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Allow me to explain how bad the COVID situation can become here in Houston, TX, a thread:
The Texas Medical Center, located near downtown Houston, is the largest medical complex in the world. It consists of 21 hospitals that offer a variety of services. These 21 hospitals combined have a total ICU bed capacity of 1330 patients.
As of today, June 24th, 2020, the Texas Medical Center is at 97% capacity (1298 beds filled). Of these beds, 70% (936) are filled with non-COVID patients, 27% (362) are COVID patients. This leaves 3% (32) beds open.
As expected, hospitals have the ability to expand their capacity during a surge. The Texas Medical Center, as a collective unit, has the ability to SUSTAIN a surge of an additional 373 ICU beds/patients. This is called the “sustainable surge capacity”
We are almost at this point, only 32 ICU patients away from tipping into this category. Matter of fact, Texas Children’s Hospital (the world’s largest children’s hospital) is already preparing to do their part. https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-childrens-hospital-admitting-adult-patients-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-rise/285-5aa0a132-a318-4a41-81b3-6659086c2ef7
With the rate of our COVID patients rising, we are expected to fall into this category this week.
Once the 373 additional sustainable ICU bed capacity has been reached, we fall into the next category, which is called “unsustainable surge capacity”. This is an additional, temporary ICU capacity used for significant increases in COVID. That capacity is 504 patients/beds.
We are expected to fall into that category by July 6th. So, the total surge ICU bed capacity of the Texas Medical Center is 2,207. Here is a visual aid that breaks all of this down.
If we don’t decrease the spread of COVID, this could get very ugly. Please, we beg you to STAY HOME, WASH YOUR HANDS, and WEAR A MASK when running essential errands.
