Hospital bed capacity helps states measure COVID-19 spread. Here’s why it matters
Public health officials are sounding the alarm as hospital beds fill up and some states experience their first peak in cases.
More than 60% of inpatient beds across much of the East Coast, Southeast and West Coast are occupied, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The same is true for ICU beds — where South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas are all at more than 70% capacity.
There are several factors that go into measuring the spread of COVID-19, from the number of daily cases to the percentage of people who are positive. Hospitalizations are sometimes a “lagging indicator,” former Food and Drug Administrator Scott Gottlieb told CNBC, because it typically takes more time for a patient’s health to decline.
But unlike testing, which has recently increased tenfold across much of the U.S., “hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19,” the Miami Herald reported.
They’re also more or less constant over time, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In North Carolina, where two of the largest hospitals felt more than prepared for a surge in mid-April, only about one-fifth of the hospital beds and 22% of intensive care unit beds are available as of Thursday, The News & Observer reported.
Not all of those beds are occupied by coronavirus patients, but North Carolina continues to set one-day highs with the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 — which peaked at 857 on Thursday, according to the N&O.
“Right now our hospitals do have bed capacity and that’s good,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday. “But as Dr. Mandy Cohen can tell you, that can change quickly.” Cohen is secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
It’s a similar picture across much of the Southeast.
In Florida, fewer than one in four ICU beds is empty, CBS Miami reported. Critical care beds in neighboring Georgia are at 72% capacity, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and South Carolina’s hospitals are at 70.6% capacity, The State reported Thursday.
ICU beds in Montgomery and Tuscaloosa counties in Alabama were at 96% capacity as of Sunday, according to ABC News. Just 16% are free statewide.
What do those numbers typically look like when the U.S. is not experiencing a pandemic?
According to Beckers Hospital Review, the nationwide average hospital bed occupancy rate in 2012 was 61%. Healthcare analytic company Definitive Healthcare reported that figure at 49% in 2019 with some difference between urban and rural hospitals.
In a university news release early in the pandemic, Dr. Howard Markel — a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health — pointed out that “many emergency rooms and hospitals already operate close to capacity on a good day, without coronavirus.”
But health officials don’t want that in the midst of a pandemic.
“Adding a sharp spike in very ill COVID-19 patients to that traffic could mean some people don’t get the care they need – whether they have coronavirus or not,” Markel said.
That’s where flattening the curve comes into play. Much of the U.S. succeeded in flattening the curve early on by instituting stay-at-home orders, shutting down non-essential businesses and halting elective procedures to keep beds free.
In Texas, where the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported hospitalizations have been on the rise, “Gov. Greg Abbott has previously raised the possibility of reinstating a temporary ban on elective medical procedures to increase hospital capacity if needed. “
Cohen, DHHS secretary in North Carolina, said the state was previously able to prevent a surge, The News & Observer reported.
Its recent data spikes are indicative of North Carolina reaching its first peak, she said.
“This isn’t a second wave. This, for us, is a first,” Cohen said, according to the N&O. “I actually think this is our first experience at an increase — at the beginning of that increase. So that’s why I think we all want to really be paying attention here, because I don’t want to see a spike or a surge. There are things that we can do to prevent it.”
