I’d like to hear
@blackribbon ’s comment on this.
They have 100 positive patients and 78 waiting for test results. That is 178 patients in a 530 bed hospital. If it is like my area, they are not accepting patients who are not covid except for emergency situations. When a hospital is "overflowing" with covid patients, it does not mean the beds are all full. Many units are closed down. The focus is on Covid patients. They likely have gotten very close, if not maxed out the ventilators. But I have not heard of any patient in my very hard hit area not getting one that needed one. I promise the nurses I talk to online would be the first to talk about something like that to each other.
Covid is very bad for the small proportion of people who get a severe case. It is mild for most of the people who get it though. Of those who do get a severe case, it is very scary. Especially if they decline and need to be moved to an ICU for a ventilator.
For the people taking care of all these very sick people, it is exhausting and overwhelming. Nurses are having to suddenly do a different kind of patient than the ones they are used to care for. The primarily problem is the lack of PPE which means they are minimizing the number of times a caregiver goes into a room...and then we still have to reuse PPE which we were trained is only for single use. We are very aware of all the infection control protocols that we are being asked to violate all day because the mask, gowns, and face guards just don't exist. The life at risk is ours and our families if we take this virus home at the end of a shift. The other issue is that because of the compromised policies, nurse are getting sick and which makes us all work short staffed. I have been warned that I might get 10 patients...the normal maximum is 6. This is the hospitals fault for not protecting us. We are very good at using PPE and infection control, but we have to have the supplies.
That said. I still say that for most people, this is a mild to moderate disease. I believe it has gone through my home but I won't be able to verify this until they finally make the test that shows if someone has antibodies. My family's symptoms are very familiar to what other nurses say their families have had.
As for the morgue. The morgue is full because the funeral homes are not picking up the bodies like they normally do on a regular basis. The story says that they can comfortably hold 20 bodies. The article says that they have had 20 plus deaths (I am not sure why they don't have a definitely body count...how hard is that to get?). That isn't an overflow problem, but a preparation for a potential overflow situation.
For most people, this is a mild disease. For a few, it is a horrible disease. The problem is that no one had immunity so everyone is going to get sick all at once....which taxes the healthcare system...because they aren't used to have a whole bunch of people with the same problem filling the hospital. All non-emergency procedures and surgeries are being cancelled. Many people who would normally be hospitalized for other conditions are being sent home after we determine they are stable. My 600 bed hospital has only two non-Covid units now. So yes, it can get messy and overwhelming.
But that said, most people who get Covid-19 will not be at risk of dying. I personally want to know how many of the "healthy" young people with "no medical history" smoked tobacco or marijuana...or vaped...all things that compromise and weaken the lungs. There may even be a genetic aspect that makes some people more likely to have a bad case and others just get a mild case.
