Maybe you guys are right on the hospitals. I mean, these quotes are SCARY!!! Please, read til the end.
"Tallia says his hospital is 'managing, but just barely,' at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.”
"Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds available"
Why is Bernard so concerned if things aren't REALLY bad?
Gees guys, they had to treat people in recovery rooms!
“We had to treat patients in places where we normally wouldn’t, like in recovery rooms,” says Camins. “The emergency room was very crowded, both with sick patients who needed to be admitted”
It's just as bad in Cali.
"In CA… several hospitals have set up large 'surge tents' outside their emergency departments to accommodate and treat … patients. Even then, the LA Times reported this week, emergency departments had standing-room only, and some patients had to be treated in hallways.”
"From Laguna Beach to Long Beach, emergency rooms were struggling to cope with the overwhelming cases… and had gone into 'diversion mode,' during which ambulances are sent to other hospitals.”
“Hospitals across the state are sending away ambulances, flying in nurses from out of state and not letting children visit their loved ones for fear they’ll spread… Others are canceling surgeries and erecting tents in their parking lots to triage the hordes of… patients.”
“We’ve never had so many patients,” said Adrian Cotton, chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University Health in San Bernardino County.”
“...at least one hospital has set up an outdoor triage tent to handle the overflow of people” “In Long Beach, hospitals have started visitor restrictions. In the South Bay, a conference center has been transformed into an ambulatory clinic.”
We all know how bad Missouri is doing. They barely filled Arrowhead for the Garth Brooks concert.
"In Fenton, Missouri, SSM Health St. Clare Hospital has opened its emergency overflow wing, as well as all outpatient centers and surgical holding centers, to make more beds available to patients who need them. Nurses are being “pulled from all floors to care for them, it’s making their pre-existing conditions worse,” she says. “More and more patients are needing mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure”
"At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, waiting rooms turned into exam areas as a medical tent was built in order to deal with the surge of patients. A Houston doctor said local hospital beds were at capacity”
“Dr. Anthony Marinelli says they've seen a major spike in… cases. It's so overwhelmed the community hospital that they've gone on bypass at times -- that means they tell ambulances to bypass this ER and find another.”
“There’s a little bit of a feeling of being in the trenches. We’re really battling these infections to try to get them under control,” McKinnell said. “We’re still not sure if this is going to continue.
“Dr. Atallah, the chief of emergency medicine at Grady, says the hospital called on a mobile emergency department based nearly 250 miles away to help tackle the increasing patient demand. "At 500-plus patients a day you physically just need the space to put a patient in. “
“As the main emergency room gets full, patients are moved to the tent. For example, a patient who comes in with a broken arm is likely to be treated inside the tent, he said. Visitor restrictions have also been implemented.” “The county saw a 300-percent increase”
All quotes from the 2018 flu season.
Honestly I don't remember hearing a thing about the 2018 flu season. But we didn't shut sports down and schools stayed open and no one wore a mask. There wasn't any talk of limiting restaurants or bars. Hospitals survived survived just fine.