The New York Times put out an article just yesterday[1] that directly addresses most of your doubts.
In summary:
* Substantially more people have died in both NYC and NY state than is demographically expected, suggesting a significant effect from the virus.
* Virus deaths are probably still under-counted, as bodies retrieved from homes aren't being tested. Patients with significant comorbidities may also be being mis- or under-counted.
I live in NYC, and all of my local hospitals are at the limits of their normal capacities (many have been able to expand their capacities, thankfully). The city has been asking for volunteers to come out of retirement.
To my knowledge, none of my friends or family have been able to get non-urgent treatment or tests for coronavirus symptoms; the system is completely focused on (and occupied with) treating those most at need.
Edit: I also forgot to mention: I don't know exactly what you're referring to w/r/t "mass graves," but I'm guessing it has something to do with Hart's Island. The city buries its unclaimed dead there; any uptick in activity probably tracks roughly with death's among the city's general demographics. It wouldn't be surprising for them to need a few more trenches.
Yes, Hart Island is being sold as "mass graves". Plus this right here clown (of "come to celebrate the Chinese new year, in spite of coronavirus" fame) said the other day there'd be _temporary burials_ in city parks: https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ct...
My point is, as bad as the situation on the ground is in NY, the single digit percentage uptick in the overall number of deaths would most definitely not overwhelm anything at all, and given the dis-use of the emergency hospital capacity and reduced hospital and ICU admissions over the past few days, crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me.
And if anything, I would not be surprised if the official figures _overstate_ the death toll. Dr. Birx mentioned in the presser the other day that everyone who died _with_ C19 is counted as a C19 fatality, even if they did not die _of_ C19. Died of cancer but also have C19? You'll be counted as a C19 fatality.
> crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me
The problem is that once a patient is so far gone that they are on a ventilator in the ICU, even the regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening.
That's in the best of times. Given that hospitals are running out of PPE, what are the chances that they can even move an infected patient without collateral damage that would further serve to overwhelm the hospitals they are moving the patient to?
They aren't. You're being fed fake news. Hospital admissions and ICU admissions in NY are _way_ down. Nobody is running out of PPE. If you're going to dispute this, please provide a credible source familiar with the situation on the ground. My source is governor Cuomo: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/were-ok-andrew-cuomo.... Don't bother pasting that teary eyed nurse who was "forced to work without PPE". That's fake news. Look it up. She's not a nurse, she's an Instagram "influencer".
> regular movements of going over speed bumps and potholes become potentially life threatening
Yes. Move them ahead of time, before they need intubation. Seems like people are in some kind of a stupor there. These are pretty obvious things.
> Hospital admissions and ICU admissions in NY are _way_ down.
They aren't. You're being fed fake news. If you're going to dispute this, please provide a credible source familiar with the situation on the ground.
> Nobody is running out of PPE. If you're going to dispute this, please provide a credible source familiar with the situation on the ground.
From a New York City Department of Health advisory to NYC doctors, dated March 20, 2020 [1]:
Like other jurisdictions with general community transmission of COVID-19, New York City (NYC) is facing a critical shortage of PPE
Your source's factuality is rated as "mixed" on MBFC [2]. Given their low bar, that's basically propaganda and a quick perusal confirms that this is a media organization most fond of rhetorical tactics like emotionally loaded language and one sided coverage than they are of facts, a defining features of manipulative "fake news,".
Anyway, let's focus on the actual content of that article: the tiny video clip of the New York state governor's press conference at the bottom, shot less than 24 hours ago. When a reporter asks Cuomo about the PPE situation he says: "If you ask any hospital 'do you have enough PPE?' they will say no. It's like asking a budget director 'do you have enough revenue?' They will say no. And these hospitals are accustomed to having one month or two months stockpile. They're now looking at several days of stockpile. So they are all uncomfortable. But, we only have several days for any hospital and we do have several days for every hospital and we do have a supply that is coming in so compared to how we have been operating on this new dire circumstances, we are relatively comfortable with ventilators and PPE if, big IF, big I, big F, if the hospitalization rate stays down, which will only happen if we continue to do what we need to do." I wasn't born yesterday so you'll have to excuse me for interpreting that as press conference bullshit. Any politician worth his salt with an adequate PPE supply would have used that golden opportunity for a display of confidence, not hem and haw about budget directors. Especially if that politician is overseeing the country's financial center.
