(WWJ) Eight Michigan hospitals are at 100% capacity and 15 are at 90% capacity or more as of Friday.
This includes all patients, regardless of COVID-19 status.
“When we had the marked reduction in scheduled care that was driven by executive orders and trying to flatten in the March-April surge, we had considerably more capacity,” Chief Medical Officer for Michigan Medicine, Dr.
Jeff Desmond, told WWJ.
Almost all major health systems with a presence in metro Detroit have campuses that exceed 90% capacity including: The Detroit Medical Center, Ascension, Henry Ford Health System, and Beaumont. See Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) data on hospital capacity here.
Detroit Receiving Hospital is at 99% capacity, with 31 COVID-19 patients and 16 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Henry Ford Macomb Hospital is at 96% with 161 COVID-19 patients and 25 in the ICU; Henry Ford West Bloomfield is at 90% capacity with 61 COVID-19 patients, 6 in the ICU.
Beaumont Hospital Wayne is at 95% capacity with 24 patients with the virus, 3 in the ICU.
Ascension Macomb Oakland Warren is at 96% capacity with 26 in the ICU.
None of the hospitals at full capacity are in Metro Detroit. Most are in Western Michigan or the thumb area. Mercy, McLaren, and Ascension all have two facilities at 100% capacity.
Michigan has about 135 hospitals/medical centers total, according to the MDHHS, meaning about 10% of the state's hospitals exceed 90% capacity.
Desmond said the hospital systems are better prepared to handle the surge than they were in March and April. Hospitals have had time to expand their capacity and healthcare providers have learned a great deal about this virus in the past 8 months.
However, he said many hospitals are close to the brink.
“We still need people to do everything they can at home, at work, to continue to flatten the curve and reduce those cases because there is not an excess hospital capacity in the state of Michigan if we continue to see a rise in cases,” Desmond said.
Experts say they likely have enough beds, but they worry there will not be enough medical professionals to care for the people in those beds.
USA Today reported a growing number of hospitals across the nation are gearing up to enter “crisis mode,” which is used when health systems become overwhelmed with more patients than their staff and resources can accommodate.
Crisis standards say care must be prioritized for those who are most likely benefit from it.
The others would receive either less potentially life-saving interventions or none at all, possibly just being kept comfortable. A John Hopkins report, "Crisis Standards of Care: Lessons from New York City Hospitals' COVID-19 Experience" describes crisis capacity as “provide the best possible care to patients given the circumstances and resources available.”
The report said some New York City hospitals had to cut back on dialysis treatments from three times a week to two times a week because of a shortage of staff during the spring surge.
Hospitals in Utah have canceled elective surgeries; North Dakota has had to transfer patients to medical facilities in other states, according to USA Today.
Most Michigan hospitals are not in crisis mode yet but are all too close, according to Desmond.
MLive reported that Mercy Health declared a state of “disaster” in its Muskegon facility mid-November, opening at least one floor of the shuttered Hackley Hospital for patient care. With over 100 nurses out of work with a COVID-19 diagnosis at that time, they also had to call in agency nurses from around the country, according to the article.
But with almost all other states experiencing skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, many hospitals don’t have doctors or nurses to spare.
Mercy Health also canceled all in-patient, non-emergency surgeries.
Nearly 600 Henry Ford Health System nurses and staff members are in quarantine after either testing positive for the virus or exposure to it.
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Spectrum Health in West Michigan said on November 11: “Spectrum Health and our hospitals across the state will be hitting their capacity in a matter of days," The MDHHS reports their Pennock Hospital is now at 92% capacity, while two of their 11 facilities are at 0% capacity.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the coronavirus spreads primarily through respiratory droplets from coughing, sneezing or talking within about six feet of one another. Although, the CDC said there is “some evidence” that COVID-19 can be spread in smaller droplets that can “linger in the air for minutes to hours.” Read more about how it spreads here.
A study published in PLOS Medicine said as many as 20% of people who are COVID-19 positive are asymptomatic, with that number once reported to be as high as 40%.
Therefore, the CDC is beseeching Americans to wear a mask over their nose and mouth indoors when with people outside of their household, and outdoors when they cannot social distance (six feet or more). They’re also asking everyone to avoid gathering with people outside their household; to stay home, except for essential errands; and to wash hands frequently for at least 20 seconds. Learn more about how you can protect yourself and others here.
White House Coronavirus Taskforce Coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, spoke on NBC’s "Meet The Press"—calling this pandemic the “worst event the country will face.”
“Yet, we know what behaviors spread the virus, and we know what behaviors to change to stop spreading the virus,” she told host Chuck Todd.
The risk of severe complications and death from the virus increases by age.
20% of people who contract COVID-19 over the age of 70 are hospitalized, Birx said, and “10% are lost.”
She said 100 million Americans or about 1/3 of the population have comorbidities that raise their risk of COVID-19. The CDC lists people over 65; and those with a variety of health conditions including:
COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
Heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies
Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) from solid organ transplant
Obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 30 kg/m2 or higher but < 40 kg/m2)
Severe Obesity (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2)
Close to 10,000 Michigan residents have died after testing positive for the virus, out of a total of over 395,000 cases. The fatality rate stands at 2.5%, down from about 10% in the early days of the pandemic.
197,750 are considered recovered after surviving 30 days since testing positive.
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