Dr. Angus on CBS morning news, stated basically many will get the virus, and many un knowns. Also many tests/per patient$$. The BodyMortgage Care sponsors are sqealing prob why IMF involved.
How many ventilators are there in the U.S.?
When a patient is suffering ARDS (acute respiratory distress) from COVID-19, hospitals have to put a patient on a ventilator to keep them alive.
Problem: only about 60,000 ventilators in the entire U.S.
This is a 2007 study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215
OBJECTIVE:
The supply and distribution of mechanical ventilation capacity is of profound importance for planning for severe public health emergencies. However, the capability of US health systems to provide mechanical ventilation for children and adults remains poorly quantified. The objective of this study was to determine the quantity of adult and pediatric mechanical ventilators at US acute care hospitals.
METHODS:
A total of 5,752 US acute care hospitals included in the 2007 American Hospital Association database were surveyed. We measured the quantities of mechanical ventilators and their features.
RESULTS:
Responding to the survey were 4305 (74.8%) hospitals, which accounted for 83.8% of US intensive care unit beds. Of the 52,118 full-feature mechanical ventilators owned by respondent hospitals, 24,204 (46.4%) are pediatric/neonatal capable. Accounting for nonrespondents, we estimate that there are 62,188 full-feature mechanical ventilators owned by US acute care hospitals. The median number of full-feature mechanical ventilators per 100,000 population for individual states is 19.7 (interquartile ratio 17.2-23.1), ranging from 11.9 to 77.6. The median number of pediatric-capable device full-feature mechanical ventilators per 100,000 population younger than 14 years old is 52.3 (interquartile ratio 43.1-63.9) and the range across states is 22.1 to 206.2. In addition, respondent hospitals reported owning 82,755 ventilators other than full-feature mechanical ventilators; we estimate that there are 98,738 devices other than full-feature ventilators at all of the US acute care hospitals.
CONCLUSIONS:
The number of mechanical ventilators per US population exceeds those reported by other developed countries, but there is wide variation across states in the population-adjusted supply. There are considerably more pediatric-capable ventilators than there are for adults only on a population-adjusted basis.
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TigerClaws:
My conclusion from this is that hosptials are going to decide who gets the ventilaors based on...
1. Age. If you’re over 80, you lived your life and you’re dead.
2. Health. If you’re 60 and have heart disease and overweight, sorry you have a short life expectancy and you don’t get the ventilator.
This sounds cruel but it’s exactly what doctors do now selecting who gets a heart transplant and who doesn’t.
3. The ideal candidate: Young, otherwise good health. Give them the ventilator.
There’s also going to be a $$$$ / class issue. A Bloomberg can just buy top care regardless of his health or age. A homeless person... likely will be not given the ventilator.
We’re looking at 12 months until a vaccine is available, those catching this early might be ‘lucky’ in the sense they got top-flight super attention. Those catching it 8 months from now might be placed into the fever centers as we’ve seen in China where they’re just tossed on beds to not spread the disease but not enough ventilators to go around by then.
https://www.wired.com/story/kids-can-get-covid-19-they-just-dont-get-that-sick/
Megan Molteni
03.07.2020 07:00 AM
Kids Can Get Covid-19. They Just Don’t Get That Sick
“Globally, 3.4 percent of reported Covid-19 patients have died, though that fatality rate is likely inflated, since people with mild symptoms are probably not being diagnosed and counted in the overall patient pool.”
Does anyone have a good understanding of how many tests in the US have been administered?