‘Loss of hope’: Idaho hospitals crushed by COVID-19 surge

By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Intensive care beds are full of unvaccinated coronavirus patients at a hospital in Boise, Idaho. Doctors now are bracing to have to conserve scarce resources for those most likely to survive. At St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center, the view in every direction is heartbreaking. In one room, a pregnant woman in her second trimester relies on a breathing machine. Down the hall, a nurse cries as she recounts the waves of anger and grief that fill her days. Idaho has some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, and experts warn new COVID-19 infections could number 30,000 a week by mid-September.