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Comment by natrik | Hacker News Reader

The article and the quote from the article you linked do not support your statement: "Arizona's ICUs quickly reached capacity".

The article is dated May 11.

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

2822 excess mortality for Denmark in its flu season of 2017/2018. Extrapolating Denmarks population to Swedens population we would expect 5000 excess mortality for a comparable bad flu season. Current Sweden COVID related deaths are 5800. Less than 16 deaths a day in Sweden since July 2. Less than 8 deaths a day since July 19.

Swedens COVID related deaths will not go above 6000. Seems to be a 0.06% mortality rate, heavily weighted towards the aged. 6000 deaths is still a lot, yes.

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So, article was May 11 when the influx started.

This is June 25th.

"Fewer than 200 ICU beds available in Arizona as state reports more than 60,000 coronavirus cases."

https://www.abc15.com/news/state/fewer-than-200-icu-beds-ava...

This is July 3rd.

"State health officials say the capacity of hospital intensive care units is at an all-time high of 91%.

The number of people hospitalized Thursday due to a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 was 3,013, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. It’s the first time reaching 3,000."

https://apnews.com/46a23bcf72b624dc25d7703dc269c727

That's a pretty scary timeline. Things got real serious real quick in less than a month.

Interesting, I agree the 91% of ICU capacity does seem alarming, but what aspect of that is hospitals optimizing for maximal usage of beds for financial reasons? I would want to see how much an ICU was used in previous years and how often it reached 90% capacity.

Also given it was 91% on July 3rd, I'd be interested in knowing what the situation was on August 3rd and September 3rd.

That's a great question.

I found this plot from Arizona Department of Public Health.'Hospital Bed Usage & Availability' sub-tab 'Number of Intensive Care Unit Available and In-use at Arizona Hospitals.'

https://azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/...

Everything is reported in percentages, so I don't know how the absolute number of beds shifted as a result of temporary increases in ICU capacity.

Great graphs on that site, 57% of ICU in beds in use by COVID patients on 7/13 to 13% on 9/7. Seems like the peak has passed, but like you said it could be due to an increase in beds provided.

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