Posted on Oct 29, 2020
Areas With Mask Mandates Have Lower Covid-19 Hospitalization Rate, Study Finds
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Posted 4 y ago
Responses: 3
I am going to assume the rate is based on general population instead of rate based on infected people. It does not specify so I will go on my assumption.
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I don't know how much faith I would put into this study. I llive/work in Hamblen County and we are considered the "hot spot" of the State. We have also had a "mask mandate" in place since at least August. The local hospital is at capacity for ICU, the ER is housing patients that can't get in-patient beds, and many with milder symptoms are simply discharged. I don't doubt wearing a mask, social distancing, and limiting your exposure can all help to slow the spread but it's going to take something more that this to stop it completely.
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Maj John Bell
100% Capacity for ICU sounds bad. But it is a business decision that is made when we are not in a pandemic. The cost of equipping and maintaining hospital beds and the staff to man them is not cheap. Most hospitals try to have enough hospital beds and ICU beds such that they are at 85% during normal operations. As an example Coeur dElene [roughly the same population base as Hamblen County] has 36 ICU BEDS between 2 hospitals. That means at any given time there are only 5-6 ICU beds for surge operations like a pandemic.
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