COLUMBIA, S.C. — COVID-19 hospitalizations are increasing rapidly, with Midlands hospitals seeing more and more patients.
Lexington Medical Center has seen 20 new patients admitted with COVID-19 in the last three days, according to hospital.
COVID-19 cases have hit a six-month high in South Carolina with DHEC recording over 3200 cases on August 6th.
Health experts are warning cases could continue to rise as the Delta variant surges.
Dr. Nadine Brooks, chief nursing administrator and program director for our nursing program from Columbia College says, "Nurses are getting ready to go through what they went through a year ago."
She went on to say, "Its like going through the nightmare all over again."
According to Lexington Medical Center of the 512 patients currently in the hospital, 109 are COVID patients. 84% of those patients are unvaccinated, 29% of them are in the ICU.
On August 5th, Prisma Health recorded 208 COVID patients admitted to hospital.
Dr. Melissa Nolan, USC Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics says the Delta variant is running rampant across the state, saying the younger population is now getting infected at a higher rate.
"One of the concerning things about delta is that it has so many more virus copies and it creates very quickly, so in general you have more virus in your body you have more serious disease," said Dr. Nolan.
"The average age of hospitalizations is 30 and the average age of someone dying from COVID is 40... We're seeing pregnant women passing away from this."
She says if a vaccinated person gets COVID it'll take two days for their vaccine to kick in.
She says vaccinated people are likely getting COVID-19 because they're around those who are unvaccinated. "The more we have vaccinated people, in an unvaccinated area so there's not that level of protection they need."