (TSA) B, which includes Lubbock, has had a COVID-19 hospitalization rate of more than 15 percent since Oct. 19.
Based on data from John Hopkins, the death rate from COVID-19 in this area that Lubbock county is now ranked among major cities like Los Angeles, or Cook county, which holds Chicago.
Major cities with millions of people are seeing between eight to 43 deaths a day. However, Lubbock county with 200,000 people is seeing an average of six deaths a day.