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Mass General Chief Calls for ‘War-Like Stance’ on Coronavirus

Mass General Chief Calls for ‘War-Like Stance’ on Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) -- Hospitals across the U.S. are preparing for a surge in patients seeking help as testing for the novel coronavirus becomes more prevalent, revealing the extent of Covid-19’s spread. One leading doctor called for a war-like footing to ensure resources are properly assigned.

“We need to think about this in almost like a war-like stance,” Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He called for the federal government to engage in a Manhattan Project-type effort to spur the health care industry to create more surgical masks, eye protection and gowns. That endeavor was a weapons research and development program during World War II that was run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which produced the first nuclear weapons.

“We have millions of health care workers around this country who are prepared to do battle against this virus, but I’m concerned that there are at least a couple of areas of supplies that they need in order to fight that virus as effectively as possible,” Slavin said.

“We wouldn’t want to send soldiers into war without helmets and armor,” he said. “We don’t want to do the same with our health care workers.”

Allocating Resources

Scott Gottlieb, former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that if multiple Covid-19 epidemics spring up, the U.S. health care system will become overwhelmed.

“I think we can handle a ‘Wuhan’ in one major city, and pull resources,” Gottlieb said in reference to the Chinese city that was the initial epicenter of coronavirus spread. “I worry about multiple cities having that kind of outbreak.”

Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health, said that her hospital system has measures in place to ensure that its facilities aren’t overrun in the coming weeks.

That includes encouraging telemedicine visits, erecting tents in the parking lots of hospital emergency rooms, and a satellite drive-through testing station, she said on “Meet the Press.”

“We’re hoping to continue to increase capacity and having that drive-through area allows us to really contain patients from coming into our main hospitals, where are most sick patients are,” Spisso said.

A key to limiting the burden on the health-care system is what’s been called “flattening the curve” -- shorthand for slowing new cases enough so as not to overwhelm hospitals.

Turned Away

Hospitals in China were forced to turn away patients in February, at the peak of the virus outbreak there, a situation that’s now occurring in Italy. Hospitals in New York and elsewhere are rushing to prepare so the same situation doesn’t happen in the U.S.

Epidemiologists have said from 20% to 60% of the 330 million Americans are likely to contract the new coronavirus, with one in 20 requiring a hospital stay and advanced care. That translates to as many as 10 million patients.

Yet there are fewer than 100,000 beds for the critically ill at U.S. hospitals, including those in surgical units, according to the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Hospitals own just 62,000 full-feature mechanical ventilators. At the same time, there’s also a critical worldwide shortage of masks used to protect against transmission.

The U.S. has 2.77 beds for every 1,000 residents, a lower ratio than in Italy or China, according to OECD data.

There are fewer than three doctors and about 12 nurses for every 1,000 residents, though those figures include nurses working in management, educators and researchers, the OECD figures show. The U.S. has more doctors than China, and more nurses than either country.

In China, some 3,000 health care workers were infected and at least 22 have died, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Among those who died was Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who first warned of the virus in December and was ordered to stop making false comments.

--With assistance from Michelle Fay Cortez and Caleb Melby.

To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net;Tom Schoenberg in Washington at tschoenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny

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