Ambulances rush to hospitals in Kansas, but then they suddenly change direction because they are full. New York City’s employee shortage, many sick with COVID-19, is holding up services like garbage collection and the subway. The lines of firefighters and emergency services are reduced. Authorities had to close security checkpoints at Phoenix’s largest airport terminal and schools across the country are struggling to find teachers for their classrooms.
The current explosion of coronavirus infections in the United States caused by the omicron variant is causing a collapse of all kinds of basic services, from healthcare to public transportation to garbage collection. It is the latest illustration of how the coronavirus continues to disrupt lives more than two years following the pandemic began.
“I think this really reminds everyone of when COVID-19 first appeared and there were very big problems in every part of our normal lives,” said Tom Cotter, director of emergency responses for Project HOPE, a global organization of non-profit health. “And the unfortunate reality is that there is no way to predict what will happen, until we raise our global vaccination numbers.”
Emergency services, hospitals and government agencies have used an “everyone who can work” approach to protect citizens, but they are concerned regarding how long they can stay that way.
In Johnson County, Kansas, paramedics are working 80 hours a week. Ambulances have often been forced to alter their course when the hospitals they go to tell them they are overwhelmed, confusing already anxious family members driving behind them. When ambulances arrive at hospitals, some of their emergency patients end up in waiting rooms because there are no more beds.
In New York City, authorities have had to delay or reduce garbage collection and subway services due to the virus. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said a fifth of the metro’s operators and drivers – 1,300 people – have been absent in recent days. Almost a quarter of the workers in the Health Department have also been absent.
The omicron variant spreads faster than others of the coronavirus and has become dominant in many countries. In addition, it more easily infects those already vaccinated or those who have previously been infected by other variants of the virus. However, more recent studies indicate that it tends to cause fewer severe symptoms than the delta variant and that the booster dose offers good protection once morest severe symptoms and hospitalization.
Still, its easy transferability has caused cases to skyrocket in the United States, affecting businesses, government offices, and utilities alike.
In downtown Boise, Idaho, people lined up in front of a pharmacy on Friday morning before it opened. Before long, the line stretched across the entire interior of the drugstore. Pharmacies have been hit by staff shortages, either because employees are sick or because they have quit.
The pharmaceutical technician Anecia Mascorro said that before the pandemic, the Sav-On Pharmacy where she works always had the prescriptions ready for the next day. Now, he says, it takes much longer to complete the hundreds of orders that are coming in.
“The lawsuit is crazy. Not everyone gets their scripts fast enough, so they transfer the work to us, ”Mascorro said.
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