For doctors at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, a rush of new Covid-19 cases and a dwindling availability of beds feels like the hospital is backsliding to how it was at the end of 2020.

The latest projections from the school's college of public health suggests statewide Covid hospitalizations will triple in the next two weeks, which would mean a return to a chaotic period when staffing and resources were strained, elective operations were limited and it seemed like there was no end to the crisis in sight.

If that happens, "that will surpass what we saw last winter," said Dr. Steppe Mette, the CEO of the university's Medical Center in Little Rock.

On Monday, the hospital was treating 57 in-patient cases of Covid, up from eight cases six weeks ago, Mette said.

"This is the big concern," he added. "Right now we're managing OK, but we're in surge mode. We're putting patients in physical locations where we weren't putting them normally because of that demand."

While states across the country have had a startling rise in new Covid cases, the South, including Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, has re-emerged as a troubling hot spot, driven by the highly contagious delta variant and lax or resistant attitudes toward vaccinations, public health officials say. Some hospitals are bracing for a rise in Covid cases not seen in months.