On January 4, the US recorded more than 21 million nCoV infections and more than 360,000 deaths.
Even when not infected with nCoV, patients are still more or less affected by the pandemic.
`When a patient has a heart attack or stroke, they want to be cared for by an intensive care unit nurse,` said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer at the University of Southern California Los Angeles Medical Center.
Manpower shortages have occurred several months ago in many hospitals in the US.
`The health system will collapse if we suffer another outbreak,` Spellberg said. `And we, the hospital workers, cannot prevent it. We can only endure it.
Medical staff outside the treatment room of a Covid-19 patient on a ventilator at a hospital in Apple Valley, California, December 2020.
California health officials said hospitals are having to receive a large number of Covid-19 patients.
Design and construction experts from the US Army Corps of Engineers were dispatched to Los Angeles to evaluate and upgrade oxygen supply systems if needed at many hospitals.
Dr. Stephen Liu, medical director of emergency services at White Memorial Medical Center, explained that the average patient requires 2 to 6 liters of oxygen per minute.
Balten said: `Mission Community Hospital, Panorama City, was forced to convert the administrative office into a treatment area for Covid-19 patients. Even on another floor, they had to take care of patients in the rest rooms.`
According to predictions by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in less than 11 months, more than 349,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19 and in the next month, this number may increase by another 115,000 people.
After holidays such as Christmas and New Year, the number of infections increases sharply, especially in Arkansas, Texas, Georgia and New York.
Currently, the pace of Covid-19 vaccination is slower than expected.
In the UK, the interval between two injections is up to 12 weeks.
However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert, said: `I do not support this approach. We need to follow the science and data that Pfizer and Moderna have given, there is no data