Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals • Hacker News Board

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#31

Post by Allower » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #16

The 2017-2018 flu season also overwhelmed US hospitals: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.ht... My point isn't that we should take Coronavirus any less seriously this year. Healthcare workers have no vaccine for it. It's on top of the flu. Etc. My point is that we should take the flu more seriously every year. Everyone gets their…

Do you even know the average effectiveness of flu shots on any given year? Get your head out of your ass, COVID-19 is NOT COMPARABLE TO THE FLU.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#32

Post by wool_gather » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #7

brenden2 wrote: post #3

While I'm not questioning the truth of these accounts, what annoys me about all these reports is that they seem to be anecdotes rather than hard data. It's really difficult to understand what's actually going on because the data sucks. It's hard to assess just how full hospitals are, which hospitals are at capacity, how many patients are actually testing positive vs. showing up at the hospital because they feel a bit…

It's kinda hard to get "hard data" in the middle of a shitshow. This comment sounds like someone watching a school shooting live and asking "yeah but what's the % of kids that got shot". Show some humanity dude.

There's no reason that state health departments shouldn't be reporting hospitalization to the best of their ability. Hospitals already send information to them on a daily basis.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#33

Post by Zelphyr » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #16

The 2017-2018 flu season also overwhelmed US hospitals: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.ht... My point isn't that we should take Coronavirus any less seriously this year. Healthcare workers have no vaccine for it. It's on top of the flu. Etc. My point is that we should take the flu more seriously every year. Everyone gets their…

Yes, I do. Helps that I live with a Nurse Practitioner. However, the number of people I know who are convinced that getting the flu shot makes them sick or gives them the flu and thus refuse to get the shot is shocking.

Some things I've actually heard:

"I get sick every time!" No, you don't.

"It's a LIVE VIRUS! Everybody knows this!" No, it's not. You're just an idiot hanging around with idiots.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#34

Post by vnchr » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

Well, that’s some fear mongering.

The article is all anecdotes. Most of the nurses and doctors they talked to are anonymous sources.

According to the AHA[1], there are 6,146 hospitals in the US. There are 68,000 confirmed covid-19 cases in the US, and 33,000 of those cases are all in New York—almost 10x more than the next states (4.4k NJ, 3.2k CA)[2].

I don’t know the rate of hospitalization for the infected, but symptoms are mild enough for home recovery for at least 80%.

So this is bad in NY. But even the next most affected state, NJ, we’re looking at a worst case of ~880 covid-19 patients across 70+ hospitals[3].

Bad situation in NY. No need to say it’s like that across the whole US.

-

[1] https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/mar/26...

[3] http://www.njha.com/media/316774/2014EconomicImpactReportFIN...

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#35

Post by RHSeeger » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

sg47 wrote: post #30

js2 wrote: post #16

The 2017-2018 flu season also overwhelmed US hospitals: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.ht... My point isn't that we should take Coronavirus any less seriously this year. Healthcare workers have no vaccine for it. It's on top of the flu. Etc. My point is that we should take the flu more seriously every year. Everyone gets their…

Got my flu shot last year, still ended up with severe flu in February. The flu shot is not completely effective.

True, but if everyone that _could_ get their shot did, it would be a lot less impactful to everyone.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#36

Post by JadeNB » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #8

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your main point. That said, if we're okay with subjecting ourselves to propaganda that reduces the spread of covid19, these anecdotes might serve a useful role.

They are useful to know, but they have one fundamental problem: they erode trust. Though it is up for debate on how much trust in the political system and mass media there is left in the US.

> They are useful to know, but they have one fundamental problem: they erode trust. Though it is up for debate on how much trust in the political system and mass media there is left in the US.

Clickbait-style "everyone in New York is dead!" bad-faith hysteria would erode my trust.

"We saw a terrible situation, and communicated the situation as clearly as we could at the time, even though our information was incomplete. Since then we have more facts, and are striving to communicate them to you" enhances my trust, not erodes it.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#37

Post by blairbeckwith » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

sg47 wrote: post #30

js2 wrote: post #16

The 2017-2018 flu season also overwhelmed US hospitals: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.ht... My point isn't that we should take Coronavirus any less seriously this year. Healthcare workers have no vaccine for it. It's on top of the flu. Etc. My point is that we should take the flu more seriously every year. Everyone gets their…

Got my flu shot last year, still ended up with severe flu in February. The flu shot is not completely effective.

Nobody is saying it is completely effective.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#38

Post by sp332 » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

brenden2 wrote: post #14

BurningFrog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only hard data we have are death numbers. They're awful enough: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest Other hard data takes time to collect and will only be reliable once the disaster has swept through.

They're bad, but if you put it into the context of normal daily life it's not that crazy. Check out the CDC stats[1] yourself. On average there are about ~1700 deaths per day from heart disease alone in the US, according to the CDC data. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

And now that number is going to go up because medical care is less available.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#39

Post by rando231 » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

brenden2 wrote: post #3

While I'm not questioning the truth of these accounts, what annoys me about all these reports is that they seem to be anecdotes rather than hard data. It's really difficult to understand what's actually going on because the data sucks. It's hard to assess just how full hospitals are, which hospitals are at capacity, how many patients are actually testing positive vs. showing up at the hospital because they feel a bit…

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Exponential growth of cases and deaths translate into many horrible anecdotes.

It would be interesting to see geographic case density vs. geographic ventilator capacity.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#40

Post by steveeq1 » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

beepboopbeep wrote: post #10

brenden2 wrote: post #3

While I'm not questioning the truth of these accounts, what annoys me about all these reports is that they seem to be anecdotes rather than hard data. It's really difficult to understand what's actually going on because the data sucks. It's hard to assess just how full hospitals are, which hospitals are at capacity, how many patients are actually testing positive vs. showing up at the hospital because they feel a bit…

81 people died of the virus in NYC yesterday. I think the large number approach of pandemics can almost sanitize the numbers of their humanity. Imagine 81 people died in a bus accident, or a fire, or a mass shooting. This is very serious and we're still at the beginning of it.

You can use the same argument for flu deaths, heart disease deaths, diabetes deaths, etc. The numbers that you pay attention to are dependent on what is popular right now.