COVID-19 cases close to 41 million in US, hospitals overwhelmed

The cumulative total of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed 40.92 million on Saturday, with the death toll exceeding 659,000 and COVID-19 hospitalizations topping 100,000 due to raging highly contagious Delta variant.

This has pushed health systems in many states to limit, Reuters reported.

The country’s case count stood at 40,920,379 as of Saturday, with the death toll reaching 659,675, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

Health systems in the United States, especially those with low vaccination rates, are trying to deal with hiking hospitalizations as the nationwide total topped 100,000 as of September 9, with 26,000 patients being treated in intensive care units, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Hospitals across the U.S. are facing mounting pressure, with the national average of intensive-care unit availability at just 20 percent. Medical resources in many regions are in short supply, and medical staff are overwhelmed.

St Anthony’s Hospital in Florida is one of 15 hospitals in the area that has seen a tenfold increase in hospitalizations since July, and 85 percent of its patients have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the hospital’s president.

Doctors at the hospital also said that unvaccinated infected patients are more likely to suffer more serious conditions and need to be kept alive by a ventilator. The patients usually want to make a phone call with their family members before intubation. Unfortunately, this is often their final goodbye to their families.

An intensive care nurse at the hospital said that, as a health care worker, she thought she could “survive the epidemic without vaccination,” but the raging epidemic has forced her to change her attitude and choose to get vaccinated.