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Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

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Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#161

Post by fsh »

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…

The 2017/18 flu season was the worst in decades. Here in Germany it increased overall mortality rate by about 40% in March 2018. Italy has a similar increase due to COVID-19 right now, but in the most affected regions mortality is a lot higher. And this is with serious measures in place that were not done in 2017/18.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#162

Post by makomk »

falcolas wrote: post #67

Like most other for-profit enterprises, there is little incentive to maintain capacity greater than what is needed needed to handle the "average" demand. So when something exceptional happens, of course the capacity is inadequate. You can also (likely successfully) argue that this will also happen in a government run healthcare system, but the situation has certainly not been improved by capitalism as implemented in…

Oh, it definitely happens in government-run healthcare systems. Remember how proponents of single-payer government healthcare in the US used to point to the amount of money that the UK spends on the NHS and argue that the US would save money by switching? One of the ways the NHS keeps costs down is by not maintaining excess capacity, meaning that even a moderately bad flu season is a major struggle.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#163

Post by algorias »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #69

"To think that we're in New York City and this is happening," he added. "It's like a third-world country type of scenario. It's mind-blowing." Historically, when sexually transmitted disease outbreaks occurred in the US, social workers would ask for the names of everyone you had slept with if you were infected and they would contact them and screen them and treat them. This was effective in stopping outbreaks. We lar…

Thank you for this detailed and insightful comment!

In Europe (or at least in my country), health authorities have been saying for several weeks that we need to stop people from needing ventilators, rather than get more ventilators. I think most people here get it, and overall the population has been compliant even with the quite drastic measures that have been taken in most places.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#164

Post by cronix »

ssully wrote: post #111
DoreenMichele wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably a little more easily solved. When things get ugly enough, humans have a tendency to skip all the polite rituals and start using mass graves.

In the case of morgue's they are already solving this by having air conditioned semi trailers parked by the hospital where store bodies until they can be moved.

And ice skating rinks

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#165

Post by smacktoward »

falcolas wrote: post #67

Like most other for-profit enterprises, there is little incentive to maintain capacity greater than what is needed needed to handle the "average" demand. So when something exceptional happens, of course the capacity is inadequate. You can also (likely successfully) argue that this will also happen in a government run healthcare system, but the situation has certainly not been improved by capitalism as implemented in…

What data we have indicates that the US is going to have by far the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the world, larger even than in China, a country with something like four times our population. So the unique way we do healthcare here is not looking particularly good.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#166

Post by yters »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #69

"To think that we're in New York City and this is happening," he added. "It's like a third-world country type of scenario. It's mind-blowing." Historically, when sexually transmitted disease outbreaks occurred in the US, social workers would ask for the names of everyone you had slept with if you were infected and they would contact them and screen them and treat them. This was effective in stopping outbreaks. We lar…

this is a really good point. much easier to do than mass testing.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#167

Post by dboreham »

landryraccoon wrote: post #55
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…

One of the huge failures of the government is that we still don't have any push for ubiquitous testing. South Korea's aggressive testing for the virus is a key factor in their success in suppressing the epidemic.

Assuming you're talking about the US, I think this situation exposes a not well known fact that the federal government doesn't really control the inside of the country. The response has to come at the state and local level, which it is, slowly. e.g. : https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/03/coronavi...

Here in our county in rural Montana (based on info from the local medical establishment, who I know fairly well), we have been conducting much more testing than you'd expect based on reports from around the country, and we have never had a shortage of tests, and our small hospital lab will shortly have in-house testing deployed.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#168

Post by gridlockd »

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.

Its effectiveness has on average been less than 50% in the past decades, sometimes far lower. There's just too many strains and to much seasonal variability.

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#169

Post by dominotw »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #118
dominotw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I get sick every time!" No, you don't. This is possible theoretically . yes? There is no guarantee that you get lucky from flu shot at-least once.

Well now hang on... The flu shot you get every year in USA and Europe is the vaccine for the most common flu that was seen in Asia and Australia the 6 months previous. And vice versa. It’s a guess. If there are two common flus that went around, they pick one to vaccine for. Sometimes they get it wrong and the shot you get has nothing to do with the flu that ends up being common in your area. It’s very possible to get…

> It’s very possible to get the shot every year and still get sick.

haha so I wasn't the only one who interpreted it wrong. comment means "I get sick everytime from flu shot"

Re: Coronavirus patients start to overwhelm US hospitals

#170

Post by Angostura »

Zelphyr wrote: post #33
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.

To be clear - some people can feel a bit rough after the flu shot for a day or so. Still much MUCH better than getting flu
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