Posted on 03/23/2020 3:04:55 AM PDT by buckalfa
If the novel coronavirus continues to spread widely in the U.S., a lack of hospital beds in certain areas will limit access to necessary care. Some of the states hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak, such as New York and Washington, have low hospital bed availability, making it vital for federal, state and local policymakers to take aggressive action to expand capacity.
The Urban Institute released a report March 19 that shows availability of unoccupied hospital beds varies significantly across urban and rural areas, states and counties. An analysis by ProPublica and a report in Health Affairs revealed most communities in the U.S. have far too few beds to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients, and analysis by Kaiser Health News shows there's also a shortage of intensive care unit beds in many parts of the country.
Below are 16 things to know about hospital bed capacity in cities, counties and states across the U.S.
Hospital bed availability in the U.S.
1. The U.S. had an estimated 728,000 medical and surgical hospital beds available to the public in 2018, or 2.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people, according to the Urban Institute's analysis.
2. On a typical day, 36 percent of the 728,000 beds were unoccupied, leaving 0.8 beds per 1,000 people.
3. If COVID-19 infected 40 percent of the adult population in a six-month period, there would be a capacity gap of nearly 1.4 million inpatient beds, according to an analysis published by Health Affairs.
4. The U.S. may need 1.9 million intensive care unit beds — 20 times the current amount available — in coming months to treat patients with COVID-19, according to Kaiser Health News, which cited data from the American Hospital Association.
Hospital capacity in individual states
5. Five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada and Rhode Island — have lower than average hospital capacity and rates of unoccupied beds, according to the Urban Institute.
6. Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have higher than average hospital capacity.
Hospital bed availability in individual cities
7. According to an analysis published in Health Affairs, the following five cities have the lowest capacity gap in the U.S.:
Minot, ND Great Falls, Mont. Meridian, Miss. Grand Forks, ND Oxford, Miss.
8. Based on the analysis, the following five cities have the highest capacity gap:
Arlington, Va. Ventura, Calif. Salisbury, Md. Longview, Texas Takoma Park, Md.
9. If COVID-19 infected only 20 percent of the adult population over a year, many cities across the U.S. would not have enough beds to treat the influx of patients without adding new beds or displacing other patients, according to ProPublica's analysis of data from the Harvard Global Health Institute. Based on infection rates that occurred in past pandemics, the 20 percent estimate is conservative.
10. In a moderate scenario, where 40 percent of the adult population is infected over a year, hospitals in many cities would have far fewer beds than needed to meet demand.
11. The data from the Harvard Global Health Institute shows there would be a significant bed shortage in the three U.S. hospital markets, or Hospital Referral Regions, with the largest adult populations under the moderate scenario.
Los Angeles: Patients would require 21,600 beds, which is 3.3 times the available beds. Houston: Patients would require 14,300 beds, which is 2.8 times the available beds. Atlanta: Patients would require 13,700 beds, which is 4.1 times the available beds. 12. The availability of intensive care unit beds varies wildly across the country and within each state. In California, one of the states hit hardest by COVID-19, San Francisco has one ICU bed for every 532 people age 60 or older, while Los Angeles has one bed for every 847 residents age 60 or older.
Hospital bed capacity at the county level
13. Certain counties most affected by COVID-19, such as Westchester County, N.Y., and King County, Wash., have lower than average unoccupied beds per 1,000 residents, according to the Urban Institute.
Westchester County, N.Y.: 0.67 unoccupied hospital beds per 1,000 people King County, Wash.: 0.5 unoccupied hospital beds per 1,000 people 14. More than half of counties in the U.S. have no hospital intensive care unit beds, according to Kaiser Health News.
15. In the U.S., 26 million people live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU, and 11 million more people live in counties with no hospital.
16. In counties that rank in the top 10 percent in the U.S. for ICU bed count, there is still only one bed for as many as 450 people.
Hospitals (i.e.: hospital design/construction) were never built/designed or meant to handle pandemics.
I don’t understand.
I we’re NOWHERE near 20 percent of the county getting it and and now many states are putting shelter in place into play, why would the numbers get higher for MONTHS??!?!
I can see an initial rise in April still, maybe.
But after that a decline.
The numbers i’ve seen as a result of shelter in place for a few weeks or a month show DRASTIC reductions in numbers.not increases.
and there are other non-cv19 patients who require critical care
also not everyone with cv19 requires hospitalization
Sadly the economics of being in constant readiness for 100 year events just doesn’t work.
Our county has no ICU unit. They have an ER unit and 20 beds for overnight observation-if the patient is not gravely ill. The procedure is to stabilize a patient and then transport to St. Louis-almost 2 hrs. away.
The problem is that a bed must be available before St. Louis will accept the transfer, and during flu season beds are often unavailable-so it can be hrs. or days even before the transfer can happen.
If we get the bad stuff here and need a ventilator, we are not likely to get it.
