Hits ‘keep coming’: Hospitals struggle as COVID beds fill

By ED WHITE
Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — Many hospitals across the country are struggling to cope with burnout among doctors, nurses and other workers. Already buffeted by a crush of patients from the ongoing surge of the coronavirus’s delta variant, they’re now bracing for the fallout of another highly transmissible mutation. Ohio has become the latest to deploy the National Guard to overwhelmed facilities. Nebraska hospitals may soon need to ration care. Medical officials in Kansas and Missouri are delaying surgeries, turning away transfers and desperately trying to hire traveling nurses. The nationwide daily average of new hospital admissions rose 4.4% from Dec. 8 to 14, compared with the previous seven-day period.