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THREAD: I've seen a video circulating that, in a nutshell, says "citizen journalists" are uncovering what "mainstream media" won't tell you — that hospitals around the country are empty. So, I want to remind people of important things @knkxfm and others have been reporting. 1/9
Hospitals are canceling elective procedures to prepare for capacity overload. We haven't hit the #COVID19 peak. This week and next are going to be among the worst, and it will vary from place to place (since social distancing measures and compliance differ place to place). 2/9
Because they are canceling all these procedures, to the layperson it might seem like hospitals aren't overloaded. But the key is the capacity of the intensive care unit (number of beds, ventilators, etc.) because many of these #coronavirus patients are critically ill. 3/9
A great tool to reference is this model from @IHME_UW. It breaks down how many ICU beds we have vs. how many we're projected to need at the peak — a point in time all these hospitals are bracing for, which hasn't hit yet but is right around the corner. https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections 4/9
In short, this isn't about how busy *hospitals* are as a whole. It's about how busy *hospital ICUs* are specifically, and if they have enough equipment (primarily beds and ventilators) for the number of people who are projected to need them. 5/9
I've heard from some health care workers that some of their shifts are canceled, or they're less busy. That's because hospitals are positioning themselves to only treat absolutely critical patients right now, and push everything else to a time when capacity won't be an issue. 6/9
I want to emphasize: what these "citizen journalists" are claiming to uncover lacks necessary context to tell the full story of this health crisis. And it's completely inaccurate to suggest that what they're finding disproves the information real journalists are reporting. 7/9
This disinformation campaign runs the risk of disrupting important progress we're making to #FlattenTheCurve — which is the ONLY way we can make sure hospitals don't, in fact, become overwhelmed with critically ill patients. Here's a primer on that. https://www.knkx.org/post/episode-1-flattening-curve 8/9
Be well, friends. Stay home. And try to stop harmful disinformation before it spreads like wildfire. 9/9
