Quote:
Originally Posted by Charcot
Sorry 1,000 not 10,000. I should double check what I type better before I press enter. Just to put the number 1,000 into perspective. In Calgary adult hospitals I believe we have about 50 ICU beds. I'll edit prior post
Charcot
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I think that is going to be the problem. I've heard in Australia they came very close to not having the resources to treat everyone with the flu, and due to timing they didn't get hit as hard as we're expected to this winter. We all know what the hospital situation is in Calgary (thanks Ralph) - a lot of doctors are apparently worried there won't be enough ICU spaces or ventilators to treat everyone, and they may just have to let some people die for lack of resources. I'm hoping it won't get that bad, but the potential is certainly there.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation: There are about 500 ventilators for the whole province right now, so I'm guessing maybe 200 in Calgary, and the people needing them have needed them for weeks to as much as a couple of months. Let's say one month on average for the sake of argument. It's hard to say what percentage of people with the flu would need them, since no one knows how many people have had 2009 H1N1 (they don't test most people); if the death rate is the same as seasonal flu (about 1 in 1000), which is probably fairly close, and we've had 83 deaths and 312 ICU-admitted cases, that's about 4 in 1000 needing a ventilator. That would mean if 50,000 Calgarians, or about 5% of the population, got influenza in the space of a month, we'd expect to run out of ventilators.
A typical influenza pandemic affects about 30% of the population in 1 year (compared to about 10% in a normal year), with cases usually concentrated in 2 or 3 waves over the winter. It's not hard to imagine running out of ventilators if it gets to the typical pandemic levels (which I'm still hoping it won't, but looking at the stats for the last few weeks combined with the number of people saying they won't get the vaccination I'm getting less optimistic).