But why stop there? Before someone could even ask the next question, Melissa DeRosa (Secretary to the Governor) interrupts to add: "If I could just make one caveat, there are certain hospitals that we get anecdotal reports on that are continuing to operate under the crisis conservation guidelines on PPE, where they ask people to wear PPE for days at a time versus what the ordinary protocol is and as we're hearing those reports we are reaching out to the hospitals and making sure they have the supply so that they don't have to operate that way." Note that she doesn't say that those hospitals are operating incorrectly because there is no shortage, but that they are still in the process of supplying those hospitals. They wouldn't have to do any of this if there wasn't a shortage, although maybe that's just a little more obvious to someone with actual clinical experience.
I think you've been focusing too much on "Instagram influencers," "teary eyed nurses", and ideological conflicts. I strongly recommend limiting your information intake to official (on Google: "site:gov") or academic ("site:edu" or Google Scholar) sources.
Facepalm. Your PDF is from March 20th. Watch recent Cuomo's pressers from the past few days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prq-RZfDO8Y. Skip to 13:23 or so to see the chart, followed by ICU admissions chart.
Didn't read the rest of your message, sorry. You're being gaslit.
You mean the charts labelled change in total hospital/ICU
admissions? Based on your folkloric grasp of the English language, you have clearly misinterpreted those graphs.
"Change" here means "hospitalizations per day", which is exactly what I meant. Seems like it's your grasp of the English language that's "folkloric", not mine. NY no longer projects that they will need anywhere near the capacity they already have.
Cuomo, BTW, then proceeds to talk about how models were total horseshit. He doesn't quite characterize them as such, choosing instead to give credit to his own response, but nearly all of the models he quotes assumed the current levels of mitigation.
Why might admissions to hospital be dropping? Because the hospitals are full?
From your video, 14:00
"This is a little deceptive, because at one time hospitals had discrete ICU wards or ICU beds. Effectively now in a hospital all the beds are ICU beds".
But ICU admissions are also dropping and going negative. That is, fewer people are admitted than discharged. And according to frontline medics, everyone who needs an ICU bed gets an ICU bed.
> the single digit percentage uptick in the overall number of deaths would most definitely not overwhelm anything at all, and given the dis-use of the emergency hospital capacity and reduced hospital and ICU admissions over the past few days, crowding in the hospitals seems like a load balancing problem to me.
Deaths lag admissions by about 15 days.
Deaths are not the only outcome, some people will be in ITU for a few weeks but not dying. They'll then be transferred to ordinary wards, and then back home or to a care home.
Reduced hospital admissions is a bad thing -- we know if someone's having a stroke they need care as soon as possible. If people are having stroke but staying away from hospital we're going to find a bunch of people dying away from hospital, or a bunch of people with long term preventable disability.
> And if anything, I would not be surprised if the official figures _overstate_ the death toll. Dr. Birx mentioned in the presser the other day that everyone who died _with_ C19 is counted as a C19 fatality, even if they did not die _of_ C19. Died of cancer but also have C19? You'll be counted as a C19 fatality.
This is such a frustrating misunderstanding of what's actually happening.
We count flu deaths the same way. But here you're not saying that we overcount flu deaths, you're looking for anything so you can say "covid-19 isn't that bad".
Because of the way covid-19 deaths are counted it's likely they're being undercounted at the moment. A certifier has to say to the best of their knowledge and experience that covid-19 was a contributory factor in the death. That's hard to do when so few people are being tested.
> Died of cancer but also have C19? You'll be counted as a C19 fatality.
In summary:
* Substantially more people have died in both NYC and NY state than is demographically expected, suggesting a significant effect from the virus.
* Virus deaths are probably still under-counted, as bodies retrieved from homes aren't being tested. Patients with significant comorbidities may also be being mis- or under-counted.
I live in NYC, and all of my local hospitals are at the limits of their normal capacities (many have been able to expand their capacities, thankfully). The city has been asking for volunteers to come out of retirement.
To my knowledge, none of my friends or family have been able to get non-urgent treatment or tests for coronavirus symptoms; the system is completely focused on (and occupied with) treating those most at need.
Edit: I also forgot to mention: I don't know exactly what you're referring to w/r/t "mass graves," but I'm guessing it has something to do with Hart's Island. The city buries its unclaimed dead there; any uptick in activity probably tracks roughly with death's among the city's general demographics. It wouldn't be surprising for them to need a few more trenches.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/nyregion/new-york-coronav...