US: Austin, Texas sounded alarmed on Sunday after it reported a shortage of beds for treating the prodigious COVID-19 infections.
Taking to its micro blogging site, Austin Emergency management issued an alert to let residents of Texas capital city know that the local state of the pandemic is “dire.” As per the state health data, only 6 ICU beds and 313 ventilators are available in a city with the population of 2.4 million.
“The situation is critical,” Public Health Medical Director Desmar Walkes said in a statement Saturday, warning of a “catastrophe” as it sent the notification to residents at noon through text messages, emails and phone calls. “Our hospitals are severely stressed and there is little we can do to alleviate their burden with the surging cases.”
A seven-day average analysis revealed the breach in the safe level as hospital admissions scored above 600% in the last month and the ICU occupancy jumped to 570%.
Cases are rising even as the U.S. pace of vaccination started to tick up after months of decline. Nationwide, the state has recorded more than 100,000 cases a day on average, reflecting the COVID-19 statistics recorded in winter.
Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the U.S.flagged Texas and Florida as the two states reporting highly disproportionate cases.
As per the figure reported to WHO, 35,229,302 cases have been detected in the USA with 610,180 deaths. On Friday, Texas alone reported 23,096 which spiked after the addition of 11,072 on Saturday.