Miami-Dade County commissioner says they need field hospitals because local ICUs are near capacity

• Hospitals in Miami-Dade County have nearly run out of space in their intensive-care units.
• "We need to open that field hospital," Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava said in an interview on Wednesday. "We need to get staff from out of state, if not the National Guard."
• The county reported over 2,400 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, with 20% of tests coming back positive.
• The county has reported over 1,900 new cases every day for the last two weeks.

Hospitals in Miami-Dade County, home to more than 2.7 million Floridians, have nearly run out of space in their intensive-care units, with one local politician telling Business Insider they expect the situation to get worse — and that now's the time to start opening field hospitals.

In April, the Miami Beach Convention Center was prepped to serve as an overflow space for hospitals inundated with COVID-19 patients. Now, with cases surging, it sits idle.

That as the region has seen a major spike in COVID-19 cases, with Miami-Dade County alone reporting over 2,500 new infections on July 15 — and a 14-day positive test average of more than 27%.

Daniella Levine Cava, a Miami-Dade commissioner running to be the county's next mayor, told Business Insider that needs to change.

"We need to open that field hospital," Levine Cava said in an interview on Wednesday. "We need to get staff from out of state, if not the National Guard."

She noted that hospitals across the region are near-capacity. Earlier on Wednesday, CNN reported that Miami-Dade hospitals had run out of ICU space altogether — but according to Levine Cava, there is still limited capacity at the University of Miami Hospital.

The county itself later clarified that it has run out of ICU beds specifically prepped for COVID-19 patients, but not ICU space altogether.

As Business Insider reported earlier this month, the county failed to deliver on a promise made earlier in the pandemic to hire up to 1,000 contact tracers, contributing to the unchecked spread of the coronavirus.

More than 3,000 visits related to a "COVID-like illness" took place during the week of July 5, a more than sixfold increase from May, when Florida reopened much of its economy.

"When everything started to open up and ease up, then our volume picked up," Dr. Mark Supino, a physician at Jackson Health System in Miami, previously told Business Insider.

As NBC News reported on Wednesday morning, 10 of the county's hospitals had run out of intensive-care space, along with 44 other hospitals across the state.

An additional 30 hospitals reported being at 90% capacity, with statewide capacity at 83%, according to Reuters.

That, Levine Cava said, speaks to the need for emergency measures, immediately.

"I would say, you know, this is the kind of thing that you don't want to be looking back in hindsight," she said. "I think we have to err on the side of caution, which means preparedness."

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com