As the Delta variant continues to ravage the United States, COVID-19 hospitalisation is on the rise. 

The US  Department of Health and Human Services released data on Friday, stating over 100,000 people are hospitalised. That means 1 in every 6 hospital beds nationwide has a COVID patient, according to NBC News data.

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“New admissions of patients with confirmed COVID-19 cases are at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic for all age groups under 50 years old,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nebraska’s  Gov Pete Ricketts declared a hospital staffing emergency on Thursday. This comes as 2,316 people are already dead because of the virus and close to 51% of the population is vaccinated. He said he would issue an executive order waiving licensing requirements to streamline credential authorisations for retired or inactive health care workers

Ricketts added, among several provisions, he would also defer continuing education requirements and suspend statutes regarding new health care providers looking for a license.

“Our best tool against the virus is getting vaccinated. Vaccines work. We’ve got lot of data from here in Nebraska,” Ricketts said. “They’re very effective at making sure you don’t get sick and keeping you out of the hospital and preventing those very severe reactions, including death.”

“Our hospitals are overrun, and we will see significant death moving forward,” he said during a news conference. “More people are in the hospital fighting Covid than ever before.”

Over 2,000 COVID-related deaths were reported in the United States on Thursday — the highest single-day count since early March, according to NBC News data.

“It’s been a big U-turn or going backwards. We were making a lot of progress earlier this year, and this has been a big setback,” said David Grabowski, a health care policy professor at Harvard Medical School. “We need to get as many Americans vaccinated as possible to limit the spread.”