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Coronavirus: Biden to send military medical personnel to six states

President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Thursday that 1,000 military medical personnel will be sent to six states to help hospitals that are short-staffed deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases linked to the omicron variant.

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The teams would help triage patients arriving at hospitals, freeing up space in emergency rooms, according to officials who spoke with The New York Times.

The teams are to be sent to Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.

The deployments come as the country is averaging more than 700,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day. Reports of new infections are highest in Northeastern states, including New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 62.6% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

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