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https://www.evergreenhealth.com/coronavirus https://www.evergreenhealth.com/coronavirus From the doc above, CDC estimates 5% Nationwide will require ICU care.

https://www.evergreenhealth.com/coronavirus https://www.evergreenhealth.com/coronavirus From the doc above, CDC estimates 5% Nationwide will require ICU care. That's 18.5 million people. We have 100k beds. The US medical establishment does not have the surge capacity for an epidemic of this scale. All of our manufacturing is in China too - and medicine and semiconductors and just about everything else. Only a monumental Civic movement will make containment possible and, as the article suggests, the pandemic will expose the rot that has gutted this country over the last few decades, as the system shuts down in an attempt to contain the pandemic, when the hospitals are quickly overwhelmed. This is undoubtedly a historic event. Based on the other countries this has happened in, we are 1-6 weeks, most likely 1-3, away from full outbreak and the start of widespread business closures and possible food scarcity in some regions. Stores and truckers may be hard to keep open if no one wants to risk getting sick.

baxtr 7y ago
I agree it is difficult moment in history. However, remember that those 18+ Mio won’t need the beds at the same time. Still a bad situation.
- herdrick 7y ago
  If we don't reduce the current 'doubling every 7 days' growth rate, then at the end of the epidemic most of them will.
- taneq 7y ago
  You’re right. If the 100k figure for beds is right, and each case needs to be hospitalised for a week, then we’ll be fine as long as we can drag the epidemic out over no less than 3-4 years.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    The issue is not-so-slightly different. The total number of places available in a given country in ICU's is (assuming a perfect world) the exact needed amount for "ordinary" cases + some slack, let's say 10%. So you cannot count the total number of available beds as if they were free, as 90% (or change the percentage according to the specific country) are always, constantly, in use for patients affected by other - totally unrelated to Covid-19 - issues. Part of these "ordinary" cases can be reduced (as an example by delaying a number of not-really-urgent surgery interventions) but this is also not without consequences.
    - taneq 7y ago
      Good call, I was treating total beds as free beds when in fact the number of free beds is somewhere between zero and 10% of that. It won't take much at all to overwhelm the available ICU resources.
yzmtf2008 7y ago
So one thing to note is that the “population” referred in the doc you linked is talking about people that are infected, not the general population. Of course, that doesn’t make the outlook that much better: if history is any guidance, H1N1 likely infected 15% of the world’s population[0], and interpolating that makes the required number of beds ~3 million. That’s still a lot of beds, but a lot more manageable. With techniques to delay the arrival as much as possible (e.g. at least wait out the flu season), and to avoid spikes, we’ll make it through this. It’s still undoubtedly a monumental event in history, but we will make it through. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Well, some of us will. Assuming I survive, I'll be spending some time keeping track of the people I know of who didn't.
schoen 7y ago
I think you've misinterpreted two items there (although they're ambiguously phrased and it would be helpful to have a source with clearer phrasing). First, I think the 5% refers to 5% of persons infected with the virus, not to 5% of the entire population of the U.S., although this is the least clear part. Second, the "critical care" part refers to "being admitted as an inpatient" (not being admitted to an ICU), as distinct from an outpatient office or ER visit. I don't think the authors meant to suggest that the CDC believes that 5% of the U.S. population will require ICU care during this epidemic.
- allovernow 7y ago
  No. This is written ambiguously. It starts with >As the virus continues to spread nationally And then the numbers are listed as >80% of the population may experience mild symptoms, such as fever or flu-like symptoms that they treat at home If it were as you say, they would write x% of the infected population, or something to that effect. Then again, given all the incompetence I've witnessed lately across the news, it wouldn't surprise me if they ambiguously wrote it by mistake. In any case, you'll note that China just shut down it's entire industry for two months over this. That's not something an authoritarian state does lightly. Especially considering it may, say, make it obvious that sending all of your production offshore to China is a national security threat. Edit: Italian Prime Minister just made a 2AM press announcement of the Isolation of Lombardy. That's 16 million people. We're approaching the right ballpark here. 8% of the Iranian parliment have confirmed cases. Two are already dead. This is everything we've been warning you about.
  - yzmtf2008 7y ago
    It might be written ambiguously, but one should not interpret it to mean that 100% of people in the U.S. will be infected. Especially when the "80%" is followed by: > 80% of the population may experience mild symptoms, such as fever or flu-like symptoms that they treat at home > 15% may seek medical care, such as visiting an Urgent Care or Emergency Department > 5% may require critical care, meaning being admitted as an inpatient
    - 7y ago
franciskim 7y ago
The stated source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909e1.htm does not seem to have anything about 5% nationwide requiring ICU care although I've not checked the links within that. But it does seem a bit off.
all_blue_chucks 7y ago
If we don't slow this we will overwhelm ICUs, but your math is all wrong. You assume every single American is exposed, every American contracts the disease, and every American develops symptoms at exactly the same time. That is flatly wrong.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>...at exactly the same time.. and that's why they are trying to slow it down, we'll get it but in stages so those in dire need will get care and survive.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- cousin_it 7y ago
  Here's the right math afaik. Over 15% of infected people need a hospital bed with oxygen to survive (that's the important number, not just those who need ventilator). Doubling time is a week or less. Hospital stay is two weeks or more. Infections should slow down once half the population is infected. We can mostly ignore the time from infection to hospital, because it's a constant plus a spread that's shorter than hospital stay. So at peak load, 50% of the population have been infected and passed the initial period, 75% of those have passed the initial period within the last two weeks, and 15% of those need a hospital bed to survive. That's 5% of the population or more. Hospital beds are way fewer than that, so most of these people die. The only hope is to slow it with non-medical measures. Check the progression dashboard for your country: https://coronavirus.arik.io/ https://coronavirus.arik.io/ You can see which countries are serious (most of Asia - graph looks linear) and which aren't (US and most of Europe - graph looks like a hockey stick).
  - bsaul 7y ago
    Where did you get that 15% number from ? From my understanding, a huge number of people infected by the virus are asymptomatic and go completely undetected. Given that, any estimation is clearly really hard to make, right ?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
masonic 7y ago
5% Nationwide will require ICU care. That's 18.5 million people. No, that is not what the CDC says, and it is not even remotely what your link says. It says "5% of those who contract Covid-19" would require ICU, which is .5% of those exposed to Covid-19, which is itself a small subset of the population. You're off by well over two orders of magnitude!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

