The Eastern Shore will likely have a high mortality rate due to a lopsided ratio of older population combined with a severe lack of ICU beds.
Not all communities will have the depth of resources to draw on.
On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Salisbury is one of the communities at the highest risk of being under capacity, even if it frees up all of its beds for coronavirus cases, according to our analysis of the Harvard researchers’ data. The researchers estimate that in a moderate infection scenario, the community will have about 149,000 coronavirus cases.
If the community is able to spread infections over 12 months, it would have to add about 880 beds to treat all adult coronavirus patients, either by building new beds or discharging existing patients, which is more than four times its current capacity of 187 available beds. Even if it released all of its existing patients and replaced them with coronavirus cases, it would still need to nearly double the number of beds.
Fran Phillips, deputy secretary for Public Health Services for Maryland’s Department of Health, said at a Monday press conference that her office is working to nearly double the capacity of the state’s hospitals to meet the expected surge in patients.
The study looks at different regions by their ICU beds, population statistics, and then models three scenarios of percent of total population effected. It is completely disturbing to see the shortfalls.
https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/covid-hospitals