The Springfield-Greene County Health Department is reporting that 17 people died of Covid-19 from June 21 to July 4.
The health department said that none of those who died were vaccinated.
This news comes a few days after Mercy Springfield hospital announced it temporarily ran out of ventilators due to the high influx of Covid-19 hospitalizations.
Erik Frederick, chief administrative officer at Mercy Springfield, tweeted over the holiday weekend the hospital had almost 50 patients on ventilators and needed extra equipment from other Mercy hospitals in St. Louis and Northwest Arkansas, along with adding a second covid ICU to account for the heightened hospitalizations. On Tuesday, Mercy Springfield reported having 24 patients on ventilators and 28 patients in ICU.
CoxHealth, also reporting a rapid spike in Covid cases, has issued an appeal for respiratory therapists and other staff positions. See our reporting on that here.
Mercy Hospital reported breaking their record for the most covid hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic on Tuesday with 122 patients hospitalized.
Local health officials have said they expect to see a post-July 4th bump in cases, due to holiday gatherings where the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus was likely to spread to more people.