Mississippi's latest COVID surge sees FOUR unvaccinated pregnant women die of virus in a week in America's least inoculated state, as number of daily deaths nationwide rises to the highest level in six months

Doctors in America's least vaccinated state have shared their frustration after it was hit by yet another COVID spiral, which saw four unvaccinated pregnant women killed by the virus in just a week.

Just 38 per cent of the three million people who live in Mississippi are now fully-vaccinated, far below the national average of 52.7 per cent.

And now doctors and nurses battling the virus in Mississippi have shared harrowing tales from the frontline, in a bid to shine a light on the dangers of anti-vaccine propaganda, as well as to try and encourage hold-outs in their home state to get the shot.

State health officer Dr Thomas Dobbs said one hospital in the state saw four pregnant women who hadn't had the shot killed by the virus.

Three of those women underwent emergency cesarean sections to try and save their babies, with those infants born severely premature.

The women's identities have not been released, and the hospital that has been treating them has not been identified.

Dr Dobbs said: 'This is the reality that we´re looking at and, again, none of these individuals were vaccinated.' 

A temporary tent is erected at the University of Mississippi Medical Center's parking garage, amid yet another spike in COVID which has driven hospitalizations to record levels 

Patients receive treatment in this eerie temporary ward - with Mississippi's 38 per cent vaccination rate blamed for the state's latest COVID surge 

Meanwhile, the state's only level one trauma care center - the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson - has been inundated with patients, with staff there saying they're dealing with a 'logjam' of seriously-ill COVID sufferers. 

It has accepted help from charity group Samaritan's Purse, which has set up an overflow treatment tent in a parking lot. 

Samaritan's Purse nurses have printed scripture and stuck it to the front of their uniforms to read to patients, many of whom are too ill to speak. 

Emergency department executive vice chair Dr Risa Moriarty said visitors coming to the hospital are still trying to enter without masks.

She said many have belatedly conceded that they should have been vaccinated, although some others still continue to share conspiracy theories about COVID.

Dr Thomas Dobbs says four pregnant women who hadn't been vaccinated died of COVID in a single week, with three of their children delivered by C-section as a result 

Dr Risa Moriarty, who helps run UMMC's emergency unit, says she and her staff are tired and frustrated by the latest surge, which they say a higher vaccine update could have blunted 

Moriarty said:  'There´s no point in being judgmental in that situation. There´s no point in telling them, "You should have gotten the vaccine or you wouldn´t be here". 

'We don´t do that. We try not to preach and lecture them. Some of them are so sick they can barely even speak to us.' 

Moriarty and others say they are 'angry and exhausted' by the latest COVID surge, which has seen an average of close to 2,750 new infections diagnosed each day over the last week. 

She said: 'Most of us still have enough emotional reserve to be compassionate, but you leave work at the end of the day just exhausted by the effort it takes to drug that compassion up for people who are not taking care of themselves and the people around them.'

And during a recent news conference, UMMC´s head, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, fought back tears as she described the toll on healthcare workers.

'We as a state, as a collective, have failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat,' Woodward said.

This chart shows how infections, ICU admissions and ventilator patients have all spiked to record levels in Mississippi in recent weeks. Three quarters of all COVID patients in the state end up in hospital 

Mississippi COVID deaths have rocketed to more than 50 a day in recent weeks, although they haven't hit the heights of the winter 2020 peak 

COVID cases have spiked to record levels, with more than 5,000 a day recorded earlier this summer 

Mississippi's latest COVID spike is worse than the previous largest surge earlier this year, when Mississippi was recording an average of just under 2,400 new infections a day at the height of its second wave in January.  

While COVID cases have risen across the US, higher vaccination rates in other states have meant that hospitalization rates and death rates have stayed relatively low, with the shots offering considerable protection from the virus's most serious side effects.

But ICU admissions in Mississippi have also rocketed to 486 in August, with up to 342 people on a ventilator at any one time, according to state data. 

That far exceeds the 360 in intensive care and 230 on ventilators during the peak of the previous wave in January.

Around 7.5 per cent of all people diagnosed with COVID in Mississippi are in hospital, with daily deaths creeping as high as 82, also beating the previous spike recorded during winter 2020. 

As the virus surges, hospital officials are begging residents to get vaccinated. UMMC announced in July that it will mandate its 10,000 employees and 3,000 students be vaccinated, or wear a N95 mask on campus. By the end of August, leaders revised that policy, vaccination is the only option.

Moriarity said this surge has taken a toll on morale more than previous peaks of the virus. Her team thought in May and June that despite Mississippi´s low vaccination rate, there was an end in sight. The hospital´s ICUs were empty and they had few COVID patients. Then cases surged with the delta variant of the virus, swamping the hospital.

Numbers of total coronavirus hospitalizations in Mississippi have dipped slightly, with just under 1,450 people hospitalized for coronavirus on September 1, compared with around 1,670 on August 19. But they are still higher than numbers during previous surges of the virus.

In the medical center´s children´s hospital, emergency room nurse Anne Sinclair said she is tired of the constant misinformation she hears, namely that children can´t get very ill from COVID.

'I´ve seen children die in my unit of COVID, complications of COVID, and that´s just not something you can ever forget,' she said.

'It´s very sobering,' continued Sinclair, who is the parent of a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old and worries for their safety. 'I just wish people could look past the politics and think about their families and their children.'

To deal with overflow COVID patients, Christian relief charity Samaritan´s Purse set up an emergency field hospital in the parking garage of UMMC´s children´s hospital. 

The hospital is treating an average of 15 patients a day, with the capacity for seven ICU patients.

Nurse Kelly Sites, who has also treated COVID patients in hotspots like California and Italy, said it´s heartwrenching to know that some of the severe cases could have been prevented with the vaccine. Many patients are so sick they can´t talk. Nurses walk around with scripture verses on duct tape on their scrubs and will recite them to their patients.

Samaritan's Purse is an international disaster relief organization with missions spanning multiple continents. Sites has responded to 20 missions, in Haiti, the Philippines, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other places.

'To respond to the United States is quite surreal for us,' she said. 'It´s a challenge because usually, home is stable. And so when we deploy, we´re just going to the disaster. This is the first time where home is a disaster.'

Across the US, Delta continues to drive a spike in infections, although the number of new diagnoses appears to have peaked, sparking hopes that the latest wave of the virus could soon be in retreat. 

Figures from Johns Hopkins University show that the United States recorded 56,170 new cases on Saturday, and 527 new deaths.

The seven day rolling average of new cases sits at 163,416, while an average of 1,550 people have died of COVID each day for the last seven days. 

Seven-day rolling average cases have dropped slightly from the 167,283 recorded on September 1, with average daily deaths at their highest since mid-March, when the United States' opened up its COVID vaccination rollout to most adults.