Despite freedoms like maskless concerts, sporting events and travel being enjoyed by millions across the United States, the death toll from coronavirus continues to burden the struggling health industry.
Video shared by a leading epidemiologist shows just how desperate the situation is, with more than 2000 COVID-19 deaths occurring per day for the first time in six months.
Dr Eric Feigl-Ding said the situation is so bad, bodies are piling up in hospitals across the country with health staff walking off the job because they are unable to cope.
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"This is a very troubling number of course and we are still rising in deaths," Dr Feigl-Ding told Today.
Earlier this week, Dr Feigl-Ding shared a video of critical care nurse Emily Ballantyne's harrowing pleas to people to adhere to social distancing and mask rules as morgues struggle to handle the amount of bodies coming through their doors.
"We've been running out of body bags and I have to walk around the hospital finding them and then you have to double bag them because the morgue is full, so you have to put ice on them," Ms Ballantyne says in the confronting video.
Dr Feigl-Ding said a big part of the surge in deaths is because some states are only relying on vaccination and ignoring other safety measures like masks and social distancing.
"The issue is some states have relied on just vaccines and foregone every other mitigation. But we need much more mitigations like masks, mask mandates, and in addition, mass testing, which we're not doing - that's very inaccessible in terms of cost - and we need ventilation indoors but we don't do all of that, unfortunately," he told Today.
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Dr Feigl-Ding said healthcare workers are getting burnt out, with staffing numbers at a 20 per cent decrease since the beginning of the year.
"It's really worrisome. The attrition rates of doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists are just so high," he said.
"Of course, you can add more beds, you can buy more ventilators, but you cannot just add more people if they're quitting en masse. That's often times what doctors and nurses are doing. While their hospitals are full, people around them in their communities are going to bars and restaurants without masks whatsoever, in most of the south.
"There's a huge disconnect. This is why there's so much burn- out and frustration."
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This comes as hospitals and nursing homes across the US are bracing for even more staff shortages as state deadlines draw closer for healthcare workers to get vaccinated.
In New York, California, Rhode Island and Connecticut there are concerns more staff will walk off the job, be suspended or fired if they refuse to get the vaccine.
New York health care workers had until yesterday to get at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, but some hospitals have already started suspending or taking action against those who hold out.
"To those who have not yet made that decision, please do the right thing," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
Close to a dozen US states have vaccination mandates covering health care workers in hospitals, long-term care facilities or both.
While some allow exemptions on medical or religious grounds, those employees are expected to submit to regular COVID-19 testing.
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"How this is going to play out, we don't know. We are concerned about how it will exacerbate an already quite serious staffing problem," California Hospital Association spokesperson Jan Emerson-Shea, told the Associated Press, adding that her organisation "absolutely" supports the state's vaccination requirement.
States which have the vaccine mandate tend to already have higher vaccination rates already with the highest concentration in the north-east and the lowest in the south and mid-west.
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