US officials worried about capacity as record number of COVID-19 patients hospitalised

As the coronavirus cases continue to surge across the United States, officials worry about the increasing number of patients being hospitalized. According to the reports by the Covid Tracking Project, a total number of 96,039 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized on November 30. As per the tally by the Johns Hopkins University, the US has a total of 13,920,038 cases with 274,332 fatalities. 

Cases surge in the US, situation worsens

As per reports, California Governor Gavin Newsom on November 30 said that if the pace remains the same, the intensive care unit bed capacity in the state might reach 112 per cent by Christmas Eve. In New York, few hospitals were maxed out in the month of March itself. Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the city has started reviewing places to put new hospital beds. He then said, “Everything that can be done is being done”. During mid November, New York City shut the schools in order to prevent the ‘renewed spread of the coronavirus’. Making the announcement, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the  nation's largest public school system will halt in-person learning as more than 1 million children will be attending online classes.

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However, recently, Blasio announced the reopening of public schools for in-person learning from December 7 onwards. Blasio took to his official Twitter account as he said that reopening the school buildings is ‘paramount’ to recovering from the novel coronavirus. He mentioned that the 3-K, Pre-K and grades K-5 will open from December 7 onwards and the District 75 schools at all grade levels will open from December 10.

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In the US, Texas has the maximum number of cases, followed by California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Georgia. The least number of cases are in the Northern Mariana Islands at a number of 106. Earlier, Donald Trump had asserted that cases are up because testing is way up, 'by far the most, and best, in the world'. According to the experts in the country, Trump’s claim was misleading as a report by the New York Times stated that the COVID-19 cases are not driven by adequate testing but they are identified by it. The data explains that the pandemic is worsening in the US.

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