[aslyfox]

Indeed.
At he current rate of 7 patients per day it will take the Comfort 140 days to take in another 980.

the ship never agreed to take covid cases

. . . On top of its strict rules preventing people infected with the virus from coming on board, the Navy is also refusing to treat a host of other conditions. Guidelines disseminated to hospitals included a list of 49 medical conditions that would exclude a patient from admittance to the ship.

Ambulances cannot take patients directly to the Comfort; they must first deliver patients to a city hospital for a lengthy evaluation — including a test for the virus — and then pick them up again for transport to the ship. . . .

At the same time, there is not a high volume of noncoronavirus patients. Because most New Yorkers have isolated themselves in their homes, there are fewer injuries from car accidents, gun shots and construction accidents that would require an emergency room visit.

Ultimately, Mr. Dowling and others said, if the Comfort refuses to take Covid patients, there are few patients to send. And given the pernicious spread of the disease in New York City, where nearly 50,000 were infected as of Thursday, dividing patients into those who have it and those who do not is pointless, he said . . . .

USNS Comfort Hospital Ship Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients. - The New York Times

[Parallax]

the ship never agreed to take covid cases

Yes, that's been established. Its mission was to free hospital beds for CV patients by taking on other patients. So far a whopping 20 of them (as of last night).

I find it just a wee bit hard to believe that in 3 days, in a city of roughly 8 million, they were able to find only 20
who needed hospitalization and didn't have the virus..

[Riggomatic]

Unfortunately, 80 beds of the 1000 beds are intensive care on the USNS Comfort .

[Parallax]

Unfortunately, 80 beds of the 1000 beds are intensive care on the USNS Comfort .

Why is that unfortunate, other than the fact they aren't being utilized? I have to think there may be people out there who need intensive care for reasons other than being infected. I'm pretty sure that people are still having heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia unrelated to the virus, etc. I'd even be willing to bet that there are at least 80 of them occupying ICU beds that could be freed up if only there was someplace else to treat them. Someplace like, oh, I don't know, maybe a hospital ship?

[Rondec]

The whole point is that testing is taking too long. Patients have to be cleared of COVID before they can be transferred to the hospital ship. By the time the test results come back, there is often little point to transferring them to the ship.

At the same time, having a "clean" hospital probably makes a lot of sense to decompress things.

On the bright side of things, number of cases of covid should start to drop in New York in about a week, based on computer modeling. The down side is that there will probably be 700 deaths a day till then.

[aslyfox]

one of our local hospitals - Stormont Vail - is currently publishing its status regarding covid - 19 issues


http://www.stormontvail.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Stormont-COVID-19-Scorecard-4-2-2020.pdf

[beholder3]

Here is an Italian doctor who had a smart idea how to solve the shortage of sub-intensive-care breathing masks in emergency situations:
Easy ? Covid19 ENG | Isinnova

Basically they take a cheap snorkeling mask and an 3D printed adapter.

Good idea. Every life saved is a life saved.

[Parallax]

Why is that unfortunate, other than the fact they aren't being utilized? I have to think there may be people out there who need intensive care for reasons other than being infected. I'm pretty sure that people are still having heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia unrelated to the virus, etc. I'd even be willing to bet that there are at least 80 of them occupying ICU beds that could be freed up if only there was someplace else to treat them. Someplace like, oh, I don't know, maybe a hospital ship?

It occurs to me that there could be a very reasonable explanation for this. I allow for the possibility that the situation is not as dire (yet) as we are being told and the ships were positioned far enough in advance to be of maximum benefit. If that's the case, if measures were taken in time, I'm as impressed as I am surprised.

[biz-engineer]

On the bright side of things, number of cases of covid should start to drop in New York in about a week, based on computer modeling.

In the US (from looking at NBC News) , it looks like here in EU one or two weeks ago, a bit stressful and fear of not taming the virus beast when you see numbers growing exponentially it give a feeling of not being in control of the situation. After two full weeks of collective distancing effort you start to see the curve bending downwards and which restores feeling of control, gives you encouragement that you are doing the right things and a hint that you're going to win it by attrition in the coming weeks, it's a good feeling.

[Riggomatic]

Why is that unfortunate, other than the fact they aren't being utilized? I have to think there may be people out there who need intensive care for reasons other than being infected. I'm pretty sure that people are still having heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia unrelated to the virus, etc. I'd even be willing to bet that there are at least 80 of them occupying ICU beds that could be freed up if only there was someplace else to treat them. Someplace like, oh, I don't know, maybe a hospital ship?