baxtr 7y ago

I agree it is difficult moment in history. However, remember that those 18+ Mio won’t need the beds at the same time. Still a bad situation.

herdrick 7y ago
If we don't reduce the current 'doubling every 7 days' growth rate, then at the end of the epidemic most of them will.
taneq 7y ago
You’re right. If the 100k figure for beds is right, and each case needs to be hospitalised for a week, then we’ll be fine as long as we can drag the epidemic out over no less than 3-4 years.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  The issue is not-so-slightly different. The total number of places available in a given country in ICU's is (assuming a perfect world) the exact needed amount for "ordinary" cases + some slack, let's say 10%. So you cannot count the total number of available beds as if they were free, as 90% (or change the percentage according to the specific country) are always, constantly, in use for patients affected by other - totally unrelated to Covid-19 - issues. Part of these "ordinary" cases can be reduced (as an example by delaying a number of not-really-urgent surgery interventions) but this is also not without consequences.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Good call, I was treating total beds as free beds when in fact the number of free beds is somewhere between zero and 10% of that. It won't take much at all to overwhelm the available ICU resources.

yzmtf2008 7y ago

So one thing to note is that the “population” referred in the doc you linked is talking about people that are infected, not the general population. Of course, that doesn’t make the outlook that much better: if history is any guidance, H1N1 likely infected 15% of the world’s population[0], and interpolating that makes the required number of beds ~3 million. That’s still a lot of beds, but a lot more manageable. With techniques to delay the arrival as much as possible (e.g. at least wait out the flu season), and to avoid spikes, we’ll make it through this. It’s still undoubtedly a monumental event in history, but we will make it through. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

pfdietz 7y ago
Well, some of us will. Assuming I survive, I'll be spending some time keeping track of the people I know of who didn't.

