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A comment on London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline. Parent comment

Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by xkapastel on Saturday May 23, 2020 @07:05PM (#23287410)
I live in New York and I'm under the impression the hospitals were never overwhelmed. That was the fear, but it didn't actually happen.

They also thought they would run out of ventilators, but never came close to using all of them, started giving them away to other states, and then discovered that ventilators were not actually a good treatment anyway.

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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by Retric on Saturday May 23, 2020 @09:57PM (#23288433)
NYC hospitals increased capacity dramatically, with people treated huge wards and some sent to temporary facilities. That’s what being overwhelmed looks like, it’s not a binary condition just a decrease in the average quality of care.

In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions. That was likely a good thing as ventilators have huge risks associated with their use, but things where a long way from ok.

That said, the lockdown likely prevented a much worse situation at local hospitals.

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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by redis_mlc on Sunday May 24, 2020 @01:14AM (#23289302)
> In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions.

Sadly, that wasn't the case in NY. Even though Chinese doctors warned of the risks of ventilators in Jan/Feb, the US ignored that. There were 2 reasons:

1) intubating patients protected staff from aerosolization after the intubation

2) old understanding of oxygen levels led doctors to intubate way too early for corona.

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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by nostrademons on Saturday May 23, 2020 @10:56PM (#23288711)
I have a friend who works in a NYC hospital and they absolutely were overwhelmed. Every available space (including supply closets, ERs, staff briefing rooms) converted into a coronavirus ward. A few staff members (including their ER director) died from coronavirus.

They never ran out of ventilators, but they did run out of beds.

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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by losvedir on Saturday May 23, 2020 @11:34PM (#23288859)
Who is the ER director you're talking about? I tried looking it up but couldn't find any articles.
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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by simonh on Sunday May 24, 2020 @11:00AM (#23291956)
That’s hardly surprising, there’s no reliable record of health care worker deaths. “...US officials say they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others.”

Also: “In some facilities, the person who is supposed to do the reporting is caring for patients and is overwhelmed,” Schuchat said.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-...

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Re:London may have gone into a Covid-accelerated decline by 650REDHAIR on Sunday May 24, 2020 @12:38PM (#23292658)
My friend is an ICU nurse in Manhattan and they were(are) absolutely overwhelmed. PPE shortages, mandatory overtime, staff shortages due to infection, and almost every department became a covid department.
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