President Trump says NM will get requested Army hospital

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | March 30, 2020 | Dan Boyd

[CedarDave]

SANTA FE — In a telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and governors today, the president told Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that he will grant her request for a U.S. Army field hospital in Albuquerque.

The governor had asked the federal Department of Defense for the 248-bed hospital last week, citing concern about New Mexico hospitals’ ability to absorb a surge of novel coronavirus cases.

During the phone call today, Lujan Grisham brought up the request and said her office had not yet received word on the hospital from U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

In response, Trump told the governor “we’ll build you that hospital as quick as we can,” according to a transcript of the conversation from CBS News. He also apparently directed aides to look into the issue.

Lujan Grisham has asked that the U.S. Army combat support hospital be in place by April 10, or as soon after that date as possible, though no details about a possible location in Albuquerque have been released.

~~ snip~~

Along with other governors, Lujan Grisham has been in regular contact with the White House as the coronavirus outbreak has intensified.

Though Lujan Grisham has, at various times, criticized the federal government for its handling of how information and health care supplies are disseminated to states, the governor appeared to praise Trump during today’s phone conversation, according to the CBS News transcript of an audio recording.

After exchanging concerns about rising COVID-19 infection rates on the Navajo Nation, Lujan Grisham told Trump: “Yeah, I’m very worried and Mr. President, I appreciate you.”

“Thank you very much. I appreciate you,” Trump said in response, according to the transcript.

[CedarDave]

Praise from our "progressive" left-wing governor for the President?

Likely only until she gets what she wants then she will join the rest of the shrill harpies in demanding adherence to the "Green New Deal."

[CedarDave]

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[AlaskaErik]

Is it for Americans or illegal aliens?

[Texas Eagle]

Good thing Biden isn’t President. He’d send one of those hospital ships to New Mexico.

[CedarDave]

New Mexico data through March 30:
Positive tests: 281
Total tested: 12,527
Hospitalized: 24
Deaths: 4
Major virus locations: ABQ area, Santa Fe, Las Cruces area and San Juan County.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Torrance Co. finally got it’s first case. I’m thinking Harding Co. is probably safe, at 0.28 people per square mile.

[Paladin2]

This hospital bed model for NM says they are likely to be OK:

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Select the State of interest when the web page loads.

[Paladin2]

NM shortage of ICU beds predicted.

[poinq]

117 total cases. Most are mild. So why are they building a hospital?

[kabar]

Currently NM has 281 confirmed cases and four deaths pending today’s information. Hard to understand why NM needs a hospital urgently.

[CedarDave]

New Mexico has fewer hospital beds per capita than the national average: 1.8/1000 vs. 2.4. I suspect the numbers in the populated areas (177 in ABQ and Santa Fe areas) are going to jump up soon. The Gov is going to give a press conference at 4 p.m. overlapping with the President’s daily update.

[CharlesWayneCT]

We are learning, day by day, how unprepared the (mostly democratic) states are for even small upticks in infectious diseases.

New York was screaming about running out of capacity when their hospitalization rate went up 10% from “usual”. They have no buffer, they spent no money on a cache of supplies they would need.

We face a shortage of masks that cost almost nothing, and that could have been easily manufactured the past 5 years. We face hospital bed “shortages” because they refused to allow hospital beds to be built.

In California, democrats destroyed 4 portable 250-bed hospitals, because they didn’t want to maintain them, and then sold off most of the emergency equipment to fund government programs.

And here now, we see New Mexico, which is barely a blip now on the CV radar, already needs someone to build them a hospital, because they didn’t build any of their own.

[CharlesWayneCT]

That is a cool site. I’m not sure about it’s accuracy though, in that I checked VIrginia, and while we look like we are safe, they say we only have 329 ICU beds. We actually have 1925, with staff for 1700. I guess it might be possible that our ICU beds are currently full of patients, but I find it hard to believe we are operating so close to the limit.

Especially since I think we could hire additional staff to get the last 250 beds in use.

FOr my predictions, I’ve been assuming we have 510 beds to use (30% of our current staffable maximum).

It also says we have no lockdown, but we had one for 2 weeks, it is now mandatory.

[Paladin2]

The daily death number seems to be updated daily.

Like pretty much every model, getting a good handle on the parameters is the key. Hopefully they are looking at new info as it comes in daily. Regarding ICU beds, I didn’t look into the sources of their data. Send them a note and see if they update the model.

[Don Corleone]

A true Christian act from a president who is chastised for being a Christian. ‘Nuff said?

[CharlesWayneCT]

It says the ICU beds are based on the average use. Doesn’t say if it is seasonal, I would think we use more in the winter than summer, but could be wrong, also I don’t know if ICU beds are impacted by not doing elective surgeries, or if we have a plan to convert surgical beds to ICU as we are not doing so many surgeries.

I feel like a lot of our lockdown is because we are scared of DC and Maryland, and also new York. For example, we have a weird clause that says you can only rent space in our campgrounds for 14 or more days, no short-term rentals.

So, good for a place to go if you are on 2-week isolation, or if you have come from New York, but prevents someone just camping a few days and running around infecting the area.

[CedarDave]

New Mexico update through March 31:
Positive tests: 315
Deaths: 5