Nursing supply was already at atipping point before the COVID-19 crisis. The US was struggling to satisfy rising demand in the face of adecade-long and acute nursing shortage, which was projected to balloon to 200,000unfilled positions this year.  TheCOVID-19 crisis has exasperated an already overwhelming shortage.

The HWRAis legislation that will increase the supply of nurses and doctors into theUS.  These two occupations are among theshortest supplied occupations by US workers.

The US nursing crisiswill only get worse:

  • Whilethe crisis is abating in some areas of the country, a COVID-19 vaccine is notexpected for 18 months.  Spikesin infection rates will continue until the vaccine is developed.  
  • CDC Director Robert Redfield fears that the virus’s continued assaulton our nation next winter could “actually be even more difficult than the one we justwent through.” Hecontinued, “and when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their headback, they don’t understand what I mean.” 
  • Likewise, during the 1918Spanish Flu pandemic some areas in the country did not reach their peaks untilthe following November.  The secondwave was much more deadly than the first wave.
  • Infection peaks have notyet happened in most of the country. Seven of the eight counties with the most infections are all in New York. While New York appears to have finallyhit its peak, that state is an outlier.
  • Other countries have notyet reached an infection peak.  Asinternational travel comes back on line, it is expected that US infection rateswill re-emerge.
  • Maldistribution ofhealthcare workers means that grave nursing shortages exist in some localitiesand specialties.  For instance, employersof dialysis nurses have seen their national shortage triple in the just eightweeks.  New York area hospitals areoffering pay rates at 2 to 4 times a nurse’s usual salary, inan effort to attract nurses from other areas of the country.
  • Nursing schools areforcing rushedgraduations in an effort to put nurses immediately onto hospital rosters.  States are even waiving licensingrequirements in an effort to get as many healthcare workers to work asquickly as possible.
  • We know based on theexperience of other countries that the coronavirus is a caregivers’ illness. InItaly’s Lombardy region, one of the country’s hardest-hit, as much as 10percent of all nurses and doctors have been infected and placed inquarantine.  Italyis now desperately calling on retried healthcare workers to join theirfight.