Indiana University Health plans a $287 million investment in Fishers to expand the IU Health Saxony Hospital campus.

Indiana's largest hospital system says COVID-19 cases continue to be high across the network, but numbers are improving slightly.

It's normal for hospitals to expand intensive care unit capacity, especially during flu seasons. To do so requires health care staff, supplies and space. But hospitals say they've already been running at capacity for the last two years, largely because of the effects of COVID-19.

Over the weekend, health officials in Indiana confirmed the first case of the omicron variant in the state. The arrival of the highly infectious variant – now identified in at least 45 states – comes when hospitals across Indiana are already facing critical shortages.

Indiana's COVID-19 hospital census surpassed 3,000 for the first time in 2021. And hospitals are stretched ahead of the holidays.

The first national guard team arrived in Muncie Wednesday, and other IU Health hospitals are expecting them in the coming days.

The number of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 remains high across the country and the Midwest. With the delta variant dominating cases, patients now are younger, sicker and often require more intensive care, hospitals like Methodist in Des Moines are facing pressure.

With roughly a third of the vaccine-eligible population in the U.S. still not fully vaccinated against COVID-19, public health officials have been calling on trust community voices to address hesitancy, mistrust and misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine. Keith Thomas has taken that message to heart.

Indiana National Guard members are assisting three hospitals as increased COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths stretch the capacity of overworked and understaffed hospitals even thinner.

Nearly all Indiana counties are in the higher risk categories for COVID-19 spread on the state health department's risk ratings.