US States create COVID 'war room' as ICU wards fill up amid surging cases

As the deadly coronavirus continues to spread rapidly across the United States, some hospitals in states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida, are reportedly running out of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients. Amid the surging number of cases, several health experts are also concerned that that country is relaxing lockdown measures too fast. 

According to an international media outlet, the Texas Medical Center system in Houston was expected to fill its ICU bed earlier this week, however, the authorities created a COVID ‘war room’ and can handle a 66 per cent surge in additional ICU patients. Houston reportedly was also considering turning part of a local stadium complex into excess hospital capacity, but the local officials said that the facility is not part of their immediate plans. 

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With the rising number of cases, health experts have calculated that the ICU beds and the COVID ‘war room’ are all going to run out of space on July 6 if the current increase in Texas continues. As per reports, experts are also worried about Arizona as the adult intensive care beds in the state were 88 per cent occupied. While speaking to a media outlet, Arizona’s Governor Dough Ducey, however, said that his state has the hospital capacity to handle an influx of patients despite increasing numbers of occupied hospital beds, intensive care beds and ventilators being used. 

Florida reports younger COVID-19 patients 

While Arizona has the ability to reopen shuttered hospitals and open field hospitals in a bid to handle the rising number cases, Florida, on the other hand, is struggling to contain the spread of COVID-19. Although, the patients in Florida are reportedly younger and therefore it is less likely that the state needs critical care. 

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Dr Vincent Hsu, AdventHealth’s infection control officer for Florida during a news conference said that the recently infected patients are younger and they don’t tend to utilise the significant ICU resources or the ventilator resources. Ed Jimenez, chief executive of University of Florida Health’s Shands hospital in Gainesville also reportedly said that he could cut the number of patients in his hospital by a third by stopping elective procedures. 

Meanwhile, several states in the US have been recording a weekly increase in new cases of coronavirus. While some new cases are believed to be linked to better testing, others are probably due to the eased public health restrictions that have allowed people to gather in groups. The United States overall has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, with over 2,467,000 positive cases and 125,039 deaths. Even with an increasing number of cases, the state continues to ease lockdown measures.

(Image: AP) 

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