US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2180

On March 14 2020 01:07 Gahlo wrote:

Don't forget they're only a week away. Just like they were last week. And the week before.

“We are currently exceptionally full and are experiencing some challenges with staffing,” Tom Staiger, UW Medical Center’s medical director, wrote on Feb. 29. He asked hospital staff to “expedite appropriate discharges asap,” reflecting the need for more beds.

That same day, health officials announced King County’s — and the nation’s — first death from the coronavirus. Now as cases of virus-stricken patients suffering from COVID-19 multiply, government and hospital officials are facing the real-life consequences of shortcomings they’ve documented on paper for years.

Medical supplies have run low. Administrators are searching for ways to expand hospital bed capacity. Health care workers are being asked to work extra shifts as their peers self-isolate.

Hospital administrators are rapidly changing protocols as the outbreak stresses the system, while frontline health care workers are beginning to feel the effects of disruptions to daily life. UW Medicine on Thursday told employees it would begin postponing elective procedures, beginning March 16.

“We’re always full”

King and Snohomish counties offer some 4,900 staffed hospital beds, of which about 940 are used for critical care, according to the researchers — with the Institute for Disease Modeling, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center — who modeled the outbreak’s potential growth. “… This capacity may quickly be filled,” they wrote.

Some of Seattle’s largest hospitals were already near capacity before the outbreak. Harborview Medical Center in downtown Seattle operated at 95% of its capacity in 2019, based on its licensed 413 beds and the days of patient care it reported to the Department of Health.

On March 14 2020 01:57 Nevuk wrote:
The consumer debt isn't as high and corporate debt isn't as toxic as it was in 2008. If not for the coronavirus it'd be a pretty typical (for all that those exist) recession. US society is uniquely poorly set up among 1st world countries for dealing with a pandemic, for reasons I'm pretty sure everyone knows (insanely costly healthcare, culture of granting very few sick days, and resistance to WFH) . I'm much more concerned about the total number of deaths than the economy, to be frank. We can regain most of our economic losses pretty quickly (within 1-2 years), not so much the 1-2% of the population who may die.

On March 14 2020 04:51 Mohdoo wrote:
This is disgusting. Don't worry guys, we basically abolished the FDA and we can use the Walmart parking lot LOL