CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.
As COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, the Cleveland Clinic has announced that it is postponing all nonessential surgeries that require a hospital bed for a nine-day period.
RELATED: More local coverage from WKYC
According to the Clinic, the delays will take place for all qualifying surgeries that were previously scheduled from Wednesday, Dec. 8 to Friday, Dec. 17. The postponements do not apply to procedures that had been scheduled at Lutheran Hospital.
The Clinic stressed that its hospitals and emergency departments "remain open to care for our community" and that "essential and urgent surgeries, as well as heart, cancer, pediatric and transplantation surgeries, and outpatient surgeries not requiring a hospital bed will continue to be scheduled during this time period."
"We will continue to evaluate our scheduled surgical patients as the pandemic continues," the Cleveland Clinic said in a release. "We continue to urge our communities to take precautions and receive their COVID-19 vaccine, as the majority of our patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated."
On Tuesday, Ohio reported 7,876 new COVID-19 cases and 612 new hospitalizations. According to the state, there are currently 4,203 COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized, with 1,079 of those patients being in the ICU.
The Clinic's announcement comes one day after it announced a new visitation policy as a result of the increasing COVID-19 numbers, which includes the following changes:
- One visitor (age 18+) per day will be allowed for patients in the Emergency Department.
- One visitor (age 18+) per day will be allowed for all inpatients. The visitor may be different each day. Inpatients will no longer designate one person to visit them throughout their entire hospital stay.
- Visitors to inpatients can only enter the building once each day. Visitors cannot leave the building and then return for a separate visit later that same day. A different visitor can only replace them the following day.
- Visitors who have tested positive for COVID-19 are permitted to visit a patient if it has been at least 10 days since testing positive.
- If a visitor has been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19: If they are not fully vaccinated, they can visit a patient 14 days after exposure. If they are vaccinated and asymptomatic, they can visit a patient with proof of vaccination.