9/14/09 AND NOW A NEW CONCERN.....
An article in the Washington Post (9/13/09) reports of increasing concerns that the emergency rooms and hospitals may be overwhelmed during this pandemic flu season, in spite of the unexpected mildness of H1N1 disease. Current estimates of the presidential advisory panel suggest that up to 1/2 of all Americans may become ill with H1N1 this winter, with as many as 1.8 million needing to be hospitalized and 300,000 needing intensive care.
Even though the early data suggests that the vaccine is much more effective than was predicted previously, it appears that this second wave of H1N1 will peak well before there are significant supplies of vaccine.
"There will be millions and millions of people seeking care in a relatively short period of time," said Eric Toner of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity, noting that the nation has only about 85,000 critical-care beds. "Only a small percentage of those people will require hospitalization and a small percentage will require intensive care. But it's still an awful lot of people."
Experts expect the pandemic to linger longer than the typical flu outbreak, raising deep concerns about whether the stockpiles of supplies, the contingency plans to improvise extra beds and backup plans to call up reserves of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers will be sufficient.
Mark M. Blatter, M.D.
Medical Director
Primary Physicians Research