In July, coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and emergency room visits have inched up. Recent summers have seen a bump in COVID-19. This year's rise looks modest so far.
For COVID patients, ECMO is a last-ditch respiratory treatment in which only about half survive. Yet a new small study suggests many lives would still have been saved if there had been more machines.
People who get infected with omicron are less likely to go to the hospital, go on a ventilator or die. But with the current huge volume of patients, hospitals are still struggling to treat them all.
A beloved pizzeria owner in Brimfield, Mass., had COVID-19 and needed dialysis, but it wasn't available at the hospital where he died. The health system is "breaking down," a hospital CEO says.
Researchers are looking at data from U.S. cases to determine if the variant causes milder disease. Even if the answer is yes, they say, rates of hospitalization could be high during the surge.
As unvaccinated COVID-19 patients fill ICU and acute care beds in Colorado, patients with other ailments are being turned away, and health care workers are reaching a new breaking point.
