SLIDELL, La. — This fourth COVID surge is not only filling up hospitals, it's overwhelming urgent care too.
A note taped to the door of Doctors Urgent Care in Slidell Wednesday said, "We apologize for any inconvenience, but we have stopped taking patients for today."
It's a sign of the times as hospitals, urgent cares, and emergency responders are all overwhelmed.
"Within two hours we had that many people sign in, waiting to be seen," said Aimee Coulon, APRN at Doctors Urgent Care.
Doors opened at 9 a.m. They met patient capacity well before noon. This has happened multiple times, especially during COVID surges.
"Over the last few weeks, it's gone to where we're pulling the board at 11, 12 o'clock because we're capped out," Coulon said.
Lately, almost 100 percent of her patients are coming in to get tested and treated for COVID.
"Some days it's 50 percent of the tests we're doing are positive, vaccinated and unvaccinated," she said.
Unlike most urgent cares, Doctors Urgent Care has an in-house lab offering COVID patients antibody infusions and other treatments to fight the virus.
"Almost everyone's getting blood work and x-rays and getting medications we're putting them on," Coulon said.
Statewide, Louisiana has a 15.4 percent positivity rate for COVID testing. That’s the highest it's been since April 2020 at the start of the pandemic. In St. Tammany Parish, it's even higher at 17.7 percent.
"We have tons of positives, a lot more positives," Coulon said.
On the Northshore, there are more people hospitalized now with COVID than ever before, with the highest number of people on a ventilator since April 2020.
"We don’t want people in the hospital. We don’t want our patients being admitted," Coulon said.
Coulon said that's her number one goal - offering treatment that can keep people out of the hospital altogether. She offers this advice:
"This is probably the most important thing I find - if you get diagnosed with COVID, do not lay on the couch and sleep all day. You want to keep your lungs moving. You do not want to sit around. You want to deep breathe," Coulon said.