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Talked to a few doctors on #covid19 frontline this evening about excess beds/capacity issues the govt spoke about today
Widely observed that far fewer people with other medical conditions are coming into hospital. One doctor told me on their ward they're having 30-40 covid admissions in 24hrs and only 6 with other problems
To some extent this is older people who would have developed other issues getting covid instead but that doesn't account for all of it. Widespread assumption among medical staff is that people are too scared to go to hospital which could cause a lot of problems down the line
As a result, regards to capacity, yes there's plenty of beds on normal wards but still strain on ICU. One doctor I spoke to say they would typically have 34 ICU beds, that's been upgraded to 90, with 95% intubated with covid.
Doctors keen to point out there's an important distinct to be drawn between absolute loss of control due to surge capacity being overwhelmed (a la Lombardy) and "sub-optimal care we have to give because things are stretched"
Doctor: "It annoys me that the picture that's painted is that hospitals are coping so we're all fine. We are but only just and people are putting in v long hours which aren't sustainable and lots of staff are getting sick."
