‘As you can see, the NEW model can’t even get today right…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) An Army field hospital was deployed to Washington state last month to treat an expected onslaught of Wuhan coronavirus victims that was supposed to overwhelm state hospitals.
The military safety net was erected in the CenturyLink Field Event Center where the Seattle Seahawks football team normally plays.
Three hundred soldiers manned 250 beds, a lab, X-ray machines, surgery facilities and an intensive care unit.
But the emergency facility is now being dismantled without ever treating a single patient.
Similar events are occurring all over the country.
In New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, overflow hospitals at the Javits Convention Center and a U.S. Navy ship have been mostly empty.
President Donald Trump dispatched the USNS Comfort to New York City on March 28 to help overrun hospitals. The ship carries 12 fully equipped operating rooms, 1,000 hospital beds, a medical laboratory, pharmacy, optometry lab, digital radiology capabilities, a CAT scan, two oxygen-producing plants and a helicopter deck, along with a crew of nearly 1,200 sailors.
The Army-operated Javits Federal Medical Station also has 1,000 patient beds, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services staffed it with doctors, nurses and additional medical personnel.
But both overflow facilities are serving fewer than 100 patients, according to NPR.
On the opposite coast, San Francisco hospitals have seen far fewer coronavirus patients than experts warned.
“I was on campus today, and it’s actually quite mellow,” Bob Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, told CNBC on March 27.
That same week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was publicly sounding the alarm.
“Because we’re not doing elective procedures that can be pushed back, it’s even quieter than usual,” Wachter said.
As of April 13, San Francisco County had reported 875 confirmed cases and only 14 deaths since the coronavirus outbreak first began.
While certain hospitals in hardest-hit areas may be struggling, overall fears about overburdened hospitals, potential health care collapse and lack of critical medical supplies seems to be overblown.
Just two weeks ago, Newsom pleaded with Trump for more lifesaving breathing ventilators to address an expected explosion of coronavirus victims in the nation’s most populous state.
“The one treatment we know works are ventilators… so we need more of them,” Newsom said.
But he has since offered to give back at least 500 ventilators for redistribution to other states.
In times of crisis, it’s more important than ever we are the UNITED States of America. CA is answering the call for Americans in NY and across the country, loaning 500 state-owned ventilators to those in need. I know, if the tables were turned, other states would be there for us.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) April 6, 2020
Oregon has also given away ventilators. Gov. Kate Brown sent 140 of the critical breathing devices to New York last week, leaving her state of 4.2 million residents with only 800.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee did the same. He sent 400 ventilators back to the National Strategic Stockpile on the heels of his previously apocalyptic warnings about the Wuhan virus.
Six weeks ago, Inslee announced the first death caused by the coronavirus in the United States.
The nation’s first case of the coronavirus also occurred in Washington state, when a Snohomish County man tested positive in January after returning from a trip to Wuhan, China.
Inslee, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency on Feb. 29, and soon after 35 elder victims perished from the virus at nursing home outside of Seattle. The tragedy became a national media sensation and public fears exploded.
Inslee pleaded for medical supplies, breathing ventilators and additional federal help despite having previously ignored warnings about Washington’s pandemic inadequacies. Inslee instead directed taxpayer resources to politically-correct pet projects like his $1.1 billion initiative to support orcas in the Puget Sound.
Inslee is now taking credit for the crisis that never really came, saying his social-distancing edicts were Washington’s saving grace.
“We requested this resource before our physical distancing strategies were fully implemented and we had considerable concerns that our hospitals would be overloaded with Covid-19 cases,” he said in an April 8 press release.
But the lack of overwhelm more accurately tracks with a failed coronavirus model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The IHME model, as it’s known, has served as the basis for CDC predictions—and by extension the White House’s emergency-response task force and state governors. The model already accounts for social distancing and has been dramatically revised downward in recent days—so much so, that many consider the model a disaster.
Prior to April, the IHME model predicted anywhere from 100,000 to 240,00 U.S. coronavirus deaths.
Then, on April 2, the death forecasts were reduced to between 93,500 and 178,000. Three days later on April 5, the model again reduced its forecasts to between 81,500 and 136,00. On April 8, yet another downward revision showed coronavirus deaths are expected to drop to between 60,000 and 126,000.
The figures also include fuzzy definitions for coronavirus infections and deaths.
CDC guidelines permit deaths to be attributed to the virus if patients succumb to pre-existing health conditions. It also counts patients who are suspected of having the coronavirus without ever having tested positive for it.
Moreover, on April 2, the IHME model predicted 262,092 hospital beds would be needed for U.S. coronavirus patients. On April 5, that was reduced to 140,823. The estimated needs for ICU beds and ventilators also plummeted.
By April 5, the IHME predicted that New York would need about 24,000 hospital beds, including about 6,000 for ICU patients.
Here is the newly updated mIHME_UW model with predictions for NY state today (which doesn’t need to be predicted, as it’s already happened). And here’s the actual data from today. As you can see, the NEW model can’t even get today right. pic.twitter.com/4y2rat5jcz
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 6, 2020
Ironically, New York had 16,479 hospitalizations, including 4,376 ICU patients, on the day the April 5 estimates were released.
In other words, the model grossly missed the mark.