With hospitals in some areas hitting maximum capacity and health care workers overwhelmed as a new wave of coronavirus sweeps the nation, President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered federal medical teams to be deployed to hospitals in five states, USA Today reports.
Medical teams will go to hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico to help alleviate the overworked hospital workers, who have been dealing with record levels of infections despite the availability of multiple vaccines that significantly reduce the impact of the virus.
An analysis by USA Today of data from the Department of Health and Human Services found that one in five US hospitals have reported “critical staff shortages.”