It's unfortunate, because people read 1000 beds available, and beds don't equal care.

The majority are just that...beds.

You are making the assumption that they can handle 1000 intensive care cases.

[Parallax]

You are making the assumption that they can handle 1000 intensive care cases.

No, I'm not. I was suggesting the 80 beds you mentioned could be filled with 80 ICU patients.
From my post:

I'd even be willing to bet that there are at least 80 of them occupying ICU beds

[normhead]

People are so weird. If they aren't in place when needed, people will be yelling about how incompetent everyone is. Yet if you put them in place before they are absolutely needed, you complain they aren't needed. It is at times like this people's lack of trust in their leaders is completely misplaced. Sometimes they really are the best people for the job doing the best they can.

I know everyone has an equal right to an opinion but, at some point you have to realize not all opinions are equal.

Someone explain, how is moving hospital ships to the areas they are most likely to be needed a bad thing? Sometimes journalists are huge part of the problem. Their job seems to be to spread mistrust, of everyone.

[aslyfox]

. . . Someone explain, how is moving hospital ships to the areas they are most likely to be needed a bad thing? Sometimes journalists are huge part of the problem. Their job seems to be to spread mistrust, of everyone.

I think that the " problem " is that some things are overhyped, expectations raised and when the real facts are known

there is a drop in credibility

let me try to explain what I mean

examples

- we are odering that companies make XXXXXXX number of YYYYYYY so the problem is solved

no, it will take time for those to be made and shipped, problem still exists

- the hospital ships are sent problem solved

no problem is not solved but may be helped in the future

- there are reports that drugs used for yyy may help with the virus, problem solved

no, it takes time to determine if those reports are true and those drugs are safe to use for this new use

[aslyfox]

This is a well known nursery rhyme

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the knight was lost,
for want of a knight the battle was lost.
So it was a kingdom was lost – all for want of a nail.

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes gives as the oldest version the words of Adams in his complete sermons of 1629

“The want of a nail loseth the shoe, the loss of a shoe troubles the horse, the horse endangereth the rider, the rider breaking his rank molests the company so far as to hazard the whole army.”

Thomas Adams Puritan Shakespeare: Want of a nail

for want of [ funding ]

Federal government efforts to boost N95 mask supply come up short
In September 2018, the Trump administration received plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic.

The plans, submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by the medical manufacturer O & M Halyard, were the culmination of a venture unveiled almost three years earlier by the Obama administration.

But HHS did not proceed with making the machine. An HHS spokesperson told The Washington Post that although Halyard’s plans were feasible, no funding was available to build the machine. The branch of HHS responsible for the project has a total budget of $1.5 billion for 2020.

The project was one of two N95 mask ventures — totaling $9.8 million — that the federal government embarked on over the past five years to better prepare for pandemics, according to contract records. The other involves the development of reusable masks to replace the single-use variety now so scarce that medical professionals are using theirs over and over. Expert panels have advised the government for at least 14 years that reusable masks were vital.

Medical personnel tackling the outbreak have said that because of shortages, they have had to reuse their masks, a practice that manufacturers warn could diminish the masks’ effectiveness.That effort, like the quick mask machine, has not led to a single new mask for the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. The contract for developing a reusable mask was signed in September 2017 with Applied Research Associates of Albuquerque. The government exercised an option to continue it last May.

But that came too late for coronavirus.“Unfortunately, if the pandemic would have happened next year, we’d have been in much better shape,” said Brian Heimbuch, the company’s principal investigator on the project. “It’s still in progress. It looks promising.”
By Jon Swaine

Coronavirus live updates: U.S. records record number of deaths and Pelosi wants more economic relief - The Washington Post

more details:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/federal-government-spent-milli...0d0_story.html

[Parallax]

People are so weird. If they aren't in place when needed, people will be yelling about how incompetent everyone is. Yet if you put them in place before they are absolutely needed, you complain they aren't needed.

Norm, I can't find any posts where anyone has said they aren't needed. I have no idea whether they are needed at the moment or not. All I know is what I read and hear reported and I've made clear more than once how much faith I have in that.
If they are needed now, let's use them. If they are in place in anticipation of being needed in the future, kudos to whomever had the foresight to deploy them and, as I stated earlier, I'm impressed; surprised but impressed.