Don't Go To The ER For Mild COVID-19: Health Department

PHOENIX, AZ — The state health department is asking Arizonans to save trips to local Emergency Rooms for true emergencies, not for COVID-19 testing, to avoid overwhelming ERs.

Arizona, in the past few weeks, has pushed up to or exceeded the record number of daily emergency room visits for suspected COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to state department of health data.

The daily ER visit record so far throughout the entire pandemic in Arizona was made last week on Jan. 11, at 2,589 visits. On Monday, there were 2,160 ER visits for COVID-19 in Arizona. The most visits during the previous peak was 2,341 on Dec. 29, 2020.

The state department of health advises that people with mild COVID-19 symptoms use their doctor, an urgent care clinic or tele-health appointment instead of visiting the emergency room.

Some people responded to the state health department's social media posts asking Arizonans with mild symptoms to avoid emergency rooms by saying that they couldn't find rapid tests or get in for a testing appointment, so they felt a trip to the ER was their only option to get tested.

You can search here for testing locations across Arizona. Some of the testing sites require appointments, but some also accept walk-ups.

Arizona added 23,836 new COVID-19 cases and 183 deaths to its counts on Tuesday for a total of 1,645,654 cases and 25,395 deaths in the state since the start of the pandemic.

Despite the surge in cases going on at the moment, intensive care bed usage by COVID-19 patients is at about half what it was during the last coronavirus surge around a year ago.

During last year's peak on Jan. 11, 2021, there were 1,183 COVID-19 patients in Arizona ICUs, the most recorded on one day since the start of the pandemic. As of Monday, there were 619 COVID-19 patients in Arizona ICUs.

As of Monday, COVID-19 patients accounted for 37 percent of those hospitalized in Arizona, and 37 percent of those in ICUs. There were 92 ICU beds open across the state on Monday, or 6 percent.

This article originally appeared on the Phoenix Patch