In the USA, the number of infections is increasing dramatically due to the delta variant. The intensive care units are now feeling this again. The situation in the southern states is particularly critical.
Intensive care units are full all over Alabama. Meanwhile, the first patients have to wait for free beds again, according to data from the Ministry of Health. “That means that they are in the waiting room, some are in the back of the ambulance,” said Jeannie Gaines, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Hospital Association, describing the “” situation.
The US state is not an isolated case. For a few weeks now, the United States has been experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of infections due to the Delta variant, which is now also reflected in hospital admissions. The number of corona patients is now at a level that is almost four times as high as it was a year ago. And the difficult courses also increase. One in four hospitals in the US now reports more than 95 percent utilization of the intensive care unit – a month ago it was one in five. How quickly the situation is getting serious is currently particularly evident in the southern states.
Critical situation in the southern states
In addition to Alabama, Texas is also struggling with increasingly full intensive care units. The hospitalization rate jumped 40 percent last month, so that the intensive care units in 169 hospitals are now almost fully occupied. According to current data, there are only around 700 ICU beds left in the entire state. To cope with the rush of patients, hospitals in Houston had already started setting up so-called overflow tents in August.
The situation is also critical in the Sunshine State of Florida. Last week, 24 hospitals there reported more needy patients than available beds. And now materials are becoming scarce in some places, warns Dr. Nek Nazary, Hudson ambulance, rolled into one. “We are afraid that we will soon run out of oxygen in the hospital. We have almost no tests and we already have no more space.”
What southern states like Alabama, Florida and Texas have in common is not only their full intensive care units but also the comparatively low vaccination rate. In combination with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, this leads to an increase in patient numbers, experts say. According to the CDC, unvaccinated Americans are ten times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid than vaccinated. “Our main concern is our low vaccination rates,” quoted the New York Times as saying Alabama’s health officer, Dr. Scott Harris. “That’s why we are in the situation we are in. Virtually all of our deaths are from people who are not vaccinated.”
In addition, many Republican-ruled southern states have much more lenient protective measures. After the US celebrated its supposed “independence from the virus” in July, many so-called Red States restrictions, such as the mask requirement, were completely dropped.
Pandemic of the unvaccinated
Since the summer, the vaccination campaign in the United States has stalled because of the many vaccine opponents and skeptics. Especially among conservative Republican supporters, there is great resistance to vaccinations and to wearing masks. Despite the predicament in his state, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis made headlines just this week by telling communities that they require their employees to be vaccinated against corona.
In view of the rising number of infections, US President Joe Biden tightened the vaccination requirements for government employees and companies last week and sharply criticized vaccinators. In the meantime, almost 63 percent of the total population have received at least one vaccination dose, 53 percent are fully vaccinated. This shows the United States in comparison with the G7 countries – Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -.
With the rapid increase in Covid patients, many hospitals in the US are having to improvise by staffing more patients than usual or temporarily setting up intensive care beds in other wards. But experts warn urgently that overloaded intensive care units endanger the standard of care. For non-Covid patients who are admitted with critical illnesses such as heart attacks or strokes, the current workload could therefore have serious health consequences.
Sources: “”, “”, “”, “”, with AFP
