A new data project from the Washington Post allows you to see how the availability of intensive care beds and mechanical ventilators at your local hospital compares to that of other regions across the country.
Look up your zip code or that of your parents or grandparents:
How a surge of coronavirus patients could stretch hospital resources in your area
Analyzing the critical care resources in this country is a frustrating exercise, as experts like Jeremy Kahn of the Univ. of Pittsburgh will tell you. The most reliable data is years old, and reporting standards vary from state to state.
— Amy Brittain (@AmyJBrittain) April 9, 2020
As he told me, FedEx can tell you where any package is in the United States at any given moment. But the nation's leading researchers on critical care resources can only give you reliable numbers on ICU beds *from 2017*
— Amy Brittain (@AmyJBrittain) April 9, 2020
Other experts- like Retsef Levi's of @MITSloan COVID-19 Policy Alliance, sum it the data limitations with a wartime metaphor: “We need to know where our weapons are. We need to coordinate all of that. This is a war.”
— Amy Brittain (@AmyJBrittain) April 9, 2020