How Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In 2005, the federal government sought to assess how a respiratory-related pandemic might play out in the United States. Its report estimated that a severe influenza pandemic would require mechanical ventilators for 740,000 critically ill people.

Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about 62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010 study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark, potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately sick.

Much about the coronavirus remains unclear, and it is far from certain that the outbreak will reach severe proportions in the United States or affect many regions at once. With its top-notch scientists, modern hospitals and sprawling public health infrastructure, most experts agree, the United States is among the countries best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic.

But the coronavirus, which appeared in China in December and has stricken more than 86,000 people around the world, killing nearly 3,000, has already exposed significant vulnerabilities in the ability of the United States to respond to serious health emergencies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-prepared-is-the-us-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak/ar-BB10z672?li=BBnbcA1

[no_hypocrisy]

1. It isn't.

There will thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions who will be contagious in everyday life and won't know it b/c they will be asymptomatic (i.e., they won't feel or be obviously ill). They will go to their jobs, to school, go shopping, go to movies, etc. and spread the virus to multitudes up to a week before they get their first suspicion that they have the COVID19 virus. And it will continue via the people they infected.

There won't be enough medicine to save the lives of the elderly and of those with compromised immune systems and respiratory problems. There won't be enough hospital beds. There may not be enough medical personnel (alive) to manage those in hospitals.

People are social animals. They won't stay home from work, from shopping for food, going to the laundromat, etc. Remember Typhoid Mary? The NYC Board of Health tried to quarantine her and she managed to avoid quarantine and was found working as a cook while she was infectious with typhoid.

[USALiberal]

4. In the USA? Nt

[Wounded Bear]

2. Our for profit healthcare industry is not prepared for a pandemic...nt

[Niagara]

3. No country is prepared for it

Dr. Jennifer Ashton talked about how no country is prepared for it on The View.


https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213032739

[uponit7771]

5. Not, we have no paid sick leave