Overwhelmed hospitals, equipment shortages: Coronavirus pandemic plays out as state planners expected
April 13, 2020 / Dennis Wagner, USA TODAY
As the coronavirus scuds across the USA, killing thousands and depleting medical resources, the pandemic is playing out precisely as emergency officials around the country assumed when they drafted response plans over the past decade:
A spreading disease would overwhelm hospitals, raising a strong possibility that physicians would have to choose which patients get life-sustaining care and which would die because of a shortage of medical equipment.
This heart-wrenching choice, known as the “crisis of care” dilemma, is an anticipated last resort in a severe pandemic, according to a USA TODAY review of 14 states’ preparedness plans.
Those plans predict state and local emergency management agencies, with limited caches of supplies, would afford little help. They would plead with neighboring states and vendors for masks, gowns and ventilators. But in a pandemic, inventories would be depleted worldwide, and factories would not be able to churn out products fast enough.
At that point, states would turn to the U.S. government’s Strategic National Stockpile. But it houses only a fraction of what is needed nationwide. Last week, the stockpile was 90% depleted.
Today, as coronavirus patients fill hospitals, supply chains have become a laissez faire battleground. Hospitals and states are in a bidding war for resources, in some cases competing with the federal government.
