Hospitals brace for flu season and coronavirus double threat
In recent months Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center in San Diego’s South Bay has been near capacity with coronavirus cases. Located 11 miles from the Mexican border and serving a primarily Latino population, the hospital has seen an ongoing high number of infected patients.
But now doctors and nurses in the 343-bed hospital said they are preparing for even worse this fall, when the upcoming flu season amid the coronavirus pandemic poses a looming double threat that could severely strain the health system.
“Flu season can hit really hard,” said Leslie Gomez, a nurse in the Emergency Department at Sharp Chula Vista. “And COVID-19 has been devastating so I’m worried that these two forces will combine and cause a really difficult fall and winter.”
The flu is significantly less deadly than the coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it is so widespread that the CDC says that influenza has resulted in between 9 million and 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 and 61,000 deaths annually since 2010 in the U.S. Meanwhile, more than 32,500 of Americans are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, the COVID Tracking Project says, and more than 190,000 have died, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/hospitals-brace-for-flu-season-and-coronavirus-double-threat/ar-BB18U4ks?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP