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Security professionals aid healthcare workers during US Omicron surge

By Madeline Lauver

Members of the National Guard in multiple U.S. states have been deployed to hospitals around the country as COVID-19 cases spike to record-breaking levels.

With over 800,000 new cases reported on January 5, 2022, U.S. hospitals are seeing the effects of the Omicron surge with filling emergency rooms and a shortage of staff. The CDC recently released new quarantine parameters for healthcare workers in an effort to resolve the shortage — and security professionals are stepping in as well.

National guard members in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and other states have assisted healthcare workers in hospitals during the surge. According to Major Joe Travato, Wisconsin National Guard citizen-soldiers and citizen-airmen have helped manage vaccine supply and COVID-19 testing efforts.

A number of those 500 troops have recently begun working as nursing assistants in Wisconsin mental health facilities as well. These National Guard members have completed training in how to best assist healthcare professionals and are currently working on a supervised nursing assistant training program with nurses at each location.

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Madeline Lauver is a former Editor in Chief at Security magazine. Within her role at Security, Lauver focused on news articles, web exclusives, features and several departments for Security’s monthly digital edition, as well as managing social media and multimedia content.