All three northern New England states report that hospitalized patients are mainly unvaccinated people from rural areas where vaccination rates are lower.

Massachusetts, too, is grappling with a surge that has boosted the number of hospitalized patients to 740 — far less than previous pandemic peaks but still challenging for under-staffed hospitals. A Boston emergency department doctor said Tuesday on Twitter that he had to call 11 different hospitals “to find room for two little old ladies that were probably having heart attacks — in the city that purports to have the best hospitals in the world.”

At Massachusetts General Hospital, the number of Covid patients has risen by about 50% — from the low 20s to the mid 30s — in the last month, said the Department of Medicine’s point person on Covid, Arthur Kim.

That may not sound like very many, but the hospital had already been running very close to full capacity, he said, “And I do know for a fact that people have been delayed in terms of elective procedures because there was no bed to house them after these procedures.”