I want to add something to this important interview on how America's housing crisis is worsening our coronavirus crisis: vox.com/2020/3/25/2119…
A number of SF doctors have told me that the Bay Area housing crisis is making the hospital supply issue here much worse.
Unsheltered people are brought in with possible coronavirus symptoms. They need to be quarantined till a test comes back. But they have nowhere to go.
Unsheltered people are brought in with possible coronavirus symptoms. They need to be quarantined till a test comes back. But they have nowhere to go.
So they're kept in the hospital. That's a hospital bed, and personnel resources, going to someone who likely doesn't have COVID-19, but can't be allowed into a shelter or onto the streets till we're sure.
Knowing for sure can take a week, given testing backlog.
Knowing for sure can take a week, given testing backlog.
As hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients, this is becoming more and more acute. We need those beds. But we can't let COVID-19 rip through shelters.
This isn't a problem the medical system can answer, but we've left it to them to manage.
This isn't a problem the medical system can answer, but we've left it to them to manage.
There are dozens of issues like this, where preexisting social problems are colliding with the COVID-19 crisis. The problems we didn't solve before today are making the crisis we're going to have tomorrow much, much worse.
