Former NBA player on 10th day in ICU
Former Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers player Cedric Ceballos, 52, tweeted that he's on his 10th day in the ICU battling COVID-19.
In 13 states, over 80% of the population has at least one dose, CDC data shows.
The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 655,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.6 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 62.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Former Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers player Cedric Ceballos, 52, tweeted that he's on his 10th day in the ICU battling COVID-19.
About 60 military medical personnel are heading in three, 20-person teams to Arkansas, Alabama and Idaho to help treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients following a request from FEMA, the U.S. Army North said.
The personnel, including doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, were sent to hospitals in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Ozark, Alabama; and Little Rock, Arkansas.
Six teams had previously been dispatched to six other hospitals: three in Louisiana, two in Mississippi and one in Dothan, Alabama.
A Crisis Standards of Care plan has been enacted at 10 hospital systems in Idaho, which is only done as a "last resort," Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement Tuesday.
The hospitals were chosen due to their "severe" shortages in beds and staffing as a result of a "massive increase" in COVID-19 hospitalizations, state officials said.
Crisis Standards of Care "means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect," Jeppesen said. “This is a decision I was fervently hoping to avoid."
"When crisis standards of care are in effect, people who need medical care may experience care that is different from what they expect," state officials said. "For example, patients admitted to the hospital may find that hospital beds are not available or are in repurposed rooms (such as a conference room) or that needed equipment is not available."
Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults have now had at least one vaccine dose, Cyrus Shahpar, the White House's COVID-19 data director, tweeted Tuesday.
Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.