The coronavirus pandemic has had some health networks across the world on the verge of collapse.
They have had too many patients, combined with medical workers that are exhausted, who in some cases getting the illness themselves. The key, according to medical professionals, is getting ahead of the illness.
In a number of parts of hard-hit Italy, coronavirus has had hospital beds at, or near capacity.
The medical community said we might be able to prevent that in the U.S. if we can contain coronavirus in its early stages.
A graph from a Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains:
In a pandemic with no medical intervention, cases will increase beyond a hospital’s capacity to handle the patient load, potentially overwhelming providers and first responders.
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Testing to find coronavirus clusters, deep cleaning in those areas, and measures to limit community spread, if done early enough, can delay the outbreak peak and compress the burden on hospitals and our medical infrastructure.
Doing that, can improve patient outcomes and better manage the spread of the pandemic.
The question, which has been the subject of great debate, is, did the U.S. act quickly enough to flatten that curve and contain the coronavirus spread?
We don’t know the answer yet, but the graph explains why many have demanded urgency in this crisis.
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