U.S. hospitals overwhelmed with virus cases

In US, Coronavirus  cases are increasing alarminly. According to reports overwhelmed hospitals are converting chapels, cafeterias, waiting rooms, hallways, even a parking garage into patient treatment areas. Staff members are desperately calling around to other medical centers in search of open beds. Fatigue and frustration are setting in among front-line workers. Conditions inside the nation’s hospitals are deteriorating by the day as the coronavirus rages across the US at an unrelenting pace and the confirmed death toll surpasses 250,000.

The number of people in the hospital with Covid-19 in the US has doubled in the past month and set new records every day this week. As of Tuesday, nearly 77,000 were hospitalized with the virus. Newly confirmed infections per day in the US have exploded more than 80% over the past two weeks to the highest levels on record, with the daily count running at close to 160,000 on average. Cases are on the rise in all 50 states. Deaths are averaging more than 1,155 per day, the highest in months. “We are depressed, disheartened and tired to the bone,” said Alison Johnson, director of critical care at Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee.

Governors and local officials have brought in a range of measures in recent days to try to damp down the surge. Cleveland asked residents to stay home, mask mandates were passed in places that had previously resisted them, and New York City’s school district, the largest in the United States, is halting in-person learning from Thursday. The Midwest is currently the hardest-hit region, based on the number of cases per capita. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska are the top five worst-affected US states.

The United States has reported a total of about 11.4 million cases since the start of the pandemic and remains the only country to have reported more than 10 million cases. With nearly 158,000 cases per day, it accounts for one in every 26 infections reported worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.