COVID-Positive Nurses Allowed to Keep Working in Virus-Swamped North Dakota
DESPERATION
Hospitals are at 100 percent capacity and the state just had its deadliest day of the pandemic.
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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has amended a statewide health order to allow nurses and other health-care workers with COVID-19 to keep working amid an overwhelming surge of coronavirus cases. Hospitals are at 100 percent capacity and a major staff shortage is making it worse. Hospital administrators reportedly asked Burgum to take the extraordinary step of allowing staff with asymptomatic cases to keep working in hospitals’ COVID-19 units. Burgum outlined several other initiatives to stem the crisis like urgently hiring EMTs and paramedics to run testing sites, in order to free up nurses to work in overrun hospitals instead. On Tuesday, health officials said 30 residents died in the preceding 24 hours—the state’s deadliest day of the pandemic. Non-coronavirus hospital admissions are also rising, likely due to people deferring health-care earlier in the pandemic.
