Oct 1, 2009 3:00 pm US/Central
Report: Swine Flu Might Fill Up Hospitals
BOSTON (CBS) ―
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If a third of people across the country wind up catching swine flu, Massachusetts and 14 other states could run out of hospital beds around the time the outbreak peaks. (File)
Children's Medical Center Dallas
If a third of people across the country wind up catching swine flu, Massachusetts and 14 other states could run out of hospital beds around the time the outbreak peaks, a new report warned Thursday.
CBS station WBZ-TV reports that the nonprofit
Trust for America's Health estimates the number of people hospitalized could range from a high of 168,000 in California to just under 2,500 in Wyoming.
The group estimates for Massachusetts were about 32,000 hospitalized; 6,400 in New Hampshire and 5,300 in Rhode Island.
The public health advocacy group used government flu computer models to study how quickly hospitals would fill up during a mild pandemic, like the kind the 2009 H1N1 strain is shaping up to be.
It based its estimates on the mild 1968 pandemic, suggesting up to 35 percent of the American population could fall ill.
Even though only a fraction would be sick enough to be hospitalized, health officials are bracing for the worst.
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 hospitals in 15 states would fill up the soonest - in other words, exceeding 100-percent bed capacity.
Delaware was tops on the list, along with Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
To deal with overcrowding from emergencies, hospitals are supposed to have "surge" plans -- when they would postpone elective surgeries to free up beds, for instance, and when they might even need to call in government help for mobile hospital units.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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