Скачать или смотреть Louisiana hospital brings in outside help with surge

(2 Aug 2021) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4337935

One of Louisiana's largest hospitals brought in nearly three dozen health care workers from across the country Monday to help treat the ever-increasing number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, as the highly contagious delta variant ravages the state.
Louisiana reported 11,109 new cases since Friday, with 27 more deaths. The number of hospitalized climbed to 1,984 — seven times the number of COVID-19 patients a month ago.
The total number of deaths since the pandemic started in early 2020 surpassed 11,000 in Monday's newest figures.
A Catholic priest and nun blessed the hands of the 33 workers who arrived at Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge — including people from Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland and Texas — to help out for at least two weeks. Another team is prepared to rotate in after that if help is still needed.
"When the resources of state and local facilities are stressed as far as health care response, we come in and can backfill a hospital," said Stephanie Flood Thomas, a resident of Mississippi and spokesperson for the disaster medical assistance team.
"I don't think this is unique to Baton Rouge," she said. "I think it's every single major city in the United States having the same issue right now. It's all over."
Louisiana has had one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the nation and is seeing one of the country's worst COVID-19 spikes per capita. The number of people who have had at least one dose of the vaccine hit 1.99 million in Monday's figures.
The total increased by more than 46,000 since Thursday and pushed the share of the state's population that has started the vaccine sequence to near 43%. More than 1.72 million are fully vaccinated, or just under 37%.
Our Lady of the Lake said it has 155 COVID-19 patients in its facilities, one-third of them in intensive care. The hospital and several others around Louisiana have delayed elective surgeries that require inpatient beds, procedures such as cancer treatments and knee surgeries, because of the coronavirus spike.

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