Numbers of people hospitalized in Alabama won’t be shared with the public

a reply to: carewemust

I live near ATL, GA.

Just focus on the death toll in Alabama from Covid-19, as compared to other contagious diseases.

How is that going to show what is going on at the hospitals?

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Patient confidentiality is still important. Releasing information (even in general terms) is still against HIPAA.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Maybe it's there way of giving the finger to the fear mongers. Other than that I have no idea why they would keep it secret unless the whole thing is a hoax.

a reply to: DBCowboy

How can releasing how many ICU beds are available infringe on patient confidentiality.

If that is the case, they should not be releasing the sick, recovered and died stats. That reveals more patient info than bed #'s.

originally posted by: LookingAtMars
a reply to: DBCowboy

How can releasing how many ICU beds are available infringe on patient confidentiality.

If that is the case, they should not be releasing the sick, recovered and died stats. That reveals more patient info than bed #'s.

Hospitals don't generally release that kind of information.

Local health departments do.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Hospitals don't generally release that kind of information.

Local health departments do.

Ok, that make more sense.

Thanks.

ETA - But it is the Health Dept. that won't release the data. Not the hospital.

Mobile County Health Department said that information was on a “need to know” basis and is only being shared with certain people and individuals.

you only hide what you don't want people to know.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

It's up to the local departments and they generally fall in line with local hospitals.

Our hospital here is overloaded with people because of a bad B flu, one not in the vaccine. It had to hit now. They put off lots of operations that are not completely essential to help to keep the hospital for people who might need it, I know two people who had their operations delayed. It is a bad year here for sickness without this coronavirus.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Hmm, that's certainly not suspicious at all, now is it? Withholding numbers that could prove or disprove something important (like caseloads) doesn't mean anything, they're ju --- look over there! Some other city has a high rate of sick people! Commence group panic NOW!


/sarc

It's starting to become like watching a bad magician try to pull off a magic trick he keeps bungling, doesn't it?

a reply to: rickymouse

Our hospital here is overloaded with people because of a bad B flu

How do you know it's not really The China Bug?

You don't have the "need to know" what is really overwhelming the hospital. Privacy laws and all that.

Maybe just the flu, maybe not...

originally posted by: LookingAtMars
a reply to: rickymouse

Our hospital here is overloaded with people because of a bad B flu

How do you know it's not really The China Bug?

You don't have the "need to know" what is really overwhelming the hospital. Privacy laws and all that.

Maybe just the flu, maybe not...

They sent some samples away for sampling I guess, they can distinguish between A and B and have tests for covered viruses in the vaccine.

But there could have been two infections too, we do not have many test kits yet for the Wuflu, so they rarely test unless symptoms match

originally posted by: LookingAtMars
a reply to: Doodle19815

Again, what does seeing hospital number prove? Are you trying to use them against what the media is saying? Do you want them for yourself?

Just trying to get a grip on what the truth is.

Videos of NY hospitals turn out to be from Italy.

I think the virus is real. At this point I think it really is starting to overrun some hospitals. Would just like some hard numbers to back that up.

For people who are interested, here is a website from the University of Washington that keeps track of infections, deaths, hospital beds and ICU beds needed, vs how many are available, etc. It’s updated daily based on the publicly available data. It doesn’t track each individual hospital, but gives the data for the entire state. I guess the idea is that if one hospital gets full before another, they can move the patients around to level the load.

covid19.healthdata.org...

About an hour ago, the White House announced that the US Gov has built their own model of the spread of the epidemic and it agrees very closely with this model, so they’re recommending that people use this model to forecast what’s happening in their state.

If you go to the model’s website and use the scroll-down menu you can select the model for your particular state. You can also see the results for the US as a whole, where they add up the results from all the individual states.

You can see that the effects of the epidemic will be quite different in different parts of the country. That’s because the infection started earlier in some places than others, some places have higher population density than others, some places started mitigation earlier (social distancing, etc.), and some places have more hospital resources to start with than others.

When the outbreak is poorly controlled, the peak of the epidemic curve will occur sooner and it will be relatively higher. Conversely, when it is well controlled, the peak will be delayed and the total number of deaths will be lower.

You can see that in places like New York State, which are going to be the worst. They will peak in about 10 days, have a hospital bed shortfall of 58,000 beds, and an ICU shortfall of 10,000 beds. Their number of COVID-19 deaths is projected to be about 15,500 by August, or about 1 person in every 1290 residents.

The Pacific Coast (California, Oregon, Washington) will be quite a bit better off. Their peaks will occur in about 25 to 30 days. None of them will have a hospital bed shortage. Only Washington will have a shortage of ICU beds, but they might be able to fix that, in time. California will see about 1 in every 9,000 residents, die, Oregon will see about 1 in 8,000 die and Washington will see about 1 in 4500 die from COVID-19.

Alabama will be more or less in the middle of those two extremes. It should see no hospital bed shortage (just barely) and maybe a 400 ICU bed shortage. It will see about 1 person in every 2800 die from COVID-19.

The US as a nation will average those results, so the peak will occur in about 15 days, and result in about 1 COVID-19 death for every 4000 residents, by August.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Great site.

Thanks for posting the link.

ETA - Looking at the website it looks like GA may have a fighting chance. NY looks to be F'ed.

My state has a lavish suite that posts number of tests administered, number of confirmed cases, number of hospitalized cases, and total deaths. It also breaks down deaths by county. The only graph is shows is a moving graph, of how many days ago each case was first noticed by the patient (this is cool for figuring out the lag time for their numbers).

The only thing they lack is number recovered cases. Which matters to me because the coronaviruses have a high relapse rate for patients with underlying conditions.

Like smoking camel lights for 20 years, back before the millennium.

a reply to: Graysen

Here's ours.
health.hawaii.gov...

Nothing for "recovered" but there is a count of those released from isolation.

a reply to: Graysen

People who recover at home are rarely included in the recovered statistics.

just like with the flu. You get a test..told you have the flu.. go home take care of yourself....recover... go on about your life.

That is why death is the important end statistic to look at. Everyone who did not die, recovered.

The news media makes the intentional mistake of reporting the number of cases since the beginning. ie...New York is now up to 15,000 cases! They never mention that since February 8th, thousands of those people recovered at home.

a reply to: 1947boomer

I note that the nationwide fatality projection is substantially lower than the numbers currently being used.

Still, interesting. I think the timing aspect is the most useful.