The problem with hospitals is that most of them are not designed for the necessary containment of an aerosol virus.
Some hospitals have wings that can handle it, but the rest of the hospital cannot.
However, imho many hospitals will be hit hard at the infrastructure level—receptionists, maintenance workers, technicians, nurses, pharmacists, bookkeeping are more likely to be infected from nonsymptomatic hospital visitors than other random folks in the community.
Bottom line: There will need to be new facilities created on a large scale to handle the epidemic.
Hospitals will be places that will be spreading the infection more than mitigating it.
“There will need to be new facilities created on a large scale to handle the epidemic.”
IF this spreads unchecked, we will see tent triage and hospitals on military bases.
But who will staff them?
There are almost NO hospitals having wings that can handle that. I am in the same area of the country as you. Aside from UMASS Medical in Worcester, there are maybe 2 dozen negative pressure rooms within 50 miles of you. In the greater Western MA area, there are, maybe, six of them.
My wife works in a hospital with two. My daughter is in the big hospital. They have 4. There are more in Hartford, but it is proportionate to the population.
More than a dozen cases in Northern CT or Western MA and they will be in whatever ICU beds are open.
Not trying to hype anything. But those facilities are in the big city hospitals. They are not designed for an influx of cases. They are one-offs.
that reminds me of another piece of date missing from China. They gave us numbers on nurses and doctors infected, in general terms, but none on support staff.