LINCOLN- Bryan Health officials said Wednesday that they believe Lincoln and surrounding areas are seeing the beginnings of the long-predicted "surge" of COVID-19 cases.As of Wednesday morning, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at Bryan was 14, an increase of six from Tuesday, and four of them were on ventilators.

"This is the highest number of positive COVID patients we've had in the hospital," said John Woodrich, CEO of Bryan Medical Center.

Luckily, Woodrich said, the number of severely ill people and the number of people on ventilators is lower than what modeling has shown. As of Wednesday morning, Lincoln had 161 cases, which is double the number it had just 10 days ago. Only one county resident has died from COVID-19 so far. Bryan has seen its number of positive tests, which includes results from other counties as well as multiple tests performed on some patients, grow from 111 a week ago to 254 on Wednesday -- a 130% increase.

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