Virus May Stretch Capacity of U.S. Hospitals to Breaking Point
- Brutal math: 100,000 beds for as many as 10 million patients
- Supply of crucial ventilators even more dire for providers
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Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago can convert two entire floors to cope with coronavirus patients. Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Medicine would triage people in tents outside the emergency department. Respiratory therapists are girding for the worst.
Hospitals large and small around the globe are preparing for the kind of grim scenarios playing out in countries like Italy, where the outbreak has outstripped bed capacity, staffing and emergency supplies. The life-and-death question is where to put all the patients.