Staten Island hospitals are preparing for a second coronavirus wave.

— As the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases rise on Staten Island, the borough’s hospitals are working to prepare for a possible second wave of patients infected with the virus.

Andrew Cuomo said Staten Island is on a “warning track” and could see areas entering an orange zone and a red zone this week if the trend of coronavirus cases continues at this rate.

“Staten Island is also a problem in terms of overburdening hospitals and we’re running into a hospital capacity issue on Staten Island, which we have to be dealing with over the next few days.”.

There are 118 Staten Islanders being treated for COVID-19 at the three hospital locations in the borough as of Sunday -- an increase of 11 since Saturday.

Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), which has two locations in Ocean Breeze and Prince’s Bay, is caring for 102 patients, an increase of 10 since Saturday?

ARE STATEN ISLAND HOSPITALS SEEING INCREASES.

Brahim Ardolic told the Advance/SILive.com that there is “no question” the hospital is seeing a fairly large increase in the number of people with COVID-19.

“So the honest answer to the question is, yeah, we’re seeing a fairly dramatic increase in the number of people representing with COVID,” he added.

Ardolic explained that SIUH started November with its number of COVID-19 patients in the low 20s.

And those patients in the hospital are almost exclusively Staten Island patients, he said.

The number of patients admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 has fluctuated throughout the month, Lutz said, staying in the single digits or teens the majority of November.

RUMC and SIUH both explained they are much more prepared should there be a second wave of the coronavirus that hits Staten Island.

“I think we’re much more prepared,” Ardolic said.

“There was a lot of activity all through Staten Island, a lot of gathering and I don’t think there’s any question that what we’re seeing now is the aftermath of a lot of those get togethers,” he said.

It’s different than the spring...I don’t think we’re in a position to be able to not take care of our community for another six weeks by just shutting down and saying we’re going to take care of only COVID patients

All of these things to make sure that not only are we taking care of the patients, but that we have the ability to be there when Staten Island needs us.”