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The country. cnn s adrienne broaddus has more on this. i ve seen more tears shed on this unit and of my own ever, and i ve been here for 26 years. reporter: she and her nurses on the covid wing at rush university medical center live with pandemic trauma. my coworkers and i have been through something and there s things that only we know about. it would be hard to explain everything to my family that i need to. the ptsd, that s the other thing we re not talking about. there s a huge amount of ptsd. reporter: since the pandemic started, more than 3,800 people have been sent to the hospital with covid at rush. i couldn t tell patients that you re going to get better, because at that point early on we didn t know who was going to get better. reporter: across the country, staffing is a challenge. 92% of more than 6,500 critical care nurses say the pandemic depleted nurses. about 66% have considered ....
Executive order last month to prevent that from happening. several counties are pushing back saying it is a matter of protecting the safety of children and staff. in mississippi, hospital systems are struggling to keep up with a flood of new covid cases. adrienne broaddus is in jackson where one hospital has been forced to build a field hospital in its parking garage to keep up with the demand for beds. reporter: university of mississippi medical center is making history again. but this isn t the type of history it wanted to make. the lower level of the outside parking garage behind me has been transformed into a covid wing. in the spaces you would normally see parked cars, there are hospital beds. at least 20. and this is where a medical team sent through the u.s. department of health and human services will treat covid-19 patients who need minimal care. on friday the state reported more than 5,000 new covid cases. ....
So teams are preparing to treat covid patients in this garage. our elwyn lopez getting a look inside. this is normally just a garage, now part of it is turning into a makeshift hospital. they re adding 20 beds in here. this is the second time they ve had to do this during the pandemic. the state s hospital system on the verge of collapse. reporter: but even with the crisis in mississippi, the governor insisting there will be no lockdowns or mandates. and more children are filling hospital beds than ever before. in alabama, seventh grader brody barnett was hospitalized too. his mom described the horror inside the hospital. you re on the covid wing and you look in the glass doors and there are kids of all ages and they all look just like brody, struggling to breathe and everyone is in a hazmat suit. reporter: david, back here in corpus christi, we are at a site where some covid patients who are experiencing mild symptoms are getting regeneron therapy. they are receiving an tip bo ....
Is in effect, but he s really focusing on those who are unvaccinated. for the entire state, the majority of the people who have been hospitalized, 90% are unvaccinated. it s the same numbers here at-baton rouj general hospital. the unvaccinated filling up the icus, filling up the covid wing. we know there are grassroots efforts, vaccine canvassers will be knocking on door asking them if they re vaccinated, teaching them about the vaccine and signing them up for the shot. let s get some more on all of us joining us now michael osterholm, the director for infectious disease research. half the u.s. population, more than 165 million people are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. this benchmark comes as the cdc director is warning we re at a crossroads right now. we could either control this virus within a few weeks or we ....