8 ms·

> Nobody is proposing we just let people die. Agreed, but a lot of people are arguing for the thing that will almost certainly lead to a lot more deaths. Righ

> Nobody is proposing we just let people die. Agreed, but a lot of people are arguing for the thing that will almost certainly lead to a lot more deaths. Right now, as I type this, many hospitals in the United States have had all of their excess capacity filled with Covid-19 cases. Not most, but many. Now, please click this link, then click Logarithmic on the top. https://mackuba.eu/corona/#united_states https://mackuba.eu/corona/#united_states Once large groups of hospitals reach saturation, people who could otherwise be saved will be black tagged and left to die. Two women my wife is Facebook friends with, after two weeks of a mild fever, malaise and a moderate, unproductive cough, started having a hard time breathing. They went in and were both positive for Covid-19. They were placed on ventilators, and were soon in critical condition. One of them died this morning, the other is clinging on to life. Neither of these people are old; neither of them have any substantial medical history or other comorbidities. This bug is dangerous for all of us; it's extremely dangerous for some of us. It's true that few people are soberly thinking about the mid and long term economic cost of this pandemic. In my opinion, there's a good chance we're facing something on the order of the great depression. Be that as it may, lives must come first.

lsh123 7y ago
> Right now, as I type this, many hospitals in the United States have had all of their excess capacity filled with Covid-19 cases. Today Santa Clara county has 65 people hospitalized: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:COVID-19_Cases_in_Santa_Clara_County,_California.tab https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:COVID-19_Cases_in_Sa... In comparison, Stanford hospital has 600 beds: https://facts.stanford.edu/about/hospital/ https://facts.stanford.edu/about/hospital/
- licyeus 7y ago
  Total beds is an incomplete picture. Stanford hospital appears to run at 88% capacity [1] and Seattle's Harborview operates at 95% capacity [2]. 1 - https://stanfordhealthcare.org/content/dam/SHC/about-us/bondholder-information/docs/S%26P%20Final%20Report%20-%2003292019.pdf https://stanfordhealthcare.org/content/dam/SHC/about-us/bond... (page 5) 2 - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/short-staffed-and-undersupplied-coronavirus-crisis-strains-seattle-areas-capacity-to-deliver-care/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/short-staff...
  - lsh123 7y ago
    A lot of the beds are used for routine scheduled stuff that can be postponed. While the ER/ICU/telemetry capacity is much smaller (can’t find online source but it’s about 150 beds in Stanford), these are usually reserved for postop and ER flow (car accidents, etc.). Plus there are expansion possibilities. Overall, there about 500-1000 beds for critical care in Santa Clara that can be made available (I also suspect there are not that many car accidents, broken legs, etc right now). Overall, we are at about 10x in available capacity right now. Edit: source is my wife who used to be ER nurse and then ER nurse manager in several Bay Area hospitals.
    - lsh123 7y ago
      Actually this link from another reply here shows 3.8k total beds in Santa Clara which confirms my estimate for critical care beds that can be made available (about 25% from total): https://covid-19.direct/county/CA/Santa%20Clara https://covid-19.direct/county/CA/Santa%20Clara
- yiyus 7y ago
  Ok, maybe not yet. But once you start the lockdown, exponential growth continues for a couple of weeks (at least). If it grows at the same rate as in Europe, at the end of those two weeks Santa Clara county will need to hospitalize more than 15000 people.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Santa Clara County started the lockdown a few days ago. Maybe that's where a lot of the dispute in this thread is coming from; for those of us living in the Bay Area, maximum emergency measures are a given, so the most urgent priorities left are manufacturing medical equipment and finding a way to lift those measures.
  - lsh123 7y ago
    I strongly suspect that the epidemic spread will be very different between large and small cities, suburbs, and country side. Plus Santa Clara county has very different demographic than Italy. BTW, with the amount of people going back and forth between Bay Area and China, I have hard time believing that we had no cases in Jan/Feb. I personally know two people (and I met with both within a few days after their return) who came back from Wuhan in Dec and early Jan. A lot of people were sick in late Dec and early Jan with very similar symptoms.
taeric 7y ago
A month ago, I had a hard time breathing. A week in, I went to an emergency care facility. They put me on steroids. A week later, I went to my doctor still unable to breath well. They put me on a respirator and another week of steroids. (Plus antibiotics, since I had had a fever in that time.) So, to that end, I suspect I had this. It also went through my entire family of six. Nobody else even got sick enough that we would have help them home, except the had a fever that lasted a night. So, in not arguing this isn't serious. If you have trouble breathing, get help. Immediately. I'm growing less confident in all of the simulations I'm seeing of it's out of control growth, though. Why? Because from all reporting, I almost certainly had it. And if I had it, my kids school was almost certainly saturated with it. Such that I think of there was going to be exponential growth in cases, that skip sailed over a month ago.
- senordevnyc 7y ago
  If it’s already widespread, then why are 90% of tests coming back negative? More likely: you didn’t have it.
  - taeric 7y ago
    Also, the tests deployed right now return negative for recovered people...
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      So a huge portion of the population had it, including you and your family a mere 3-4 weeks ago, but now only 10% of those tested actively have it, many of the other 90% are fully recovered in the last few weeks? But hospitals are mysteriously only now seeing an influx of cases?
      - taeric 7y ago
        Me and my family would not be a huge percentage. My kids school? Gets bigger. I also just was told the Z-Pak I was put on is similar to what treats this. So, really not sure what to think. But my entire office was put sick for the month leading to this. My neighbor is the one that told me about the medicine, since she just finished a round. So, maybe? Our hospitals are not seeing influxes if severe cases. They are getting swamped from panic and lack of supplies, from what I'm seeing. Not severe cases of people about to die.

