TX Hospitalization update - 10/14

THREAD 1/n

Why has there been a rise in C-19 Hospitalization census the past 2 weeks? Most of it is due to:

** A 15.3% statewide increase in the number of elective and delayed/critical care patients over the past 4 weeks **

#RationalGround

The 7DMA of total patients week ending:

9/16 - 44,041
10/7 - 45,782
10/14- 50,707

What happened on 9/16 & 10/7? Gov. Abbott EOs

* 9/16 EO - Made hosps the metric (bye bye pos%) at 15% of total PATIENTS in a TSA
* 10/7 EO - Revised hosps metric to be 15% of total CAPACITY

2/n

With reopening based on hosps, capacity started increasing, as did patients. With the metric now revised, it has really taken off.

I validated back to April - C-19 capacity never exceeded 60K except during the computer upgrade end of July. Now 8 straight days over 60K.

3/n

Yet Empty (Free) ICU/General beds have stayed flat, even decreasing. Capacity has risen, staff is being brought back to staff these beds, and new patients are being brought in at a rapid clip.

The pent up demand has to be very high & hospitals don't make money sitting empty

4/n

* General non-critical C19 Census is up 722 beds since 9/16
* ICU C19 Census is up 151 beds since 9/16.
* 82% of the rise is coming from non-critical positive tests
* C19 ICU has fallen to a Pandemic low of 31.6% of all C19 patients

5/n

These new patients are C19 tested. Most are what they call "incidental findings" of Asymptomatic patients. Most ICU is same (heart patients testing positive but obviously need to be in ICU)

A CEO of a large NJ system confirmed this on CNBC

6/n https://twitter.com/therealarod1984/status/1316042317791399938?s=20

Which takes us back to this trusty chart. Why did I include the orange line all those months ago? Because hospital capacity matters. Like raw case numbers, raw hosp numbers usually need context.

Since 9/16, C19 % beds in use has risen by 8 tenths of 1 percent to 6.34%.

7/end