SAN JOSE, Calif. (NEXSTAR) – Nearly half of all patients at one Northern California hospital are there because of COVID-19, according to a hospital executive.

“Our San Jose facility … actually has almost half of the hospital filled with either COVID confirmed or persons under investigation,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, a Kaiser Permanente executive vice president.

San Jose, which sits nearly 50 miles south of San Francisco, is part of Santa Clara County, which has seen a surge in cases. On Wednesday, the county recorded 84 new COVID-19 cases – the largest single-day jump in positive cases since testing began, according to The Mercury News.

“So we’ve literally had to revamp the hospital to make sure that we’ve got enough capacity from a personnel standpoint, because to provide the care to these patients requires resource intensive personnel,” Parodi said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

As of Thursday, Santa Clara County had recorded 17 coronavirus-related deaths and 459 confirmed cases, second in California to Los Angeles County, which had 812 cases, according to Associated Press data. Thirteen people had died of coronavirus in Los Angeles County.

Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager at Kaiser Permanente San Jose, said in a statement to KRON that the numbers fluctuate rapidly and the hospital does not provide daily figures. 

Chavez added that the number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus or suspected of having the virus is actually lower this week than it was last week.