Hospitals facing a possible need for 5X to 10X the number of beds they have. Doctors and nurses resorting to bandanas because they lack masks. Refrigerated trucks outside hospitals holding the dead.
It’s been more than a century since the US health care system has faced anything like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The challenges confronting hospitals, doctors, and nurses will likely mount in the coming weeks, says Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General and current Distinguished Policy Scholar in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Even so, Murthy finds encouraging signs of resilience.