USA’s Health Care System At Its Most Vulnerable Stage

Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : January 14, 2022

It has been more than two years since the heroes of the US, the “health care workers” have bravely fought to provide the best medical care to the infected Americans at the time Covid-19 was sweeping the nation.

USA’s Health Care System At Its Most Vulnerable Stage

However, as the third wave surges health care workers face unprecedented challenges.US is facing a hike in Covid-19 positive cases, even more than that they have faced in the first and second waves. As of Wednesday, the country has counted a record 151,261 Covid cases.

USA's Health Care System At Its Most Vulnerable Stage

The rapid rise in cases has strained the health care system of the country. Around 138,000 Americans are hospitalized at present with an average of around 17,000 Americans getting hospitalized every day. 

Some of the states like Kentucky, Alabama, India, etc. have only left with 10% remaining capacity in their ICUs. Due to this high rise in cases, the health system is facing a shortage of staff, medical workers, and units for the patients.

It has been reported that federal emergency teams like National Guard Personnel have been sent to the vulnerable states to provide additional medical care and facilities to the patients. 

The situation in some states is so devastating that even the patient hospitalized for a Non-Covid problem is at the edge of testing positive, because of the sudden rise of virus-infected people in the hospitals. It has been noted that most of the patients are those who are already being diagnosed with some other disease, especially chronic diseases or those who are unvaccinated.  

The data published by CDS reported that the risk of hospitalization of unvaccinated people is eight times higher than vaccinated people. reports have shown that states like Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan are reporting that more than 60% of Covid-19 hospitalization are by unvaccinated people.

And each of the patients who get hospitalized after testing positive demands & gets a bed, which is creating a shortage of beds in the hospitals.

As the rate of getting infected by the Omicron variant is much higher than the previous variants, the health experts and government is focusing on the need to wear good quality masks. In the past week, the US has noticed an average of 771,580 new Covid-19 cases daily. It is crucial to understand that the Omicron variants are easily transmissible 

Around all this surge of daily records of Covid-19 cases, one thing that is relieving is death rates by omicron variant is much less than the other two variants.

Despite recording an average of 771,580 new cases daily, the average Covid-19 deaths a day is 1,817 and the CDC forecast predicts that the US may face around 62,000 Covid-19 deaths over the next few weeks. Now the health system should aggressively focus on getting people vaccinated 

Around 522 million doses of vaccine have been given to the Americans, where the least vaccinated age group is below 18 years old. Records also reveal that adolescents are less vulnerable to this variant. Those who are fully vaccinated avoid adverts for most of the diseases other than Covid-19. 

Nonetheless, due to the tsunami of Omicron cases, the health care system is at its most vulnerable. Though the research states that the omicron is less harmful than the other variants, the number of positive covid-19 cases is overwhelming to the whole nation. 


Nikki Attkisson

With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.

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