Hospitals

ICU beds are running out again Some states are already at maximum capacity. Tina Reed Axios

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More than 77% of America's ICU beds are being used right now as hospitals grapple with a crush of severely ill COVID patients, almost all of them unvaccinated.

Why it matters: Hospitals are once again overwhelmed, and this time, they're also facing staff shortages and burnout that only make matters worse, especially in the face of illness that was largely preventable.

... Nursing shortages have long vexed hospitals. But in the year and a half since its ferocious debut in the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has stretched the nation’s nurses as never before, testing their skills and stamina as desperately ill patients with a poorly understood malady flooded emergency rooms. They remained steadfast amid a calamitous shortage of personal protective equipment; spurred by a sense of duty, they flocked from across the country to the newest hot zones, sometimes working as volunteers. More than 1,200 of them have died from the virus.