schoen 7y ago

I think you've misinterpreted two items there (although they're ambiguously phrased and it would be helpful to have a source with clearer phrasing). First, I think the 5% refers to 5% of persons infected with the virus, not to 5% of the entire population of the U.S., although this is the least clear part. Second, the "critical care" part refers to "being admitted as an inpatient" (not being admitted to an ICU), as distinct from an outpatient office or ER visit. I don't think the authors meant to suggest that the CDC believes that 5% of the U.S. population will require ICU care during this epidemic.

allovernow 7y ago
No. This is written ambiguously. It starts with >As the virus continues to spread nationally And then the numbers are listed as >80% of the population may experience mild symptoms, such as fever or flu-like symptoms that they treat at home If it were as you say, they would write x% of the infected population, or something to that effect. Then again, given all the incompetence I've witnessed lately across the news, it wouldn't surprise me if they ambiguously wrote it by mistake. In any case, you'll note that China just shut down it's entire industry for two months over this. That's not something an authoritarian state does lightly. Especially considering it may, say, make it obvious that sending all of your production offshore to China is a national security threat. Edit: Italian Prime Minister just made a 2AM press announcement of the Isolation of Lombardy. That's 16 million people. We're approaching the right ballpark here. 8% of the Iranian parliment have confirmed cases. Two are already dead. This is everything we've been warning you about.
- yzmtf2008 7y ago
  It might be written ambiguously, but one should not interpret it to mean that 100% of people in the U.S. will be infected. Especially when the "80%" is followed by: > 80% of the population may experience mild symptoms, such as fever or flu-like symptoms that they treat at home > 15% may seek medical care, such as visiting an Urgent Care or Emergency Department > 5% may require critical care, meaning being admitted as an inpatient
  - 7y ago

franciskim 7y ago

The stated source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909e1.htm does not seem to have anything about 5% nationwide requiring ICU care although I've not checked the links within that. But it does seem a bit off.

all_blue_chucks 7y ago

If we don't slow this we will overwhelm ICUs, but your math is all wrong. You assume every single American is exposed, every American contracts the disease, and every American develops symptoms at exactly the same time. That is flatly wrong.

onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>...at exactly the same time.. and that's why they are trying to slow it down, we'll get it but in stages so those in dire need will get care and survive.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
cousin_it 7y ago
Here's the right math afaik. Over 15% of infected people need a hospital bed with oxygen to survive (that's the important number, not just those who need ventilator). Doubling time is a week or less. Hospital stay is two weeks or more. Infections should slow down once half the population is infected. We can mostly ignore the time from infection to hospital, because it's a constant plus a spread that's shorter than hospital stay. So at peak load, 50% of the population have been infected and passed the initial period, 75% of those have passed the initial period within the last two weeks, and 15% of those need a hospital bed to survive. That's 5% of the population or more. Hospital beds are way fewer than that, so most of these people die. The only hope is to slow it with non-medical measures. Check the progression dashboard for your country: https://coronavirus.arik.io/ https://coronavirus.arik.io/ You can see which countries are serious (most of Asia - graph looks linear) and which aren't (US and most of Europe - graph looks like a hockey stick).
- bsaul 7y ago
  Where did you get that 15% number from ? From my understanding, a huge number of people infected by the virus are asymptomatic and go completely undetected. Given that, any estimation is clearly really hard to make, right ?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

masonic 7y ago

5% Nationwide will require ICU care. That's 18.5 million people. No, that is not what the CDC says, and it is not even remotely what your link says. It says "5% of those who contract Covid-19" would require ICU, which is .5% of those exposed to Covid-19, which is itself a small subset of the population. You're off by well over two orders of magnitude!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]