• Headlines
  • World News
  • Commercial Law
  • Famous Cases
  • Interviews
  • Photo News
  • Property Law
  • Lifestyle
Thursday, January 28, 2021
  • Login
Gavel International
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
The Gavel
No Result
View All Result
Home World News

‘Irresponsible’ to rely on hospital capacity data amid U.S. coronavirus resurgence: experts

by
June 27, 2020
Reading Time: 2 min
0
Coronavirus cases jump by a million in 1 week to reach 8 million worldwide
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT


U.S. governors in places seeing huge spikes in coronavirus infections often cite statewide data to assure the public they have plenty of hospital capacity to survive the onslaught, even as the states routinely miss the critical benchmarks to guide their pandemic response.

RelatedPosts

Spain to legalize euthanasia and aided suicide

Facebook faces antitrust lawsuits for Privacy invasion of Instagram users and Illegal Monopolization from the FTC

#ENDSARS: President Buhari officially addresses protesting youths, assures extensive Police Reforms

Public health officials and experts say the heavy reliance on statewide hospital data is a misleading and sometimes irresponsible metric to justify keeping a state open or holding back on imposing new limits.

That is because statewide statistics can be deceiving, especially in large states where individual hospitals can be in crisis mode even while the overall capacity numbers look OK.

Thomas LaVeist, dean of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, said basing pandemic and reopening policy on statewide hospital bed capacity ”is incredibly irresponsible.”

“To cherry-pick hospital capacity and to use that one metric without the context of number of cases, number of deaths, is shocking,” LaVeist said.

The issue of hospital capacity has gained urgency across the nation this week as Florida, Texas, California, Arizona and other states reported skyrocketing case numbers. Governors have repeatedly invoked hospital capacity in arguing against new business restrictions, though the dynamic began to shift Friday when Texas and Florida clamped down on bars amid an increasingly dire situation with COVID-19.

You should also READ  Global economic downturn from COVID-19 could be worse than first projected: IMF

At the first White House coronavirus briefing nearly two months Friday, Vice President Mike Pence also cited hospitalizations in discussing the outlook for the pandemic.

Two months ago, Pence said 15% of patients were being hospitalized. Now it’s about 5%. That means the health care system is better positioned to cope with a resurgence in cases, he says.

In Texas, the state health department’s website on Thursday showed 12,951 available beds, 1,320 available ICU beds, and 5,850 available ventilators. What it doesn’t break down is how bleak the situation is in some particular places, including Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city. Hospital beds in Houston are filling so fast that Texas Children’s Hospital is starting to treat adult patients, and 97% of ICU beds at Texas Medical Center were in use.

In Miami, Homestead Hospital confirmed Tuesday it was at capacity. The hospital was transferring patients to other hospitals and preparing to convert regular beds to beds for ICU and acute care patients, if needed.

In Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has declined to impose new restrictions on business activity or a stay-at-home order, repeatedly citing ample capacity in the state’s hospitals as the reason he is comfortable staying open.

[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]


Source link

Like this:

Like Loading...
Tags: arizona coronavirusCoronaviruscoronavirus hospital dataCoronavirus Hospitalscoronavirus newscoronavirus texasCoronavirus USCOVID-19covid-19 newsFlorida CoronavirusHealthTexas Coronavirusus coronavirusus hospital dataWorld

Next Post
India coronavirus cases surpass half a million, with no end in sight

India coronavirus cases surpass half a million, with no end in sight

Discussion about this post

Trending News

  • Court fixes Feb. 19, For Judgment On Saraki’s Ikoyi Properties January 28, 2021
  • EFCC re-arraigns oil firm Directors over £2.6bn fraud January 28, 2021
  • EFCC to court: We recovered N75m from ex-minister Turaki’s wife January 27, 2021
  • Prof Akintoye wins 2020 Yoruba Man of the Year January 27, 2021
  • Funeral rites for late Justice Watila begins Jan 27 January 27, 2021
The Gavel

© 2020 Gavel International - Powered by Realdata.

Navigate Site

  • Headlines
  • World News
  • Commercial Law
  • Famous Cases
  • Interviews
  • Photo News
  • Property Law
  • Lifestyle

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Newsletter
  • Welcome to The Gavel

© 2020 Gavel International - Powered by Realdata.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add The Gavel to your Homescreen!

Add
%d bloggers like this: