As the third wave of the epidemic strikes, hospitals across the U.S. are now packed with new coronary pneumonia patients, according to Bloomberg, with many states seeing another record number of admissions and a rush to intensive care units. The analysis suggests that health care systems around the country have been overwhelmed by the recent rise in confirmed cases in the U.S. due to the reopening of schools, the arrival of flu season, and increased indoor activity due to the colder weather. Some experts warn that the situation will only get worse between now and early next year, and that a return to normalcy in American society is feared to be a long way off.
Bloomberg says hospitals across the U.S. are crowded with new coronary pneumonia patients
For hospitals, it’s not just patients that are increasing, it’s a financial crisis.
Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the U.S. medical community has realized a problem: it is almost a luxury to expect the U.S. to reduce the number of new confirmed cases per day to zero. Many experts, including Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), have chosen to lower the community’s expectations and standards for preparedness – simply by keeping the curve of new daily cases flat. But this is such a “shroud”, is also being ripped off a little.
Bloomberg reported that the number of new coronary pneumonia patients hospitalized in the United States again showed an upward trend, as of October 20 to 39,000 people, a new high since August 22, of which 8,178 people in intensive care units, 1,889 people need to rely on ventilator-assisted treatment. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that the number of new coronary pneumonia hospitalizations may increase by 6,200 per day over the next four weeks.
According to Johns Hopkins University statistics, across the nation, 37 states have reported an increase in hospitalizations, 21 of which have recently set new hospitalization records or are approaching previous records. While the trend is nationwide, the data also shows that the worst affected region is the Midwest. Here, the population is sparser and medical supplies are relatively scarce compared to the large coastal cities.
In addition, hospitals everywhere are facing a financial crisis as they urgently treat the skyrocketing number of new coronary pneumonia patients. According to the American Hospital Association, the nation’s hospitals suffered financial losses of more than $200 billion in the first half of the year and are expected to continue to lose more than $120 billion in the second half of the year. As of Oct. 16, 47 hospitals across the U.S. have shut down or filed for bankruptcy, and hundreds of hospitals have been forced to lay off staff or cut salaries.
It is worth noting that many of these hospitals facing financial crisis are dedicated to serving minority and low-income populations. And the vast majority of private hospitals are still profitable because they refuse to treat uninsured patients and benefit from substantial government subsidies.
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“Indiscriminate outbreaks” in the United States, the third wave of the epidemic is raging.
This third wave of the epidemic has struck, in what can be described as an indiscriminate outbreak across the United States. Whether it is the Midwest, which is most affected, or the early epicenter of the epidemic, there has been a resurgence of the epidemic.
For example, Utah has been plunged into the situation of no intensive care unit available, is now urgently converted to general wards, used to treat critically ill patients; North Dakota all 56 hospitals, currently only 19 have a spare intensive care unit; El Paso, Texas is currently only 10 spare intensive care unit …… again from the confirmed cases, North Dakota last week has become the nation’s daily average of the most new confirmed cases of the state.
The situation is also worsening in the early epicenter of the epidemic. On October 20, local time, the number of new confirmed cases in New York State reached 2,000 in a single day for the first time since May. Some experts estimate that at the current rate of development, the cumulative number of new coronary pneumonia cases diagnosed in New York State will surpass 500,000 next week. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the resumption of school, return to work and increased indoor activity during the flu season are the main reasons for the third set of outbreaks.
The outbreak situation in New Jersey is also deteriorating rapidly, with more than 1,000 new confirmed cases per day in a week, up about 49 percent from two weeks ago. On October 21, local time, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy left an emergency press conference because two employees in his office had just been diagnosed, and Murphy is now in self-quarantine.
Schools everywhere have also been hardest hit by the new wave of outbreaks. Previously, a number of governors have gone on record saying that the chances of a child contracting the new coronavirus developing a serious illness are extremely low, and have used this as a reason to force the reopening of schools. However, many experts disagree, saying that although the rate of severe illness in children is low, the virus can be transmitted from children to their families, leading to the spread of the disease throughout the community. Several districts in the United States have now reopened face-to-face classes in the wake of the outbreak.
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△According to the Washington Post, former President Barack Obama publicly criticized current President Trump for failing to take even basic precautions to protect himself
The epidemic has been out of control for a long time, and people are questioning the government’s lack of capacity.
Due to the delay in effectively controlling the epidemic, the United States media reported that the White House had once considered “herd immunity” and supported the Great Barrington Declaration, which encouraged the natural spread of the virus among young people, a practice that has recently been roundly condemned by a growing number of authoritative experts.
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, noted that the promotion of herd immunity is “a response to the political views of some in the chaotic establishment. Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, said that it was a “holocaust” to allow young people to be lured into the arms of the virus by such demagogic policies.
Shortly after the Great Barrington Declaration manifesto was released in early October, it was pointed out by several media outlets that the co-signers included many non-public health professionals, others who did not sign their names, and even some false names. In addition, the declaration was written and signed at the American Institute for Economic Research, not at a public health-related institution. Multiple U.S. public health agencies issued a joint statement saying that the Great Barrington Declaration was not a scientific declaration at all, but a political statement that would lead to unnecessary and needless deaths.
In the face of another set of massive outbreaks of the epidemic, the Trump administration’s every move has attracted attention, but its credibility has always faced questions from all walks of life. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its epidemic prevention guidelines on October 21, which will “close contacts” was redefined, and once again stressed the importance of wearing a mask. However, after the Trump administration updated the epidemic prevention guidelines, former President Barack Obama publicly accused: “Trump can’t even protect himself.”
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