(07-10-2020, 03:00 PM)fullmetal Wrote: I'm starting to wonder about the TMC data being published -- are all those beds immediately available, or are they scheduled to be brought online in the near future but not currently available? As mentioned before, I think there is a lot of political pressure on hospital administrators to soft pedal their publicly available data. The stories from the trenches can't all be wrong, can they?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/all...9-n1233430
(Also, it's possible that the very worst hit hospitals in Houston are not part of the TMC. When multiple ERs are diverting, however...)
First, I view it as a positive that news outlets are reporting more on hospitals and workers there. Very important.
Second, when reading the articles, I suggest doing so carefully, looking for info on total beds (regular and ICU), breakdown of usage by Covid/non-Covid, and ideally some historical context on whether non-Covid numbers are below historical figures (which I still suspect would be the case . . . but it would be good to have confirmation on that). Then you'd also like to know what emergency or surge capacity is available, if any, and timeline for implementing same.
I've lamented here a few times already that the SCC dashboard - which used to report on hospital capacity and breakdown by Covid/non-Covid - has stopped doing that. But I just looked at the board today, and there was something on the page reporting deaths that caught my eye:
"Deaths provided in this dashboard do not necessarily mean that the individuals died from COVID-19."
What does that mean? Does it mean that the decedent was suffering from Covid at time of death but may have died from other causes? Or does it mean something else? Any edification appreciated (and apologies if this was previously explained but I missed it).