https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🚨" title="Polizeiautos mit drehendem Licht" aria-label="Emoji: Polizeiautos mit drehendem Licht">I wrote about UNMC--the hospital that, perhaps more than any other in the US, had prepared for a pandemic. It has amazing facilities. Its staff anticipated, planned, drilled.

And now?

“I don’t see how we avoid becoming overwhelmed,” one doc said. 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Here’s what the current surge is doing to the best-prepared hospital:
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="➡️" title="Pfeil nach rechts" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach rechts">One building is now a COVID tower.
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="➡️" title="Pfeil nach rechts" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach rechts">10 COVID units; 1 solely for patients to die.
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="➡️" title="Pfeil nach rechts" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach rechts">Some days, they’re short 45-60 nurses.
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="➡️" title="Pfeil nach rechts" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach rechts">“We’re watching a system breaking in front of us." 2/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Hospital staff are *exhausted*. A nurse who normally works in oncology told me she can barely comprehend the amount of death she has seen in recent weeks.

Work "follows me everywhere I go. It’s all I see when I come home, when I look at my kids.” 3/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

This is NOT because the virus is unstoppable. It’s because Trump, Nebraska& #39;s governor, and many of its people are not doing the simple things that could stop it.

Not even the best-prepared hospital can compensate for an unchecked pandemic. 4/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Ron Klain—Obama’s Ebola czar & Biden’s future chief of staff—once told me UNMC is “arguably the best in the country” at handling dangerous & unusual diseases.

If THEY are struggling, that’s a massive warning sign. And they aren& #39;t alone. 5/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

As I wrote last week, hospitals around the country, and especially in the Midwest, are also struggling.

The entire country is on pandemic fire. Reinforcements aren’t coming. Health-care workers are teetering on the edge. It’s getting worse. 6/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-breaking-healthcare-workers/617091/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Hospitalizations lag behind cases by ~12 days.

In the last 12 days, Nebraska’s cases have gone from 82,400 to 109,280.

Even if no one else is infected, that surge WILL slam into already stretched hospitals over Thanksgiving.

Then what? 7/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

As my colleague @alexismadrigal reported, 22% of hospitals don’t have enough workers right now. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/third-surge-hospitals-staffing-shortage/617128/

Daily">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a... death rates will soon be higher than they were in the spring, *even if hospitals hold the line*. 8/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/coronavirus-death-rate-third-surge/617150/">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...

The near-term future is set. But our choices now will determine how dark Christmas is.

As @zeynep writes, “it’s time to hunker down.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/lock-yourself-down-now/617106/

As">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar... @rachgutman writes: “Don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.” 9/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/10-simple-rules-surviving-pandemic-holidays/617122/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

As a UNMC doc said to me, people have “a mistaken belief that every curve that goes up must come down.

What they don’t realize is that if we don’t change anything about how we’re conducting ourselves, the curve can go up and up.” 10/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...