[DanBC]

> The hospitals aren't overflowing,

We've converted all private provision to NHS provision; we've cancelled most elective care; we've built more than one private hospital (NHS Nightingale in London has 4,000 new beds).

We need at least 5 staff members to safely look after each ventilated patient. That's dropped right down because of covid-19, and we've already soon big changes in staff:patient ratios.

We're not at peak covid-19 yet, and we're trying to flatten the curve with social distancing and isolation measures.

Despite all this our ICUs are overflowing.

Listen to this doctor in Wales (you only need the first minute to hear how many patients they have) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlbCmRJMW4

Or this junior doctor who works in A&E, who talks about the large changes in patient flow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN6Trgzf9kY

[thu2111]

Someone else found UK hospital admissions data. UK ER aren't just empty right now but disturbingly so.

Part of the reason they're empty is that pneumonia and respiratory illness has hardly moved, yet cardiac, gastro and others have fallen off a cliff. That implies people with serious non-COVID problems are staying away from hospitals when they need care, because they've been told they have to "save the NHS".

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[thu2111]

Do you have a data source on bed occupancy? Some countries provide this in real time but I couldn't find one for the UK.

Anecdotes from single ICUs can be misleading. We were told northern Italy was overflowing, that the healthcare system had collapsed. So I was a bit surprised when I learned that hospitals in Veneto were 2/3rds empty and other hospitals in the region of Lombardy were also not really at capacity. We were shown the pictures from Bergamo but not much elsewhere.

In the USA the media showed harrowing pictures of people queuing up outside overloaded hospitals, people visited those hospitals themselves after the news had gone and found they were quiet.

In Switzerland there is a problem with hospitals now needing financial bailouts because the flood of corona patients hasn't arrived, but they also don't have the revenue from all the other operations that would be happening. Hospitals needing bailouts otherwise they must furlough medical staff! That's not at all expected, surely?

In the US states are sending ventilators to each other because they don't need them.

It's possible that a very busy ICU doesn't translate to a busy hospital, or other mundane factors. But the picture being painted across the world with respect to hospital load is quite chaotic and I would be unwilling to assume "our ICUs are overflowing", especially as overflowing doesn't mean the same as very busy.

At any rate, there's a wider point being made here: given the measures taken the healthcare system is not currently turning away patients or even reducing standards of care (5 staff for one patient, that's a lot!). That was the scenario that motivated the current lockdowns. Given the catastrophic damage being created by the global shutdown, the hospitals actually should be overflowing to justify it - as in, patients being taken to hospitals far from where they were picked up, queues for beds, really dire stuff. In London there are suggestions it's already at peak and if that's as bad as it gets, it's really hard to understand why artificially creating a new great depression is justified. The effects on lives of a new 1930s style depression could be horrific.