*The CV Death Rate, PLUS Intensive Care Hospitalization, 4-6 Week Recovery*: Deeply Concerning

[appalachiablue]

'It Isn’t Just the Death Rate From Coronavirus That Should Have Us Concerned,' Daily Kos, Feb. 28, 2020.

There has been a lot of focus on the fact that, based on known cases, the Coronavirus mortality rate sits somewhere between two and three percent. Much less discussed is the fact that up to 25% of known cases have required intensive care hospitalization and a four to six week recovery window.

So lets play that out. Say 10% of Americans contract the virus. That is 32.7 million people. Should current trends on known cases hold, more than eight million of those could become so ill that they require hospitalization in order to survive. According to the American Hospital Association, as of 2020, America has a total of 924,107 staffed hospital beds across the country. Even at an infection rate of 10% of the population, spread across the country instead of (more likely) clusters, our hospitals would be massively overrun and unable to cope.



Of course, given the highly communicable nature of the virus and the fact that our government is headed by malignant, navel-gazing incompetents, it is not outside the scope of possibility that infection rates could exceed 10% of the population.

So how does the story look if the unimaginable happened and 50% of the population – 163.6 million people – became infected? Again working off current known cases, the number of people potentially requiring long term hospitalization in such a scenario could reach 40 million or more. I don’t feel particularly alarmist in saying that such a number would cause a complete breakdown in our society.

China took draconian measures to halt the spread of Coronavirus because it played the numbers of the possible. Here in the United States, our leadership is more concerned with playing the numbers of the stock market. It is deeply concerning.

*SEE Comments (300+):
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/28/1922772/-It-Isn-t-Just-the-Death-Rate-From-Coronavirus-That-Should-Have-Us-Concerned?utm_campaign=trending

[appalachiablue]

2. It will indeed, a real tragedy

[Skittles]

9. yes

many Americans have to go to work sick because otherwise they cannot pay their rent, buy food

[safeinOhio]

3. Making Cuba

look like the place for medical tourism.

[progree]

4. "Maths is hard. Can u draw me a piccha?" - Trump n/t

[progressoid]

5. And what will the $$$ bill be?

[Recursion]

6. Yeah, twice as many people have ended up on respirators as have died

It's not just death, it's also massive organ failures.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. As it has been said, we're woefully prepared.

I can't imagine large numbers of American hospitals being turned into totally isolated facilities or say, even two or thee floors of them. The logistics and security issues alone are mind-boggling.

One of the most frightening aspects would be the lack of availability of health care for other diseases such as the flu, accidents and heart issues.

Not very smart of us to allow so many small community hospitals to close.

Very frightening prospects indeed........

[Recursion]

8. A 10% infection rate with 5% of those needing hospitalization

would require 1.6 hospital million beds. The US has slightly more than 900,000 hospital beds.

[NickB79]

14. And somewhere around 20% require hospitalization

[Aussie105]

10. Well, seeing China can knock up two hospitals in Wuhan

in a couple of weeks, and fully staff and equip it, to be ready for an influx of patients, I'm sure the USA, being the richest and strongest country in the world, could outdo that easily.

Say, 200 hospitals in one week? Fully staffed, of course. For a total of say 800,000 beds. 4,000 beds in each hospital.
Easily do-able.
Being the richest, smartest country in the world and all that. With a leader with a bigly brain, a stable genius, shouldn't be a problem.

Not at all.

/sarcasm (as if I needed to add that!)

But seriously, Australia has the same problem coming up. Hospitals here can't cope with the normal seasonal flu peaks as it is, so what chance have we got in a pandemic?

[LittleGirl]

11. This is my biggest fear

The Health Department here in Switzerland is organizing staff to go to people’s home to test and treat instead of the hospital. In fact they are closing the hospital for children now to contain the virus.

[duforsure]

12. Democrats now should do this

Propose all funding for people seeing a doctor if symptoms exist paid for by taking back all the tax scam bill they gave to the wealthy which drove the deficit up over a trillion dollars, and their tax breaks, to pay for additional care that will be needed to help stop this. trump and the GOP are actively still cutting people from having health insurance and giving them much higher drug costs. Of course trump and the GOP want more now, and their new cuts are just more BS claims that instead helps them. Warrens suggestion taking wall money is anther good start but he'll steal it from others agencies any way so that needs to be addressed.

[NickB79]

13. 2nd to the last paragraph chilled me to the bone

So how does the story look if the unimaginable happened and 50% of the population – 163.6 million people – became infected? Again working off current known cases, the number of people potentially requiring long term hospitalization in such a scenario could reach 40 million or more. I don’t feel particularly alarmist in saying that such a number would cause a complete breakdown in our society.

That backup generator at Sam's Club is looking awfully tempting right now.

[rainin]

15. Medical insurance is about to become unaffordable for everyone

but the super rich

I anticipate my employer scaling down insurance coverage for employees because of cost, plus, whatever insurance we do have will be virtually cost prohibitive

Right now, my family deductible is $9,000 which effectively restricts medical access for my family to catastrophic emergencies

I expect that deductible to go up considerably as insurance companies try to balance the books on our backs

We are going to pay for this whether we get sick or not. Obviously, those who get sick may pay the ultimate price

Look at what medical care looks like for a patient being treated in the hospital for COVID19

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