Colombia's 3rd COVID-19 surge infects young adults

Colombia is experiencing its third surge in COVID-19 cases, even as the government ponders easing virus restrictions in the country.

On Thursday, the overflow of patients from the Hospital Universitario de La Samaritana were being tended to in a tent set up on a basketball court next door.

Medical personnel said they were feeling the pressure and were hoping the government could do more to help.

"We feel completely alone because the state speaks to us.  It speaks but we don't see the actions that they have done with respect to the needs we have," said nursing assistant, Fabián Pardo Rodríguez.

Nurses inside the hospital's full intensive care unit said that they were tending to younger patients during this surge of COVID-19 cases.

"During the first surges we had very old patients, more than 60 to 90 but now this surge is of young adults," said Adriana Piraquive, a nurse in the ICU.

Hospital ICU units in Bogotá, Cali y Medellín have reached occupancy levels of 96%, 98.7%, and 97% respectively.

The government, however, announced Thursday that all schools will return to in person teaching as of July and international travelers will not be required to test negative for COVID-19 before gaining entry into the country.

Some 14 million doses of Pfizer, Sinovac, and AstraZeneca vaccines have been given to 10.3 million of Colombia's 50 million citizens.

On Thursday the government registered a record 27,000 new COVID-19 cases in just a 24-hour period.

Colombia has registered a total of 3.4 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and 89,000 deaths as a result of the virus.