Now, parts of southwest Missouri are seeing an increase in COVID cases and hospitalizations, and those numbers are expected to rise if more people don’t get vaccinated. .

“This is troubling,” Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) Communications Director Dave Dillon said.

“We’re beginning to see more kids affected, adolescents to teens to those more middle-aged to younger population,” Dillon said. .

“They are most likely at this point since our healthcare system is not in jeopardy of being overwhelmed, going to be sent to a larger hospital that has additional medical capacity and expertise in taking care of patients with COVID.”.

Chief Hospital Officer for Cox Health Karen Kramer said Cox doesn’t have the equipment or PPE issues, instead, they need frontline workers. .

Both Dillon and Kramer said a big reason for an increase in cases in northern and southwest Missouri are the COVID variants from India and the U.K. .

“What we found that was predominate in northern Missouri has been referred to as the India Variant which is also highly contagious and will take root here, so we could see an increase in hospitalizations and increased infections as a result,” Dillon said. .

Kramer said that in southwest Missouri, the number of COVID-related deaths is also on the rise.

“For those people who want to have their kids back in school without all the precautions we saw this last year, we can’t guarantee that will happen unless we get to a much higher rate of vaccination,” Dillon said. .

As of Friday, Missouri reported more than 2,000 cases of COVID within the last seven days

With southwest Missouri being a high-tourist area, Kramer said Cox Health will be prepared if cases continue to rise. 

Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported COVID-positive patients at area hospitals dropped below 100 for the first time this week

There are also 23 new hospitalizations at its area hospitals and 39 COVID patients in the ICUs