Our local Pope County situation is not unique from the rest of Arkansas, most of the United States or the world. This is a global emergency. There are variations, of course. Most of those are trending in the same direction. Some will not fare so badly as others. Others with significant at-risk populations may suffer far, far worse. I shudder to think of the African countries with widespread, endemic AIDs in the population. The mortality rate there will likely be very high.
A down-under perspective from Joanne Nova’s blog.
50 Specialist Doctors send dire warning hospitals will be swamped 3 x capacity
The wave coming is not just a “bit bigger” than hospitals can handle
Western Australian specialists estimate that at present rate, in 45 days Coronavirus cases will fill up their entire state hospital system. Two weeks later Covid patients will also fill all the beds in the extra two copies of their entire state hospital network that haven’t been built yet.
Hospitals will need 20 times as many ventilators as they have.
Perhaps we are overreacting?
Western Australia is an example of what the rest of the West faces. There are 2.5m people here, but only 120 confirmed cases. In a state which took six years to build one hospital all we need to do is triple our hospital capacity in 6 weeks. Laughing…
The Doctors call for the immediate closure of borders. Which was impossible a few days ago, in a state that only has two sealed roads out, but is now happening on Tuesday “at 1:30pm”. (Presumably the new border guards have to drive out from Perth.) Amazing how fast the world changes once other leaders act.
Doctors want schools closed immediately and social distancing halved “at a minimum”. They warn “Social isolation measures are manifestly inadequate”.
”People will forgive the imposed hardships they may suffer but they will not forgive us if we, knowingly, do not act now to stop the demise of thousands of Western Australians.”
From the West Australian (paywalled)
In the United States and northern Italy, the first indicator of widespread transmission was when patients started to arrive at hospital that required intensive care. That has yet to happen in WA hospitals, but if it does, by that point the disease is “out of the bag”, the FSH (Fionna Staley Hospital) meeting heard.
Read more at JoNova blog.