Hospital beds full, National Guard deployed amid crushing delta wave

Enlarge / A nurse in the ICU looks into a COVID patient's room filled with flowers and balloons at CentraCare St. Cloud Hospital in St. Cloud, Minn., on Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021. (credit: Getty | The Washington Post)

The wave of COVID-19 driven by the hypertransmissible delta variant continues to grow throughout the US, with hospitals in Northeastern and Midwestern states now being crushed by a deluge of patients.

One of Pennsylvania's largest health systems, Geisinger, announced Wednesday that it was overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases among unvaccinated patients and running at 110 percent. Geisinger CEO Jaewon Ryu told the Associated Press that he expects the situation to worsen in the coming weeks as case counts and test positivity numbers continue to rise in the state.

Meanwhile, New York and Maine have deployed members of the National Guard to their health systems overburdened by COVID-19 cases, which are largely in people who are not fully vaccinated.

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