WaPo: Covid-19 hospitalization rates are dropping. That's terrible news.

[SunSeeker]

So during most of the fall, we could look at any single day’s covid cases and predict that about a week later, a certain proportion of them — about 3.5 percent — would result in hospitalizations. The rate, in fact, was remarkably consistent. On Oct. 15, we had 53,000 new cases. On Oct. 22, you would expect 1,844 hospitalizations. What was it actually? 1,855.

But as we entered November, something began to change. For instance, on Nov. 1, the Covid Tracking Project’s seven-day average showed about 80,000 new cases — which we would predict should lead to about 2,800 new hospitalizations a week later, by Nov. 8. Instead, there were 2,600, a little fewer than expected. On Nov. 15, we had 146,000 new cases, which should have resulted in about 5,100 new hospitalizations by Nov. 22. However, there were fewer than 3,700. This pattern of declining rates of hospitalization continued through the end of November.

What is happening is pretty simple: Because hospitals are filling up, they are admitting fewer and fewer people. Any doctor or nurse will tell you that as the demand for beds soars, the threshold for admission rises with it.

The decision on whether to admit a patient depends on two things: clinical judgment and bed availability. Critically ill patients will always be admitted. But as hospitals start to fill up, those who are less sick — younger covid patients, or those whose oxygen levels aren’t yet dangerously low — get sent home. These patients would be safer in a hospital bed, but there isn’t one available for them anymore. And this doesn’t happen just to covid patients. People who show up at the hospital with heart failure, wound infections and other ailments will be asked to manage their conditions at home, as doctors keep the remaining beds only for the very sickest patients. One man with a brain abscess recently waited a day in a rural hospital in Missouri before being dispatched to a larger facility hundreds of miles away, in another state.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/07/covid-hospitalization-rates-dropping/

[roamer65]

1. Stealth triage.

Sending them home rather than a field hospital. They do this so the emergency cannot be easily seen by news media.

Same kinda shit they pulled in 1918-1920. Media blackouts.

[SunSeeker]

4. Yes, but Rudy got in with mild symptoms...that's a pretty fucked up triage.

And he got the Regeron antibody cocktail none of us can get.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Just-in-time inventory does not apply to certain people.

[sheshe2]

2. Yup.

Being sent home. No hospital beds and not enough staff.

I read the other day that a hospital in Nevada just took over their parking garage....a parking garage as a makeshift COVID unit. There are also not enough refrigerator trucks to handle the 3K per day dead bodies.

I weep.

[barbtries]

5. My son's girlfriend's granny just recently died.

She had visited my son and his gf on the saturday before thanksgiving; on the Sunday, gf discovered she'd been exposed to covid at work.

Granny, at 85 years old, still worked outside the home. turns out one of her co-workers was also positive.

My son and his gf never developed symptoms. She tested negative and he did not get a test.

Shortly after thanksgiving, Granny got sick and went to the hospital. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, to my knowledge either not tested for covid or didn't get the result, and sent home the same day. She seemed improved, she ate a meal...the next morning her sister went to check on her and she was dead.

I don't know and don't think we'll ever know if she had covid. There was no autopsy. But even if she didn't I believe she's a covid victim, because what 85-year-old with pneumonia is not going to be admitted to the hospital? I am convinced she was triaged and sent home because they didn't have room.

This article is timely, because while talking with my son earlier today I said exactly the same thing to him. Thank you for posting, I sent him the link.

[SunSeeker]

6. Wow, they sent an 85 year old with pneumonia home to die.

[wnylib]

8. Cuomo has instructed NY hospitals

to expand their capacity now, before they get overwhelmed and to maintain PPE levels now sufficient to deal with massive outbreaks. This is done by eliminating elective surgeries in regions where cases are rising and by selecting in advance the buildings to use if necessary.

The state is using color coding to designate levels of cases and community risk - yellow, orange, and red, with red being the worst areas. Each color code designation carries its own regulations on activities.

Cuomo has also requested, now, before the expected high increases of Christmas, that any retired medical personnel who are able to return to work would do so.

Although I am concerned about the increases, especially now in western NY where Buffalo and all of Erie County (and some nearby areas) are in an orange zone, I am gladcto have leadership that is actively working to contain the risks and damage as much as possible.

As Cuomo says, it is up to all of us to do our part because we are the ones responsible for the rise in cases, due to our individual and collective behavior.