Hospitals stretched beyond 'reasonable limit' as number of COVID-19 patients reaches 100,000
Video above: As COVID hospitalizations increase; hospitals seek ways to expand
While Americans are eagerly awaiting coronavirus vaccines to be authorized, doctors and nurses across the U.S. are facing a difficult truth as hospitals try to find creative ways to handle the surging number of patients that exceeds 100,000 nationwide.
One county official in Wisconsin told CNN, "Our hospital ICUs and emergency rooms remain stretched beyond any reasonable limit and our healthcare workers as well as our patients need our help."
And the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that these next three months will be "the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation."
More than 100,200 patients were in U.S. hospitals Wednesday 바카라 게임 웹사이트 the most counted during the pandemic, according to the .
After they are authorized by the federal government, coronavirus vaccines should help blunt the pandemic, but experts think it won't be until spring before a lot of Americans can get them.
Right now, the situation in places like Dane County, Wisconsin, are dire. Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, who told CNN resources are alarmingly stretched thin, said medical facilities are nearing capacity and this was the worst of the pandemic.
Dr. David Andes, who is a professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Disease within the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, said their hospitals are about 98% full.
"Our numbers are pretty out of control right now," he said.
Andes said hospitals are trying to work through the crisis by finding new places to care for Covid-19 patients. Some are being treated in a children's hospital. Some patients are being seen by doctors who are working outside their specialties. Many health care workers are signing up for extra shifts.
Other hospitals are facing similar demands. And while those facilities have been stretching capacity 바카라 게임 웹사이트 by opening up new areas, creating more double occupancy rooms and bringing in staff from outside its own system 바카라 게임 웹사이트 "we are out of levers to pull," Dr. Jason Mitchell, chief medical officer of Presbyterian Healthcare Services in New Mexico, told CNN.
"When you run out of resources 바카라 게임 웹사이트 whether that's doctors or nurses or beds or ventilators 바카라 게임 웹사이트 you cannot give (the best) care. ... We are not there yet (but) we are very close as a state."
