 As COVID-19 cases continue to rise across Pike County, Pikeville Medical Center, and medical professionals joined for a press conference in hopes of informing the public during the ongoing surge. And if you go back all the way to February, January last year, the biggest week that we had in differential apposite was 473 compared to last week at 489. If you go back again, just four weeks ago, we were at 79. This is alarming. It's concerning. And it's having impact on those who are not only the first line of defense when you're sick, but it's your last line of defense now. Since July, Pike County has seen an alarming increase in case numbers, mostly attributing to the Delta variant. Joining the press conference was Pike County health director, Tammy Riley, who says the county is just now beginning to see the second escalation. So we had 501 cases on Monday morning, looking at Monday through Sunday. And you can see what I think is very notable here is that the escalation that occurred back in the fall leading into winter took 15 weeks to reach that peak. I do not believe we've reached their peak yet, but we have surpassed the winter peak in six weeks, which really is a very clear indication of what we've been talking about with the Delta variant that it's moving to two and a half times faster. And you can see this clearly indicates that two and a half times acceleration. Here at Pikeville Medical Center's Heart and Vascular Institute, we have assembled a comprehensive team of cardiac specialists bringing expertise from all regions of the nation and the world. We have coupled that with cutting edge technology, providing them the best equipment and operating rooms available. The result is comprehensive cardiac care for the people of our region that is second to none. The Heart and Vascular Institute at Pikeville Medical Center. Riley continues to say that out of the seven day case spread, 77% of those are attributed to non-vaccinated individuals. Joining Riley during Wednesday's press conference was CEO Don Van Blackburn, who says that out of 15 individuals in the ICU, only one is a breakthrough case, adding that people need to get vaccinated. And why this is important is because our emergency department, like so many other hospitals throughout the state and nation right now are overburdened, are unable to accept transfers in as we had once been able to do before. We have hospitals calling from places like Macon, Georgia, looking for bed space to transfer COVID patients into an ICU. This should be alarming. Afterward, Blackburn was joined by infectious disease director Dr. Fadi Alacross and chief medical officer Dr. Aaron Crum, who emphasized how the surge changes daily. This is stretching our infrastructure, not only at PMC, but all hospitals in the state and in the nation very thin. And the problem is, my concern is, somebody needs different kind of care. They will not be able to find it. That's why we need to all be a part of the solution and stop the spread. For Mountaintop News, I'm Joel Horgill.