a Florida The hospital has been forced to close its maternity unit and ask expectant mothers to give birth elsewhere after a staff shortage due to the state’s record-breaking COVID surge.
Holy Cross Health Hospital in Fort Lauderdale announced on Sunday afternoon that it was closing its labor and delivery delivery unit ‘until further notice’ due to ‘critical staffing levels’.
This means that pregnant women who had planned to give birth there and are almost on their due dates will no longer have to go through the stress of finding a new hospital.
However, the hospital said in a statement that its neonatal intensive care and postpartum units would remain open.
Holy Cross spokeswoman Christine Walker said in an interview with NBC Miami, ‘People are sick because of the increase in Kovid cases. She spoke after Florida recorded 85,000 COVID cases on Saturday and Sunday and nearly 50,000 new infections on Monday.
Holy Cross Health Hospital (pictured) said in a statement issued on Sunday that it is closing its labor and delivery delivery unit ‘until further notice’ due to staff shortage.
The hospital did not mention a reopening date for its labor and delivery unit. Its Emergency Services Division was also closed on 29 December for similar reasons.
The Omicron version is once again spreading throughout southern Florida, where many first responders are affected by the crisis, as are the rest of the United States.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday, hospitalizations in Florida reached 5,425. Since Saturday, the number is more than 210 people.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, addressed the situation in the region during an interview with CNN’s State of the Union.
“We already know that fire departments report from police departments in different cities that 10, 20, 25 and sometimes 30 percent of people get sick,” he said.
The hospital recently faced a staffing crisis ahead of the new year ahead of Sunday’s announcement
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday, hospitalizations in Florida reached 5,425. More than 210 people since Saturday. Pictured: A treatment room at Holy Cross’ Health Labor and Delivery Unit in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The Omicron variant is the most prominent coronavirus variant in the US since it eclipsed the delta variant last month, less than three weeks after the country’s first Omicron infection was confirmed.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of December 17, more than 73 percent of the new cases reported in the country have been found to be related to the Omicron variant.
Florida is one of the states with the worst infection rate in the US over the past week. As of Monday night, the Sunshine State has seen an increase of 302,179 counts over the past seven days. This represents 49,444 new cases on the seven-day moving average.
Only two US territories: the US Virgin Islands, which saw a 2,142 percent increase, and Puerto Rico, a 1,355 percent increase over the past two weeks, have a higher infection rate than Florida in the past two weeks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported more than 75,900 new COVID cases in Florida on Friday, a one-day record for the number of new cases in the Sunshine State.
And between December 24 and December 30, the state saw a total of 298,455 new COVID cases, with more than a quarter of the state’s residents testing positive for the virus. But during that time only 32 deaths were reported in the state.
More hospitals across the state have simultaneously reported staffing shortfalls in the past week, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, and are among the many services affected by labor shortages.
Researchers found that Florida could see a nurse shortage of close to 60,000 by 2035. In the report, commissioned by the Florida Hospital Association and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida Projects, the state will be short of 37,400 registered nurses (RNs) and 21,700 licensed practical nurses. (LPN) needs to take care of all its residents.
Florida is one of the worst-hit states in the US with the highest percentage of COVID-infected residents, with 49,444 people testing positive as of Monday.
With all this happening, Governor Ron DeSantis is calling for more treatments for the virus. On Monday, he publicly petitioned the Biden administration to allow states to buy more monoclonal antibody treatments amid a nationwide shortage.
“Today, Governor Ron DeSantis called on the Biden administration to release strides on life-saving monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 through its allocation system and to increase supplies delivered to Florida or allow states to purchase antibodies directly,” issued by his office. in a statement.
“Prior to the federal government’s takeover of the monoclonal market, Florida successfully delivered approximately 30,000 doses per week when we managed our supply,” DeSantis said in a statement Monday. ‘The state has more than $800 million available to quickly implement monoclonal antibody therapies across the state, and the only thing stopping us is an insufficient supply of treatments from the federal government.’
After failing to ‘shut down the virus’, the Biden administration has come to the realization that there is no federal solution to COVID-19, and releasing the federal hold on these effective treatments is a good first step, he said. .
The country recorded its highest seven-day average of cases on January 2, with 413,304 people testing positive for the virus in the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
At the same time, there were 1,350 new deaths on an average of seven days. That number is well below the seven-day average recorded at the peak of winter in January 2021, where the US averaged about 3,300 deaths.
The Omicron variant has spread rapidly across the United States since it was first detected last month.
As of Monday, the United States saw 254,091 new cases and a weekly average of 254,091 new cases
Large states including California, Texas, Florida and New York have seen its infection rates worsen through the latest surge of the Omicron version of the coronavirus.
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