No new coronavirus cases were reported as of Tuesday, the the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital said.

In a morning briefing, hospital spokesman Katrina Delgadillo said the hosital had performed 101 tests to date. There are currently eight confirmed cases on the Island. There are 76 negative test results and 17 results still pending.

No patients were hospitalized for Covid-19 as of Tuesday morning.

The hospital also said in the briefing that it can no longer accept donations of food due to strict infection prevention guidelines.

Donations of supplies that are still needed include disposable faces masks rated N95, shoe covers and face shields. More detailed information is posted on the hospital website.

The hospital has been preparing for a potential surge in Covid-19 patients on the Island, readying the building both inside and out as the virus begins to spread on the Vineyard.

Statewide, confirmed cases of Covid-19 jumped by 797, to 5,752 as of Monday. Eight more people have died from the coronavirus, for a total of 56 so far, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. 

At a press briefing Monday with Ms. Delgadillo, president and CEO Denise Schepici and head of nursing Claire Seguin, Ms. Schepici spoke about the five new cases that had cropped up over the weekend.

The five new cases occurred “over the last couple of days,” Ms. Schepici said. None of the cases were hospital employees, she said. Hospital leaders said they could not give any further information about the positive patients.

Responding to requests to provide more information on a daily basis, hospital officials said at the briefing that they would begin updating their website daily with the number of tests performed, the number of pending tests and the number of positive cases on the Island.

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital has been providing similar information since early last week.

Hospital leaders said it was tricky to pin down the number of cases on the Island because of the potential for residents to have had tests conducted off-Island. Numbers provided on Monday only included tests conducted at the Vineyard Hospital.

Speaking to the Gazette by phone after the briefing, Tisbury health agent Maura Valley said she was not aware of anyone who had tested positive off-Island and come to the Island

But hospital officials said part of their preparation was accounting for potential cases that could come from off-Island.

“That’s why we urged the governor to do a travel ban,” Ms. Schepici said. “Because people flocking from places like New York, which have such a high incidence, we are just assuming everyone is positive. That’s why quarantine is essential. That’s the golden nugget.”

Ms. Valley said Island boards of health were working closely with hospital officials to conduct extensive contact tracing for the eight cases throughout the Island. She declined to give the specific towns of the five new cases, saying the state has now requested the Island boards of health report numbers by county rather than town for confidentiality purposes.

Ms. Valley could not say whether any of the cases on the Island occurred through community transmission.

“With only eight cases, I don’t think that the cases are there to support community transmission at this point, but I can’t say for certain,” Ms. Valley said.

Hospital officials said they had a good working relationship with the boards of health.

“It is very fluid,” Ms. Schepici said. “We are very much in sync with them.”

With the jump in cases, hospital leaders continued to emphasize their limited resources, urging seasonal residents to stay put and encouraging Islanders to stay home. They thanked Gov. Baker for his advisory that all travelers into the state should quarantine for 14 days.

“Less travel is less of a chance to spread the disease,” Ms. Schepici said. “We also want to let our summer residents know, we love them, we depend on them, but Martha’s Vineyard cannot handle our summer population in this pandemic.”

Speaking even more frankly to a group of builders by conference call Monday afternoon, Ms. Schepici said that the hospital only had six ventilators and two respiratory therapists. She estimated that at its current capacity, the hospital could hold approximately nine patients sick with Covid-19, though is now instituting plans for more beds and patient transfers.

“We are preparing for a surge,” Ms. Schepici told the builders. “I wish it were unlikely. I think it is highly likely.”

Ms. Schepici said that looking at travel history and epidemiological studies conducted by staff at Mass. General, she expected Boston to see a surge in cases by the next two weeks, posing an ominous threat for the Island.

“The next two weeks will be critical,” Ms. Schepici said. “I think really things will start to spike, if not by the end of this week then the beginning of the next. We’ve really got to hunker down.”The hospital building in Oak Bluffs is on lockdown to all but essential workers.

Administrative staff are working from home and only clinical care workers are allowed inside the building.

Five tents have been set up around the building since the outbreak began, including a decontamination tent for emergency room workers, a separate entrance for employees, a triage tent in front of the emergency room and a tent for drive-through testing.

Recently, preparation and staging work have begun on a 12-bay hydration tent that will be connected to the infusion center should a surge in patients occur, Ms. Schepici and Ms. Seguin said. The tent would provide hydration and oxygen to patients who aren’t sick enough to be in the ICU, Ms. Seguin explained. The hospital has three ICU beds.

Inside the building, changes have also been made, with the space divided into two separate Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 sections. The plan calls for splitting up staff as well. At the moment, the building is quiet, leaders said.

“We have very carefully divided the hospital into clean areas, and areas where Covid-19 patients could go,” Ms. Seguin said.

She also described patient care policies for people hospitalized with Covid-19. The hospital admitted a patient last Wednesday who had tested positive, but has since been discharged and is in isolation.

Patients are divided into two main groups; critically-ill patients and those who need supportive care, Ms. Seguin said. Critically-ill patients would be put on ventilators with hospital officials taking all of the critical measures necessary to keep them breathing, while supportive care patients would receive hydration, supplemental oxygen, and medical monitoring. Ms. Seguin said there would be “shades of gray” in between.

The hospital also has plans with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, its parent company, to prioritize the sickest patients for transfer, Ms. Seguin said. And predictive modeling has begun to determine the number of cases that may need transferring in the event of a surge.

Although she declined to give results from the modeling, Ms. Seguin said it was done with the assistance of the Mass General epidemiology department and took into account potential hospitalizations were people to no practice social distancing.

“We are preparing for any surge potential,” Ms. Seguin said. “We are preparing for anything.”