COVID-19: US state New Mexico puts out urgent call for volunteer nurses

Albuquerque: New Mexico health officials say an increase in hospitalisations across the state has prompted them to put out an urgent call for volunteer nurses to help boost the state's medical work force.

The New Mexico Department of Health has called on nurses or anyone with a medical license to volunteer to help because they believe hospitals could soon be overwhelmed with patients. They want recently retired health workers or anyone qualified to sign up for the state's Medical Reserve Corps.

Hospitals in New Mexico and across the nation are seeing increased hospitalizations because of long-postponed surgeries and a surge in COVID-19 patients. The delta variant of the coronavirus is much more contagious than previous strains.

The state Friday reported 798 additional COVID-19 cases and five new deaths. They bring the count of confirmed New Mexico virus cases since the pandemic began in early 2020 to 218,569 and the number of deaths to 4,446.

State officials said their modeling predicts more than 1,000 new cases a day in the next several weeks.