Thread by @LizSpecht

While #Covid19 is currently hitting urban areas hardest (arrived there first, hot spots for internat'l travel, dense populations, etc.), metropolitan hospitals are by far the best equipped to deal with this. Things will get strained very quickly in rural areas. A few stats... 1/n

There are about 100,000 ICU beds in the U.S., but these are far from evenly distributed geographically. Of about 6,000 total hospitals in the U.S., only about half have any ICU capabilities. Many counties have no ICU facilities, or even no hospitals. 2/n
khn.org/news/as-corona…

Of the 100,000 ICU beds in the U.S., 94% are in metropolitan hospitals servicing populations centers >50k people. 5% are in towns between 10k and 50k. *Only 1% of all ICU beds are in rural areas of <10k population.* 3/n
sccm.org/Blog/March-202…

Two more eye-popping stats:
1) Of those 100k ICU beds, about 20% are neonatal and 5% are pediatric. Not sure how useful these are for Covid19, which severely affects almost exclusively adults. 4/n

[same source as above]

2) Average "normal" ICU length of stay: 3.8 days. Average ICU stay before ultimately succumbing to Covid19, according to China data: 25 days. Turnover rate is very, very slow for scarce ICU space. 5/5

3.8 day source: sccm.org/Communications…
25 day source: vox.com/2020/3/5/21165…