People will die because of overcrowded hospitals

People will die because of overcrowded hospitals

But there will be fewer of them, because tens of thousands of Americans who could have been saved will die, writes the American magazine Atlantic.

A lot of evidence indicates that one of the worst fears of a pandemic is coming true - that hospitals will be overcrowded, which will lead to unnecessary deaths. Americans who are dying of COVID-19 today would have survived if they had fallen ill a month ago.

Last Wednesday, for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, there were 100.000 patients with COVID-19 in American hospitals. The pandemic nightmare, the collapse 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 about who they receive and leading to more Americans dying unnecessarily. The current increase in the number of hospitalizations began at the end of September, and hospitals have been dealing with an unprecedented demand for medical services for weeks.

The number of hospitalized patients increased almost daily. Since November 1, the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals has doubled, and since October 1, it has tripled.

Meanwhile, health workers worried that hospitals would soon be overcrowded. "The health care system in Iowa will collapse, no doubt," one infectologist told Atlantic in early November.

The following week, an intensive care physician in Nebraska warned: "The assumption that we will always have one hospital bed for you is incorrect." This catastrophe seems to be on the horizon not only in Iowa and Nebraska, but throughout America. The national breakdown of the hospital system can now also be seen in the coronavirus data. For weeks, the number of hospitalized people with COVID-19 was approximately 3.5 percent of the total number of cases the previous week. However, the number of cases in the total number of hospitalizations is now decreasing, the magazine states.

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, writes Atlantic, but simply because they are running out of hospital beds and because it is necessary to tighten the criteria for admission to the hospital.

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 delay in data on the number of infected and dead, it was shown that about 1.7 percent of those infected died in most of October and November. But in mid-November, that number rose to more than 1.8 percent. Although this change may seem small, it represents hundreds of deaths, because many more people get sick every day.

So the virus seems to be killing more people. And that makes sense. Many medical victories over the virus are the result of better hospital care for patients with COVID-19. However, currently a smaller proportion of people receive this more professional and conscientious care. It is predicted that the first doses of the vaccine will almost certainly arrive by Christmas. Tens of millions of Americans could have immunity within eight weeks, and by the end of February, about 100 million Americans will be immune.

However, the quality of health care will deteriorate before that, and patients who need hospital beds for any other reason - heart attack or broken leg - will find it difficult to reach them. Many people will suffer and die unnecessarily, Atlantic magazine warns.