Packed with virus patients, Louisiana hospitals await Ida
ABC News
Louisiana hospitals brimming with patients from the latest coronavirus surge are bracing for the added woe of a powerful, oncoming hurricane
NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana hospitals already packed with patients from the latest coronavirus surge are now bracing for a powerful Category 4 hurricane, which is expected to crash ashore Sunday. “Once again we find ourselves dealing with a natural disaster in the midst of a pandemic,” said Jennifer Avegno, the top health official for New Orleans. She called on residents to “prepare for both.” Hurricane Ida is forecast to slam into the state late Sunday along the Louisiana coast. It is expected to be at Category 4 strength at landfall with fierce winds up to 130 mph (209 kph). The storm comes as hospitals and their intensive care units are already filled with patients from the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, this one sparked by the highly contagious delta variant and low vaccination rates statewide. Daily tallies of new cases went from a few hundred a day through much of the spring and early summer to thousands a day by late July. Statewide, hospitalizations had peaked at around 2,000 or less in three previous surges. But that number peaked at more than 3,000 in August. The number reported Saturday was near 2,700, still high enough to stress hospitals.
Cambodia has drafted its first law to crack down on online scam centers that fuel fraud and forced labor
The United States is getting slammed by a stretch of weather extremes, from flooding rain to record heat and late-season snow
Newly revealed incendiary messages in which a Live Nation employee mocks customers as “so stupid” and says the company is “robbing them blind, baby” are gaining public attention during an ongoing antitrust trial
Pro-Iranian hackers are targeting sites in the Middle East and starting to stretch into the United States during the war
After about a month of hearing from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, a jury will listen to closing arguments before heading to the deliberation room to decide whether social media companies sh...
Rural school districts say the Trump administration’s visa changes are jeopardizing a key source of teachers
Cuba is grappling with a fast-growing wave of synthetic drug use that is hitting young people hard
An old NASA science satellite is no more
Stryker, a U.S. medical equipment company, says a cyberattack has disrupted its global networks
Virginia senators are pushing to curtail a 5.3% tax break for data centers
The Iran war is testing America's ability to combat swarms of cheap drones that have become a staple of the modern battlefield after Ukraine and Russia demonstrated how effective they can be
Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is shooting lava fountains up to 1,000 feet, and falling ash and volcanic fragments are forcing temporary closures on the Big Island
Meta is acquiring Moltbook, a social network where AI agents post and chat with each other