lsh123 7y ago

> Right now, as I type this, many hospitals in the United States have had all of their excess capacity filled with Covid-19 cases. Today Santa Clara county has 65 people hospitalized: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:COVID-19_Cases_in_Santa_Clara_County,_California.tab https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:COVID-19_Cases_in_Sa... In comparison, Stanford hospital has 600 beds: https://facts.stanford.edu/about/hospital/ https://facts.stanford.edu/about/hospital/

licyeus 7y ago
Total beds is an incomplete picture. Stanford hospital appears to run at 88% capacity [1] and Seattle's Harborview operates at 95% capacity [2]. 1 - https://stanfordhealthcare.org/content/dam/SHC/about-us/bondholder-information/docs/S%26P%20Final%20Report%20-%2003292019.pdf https://stanfordhealthcare.org/content/dam/SHC/about-us/bond... (page 5) 2 - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/short-staffed-and-undersupplied-coronavirus-crisis-strains-seattle-areas-capacity-to-deliver-care/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/short-staff...
- lsh123 7y ago
  A lot of the beds are used for routine scheduled stuff that can be postponed. While the ER/ICU/telemetry capacity is much smaller (can’t find online source but it’s about 150 beds in Stanford), these are usually reserved for postop and ER flow (car accidents, etc.). Plus there are expansion possibilities. Overall, there about 500-1000 beds for critical care in Santa Clara that can be made available (I also suspect there are not that many car accidents, broken legs, etc right now). Overall, we are at about 10x in available capacity right now. Edit: source is my wife who used to be ER nurse and then ER nurse manager in several Bay Area hospitals.
  - lsh123 7y ago
    Actually this link from another reply here shows 3.8k total beds in Santa Clara which confirms my estimate for critical care beds that can be made available (about 25% from total): https://covid-19.direct/county/CA/Santa%20Clara https://covid-19.direct/county/CA/Santa%20Clara
yiyus 7y ago
Ok, maybe not yet. But once you start the lockdown, exponential growth continues for a couple of weeks (at least). If it grows at the same rate as in Europe, at the end of those two weeks Santa Clara county will need to hospitalize more than 15000 people.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Santa Clara County started the lockdown a few days ago. Maybe that's where a lot of the dispute in this thread is coming from; for those of us living in the Bay Area, maximum emergency measures are a given, so the most urgent priorities left are manufacturing medical equipment and finding a way to lift those measures.
- lsh123 7y ago
  I strongly suspect that the epidemic spread will be very different between large and small cities, suburbs, and country side. Plus Santa Clara county has very different demographic than Italy. BTW, with the amount of people going back and forth between Bay Area and China, I have hard time believing that we had no cases in Jan/Feb. I personally know two people (and I met with both within a few days after their return) who came back from Wuhan in Dec and early Jan. A lot of people were sick in late Dec and early Jan with very similar symptoms.

taeric 7y ago

A month ago, I had a hard time breathing. A week in, I went to an emergency care facility. They put me on steroids. A week later, I went to my doctor still unable to breath well. They put me on a respirator and another week of steroids. (Plus antibiotics, since I had had a fever in that time.) So, to that end, I suspect I had this. It also went through my entire family of six. Nobody else even got sick enough that we would have help them home, except the had a fever that lasted a night. So, in not arguing this isn't serious. If you have trouble breathing, get help. Immediately. I'm growing less confident in all of the simulations I'm seeing of it's out of control growth, though. Why? Because from all reporting, I almost certainly had it. And if I had it, my kids school was almost certainly saturated with it. Such that I think of there was going to be exponential growth in cases, that skip sailed over a month ago.

senordevnyc 7y ago
If it’s already widespread, then why are 90% of tests coming back negative? More likely: you didn’t have it.
- taeric 7y ago
  Also, the tests deployed right now return negative for recovered people...
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    So a huge portion of the population had it, including you and your family a mere 3-4 weeks ago, but now only 10% of those tested actively have it, many of the other 90% are fully recovered in the last few weeks? But hospitals are mysteriously only now seeing an influx of cases?
    - taeric 7y ago
      Me and my family would not be a huge percentage. My kids school? Gets bigger. I also just was told the Z-Pak I was put on is similar to what treats this. So, really not sure what to think. But my entire office was put sick for the month leading to this. My neighbor is the one that told me about the medicine, since she just finished a round. So, maybe? Our hospitals are not seeing influxes if severe cases. They are getting swamped from panic and lack of supplies, from what I'm seeing. Not severe cases of people about to die.