bbauska
Albeit a large number, I am confident that the medical system in the US will more than be capable of dealing with the threat of this virus
Why? Does the experience of test kits give you that confidence?
The virus is already spreading through the community so at this point, quarantining is not going to stop the spread ...only slow it..
If 10 percent of the people who contract the virus end up needing hospitalization.... that will absolutely overwhelm hospitals. In Italy the hospitals in the zones that were hit badly did nothing but deal with Virus cases..... And they still had a high death rate because they had trouble coping.
If half of Americans eventually get the virus, and without a vaccine for more than a year, that's likely ... and 10% end up needing hospitalization that's 15 million people. There are only 900,000 hospital beds in the US. and only 75,000 ventilators. (The medical ventilator industry was forecasting an 8% growth rate world wide for their product just last month, driven largely by the increasing presence of cardiovascular diseases. So its doubtful they can quickly respond to this emergent demand).
https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/re ... market-695People who are vulnerable to CD19 are those who are currently medically compromised, the obese, the elderly and smokers. If you are an obese old man who smokes ... you may have signed your death warrant.
The whole strategy with quarantining and social distance is to flatten the spread growth, so that medical facilities aren't overwhelmed, and can deal with the demand better. That is 50% get it, but over 4 to 6 months rather than over 1 month.
However, in Canada and the US, hospital bed occupancy is close to 100% now... In Canada, its easier to move out low priority patients and put them off.The system is managed by triage protocols that react And we had the experience of SARS which produced a response plan which has worked pretty well so far... (It included the completion of wings of positive air rooms (rooms where quarantined patients can be safely treated without virus spreading into the hospital air system.) . Apparently enough for now, but I'm pretty sure they will be overwhelmed eventually.
In the US, where medicine is a for profit industry, it may be more difficult to get hospitals to delay expensive and profitable surgeries to deal with patients who may not be able to pay ....
So I think, if things keep evolving as they have in South Korea, China and Italy .... there will shortly be a crisis because demand will greatly out strip available care...
You don't want to be in a car accident during the height of Coruna...
This isn't Ebola. Ebola was deadly but fairly hard to contract..And easy to identify carriers..\.. This is real easy to get, at this point hard to identify carriers, especially without adequate testing, but thankfully not dangerous to most who get the disease. Its insidious.
And not something our current medical system is adequate to deal with...