4 ms·

I noticed something else that might be an interesting correlation: available "acute" hospital beds. I don't have time to do the full correlation, but here's th

I noticed something else that might be an interesting correlation: available "acute" hospital beds. I don't have time to do the full correlation, but here's the data: https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183 https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=30183 Select "Curative (acute) care beds" Scroll down to the Per 1000 population. Italy: 2.62 Korea (assuming South): 7.14 The list of countries in that table is a good bit shorter than the countries fighting Covid-19, but I think it might be illuminating. Can someone draw that up? Compare, perhaps, current death rate by country with available "Curative (acute) care beds" per 1000?

ericd 7y ago
Shoot... United States: 2.44 Interestingly, that's 20% lower than in 2000 (3.04) At least Japan is in an OK spot, at 7.79
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Interestingly, that's 20% lower than in 2000 (3.04) Almost the exact trend in Canada. I hope this is just a quirk of the data, because we would be screwed for this in 2000, and being at least 20% more screwed means we're extra screwed. In effect, it seems that in Canada have fewer overall hospital beds per capita than Italy has acute care beds. We are completely unprepared, and in terms of time, not far behind Italy.
baxtr 7y ago
That is a big factor. And: available nursing staff. Beds aren't enough. You need the right people to operate a large number of patients at the same time.
- dx034 7y ago
  From what I read, medical equipment seems to be the bigger issue in parts of Italy right now. You can only convert beds to ICU if you have the right equipment. Nursing staff is obviously necessary but that doesn't appear to be the most limiting factor at the moment.
esistgut 7y ago
Italy has not yet reached the limit for ICU beds, whatever it is. People dying here is still within capacity, for now.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  That disagrees with all the information that has been coming out of Italy for the last three days. Perhaps because hospitals there (and in general) are always running at 80-100% capacity, so it didn't take much for the extra COVID-19 cases to max them out.
  - Cantbekhan 7y ago
    Indeed most EU ICU services are already usually running at around 90% with the usual issues (including the Flu). And please also do consider that most of theses cases are within the Lombardy region and that most ICU patients are very difficult if not impossible to transfer safely to other regions. While the ICU beds are limited, the amount of ambulances equipped with ICU equipment is probably even smaller (and will also require an ICU nurse+doctor on board during the transfer).
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      And then there is looming material shortage. For instance, in my home town (Kraków, Poland), hospitals cancelled planned procedures yesterday - not due to the amount of COVID-19 patients itself (Poland still has double-digit number of reported cases), but because the hospitals run out masks, gowns and gloves. Which means that once coronavirus patients start appearing, things will get really ugly real fast.
- leethargo 7y ago
  I guess you mean the total national capacity, not the local capacity in the most affected towns? Symptomatic patients are probably not going to be transferred over long distances, right?
Cantbekhan 7y ago
Warning tho with those statistics that are also to be found at Eurostat. Curative (acute) care beds are NOT ICU beds. They're just normal hospital beds. example, the netherlands have a total of around 1300 ICU beds (source https://healthmanagement.org/c/icu/issuearticle/organisational-aspects-of-ic-in-the-netherlands https://healthmanagement.org/c/icu/issuearticle/organisation...). the number there is 50k ... which is indeed about the amount of normal beds excluding ICU and other few specific beds.

ericd 7y ago

Shoot... United States: 2.44 Interestingly, that's 20% lower than in 2000 (3.04) At least Japan is in an OK spot, at 7.79

microcolonel 7y ago
> Interestingly, that's 20% lower than in 2000 (3.04) Almost the exact trend in Canada. I hope this is just a quirk of the data, because we would be screwed for this in 2000, and being at least 20% more screwed means we're extra screwed. In effect, it seems that in Canada have fewer overall hospital beds per capita than Italy has acute care beds. We are completely unprepared, and in terms of time, not far behind Italy.

baxtr 7y ago

That is a big factor. And: available nursing staff. Beds aren't enough. You need the right people to operate a large number of patients at the same time.

dx034 7y ago
From what I read, medical equipment seems to be the bigger issue in parts of Italy right now. You can only convert beds to ICU if you have the right equipment. Nursing staff is obviously necessary but that doesn't appear to be the most limiting factor at the moment.

esistgut 7y ago

Italy has not yet reached the limit for ICU beds, whatever it is. People dying here is still within capacity, for now.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
That disagrees with all the information that has been coming out of Italy for the last three days. Perhaps because hospitals there (and in general) are always running at 80-100% capacity, so it didn't take much for the extra COVID-19 cases to max them out.
- Cantbekhan 7y ago
  Indeed most EU ICU services are already usually running at around 90% with the usual issues (including the Flu). And please also do consider that most of theses cases are within the Lombardy region and that most ICU patients are very difficult if not impossible to transfer safely to other regions. While the ICU beds are limited, the amount of ambulances equipped with ICU equipment is probably even smaller (and will also require an ICU nurse+doctor on board during the transfer).
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    And then there is looming material shortage. For instance, in my home town (Kraków, Poland), hospitals cancelled planned procedures yesterday - not due to the amount of COVID-19 patients itself (Poland still has double-digit number of reported cases), but because the hospitals run out masks, gowns and gloves. Which means that once coronavirus patients start appearing, things will get really ugly real fast.
leethargo 7y ago
I guess you mean the total national capacity, not the local capacity in the most affected towns? Symptomatic patients are probably not going to be transferred over long distances, right?

Cantbekhan 7y ago

Warning tho with those statistics that are also to be found at Eurostat. Curative (acute) care beds are NOT ICU beds. They're just normal hospital beds. example, the netherlands have a total of around 1300 ICU beds (source https://healthmanagement.org/c/icu/issuearticle/organisational-aspects-of-ic-in-the-netherlands https://healthmanagement.org/c/icu/issuearticle/organisation...). the number there is 50k ... which is indeed about the amount of normal beds excluding ICU and other few specific beds.