The number of confirmed COVID-19 patients in Colorado hospitals is at its highest mark since April 24, and facilities are again warning the spike will stretch their capacity to the limit unless something changes in the coming weeks.

“The numbers in the community just continue to rise at a really dizzying pace,” said Heather Young, an infectious disease doctor at Denver Health Medical Center.

As of Wednesday, 847 people are hospitalized with the virus, plus another 123 who potentially have the illness.

With the exception of a few outlier days, that number has been steadily ticking upward since September.

Should the current surge overwhelm facilities, the state will turn to its pre-prepared facilities to begin accommodating patients who can’t be seen within traditional hospitals, which are enacting their own plans to address the spike.

At Denver Health, new ICU and COVID wards have been opened, mirroring a measure taken by the facility in the spring.

Surgeries have been decreased in order to free up hospital space, a measure that will impact hospitals’ bottom lines because of the lucrative nature of those procedures.

Young said she was “really nervous” about capacity problems.

“It’s really hard to predict the future, but we are rising at a faster rate than we were in the spring,” she said. “So we’re really watching this very closely, you know, and really feel like we need some more public health interventions to really stop the spread within the community.” 

She demurred when asked about interventions she was suggesting.

Various media reports of late have suggested Denver might institute a curfew.

A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Health and Environment said all options are on the table and no final decision has been made yet.

Denver Health has more than 60 patients, compared to its peak of roughly 70. 

UCHealth has roughly 200 patients across its various facilities, its highest levels since the spring, said spokesman Dan Weaver.

He said that over the past month, the system’s number of COVID patients has tripled. 

As a result, UCHealth has limited visitation and has prepared its surge facilities.

It hasn’t suspended all surgeries but has postponed some non-emergency procedures.

No surge areas have had to be opened within the system, though various wards are ready to be converted into ICUs if necessary. 

A spokeswoman for Banner Health said that system, too, is nearing its peak levels of inpatients.

She said Banner is receiving transfer requests from facilities out of state and the system “accept those only when we can safely accommodate them.”

Neighboring Wyoming, which has a much smaller hospital ecosystem than Colorado, is experiencing its own surge that far outstrips any point in the pandemic for that state and is among the worst in the country.

It only has a handful of facilities that have more than 25 beds. (Banner owns one, Casper-based Wyoming Medical Center.)

Officials for weeks have been sounding increasingly frantic alarms about the rise in hospitalizations, which threaten to overtake the spring’s totals by the end of this week.

Denver has instituted tighter public health orders, even without the curfew, and several counties in the metro area have been placed into higher concern levels by the state. 

The state has established the Colorado Convention Center in Denver as an overflow facility should hospitals hit capacity; it currently has the capacity for 80 beds but can be scaled up to 2,000.

It stands ready, said state spokeswoman Micki Trost, and only requires staff to be sent over.

Two other sites — one in Pueblo and the other in Adams County — have been designated as spaces for sick residents of long-term care facilities to be sent. 

Trost said officials meet to try “to determine anywhere from two to four weeks out, at what point those facilities might open up.”

It would take 14 days to get them staffed at appropriate levels, she said.

Should the convention center be activated, it will be under the purview of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Denver spokeswoman Tammy Vigil.

Trost said the facilities are already stocked with equipment, supplies and other logistical, operational needs.

The hospitals and systems have been meeting and coordinating among themselves, officials said.

Via the state hospital association, facilities across Colorado have joined together on a transfer plan that would see facilities swapping patients as needed.

A spokeswoman for the association said last month that could mean COVID patients from more rural areas being transferred to larger facilities, while non-COVID patients may be shipped the other way.