MUNCIE, Ind. — With a surge in the number of cases of the highly infectious new coronavirus possibly just weeks away, nearly half of the state's 2,915 intensive care unit hospital beds and three-fourths of the state's 3,027 ventilators were available as of Friday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.

But ISDH is still concerned about the state's surge capacity if too many Hoosiers become very sick at once and exceed the ability of hospitals, equipment, doctors and nurses to house and treat them.

Earlier modeling indicated the surge could have come as early as this week.

But as social distancing measures and requirements have taken effect, "it has really made a change in our model and that we are now expecting that surge potentially at the end of April for probably Marion County first, based on their numbers, and then other parts of the state in the first couple of weeks of May," ISDH Commissioner Kristina Box said at a briefing earlier this week.

But we can't relax our guard, she went on, calling social distancing "absolutely critical to our overall goal of making sure we don't overcome our health care system — not only delaying that peak but flattening that peak so there is a smaller burden on the heath care system overall."

As of Friday's ISDH dashboard report, 31.5% of the state's ICU beds were in use by non-coronavirus patients and 21.9% were in use by coronavirus patients, leaving 46.6% of ICU beds available statewide.

Meanwhile, 13.8% of the state's mechanical ventilators, used to provide respiratory support, were in use by coronavirus patients and 10.8% were in use by non-coronavirus patients, leaving 75.4% of the ventilator inventory unused.

A little closer to home, IU Health, which has 18 hospitals around the state, including in Muncie, Hartford City, Portland, Lafayette, Bloomington and Indianapolis, has been reporting some of its ICU and ventilator statistics, though not as much in-depth as the state.

As of April 13 (the numbers are updated every Monday), system-wide, 36% of IU Health's ventilators and 57% of the system's ICU beds were in use. There was no breakdown of total capacity and how many were being used by coronavirus versus non-coronavirus patients.

The information is available at https://iuhealth.org/news-hub/iu-health-covid-19-data

Here is a breakdown of hospital beds in East Central Indiana:

IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital: 379 beds, 36 ICU beds

IU Health Jay County Hospital: 25 beds, 0 ICU beds.

IU Health Blackford County Hospital: 15 beds, 0 ICU beds.

St. Vincent Randolph Hospital: 25 beds, N/A ICU beds.

Henry County Memorial Hospital: 99 beds, 10 ICU beds

Asked when IU Health BMH expects COVID-19 cases to peak, spokesperson Neil Gifford told The Star Press: "Every member of the healthcare team at IU Health Ball, Blackford and Jay has done an amazing job stepping up and doing everything they can to be as prepared as we can possibly be. While we can’t say when the peak will come, we can say that we are as ready as possible, and very equipped to care for the people in East Central Indiana."

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Jason Rogers, director of the Emergency Management Agency in Delaware County, doesn't have a feel yet for when cases will peak locally.

He is concerned that if long-term care facilities start getting overwhelmed it will tax the entire healthcare system. Another concern is that many smaller communities send patients to IU Health BMH for care under normal circumstances.

Contact Seth Slabaugh at (765) 213-5834 or seths@muncie.gannett.com