Albuquerque: The New Mexico governor said Thursday that he was considering seeking help from the National Guard to overcome the shortage of Covid-19 staff in public schools, a step that could mark the first in this country.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said additional assistance would ensure that students can remain in class.
He said the state had discussed with the Santa Fe school district, which was forced to plan long distance learning next week.
Lujan Grisham promised to soon release further details.
National guards have been used in other ways during a pandemic, including driving school buses.
President Joe Biden announced Thursday that starting next week, 1,000 military medical personnel would begin to mobilize throughout the country to help overwhelmed medical facilities facilitate the lack of staff because the omicron variant is highly transplanted.
Lujan Grisham confirmed that one of the teams will be placed at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
He said additional resources would “really help” considering that hospitals were the only level of trauma facilities for the country and often took many of the most complicated cases.
“With Level I Trauma, you must stabilize the personnel resources there,” Lujan Grisham said, noting that the hospital had brought hundreds of nurses traveling to help overcome deficiencies.
New Mexico Hospital officials have acknowledged for the past few weeks that the majority of patients who looked treated for diseases and medical emergencies were not related to Covid-19 but the lack of staff continued to provide undue pressure on the state health care system, such as elsewhere.
The omicron variant spreads easier than other Coronavirus strains, and has become dominant in many countries.
It is also easier to infect those who have been vaccinated or previously infected by the previous version of the virus.
However, initial research shows Omicron tends to cause severe illness rather than the previous Delta variant, and vaccination and booster still offer strong protection from serious illness, hospitalization and death.