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New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

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41–50 of 111 posts

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virus spread shouldn’t be a huge issue if you only put confirmed cases on the ship.

Who treats them on the ship? It certainly wouldn't be healthy medical professionals.

We'll fairly rapidly have a group of infected-but-functional and (a bit later) recovered medical professionals.

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#42
Gov. Cuomo a couple days ago asked cities in the NY state to identify where they could fit improvised beds. The quota for NYC was 5,000. Seems like hotels are an obvious choice, given their optimal layout and how empty they are

https://cornellsun.com/2020/03/16/cuomo-proposes-converting-...

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but not to be pedant, but state governments should have some sort of emergency provisions as well. Some people forget we're the United States for a reason. Each state is actually it's own "functional" government. Maybe we should start training state troopers as well for some of these possibilities.

I look at it the other way. Why does it all have to be done at a state level? Because that's how things have always been? Meh. There are very clear efficiencies to be gained by coordinating response to events like this at a national level, and it's not like individual states are about to declare independence. Over time the structure of the US could end up being more of a weakness than a strength. It's not as if the v…

Because the nature of response varies so much in between different locations and local expertise is often best poised to deal with local problems. Federal resources are better for things like logistics (ship 500,000 masks to where they're needed), but New York probably knows how to get aid to New York best.

Ignoring local expertise to blindly chase efficiency of large-scale enterprise is perilous.

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#44
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but not to be pedant, but state governments should have some sort of emergency provisions as well. Some people forget we're the United States for a reason. Each state is actually it's own "functional" government. Maybe we should start training state troopers as well for some of these possibilities.

I look at it the other way. Why does it all have to be done at a state level? Because that's how things have always been? Meh. There are very clear efficiencies to be gained by coordinating response to events like this at a national level, and it's not like individual states are about to declare independence. Over time the structure of the US could end up being more of a weakness than a strength. It's not as if the v…

Pretty much the entire root cause of the US’s weak response to the pandemic can be attributed to the poor coordination of the CDC and the FDA. That the state and local governments were able to step up and do their thing will probably be what ends up saving us.

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#45
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at it the other way. Why does it all have to be done at a state level? Because that's how things have always been? Meh. There are very clear efficiencies to be gained by coordinating response to events like this at a national level, and it's not like individual states are about to declare independence. Over time the structure of the US could end up being more of a weakness than a strength. It's not as if the v…

Because the nature of response varies so much in between different locations and local expertise is often best poised to deal with local problems. Federal resources are better for things like logistics (ship 500,000 masks to where they're needed), but New York probably knows how to get aid to New York best. Ignoring local expertise to blindly chase efficiency of large-scale enterprise is perilous.

> Because the nature of response varies so much in between different locations and local expertise is often best poised to deal with local problems.

Is that really true here? I can certainly see an urban vs rural divide, but beyond that I can’t see what makes individual states all that different.

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#46

Madrid, Spain just announced 40 hospitals will be turned to hospital rooms. 9,000 beds.

> hospitals will be turned to hospital rooms There is a logical mistake in this sentence.

A fun fact: "hospital", "hostel", and "hotel" all come from the same Latin root (brought into French and then English at different times https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hospital#Etymology).

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#47
In Ohio they had the head of the state association of hospitals float the idea at a press conference. He seemed to talking about the possibility taking floors of existing hotels and using them for non COVID19 patients that didn't require super urgent care so that wouldn't be in danger of getting infected if/when the hospitals begin to fill up with people dealing with COVID19. They also asked doctors, dentists and vets to not perform and non-essential operations so we could preserve the stockpile if protective gear. I hope other states take more of the actions that Ohio has been doing and find it insane that 3 states held in person primaries during a pandemic whereas Ohio delayed it as a public health emergency and Georgia did something similar a week or so ago. Public health matters.

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#48
post #12
post #4

Cruise ships aren't bad options either. I hear they're a bit underutilized

I like the spirit of the idea (keeping them away from others), but other than that, it's not a wise idea: >Keeping all the passengers on board instead of letting them disembark on land is a strategy that can backfire, however, according to experts, because the ventilation systems and close quarters of cruise ships make them ideal places for illness to jump from one person to the next. >“They’re not designed as quaran…

Those issues assumed a full ship, like the Diamond Princess situation. But, if all of the "passengers" were patients, and you only used balcony rooms (to have extra airflow available), and only used half of even those, would that mitigate the issue?

Are there other options to temporarily retrofit the ventilation system? How much worse is a cruise ship ventilation system from an old hotel's HVAC? Which is harder to retrofit?

Re: New York City Weighs Turning Hotels into Hospitals

#50
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but not to be pedant, but state governments should have some sort of emergency provisions as well. Some people forget we're the United States for a reason. Each state is actually it's own "functional" government. Maybe we should start training state troopers as well for some of these possibilities.

I look at it the other way. Why does it all have to be done at a state level? Because that's how things have always been? Meh. There are very clear efficiencies to be gained by coordinating response to events like this at a national level, and it's not like individual states are about to declare independence. Over time the structure of the US could end up being more of a weakness than a strength. It's not as if the v…

Because a response would look different in the everglades in florida, densely populated NYC, LA, snow covered Wisconsin, sparse Wyoming and Alaska and the Rocky Mountains ...

And federal solutions tend to gravitate to one size fits all. Or you must have 50 teams on federal payroll to tailor solution for each state - in which case they will probably duplicate already existing organizations.

There is a role for the federal government - to make sure that scarce resources are procured and distributed, to fund R&D, to disseminate knowledge and know how.

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