At a San Diego County Health press briefing on Wednesday, city officials and health experts admitted they don't know what normal ICU capacity is this time of year.
"I don't have before me right now, any data to compare where we were at this same time last year," said Dr. Wilma Wooten. "When we have a very severe flu season, which we had in 2017-2018, we were very close to where we are right now."
But they're going to lock things down anyway.
Dr. Wilma Wooten says our current hospital capacity can be compared to capacity of "a very severe flu season, which we had in 2017-2018."
— KUSI News (@KUSINews) December 10, 2020
More info: https://t.co/YlUtpyStjW pic.twitter.com/Ky3SsZ6BKW
"We can sustain this type of impact for a short period of time, but not for a sustained, long period of time," she warned. "So that's why we are making all of the suggestions, and also why the state has implemented the stay-at-home order so we can allow the entire system to adjust. And as we say, the curve can be flattened."
Despite "not having the data," Supervisor Nathan Fletcher has been scaring citizens into staying in their homes.
This is real. Please — we all have to do our part to beat back COVID-19 one more time!
— Nathan Fletcher (@nathanfletcher) December 9, 2020
ICU beds could be filled by next week, county told, as record number of deaths recorded https://t.co/yh1vYqBA2E
KUSI News, which as you can tell is not a fan of these officials, noted that these "fearmongering" claims have been contradicted by Diane Hansen, CEO of Palomar Health. She explained why she's not all that concerned about hospital bed capacity.
Despite Supervisor Fletcher’s fearmongering claim that we will run out of beds by next week, Hansen asserted that they do have capacity. “We are seeing on average about 50 patients per day, less than what we normally see at this time of year.” Hansen said her biggest concern is about staffing the extra beds, if they become needed.
Of course, San Diego residents who want to go to the strip club are still free to do so after the establishments sued and Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil overruled the county order. He did not grant a similar injunction for restaurants. That story remains the most popular on KUSI.com.
Ask Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) accused San Diego officials of ignoring the science.
Anyone advocating for lockdowns at this point is committing a crime against science, data, common sense, and the Constitution. https://t.co/I7BSTkoeiM
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 10, 2020
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