Report: Flu could fill hospitals in RI, 14 other states
11:58 AM Thu, Oct 01, 2009 | Permalink
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By Felice J. Freyer Rhode Island is among 15 states where hospitals could be overwhelmed if swine flu infects a third of the population. That's an estimate from the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit advocacy group concerned with public health and disease prevention. The group's report, released Thursday, estimates that 5,358 people in Rhode Island may need to be hospitalized, requiring many more beds than will be available. The state's hospitals would be operating at 143 percent capacity at the height of the outbreak, according to this projection. "I don't think anyone knows that for sure," said Annemarie Beardsworth, state Health Department spokeswoman. "All the hospitals are preparing for all different scenarios. ... Every hospital has a surge plan in place." Such plans range from canceling elective surgery to setting up an "alternative care site" for overflow patients. In most cases, those sites would be schools. The Trust for America's Health used a computer model from the federal government to predict how quickly hospitals would fill up during a mild pandemic. Some 368,000 Rhode Islanders could get sick, according to the group's estimates, but only a small fraction would need hospitalization. Health Director David R. Gifford has said that he expects 30 to 50 percent of Rhode Islanders to fall ill with swine flu over six to eight months. Edward J. Quinlan, president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, said that hospitals started planning for pandemics even before the arrival of H1N1 swine flu. "We're well-organized to handle it if and when it happens," he said.
Trust for America's Health estimates the number of people hospitalized at the peak of the outbreak could range from a high of 168,000 in California to just under 2,500 in Wyoming. Even though only a fraction would be sick enough to be hospitalized, health officials are bracing: When H1N1 first appeared in the spring, more than 44,000 people visited emergency rooms in hard-hit New York City, the report noted. Just sorting out which patients are sick enough to be admitted from the vast majority who need to go home is a big job. And hospital capacity varies widely. By the outbreak's peak, the new report suggests Delaware and Connecticut hospitals would fill up soonest. Also on that list: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. -- with reports from the Associated Press 
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"If a third of people wind up catching swine flu"
Keyword 'if' isn't this uh a little to hyped up now? c'mon now. Not many people have caught this and there has not been any outbreaks.
This AP article is useless. What are they trying to do? scare people and start a panic? right now all is well why stir the pot? Sure somemore will catch it just like the normal flu - tis the season.
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Agreed. These predictions of hypothetical harm fill newspaper columns with fluff and scare the gullible. And remember it is 15 states at risk, not 16 or 14. Such drivel.
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Except it's not a normal flu. A friend of ours, 18 year old healthy male, contracted the flu and died last week from H1N1. We thought it was hype. Not anymore. What sets this one apart is how difficult it is to combat and how swiftly it overtakes the body. The hope is for people to take getting vaccinated seriously; to take precautions seriously, so that no one else will need to die.
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KM-POD...
And you are basing your comments on what...the alignment of the stars?
Amazing how many people think they know more about everything. I for one am happy that those who actually do know what they are talking about are trying to prepare us. It's the fools who don't believe it when told that a storm is coming...and then cry about their house being destroyed. I'm betting if you two got sick and had to go to a hospital...you'd be crying like babies that there wasn't any place for you.
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GC get a clue.. thats not the case and you're some over zealous worry wart I guess - not me. I have too many things in my life going to worry about something that "could happen or might happen"
The article is excessive in my opinion. I just had surgery on skin cancer and didn't "cry like a baby" so the swine flu panic striken AP does not worry me.
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This swine Flu hysteria is the biggest load of BS out there. It makes one wonder what's in it for the government to be trying to mandate the vaccines. Is it merely a kick-back scheme from the vaccine makers? Or, probably more likely, an experiment to see how easily they people can (or cannot) be controlled? (Perhaps both?) Many a respected physician and viral researcher have stated this swine flu "pandemic" is a hoax, whether intentional or just the idiotically trendy, lazy (such as the media) complying with the latest press release they're fed by a corporation or the government. Anyone who well remembers or has seriously researched the first swine flu hysteria back in the mid 1970's will know that scores of people died due to the vaccine, which was mandated for all military and some other government personnel. Not ONE person died from the swine flu itself, which effected only a small segment of the population. More people died from the "common" flu and even the common cold during that same period. History, particularly the ugliest and cruelest history, always repeats itself. With the majority of the public being intellectual sloths who gorge on hysteria it's sadly easy to see how.
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Maybe it's God's way of keeping parents home with their kids, what a novel approach to a current dillema..
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Well KM... getting a clue (from the experts) is what I'm doing. You aren't basing what you say on anything but feelings. The experts say that the H1N1 flu could overwhelm the countries hospitals... something I have a real clue about by the way...which would make people with all kinds of problems... including skin cancer...stand in line to be treated behind those that have immediate life support needs.
So why did you have the cancer removed? Are you some over zealous worry wart whos afraid that you would be one of predicted deaths? After all what you did was based on the experts armed with statistics such as those at the American Cancer Society which estimates there could be about 11590 deaths from skin cancer in 2009.
I sure wouldn't just blow off what the experts told you about why people should take precautions...and have skin cancer removed... with a simple statemment like you made. In fact...call me an over jealous worry wart...but people I know try to take precautions with sun protection...because the experts say we may end up like you.
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