At a major hospital in Tucson the official report is that the icu is operating at 89% of its current available beds.
HOLY MOLY Batman!
The available bed count only includes beds with staffing. About 33% of the total icu beds are not staffed; those people have been furloughed or have reduced hours. So the hospital icu is really operating at about 57%(covid and non-covid).
My source is a nurse thst works there.
Seriously, my wife is an ICU nurse. Please quit dangerously dismissing the nature of this threat. ICU bed usage is at 91% capacity across the entire state of Arizona, per that liberal lying bastion known as the Arizona department of health website:
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/...se-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php
And dont try to argue that they have reduced beds which has caused the percentage to go up without new patients. At the beginning of June, there were ~375 Covid ICU patients in Arizona. Now there are 871 ICU patients and the trajectory is not going in the right direction. The number of inpatient COVID patients (non-ICU) has risen from ~1000 to ~3400.
I don't know or trust you well enough to accept your interpretation of what your friend said at face value. I'll accept at face value that you aren't lying and this is what you genuinely believe you heard from him/her. I'll even suppose you are halfway correct and that staffing levels are low causing a decreased availability of beds.
But that doesn't really help anything. If they don't have the staff for whatever reason, then they don't have the staff to treat more patients. There are
NOT a bunch of excess nurses and doctors just sitting around waiting to get a call in to work.
Here's an article about a guy being sent to Phoenix from Tucson because they were out of staffed beds.
https://kvoa.com/news/2020/07/05/st...ly-low-tucson-patients-being-sent-to-phoenix/
It doesn't matter if they could theoretically treat more people if they don't have the staff to do it. Obviously, the hospital is turning people away and that is not a great sign. If it is true that the hospital is short staffed due to furloughs rather than illness, then that means the hospital can't afford to hire more ICU nurses and is furloughing them while simultaneously sending patients 150 miles away, I don't see how that is in any way an argument that we aren't near the capacity of our medical system in Arizona. There is not some conspiracy of hospital administrators to ring alarm bells while secretly having a bunch of beds and nurses in reserve. They are starting to ship people out of state to San Diego and Albuquerque.
AZ is at or near capacity.
Edit:
It is true that hospitals aren't making much money off of COVID and some are struggling mightily and even furloughing people. Furloughs of qualified staff have happened, but those workers have mostly taken up shop elsewhere already and it is misguided to believe there is a vast reservoir of talented nurses just waiting in the wings sitting at home unemployed. If hospitals can't afford to combat this epidemic, then hospitals suffer decreased capacity and that loss is real. It is not evidence that we are just fine and dandy, it is evidence that our system is nearing the brink of failure. Hospitals in hard hit areas need access to as much federal dollars as they can right now to keep staffing and patient care levels as high as possible instead of furloughing people and cutting capacity for financial reasons.
