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That means hospitals around the US will have just enough time to prepare for the explosion of cases that will will be swamping ER's after the July 4th bash. For example, hospital beds are full in parts of Texas and other states hard hit by the Coronavirus even as Trump downplays the severity of the disease by saying over the weekend"99% of cases are totally harmless."
"Our hospitals here in Harris County, Houston, and 33 other cities... they're into surge capacities. So their operational beds are taken up," said Lina Hidalgo, chief executive of Harris County, which includes Houston, Texas."
What a crock. And what a shame. Millions of party-happy US kids just couldn't keep themselves from packing themselves together like sardines without wearing masks Fourth of July : public domain
Anyone who thinks the healthcare system in this country won't be near bankruptcy by this fall when the flu season starts is either naive or blind. Already hospital personnel are quitting because they can't stand the strain their job is imposing on them. Providence Health Systems alone which owns 51 hospitals estimates that, even after accounting for federal stimulus dollars, it still LOST $400 million in April.
Yes, this horrible virus with a 98.7865% recovery rate will KILL us ALL!!!!!
I've seen more statistics on here for the recovery rate than I can remember. Where are they all coming from? The death rate in the US is between 4 and 5 percent currently based on diagnosed cases and deaths. Any other number is pure speculation.
So you think hospitals will have more business than they can handle... and they will go bankrupt? How's that going to work?
Because the patients that have Covid are not good for business. Medicine patients, which is what Covid patients are, are often money losers, or at least revenue neutral. And the ER, which is where most of the Covid patients are being admitted from, are certainly money losers. The revenue generators for hospitals are surgical patients, specifically patients undergoing elective (i.e. pre planned and scheduled) cases. Hospitals have had to cancel all these cases or at the very least, significantly curtail them. This is why the federal government started paying a premium to hospitals for Covid patients- it's a disproportionate share payment to make up for the fact that hospitals lose money on them.
Throw in the additional and unexpected increase in labor costs via overtime paid to nursing and ancillary staff, travelers etc and you have the potential for a lot of money being lost by hospitals. It's not necessarily good for a hospital to just have more patients, they need to be the right kinds of patients.
Covid patients are to a hospital what a couple that asks for a 4 top table, doesn't order alcohol, splits an entree, and lingers for 2.5 hours, are to a restaurant.
Last edited by Texas Ag 93; 07-07-2020 at 06:36 AM..
Wasn't that the point of the shut down? To build up hospitals--especially in cities---for the surges??? These hospitals and cities have had four months to build extra capacity. They should have converted stadiums, built tent hospitals, and had a plan to activate extra medical personnel (either retired, med students, or from other states). Four months. We did this in NY in a matter of weeks.
I don't excuse people going out and partying, and not wearing masks. They are being reckless. But if the issue is hospital capacity, they should have been building up for this since that was the original reason for locking down.
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