11-10-2020, 05:37 PM
Yup, this is no longer an epidemic of cases; it is having real consequences downstream. The average daily hospital census in the US is about 600,000 so right now, about 10% of typical hospital census patients are hospitalized with COVID-19.
The total number of staffed beds across all U.S. Hospitals is 924,107, so we are talking about 7% of all hospital beds in the US are filled with COVID patients.
The good news is that aside from regional issues, there is a decent amount of slack in the system, so we should be able to absorb more COVID cases before stretching hospitals to the breaking point unless they were concentrated (and patients can be moved around to less overburdened areas, though this is not easy). The bad news is that the number of hospitalizations have doubled in 6 weeks (since early October). I am not going to project continued exponential growth, and we should all hope that we do not have continued exponential growth.
BC
The total number of staffed beds across all U.S. Hospitals is 924,107, so we are talking about 7% of all hospital beds in the US are filled with COVID patients.
The good news is that aside from regional issues, there is a decent amount of slack in the system, so we should be able to absorb more COVID cases before stretching hospitals to the breaking point unless they were concentrated (and patients can be moved around to less overburdened areas, though this is not easy). The bad news is that the number of hospitalizations have doubled in 6 weeks (since early October). I am not going to project continued exponential growth, and we should all hope that we do not have continued exponential growth.
BC