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Much evidence indicates that one of the worst fears of a pandemic is coming true: that hospitals will flood, leading to unnecessary deaths. Americans dying from COVID-19 today would have survived if they had fallen ill a month ago.
Last Wednesday, for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, there were 100,000 patients with Covid-19 in American hospitals. The pandemic nightmare, the shooting of the national hospital and the health system, reappeared after the first wave when the number of hospitalized was 60,000, according to the magazine.
Hospitals have become overcrowded, forcing them to be restrictive on who they receive and leading to more Americans dying unnecessarily.
The current increase in the number of hospitalizations began in late September and hospitals have been grappling with unprecedented demand for medical services for weeks.
The number of hospitalized patients is increasing almost daily. Since November 1, the number of covid-19 patients in hospitals has doubled and since October 1 it has tripled.
During that time, health workers were concerned that hospitals would soon be overcrowded. “The health care system in Iowa will certainly collapse,” an infectologist told the Atlantic in early November. The following week, an intensive care physician in Nebraska warned, “The assumption that we will always have a hospital bed for you is incorrect.”
Photo: Depositphotos
This catastrophe seems to be on the horizon not just in Iowa and Nebraska, but across the United States. The national collapse of the hospital system can now also be seen in the coronavirus data. For weeks, the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 was about 3.5 percent of the total number of cases in the previous week. However, the number of cases in the total number of hospitalizations is now declining, according to the magazine.
The average American with COVID-19 was admitted to the hospital today, probably sicker than someone with COVID-19 at the end of the summer. This is not because doctors and nurses have become more cruel, Atlantic writes, but simply because they are running out of hospital beds and because the criteria for admission to the hospital need to be toughened.
Photo: Dragan Milovanović
At the same time, the virus appears to have killed a slightly higher percentage of people diagnosed with Covid-19. Using a method that takes into account the lag in data on the number of infected and dead, it was shown that about 1.7 percent of those infected died during most of October and November. But in mid-November, that number jumped to more than 1.8 percent. Although this change may seem small, it represents hundreds of deaths, because every day many more people get sick.
So the virus appears to be killing more people. And that makes sense. Many medical victories over the virus are the result of better hospital care for COVID-19 patients. However, a smaller proportion of people today receive this more professional and conscientious care.
Depositphotos
At the same time, the virus appears to have killed a slightly higher percentage of people diagnosed with Covid-19. Using a method that takes into account the lag in data on the number of infected and dead, it was shown that about 1.7 percent of those infected died during most of October and November.
But in mid-November, that number jumped to more than 1.8 percent. Although this change may seem small, it represents hundreds of deaths, because every day many more people get sick.
So the virus appears to be killing more people. And that makes sense. Many medical victories over the virus are the result of better hospital care for Covid-19 patients. However, today a smaller proportion of people receive this more professional and conscientious care.
The first doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive almost certainly around Christmas. Tens of millions of Americans could have immunity in eight weeks, and by the end of February, about 100 million Americans will be immune.
However, the quality of medical care will deteriorate before that, and patients who need hospital beds for any other reason, a heart attack or a broken leg, will have a difficult time reaching them. Many people will suffer and die unnecessarily, warns Atlantic magazine.
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