Surges in coronavirus cases in several US states this week, along with staffing and equipment shortages, are exacting a mounting toll on hospitals and their workers, leading to warnings at some facilities that care would be rationed.
A Louisville medic helps a woman experiencing a Covid-19 emergency. Louisville Metro EMS is experiencing a surge in patients needing emergency treatment and transport. Photo: AFP
Montana, Alaska, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky have recently experienced the biggest rises in new Covid-19 hospitalisations, with Montana's new hospitalizations rising by 26 percent, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The glut of new hospitalisations in some states comes despite a recent ebb in national figures for new hospitalisations in the US, but alongside worsening case number and death counts nationally.
The US currently has the world's highest number of new cases and deaths daily, with an average 148,000 cases and 1,991 deaths reported a day, for the last seven days.
Reuters data shows the number of cases diagnosed across the US is rapidly increasing, and is at 60 percent of the peak achieved in January this year.
In Alaska, the influx is so heavy the state's largest hospital is no longer able to provide life-saving care to every patient who needs it due to the influx of Covid-19 hospitalisations, according to an open letter from the medical executive committee of Providence Alaska Medical Centre this week.
"If you or your loved one need speciality care at Providence, such as a cardiologist, trauma surgeon, or a neurosurgeon, we sadly may not have room now," the letter read. "There are no more staffed beds left."
Some hospital workers had become so overwhelmed by the fresh wave of Covid-19 cases - a year and half after the pandemic first reached the United States - that they have left for jobs at retailing and other non-medical fields, said Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient safety at the American Hospital Association.
At the same time, distribution and other issues were leaving some hospitals short of oxygen supplies desperately needed to help patients struggling to breathe, Foster said.
On Friday, the hospital association held a webinar for its members on how to conserve oxygen, in an attempt to cope with the 200 percent jump in demand at many hospitals, she said.
"There is a shortage of drivers with the qualifications to transport oxygen, and a shortage of the tanks needed to transport it," Foster added.
While there are some breakthrough cases among the vaccinated, Foster said most of the hospitalisations were among the unvaccinated.
The National Guard is staffing a large tent with rows of beds, set up outside the St Claire Medical Centre in Kentucky, to treat Covid-19 patients. Photo: AFP
A surge 'like never before'
Hospital admissions are surging in several mostly rural and Midwestern states. They slipped to about 10,685 for the entire US on 14 September and cresting to about 13,028 in late August according to the CDC.
"Despite our hospital being ground zero in Kentucky for the onset of the pandemic 18 months ago, this week we are being hit with a Covid surge like never before since the onset of the pandemic," said Dr Stephen Toadvine, chief executive officer at Harrison Memorial Hospital, in a statement.
He added that patients seeking emergency care in Kentucky hospitals and being treated for Covid-19 are at an all-time highs.
Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said the state would soon run out of monoclonal antibodies, a key treatment for Covid-19, and the federal government also recently announced a national shortage.
A field of white flags on the Mall near the Washington Monument on Thursday. The project by artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg uses over 600,00 flags to symbolise the lives lost to Covid-19 in the US. The country reached 600,000 deaths in June. Photo: AFP
Since May, the number of Covid-19 cases at hospitals run by the University of Wisconsin's UW Health system has quadrupled, Dr Jeff Pothof said.
Emergency rooms are so full that doctors are having to seek rooms for their patients in other facilities, he said. It is a trend also seen in other states, including Florida.
"For the first time in my career we're at the point where not every patient in need will get the care we might wish we could give," Dr Shelly Harkins, chief medical officer and president of St Peter's Health in Montana said in a video announcement on Thursday.
In West Virginia, Covid-19 hospitalisations this week have far outstripped their previous peak of 815, rising from 852 on Monday to 922 on Friday, said Jim Kaufman, the president of the West Virginia Hospital Association.
The state's hospitals are also facing severe staffing shortages, resulting in fewer patients treated and delays in non-emergency care.
Smaller hospitals are sending patients to larger ones that can accommodate them, Kaufman said.
In Oklahoma, 35 percent of hospitals in the state report staffing shortages, according to the CDC.
-Reuters