5 ms·

> Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Indeed, "enough" for normal times is not the

> Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Indeed, "enough" for normal times is not the same as "enough" for pandemic times. > Even Germany, which has multiple times the capacity per capita than France, is struggling in that regard. What is "enough"? Of course it's a "struggle" to suddenly work at capacity, but Germany wasn't in the situation of having to turn down patients. To the contrary, Germany was able to pick up patients from neighboring countries. That's "enough". > Events with more than 2000 people outside ( at the best of times, usually it has been flat out forbidden), and 6-100 inside have been forbidden in France since last year. That obviously didn't help. How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. > There is, check the US and Brazil. There really isn't, we have countries with strong lockdowns doing poorly and countries with weak lockdowns doing relatively well, and everything in between. Lockdown measures are also difficult to compare, as are populations, as is testing and reporting. For example, Brazil with minimal lockdowns is doing just as poorly as Peru, with heavy lockdowns. Florida is doing better than many other US states with heavier restrictions. Japan is supposedly doing well with few restrictions, but also performs little testing. There are lots of variables and unknowns here and one can always cherrypick data to argue for or against lockdowns in various forms.

sofixa 6y ago
That was during the first lockdown. More recently, they're closer to capacity: https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-icu-capacity-at-critical-level/a-55912261 https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-icu-capacit... > How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. It didn't help in the sense that hospitals are overcapacity and new cases, hospitalisation and death rates were still exploding until the recent pseudo-lockdown.
- incrudible 6y ago
  "An intensive care doctor has warned that only five to 10% of intensive care beds are still available in parts of Germany." In most countries, running at 90% ICU capacity is the normal state of affairs, Germany being an exception. Of course you can always warn that the health care system is just about to collapse. In 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/19/nhs-collapse-former-health-minister-norman-lamb https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/19/nhs-collapse... In 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on... In 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-breaking-point-according-to-british-medical-association https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-break... In 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/06/nhs-failure-health-service https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/06/nhs-fa... In 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/02/nhs-winter-crisis-extra-beds-created-by-52-per-cent-of-uk-hospitals https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/02/nhs-winter-c... In 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-coronavirus-could-overwhelm-nhs-intensive-care https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-c... In 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/09/nhs-counts-the-cost-of-christmas-in-lives-and-warns-worst-is-yet-to-come https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/09/nhs-counts-the... Spoiler: The NHS did not collapse. Working right at the brink of collapse is normal. > It didn't help in the sense that hospitals are overcapacity and new cases, hospitalisation and death rates were still exploding until the recent pseudo-lockdown. According to your own source, hospitals are not over capacity. If you had a few super spreader events, that could obviously change rather quickly. Whether a "pseudo-lockdown" meaningfully slows spread is not so obvious.
  - robbiep 6y ago
    It’s absolutely true that ICU capacity generally runs at 90% utilisation - ICU beds are bloody expensive (staffing etc). In NSW, Australia, where I live and work (and have worked in ICU) there is a statewide ICU service so if you need a bed and you’re on the other end of the state you can end up getting transferred 1500 km to be in one. Having said that about utilisation, what pandemic beds requirements meant in the rest of the world and would have meant here is that no elective surgeries could be performed; leukaemia/cancer patient stem cell/marrow transplants couldn’t go ahead and trauma victims risked not being able to be cared for. This was absolutely the case in the UK during the height of things (friends are ortho/trauma surgeons over there and ended up working as assistants in nursing for 3-4 weeks in January). So, with increase in ICU bed availability through adding new beds and with stopping any potential procedures that would electively require an ICU bed for recovery countries were able to basically meet demands (although many of my emergency colleagues in the UK reported having to determine who was going to be for ICU or not - ie top level care was not offered to some people during the height due to lack of resources) - there is now a massive backlog of patients requiring their baseline care to be fulfilled. For example, another of my colleague’s mothers is a (retired) dermatologist in London. She was pulled back into work because there are now people presenting eith melanomas that were missed because no one was going for their regular care early in the year. And now they’ve spread and now people are dying because of this; not to mention the backup. There’s no silver lining here.

sofixa 6y ago

That was during the first lockdown. More recently, they're closer to capacity: https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-icu-capacity-at-critical-level/a-55912261 https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-icu-capacit... > How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. It didn't help in the sense that hospitals are overcapacity and new cases, hospitalisation and death rates were still exploding until the recent pseudo-lockdown.

incrudible 6y ago
"An intensive care doctor has warned that only five to 10% of intensive care beds are still available in parts of Germany." In most countries, running at 90% ICU capacity is the normal state of affairs, Germany being an exception. Of course you can always warn that the health care system is just about to collapse. In 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/19/nhs-collapse-former-health-minister-norman-lamb https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/19/nhs-collapse... In 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on... In 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-breaking-point-according-to-british-medical-association https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-break... In 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/06/nhs-failure-health-service https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/06/nhs-fa... In 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/02/nhs-winter-crisis-extra-beds-created-by-52-per-cent-of-uk-hospitals https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/02/nhs-winter-c... In 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-coronavirus-could-overwhelm-nhs-intensive-care https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-c... In 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/09/nhs-counts-the-cost-of-christmas-in-lives-and-warns-worst-is-yet-to-come https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/09/nhs-counts-the... Spoiler: The NHS did not collapse. Working right at the brink of collapse is normal. > It didn't help in the sense that hospitals are overcapacity and new cases, hospitalisation and death rates were still exploding until the recent pseudo-lockdown. According to your own source, hospitals are not over capacity. If you had a few super spreader events, that could obviously change rather quickly. Whether a "pseudo-lockdown" meaningfully slows spread is not so obvious.
- robbiep 6y ago
  It’s absolutely true that ICU capacity generally runs at 90% utilisation - ICU beds are bloody expensive (staffing etc). In NSW, Australia, where I live and work (and have worked in ICU) there is a statewide ICU service so if you need a bed and you’re on the other end of the state you can end up getting transferred 1500 km to be in one. Having said that about utilisation, what pandemic beds requirements meant in the rest of the world and would have meant here is that no elective surgeries could be performed; leukaemia/cancer patient stem cell/marrow transplants couldn’t go ahead and trauma victims risked not being able to be cared for. This was absolutely the case in the UK during the height of things (friends are ortho/trauma surgeons over there and ended up working as assistants in nursing for 3-4 weeks in January). So, with increase in ICU bed availability through adding new beds and with stopping any potential procedures that would electively require an ICU bed for recovery countries were able to basically meet demands (although many of my emergency colleagues in the UK reported having to determine who was going to be for ICU or not - ie top level care was not offered to some people during the height due to lack of resources) - there is now a massive backlog of patients requiring their baseline care to be fulfilled. For example, another of my colleague’s mothers is a (retired) dermatologist in London. She was pulled back into work because there are now people presenting eith melanomas that were missed because no one was going for their regular care early in the year. And now they’ve spread and now people are dying because of this; not to mention the backup. There’s no silver lining here.