COVID and Hospitals — Why Flattening the Curve is So Important

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

We’re all feeling the pinch right now. If it’s not in our wallets, it’s in our stress levels. (Hopefully the stimulus bill will help, I haven’t read it yet, obviously).

And a lot of people, including apparently our President, don’t seem to understand what we’re aiming for here. So let’s go through it.

There is no Vaccine or Specific Treatment for COVID-19

There is no tested vaccine. There is no drug we can give COVID-19 patients to cure them. Both of these things will change, although in the short term we may be down to an old technique called convalescent plasma, which means making a serum from the plasma of recovered patients and giving it to sick people or front line workers. This is an important fact to bear in mind as we go through the explanation.

How does Flattening the Curve Work?

So, and I’m going to over-simplify this, there’s a reason why flattening the curve works.

I’m over-simplifying the numbers to make it easier to understand.

Your hospital has 5 ER doctors and 10 available beds for admitting patients.

Each ER doctor takes about 30 minutes per patient. They are working an 8 hour shift. So…