US health system struggling as cases shoot up, with over 100 dead

A man walks through the Penn Quarter of Columbia, which is mostly empty of vehicle traffic and pedestrians due to the coronavirus outbreak on March 17, 2020. PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON - Sometime over the weekend, the trickle of patients started becoming a stream.

And now, starting days ago in Washington State but increasingly in hospitals across the country, ill employees are being asked to come back to work. N95 masks are being reused. Some hospitals are on their last ventilators.

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