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Fear not, for I bring good tidings of great hospital capacity. No doubt you've heard news or seen scary graphs of COVID hospitalizations skyrocketing across the country. Yes, C19 hospns are up almost 4X since early Oct, but look at the more important hospital utilization metrics.
HHS tracks daily inpatient & ICU bed occupancy & total capacity for every state. The latest reports show that overall bed occupancy is fairly stable & that, in general, there is ample capacity available. The spike in C19 hospitalizations isn't showing up in overall utilization.
The story is the same in LA & SF and in most places across the country. Skyrocketing COVID hospitalizations, but relatively flat, or only slightly rising & seasonally normal, overall bed usage. https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1338618788980219906?s=20
The main reason for this is that a large % of COVID pts are hospitalized "with" C19, but not for it. Many are there for other causes & test positive, but have no/mild symptoms. Also, in October hospitals began counting as admits many who're there just for brief observation.
Iowa breaks out their pts hospitalized "with" vs "for" C19. C19 is NOT the primary diagnosis for almost 30% of the state's COVID hospns. A similar or often higher ratio can be seen in other states that report hospital metrics this way.
The next time they point to spiking COVID hospitalizations to justify some sort of intervention, or to scare you, check the local, state or HHS data to understand what kind of impact C19 is truly having on utilization & available capacity, and fear not. https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565226935566336?s=20
