Yeah, I noticed the flatten the curve graphs have a horizontal line about "available beds". It probably also represents available healthcare workers, equipment, etc. Surely this line can be made to move. E.g. when China sent a plane with doctors and equipment to Italy. Or simpler, find suitable buildings and make hospitals out of them (easier said than done, obviously).
The issue is the people who need to be hospitalized in the worst cases go on to require ventilation to force air into their lungs and those machines have a limited supply. On top of that people on ventilation require pretty close observation so you need about 3:1 patient to nurse ratio. Those are the numbers that are hardest to increase rapidly, nurses and ventilator equipment.
I heard a radio program about the life of a UK (I think) surgeon who worked in war zones and crisis regions like Syria, and one thing he found in a hospital was an intensive care unit staffed mostly by Skype cameras to a hospital in Washington, so the very few nurses on site could be directed to the patients most in need, and the remote nurses could watch the vital signs of many patients without having to spend time walking around.
If that was long enough ago to become part of a biography, it must be even more possible these days to get cameras and connectivity to remote hospitals anywhere on Earth with spare capacity of nurses.
That would allow you to move capacity around. Not sure if intubated patients could be monitored remotely though I'm just not sure if they only need vitals monitoring or if they require a present person doing something there.
That is a neat thing though I didn't know about. Wonder if hospital networks could handle the feeds properly, getting the equipment setup would take a bit but it should all be doable with consumer grade stuff.
I seem to post this everywhere, but the flatten the curve math doesn't work. There's very little excess capacity in the system and in a scenario where half the country is infect about 1% of people would get care. Even if we perfectly flattened it over the rest of the year.
Assuming the curve represents the amount of people needing hospitalization; realistically, right now, even flattened, the peak will go above that capacity limit line, and everything inside the curve but above that line are the people who need the hospital but won't get it, so... dead people?
But hey, without the flattening, the number of dead will be a shitton, and they will come fast. Probably causing social panic. With the flattening (but still not enough capacity), there will be a few deaths a day but no "Holy fuck a whole Titanic's worth of people died today"...
