As states reopen, virus tests hospitals
Some areas struggle to keep up with patients
SILVER SPRING, Md. — From a hospital on the edge of the Navajo Nation to the suburbs of the nation’s capital, front-line medical workers in coronavirus hot spots are struggling to keep up with a crushing load of patients while lockdown restrictions are lifting in many other parts of the United States.
Governors are starting to slowly reopen some segments of their local economies, pointing to evidence that COVID-19 deaths and new hospitalizations are peaking or starting to recede in their states.
While many state and local officials see modest signs of progress in the pandemic fight, coronavirus outbreaks are testing public health networks in pockets of the U.S.
Among them is a suburb of Washington, D.C. The head of a hospital system in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, a majority black community bordering the city, said the area’s intensive care units “are bursting at the seams.”
Meanwhile, a civil rights group’s lawsuit claimed the county’s jail failed to stop an “uncontrolled” coronavirus outbreak and isolated infected prisoners in cells with walls covered in feces, mucus and blood.
“I would say we are the epicenter of the epicenter,” said Dr. Joseph Wright, interim CEO of University of Maryland Capital Region Health.
Meanwhile, the hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, is on the front lines of a grinding outbreak on the Navajo Nation that recently prompted a 10day lockdown with police setting up roadblocks to discourage non-emergency shopping.
Medical workers last week staged a protest over inadequate staffing and to urge the CEO of Rehoboth Mckinley Christian Hospital to resign.
The departure last week of the hospital’s lung specialist has limited its ability to treat COVID-19 patients, as people with acute respiratory symptoms are transported to Albuquerque some two hours away.
“My staff is physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted and they are suffering from moral injury,” chief nursing officer Felicia Adams said.
Many states are lifting lockdowns, leading to tentative resumptions of commerce, but there are frustrations among some people still living under strong restrictions.
In Michigan, hundreds of people angry over Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order rallied in heavy rain outside the state Capitol on Thursday, while about 500 people protested outside the residence of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
But elsewhere, Richmond, Virginia, opted out of the state’s gradual reopening for now due to an increase in cases and its large minority population, and Kansas’ governor delayed reopening bars and bowling alleys.
In other developments:
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said everyone must carry face coverings when they go outdoors and wear them when they are around people from outside their households.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced the first stage of a reopening plan beginning Friday evening, but Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said Thursday that a local order would extend through June 1.
About a dozen weightlifters wearing face coverings did sets in front of mirrors at a Southern California gym that was reopened by owner Lou Uridel despite his arrest last weekend for violating local coronavirus health orders that closed gyms.
The big budget musical “Frozen” will not reopen when Broadway theaters restart, marking the first time an established show has been felled by the coronavirus pandemic.