The number of COVID-positive patients is spreading like a wildfire across our country. No doubt the extremely contagious delta has played a part in the surge.
Hospitals are stretched beyond intention. Medical personnel and staff are working beyond what is reasonable. Temporary testing sights have popped up all over. Buildings such as the Jacksonville main library are being used as treatment facilities. The sobering sight of temporary morgues is becoming commonplace.
Schools are switching to virtual learning. Businesses are short-staffed. Gatherings canceled. Not one person has been unaffected by this vicious virus in one way or another.
New York and other places are now requiring proof of vaccination to frequent indoor establishments. Mississippi has taken the lead with possible jail time and steep fines for positive patients that break quarantine guidelines. Federal employees and businesses such as Delta Airlines, Citigroup, and Facebook are requiring employees to be vaccinated in order to work.
One thing is for sure, COVID-19 is a nefarious adversary, we are at war with a virus. When our resources are stretched, Americans can always count on our National Guard to answer the call for help.
States including Oregan, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia are calling on the National Guard for reinforcement in the effort to fight COVID.
Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia announced over 100 members of the Georgia National Guard will deploy to hospitals across the state to help with efforts to manage a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Over 100 members of the Georgia National Guard will deploy to 20 hospitals across the state.
"These guardsmen will assist our frontline healthcare workers as they provide quality medical care during the current increase in cases and hospitalizations, and I greatly appreciate General Carden and his team for their willingness to answer the call again in our fight against COVID-19," Kemp said in a statement.
This action by the National Guard is the latest in the state's effort to strengthen its healthcare system as capacity is fast approaching in the midst of the Delta variant of COVID-19. Gov Kemp announced in early August that the state will spend another $125 million to increase staffing at hospitals.
The money will provide for an additional 1,500 health care workers through the beginning of December, Kemp said. The money is in addition to 500 million the state had already allocated and is currently funding 1,300 staff members at 68 hospitals, Kemp said.
Health care providers at Georgia's largest hospital systems warn about the increasing effect the latest surge is having on younger patients, hospital staff, and healthcare capacity. They are desperately imploring people to get vaccinated, wear masks and avoid large groups.
"The unfortunate thing is we don't have the luxury of saying, 'We're full, and we're closed," said Robert Jansen, chief medical officer at Atlanta's Grady Health System. "We're not a hotel, so people will continue to come and our staff will continue to cope and we'll continue to find places to take care of these patients, but it is going to be difficult and it's not going to be easy and it won't make people happy."
Jansen said emergency room staff have been forced to divert ambulances to other hospitals for urgent care as the emergency room is facing a "tsunami" of infected patients. Jansen further commented that the majority of patients they are seeing are unvaccinated.
As of Tuesday, 86% of the state's inpatient beds and 88.6% of Georgia's ICU beds are filled, close to the height of the capacity seen earlier this year, according to data from the Georgia Dept of Public Health.
As of last week, Georgia surpassed the 1 million positive COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started.