The author’s magic is in his ass-umptions. A lot of if’s with no substantial justification for the assumptions.
dpo622 you do understand. As you point out, what the actual demand for hospital beds due to Covid-19 is an unknown factor. The only valid point of the article is the number of available beds.
I dunno what to think anymore..
I scoffed when only 30 people had it in the US.
Now it’s 10s of thousands
But the quarantines and shelter in place should slow it down.
I guess we shall see.
Last year flu virus had 900,000 hospitalized and 22,000 dead why are you thinking at all that the China virus IS more dangerous than that!!! In CA. today we have 1200 cases out of a 40 million population shutting the entire state down for this kind of numbers is pure INSANITY!! NY is an entirely different environment people in NY are living on top of each other there are millions of people from other countries visiting there constantly, people riding the subways on top of each other we don’t have that in CA. Shutting the state down was completely unnecessary!!!
More doom and gloom reporting.
:( You bully.
You’re right though.
But you’re still a bully!! :)
After that post, you scare me more than some gangsters I knew.
probably not.
PRESIDENT TRUMP has saved the American people
by the air cutoffs and the use of curative medicine
which the CDC(Coronavirus Distribution Center)
and Hillary-AnneMarieSlaughter-Fauci want
taken from Amerians to murder millions.
My goodness you know I would NEVER want to scare you, just slap you back into reality, you I believe are in NY so you are seeing numbers climb but you need t realize WHY your numbers are rising and you must realize just how things like the flu also spread rapidly in NY!! You are one of the sane ones here don’t you dare start falling off the rails I won’t allow it!!!
With that being said, she said they have been averaging about one patient per day that needs to be hospitalized.......
She also said that she was quite ill back in early February and was bed ridden for 3 days. She thinks she may have had the virus but it really wasn't identified back then nor were they testing. When she gets time, she's going to be tested to see if she has antibodies for the virus just to relieve her mind......
Her brother is a thoracic surgeon at a local hospital and he is currently sick with the virus and experiencing body ache, slight coughing and minor breathing issues. He caught the virus from his resident who contracted it from a patient they operated on about a week and a half ago....
:)
Nah I’m good believe me.
500 out of 500,000 Staten Islanders have it right now.
And the shelter in place is in effect.
Things should be fine.
The group of FR End of the World zealots got to me for a minute but i’m good now :)
“The U.S. may need 1.9 million intensive care unit beds“
China has over 4X our population, worse healthcare, unabated early spread. Did China need 8 million ICU beds?
FEAR-MONGERING
“Sadly the economics of being in constant readiness for 100 year events just doesn’t work.”
Things work fine when it is an “average” day. Even on bad days (ice storm, numerous car wrecks) people can get the help they need.
Big things like a Hurricane in New Orleans one year, and an earthquake in California the next year - then it becomes impossible to help everybody the same day. But give it a week or more and most people at least can be reached and taken to a hospital or shelter.
This pandemic is on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to what the system is designed for. But - we will increase the numbers of beds, ventilators, etc. Perhaps not as quickly as we would like (just like the person waiting three days in there water-logged home to get rescued), but things will happen.
More of a concern might be the number of medical folks. I know in the Seattle area, numerous firefighters have been under quarantine, and a doctor has the virus now. I haven’t heard, but I imagine many of his co-workers are on quarantine?
Perhaps that is where the National Guard medical personnel can fill in?
someone posted this earlier:
26 Sept 2017: CNN: Flu season deaths top 80,000 last year, CDC says
by Susan Scutti
•The 2017-18 season ranks as the deadliest in more than four decades
•Record 900,000 flu hospitalizations last year
The season began with an increase of illness in November; high activity occurred during January and February, and then illness continued through the end of March...
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/26/health/flu-deaths-2017—2018-cdc-bn/index.html
how long can the Deep State/Dems/FakeNewsMSM keep up this scare, given -
Wikipedia: Flu season
In the United States, the flu season is considered October through May. It usually peaks in February.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_season#Timing
8 Jul 2019: WHO Europe: The 2018–2019 influenza season in Europe has finally drawn to a close, having begun in late November and peaked between late January and early February
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/news/news/2019/7/the-influenza-season-is-over-for-now
following tells nothing about death rate, but nonetheless these are the latest figures:
23 Mar: Worldometers: Coronavirus Cases: 345,292
Deaths: World: 15,297
Deaths: US: 458
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
how will the alarmists get to the millions of deaths they are hoping for/predicting worldwide, in order to achieve their political ends and prove their theory about exponential growth?
it’s getting ridiculous.
Yes it was unnecessary, and probably isn’t even legal.
The focus should be on isolating high-risk people and having everybody else go on working and keeping the wheels of the economy turning. It’s what South Korea did and it’s what Israel is beginning to do. It’s what we do every year to some degree for the regular flu.
We can’t stop working for months and expect to have an economy left.
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