Hospital Capacity

Intensive care units in hospitals in Paris are nearing full capacity as severe Coronavirus cases increase. Paris hospitals currently treat almost 1,000 people in ICU and are being force to put of non-urgent surgeries.

"The capacity of ICU beds in our state will be exhausted in two weeks," said Vladimir Cerny, Czech Republic Deputy Health Minister. The Health Ministry describes the situation as critical with more than 120,000 active cases at the moment.

The regional hospital in Karlovy-Vary in West Bohemia receives covid patients from the surrounding area, including from badly hit regions of Cheb and Sokolov. The intensive care unit is now almost full to capacity.

“This morning we had six beds left in the ICU ward but this number could change in an hour and in two hours everything can change again,” said Vladislav Podracky, Spokesperson, Karlovy Vary Hospital.

Across the entire state of California, the ICU capacity has fallen to 0% on Christmas day.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state had 2.5% ICU capacity on Monday. Wednesday, he reported it had fallen to 1.1%. On Christmas, one day after it became the first state 2 millionth infection, available capacity officially dropped to 0% in California.

The intensive care units of the hospitals in Stockholm have reached a capacity of 99 percent and are almost at a point where no new patients can be admitted.

Stockholm region's health and medical care director Björn Eriksson has called for help as "the consequences could be terrible" of nothing would change and if people "go for after-work drinks, do Christmas shopping or meet people outside your household".

Five Bay Area counties, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara and the City of Berkeley, said Friday in a joint announcement that they will adopt the state's stay-at-home order ahead of the state mandate in hopes to curb the further spread of Covid-19 and numbers of hospitalizations.

"The virus is spreading rapidly throughout the city like never before. We need to move fast, keeping ahead of this virus as much as possible," so Dr Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of public health, during a news briefing Friday afternoon, warning that at the current rate San Francisco's hospitals will run out f hospital beds the day after Christmas.

The United States reported over 200,000 new Covid-19 cases nationwide on Wednesday and logged its highest daily death count with 3,157 fatalities. The number of people admitted to the hospital has surpassed 100,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

All 876 beds certified by the Swiss Society for Intensive Medicine (SGI) for adults and thus recognized as intensive care beds in Switzerland are now occupied in the course of Covid-19 treatment - with this statement, the Society appealed on Tuesday to the public's sense of responsibility

Patients should consider whether they would like to have life-prolonging measures in the event of a serious illness as "this will help their own relatives as well as the teams of intensive care units in the decision-making process, so that treatment can take place in the best possible way and according to the individual patient's will,".

Switzerland has also updated its triage guidelines in order to assist medical professionals with the decision which patients to treat.

The FBI and two other federal agencies have warned that the US healthcare system is facing an “increased and imminent” threat of cyberattacks, including data theft and extortion attempts to lock up hospital information systems, and that there is "credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to US hospitals and healthcare providers."

"We are experiencing the most significant cyber security threat we’ve ever seen in the United States,” so Charles Carmakal, chief technical officer of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

Dr. Olivier Joannes-Boyau, the head of the intensive care unit at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Bordeaux, told CNN that the city's ICUs are nearing capacity. His hospital only has 10 of 35 beds available. France is experiencing a resurgence of Coronavirus cases. