A patient suffering from COVID-19 is treated at the intensive care unit at Erasme Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, March 30, 2020.
(Photo : REUTERS/Yves Herman)

The global pandemic coronavirus has continuously threatened not only the nation but also the frontliners and support staff battling the rising number of cases in the country. Health experts now predict hospitals will run out of trained personnel to operate life-saving ventilators. 

A former director of the US Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) said the country does not have enough specially trained respiratory therapists to run thousands of complex breathing machines. 

He said nurses should be given the required training to compromise for the lack of staff---a problem that has persisted for more than 15 years and serves as one of the biggest chokepoints in an outbreak. 

In a bid to curb the collapse of the country's health care system, multiple state regulators have recruited retired specialists to come in and serve. They have also begun bringing medical students up to speed in a race to push out more frontliners in the field. 

Other state officials allowed the use of a single ventilator to support two patients. The strategy, though condemned by health experts, is used in other countries such as Italy and China. 

The state of New York sees hospitals converting anesthesia machines to ventilators to extend the reach of respiratory specialists.

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The United States hosts the biggest battle against the coronavirus in the world. The Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci said the state has successfully contained at least sixty percent of all the confirmed cases in the nation, as of last week.

According to a projection by an infectious disease specialist, as many as 960,000 COVID-19 patients will require the use of ventilators to sustain breathing. 

The shortage of specialized personnel could limit the number of patients on ventilators by hundreds of thousands.  

Health experts are uncertain whether a sudden surge of cases will impair the entire nation or whether different states will experience waves of cases over time. 

Authorities say a peak in cases may lead to the disruption of the health care system as the medical workforce is now strained more than ever. 

Healthcare workers have been reporting shortages including personal protective equipment which keeps them safe from the virus. Doctors and nurses resorted to reusing face masks and other equipment in hopes it would keep them safe from the virus. 

The Trump administration recently had a commercial aircraft airlift thousands of medical supplies including personal protective equipment procured from China. The PPEs will be distributed to hospitals across the nation. 

The government is also establishing contact with other medical gear manufacturers in Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, and Honduras to address the gear shortages hitting hospitals and care facilities in the country. 

Governors, mayors, and lawmakers have reportedly been arranging their own shipments of medical products from China to avoid the risk of losing out the necessary medical products to other foreign buyers. 

Wealthy individuals and charitable organizations have also stepped forward to help get goods into the country using private connections with China. 

Li Lu, the chairman of Himalaya Capital Management, has been arranging for a large shipment of masks and ventilators from the Asian country in order to help health care workers in the invisible war against COVID-19. 

"China has the capacity now," Lu said, "and the US has a huge need. We've got to fight together."