'Deeply troubling': US health system buckles as COVID cases surge
Medical experts in the US are being forced to treat patients in gift shops, the back of ambulances and hospital corridors, facing oxygen shortages and a flailing vaccine rollout.
Epidemiologist in the US Jessica Malaty Rivera described the worsening crisis as "deeply troubling", with the country's seven-day rolling average continuing to rise.
Read more: Aussie nurse details emotional toll of living through UK's third lockdown
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Epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera says hospitals in the US are overflowing and the vaccine program is failing frontline workers. Today
"We are dealing with a huge surge in cases and hospitalisations are the highest ever," she told Today.
"There are a number of hospitals that don't have enough space."
The surge has also led to a shortage of supplemental oxygen, meaning some patients will go without.
"You don't want to get into any sort of emergency, not just COVID-19, because there just may not be room for you in the hospital from car accidents and other situations."
A nurse works in an ICU room with a COVID-19 positive patient in Roseville, California earlier this month. AP
The country is battling more than two million infections and tragically more than 300,000 lives lost.
Despite vaccination programs underway in the country, delays mean frontline workers continue to risk infection daily.
It comes as hundreds of maskless Trump supporters storm the Capitol as US election results are finalised.
Protesters climb up the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C Nine
"There is a huge logistical challenge when it comes to vaccine rollouts," Ms Malaty Rivera said.
"Unfortunately we didn't fund the last mile of vaccines as well as we should have.
"We funded the development and the trial of the development and the trial of the vaccines but it seems like states are being left to themselves and we are not vaccinating at a pace that is sustainable.
"If we continue to go at this pace it will take years to get everybody vaccinated."
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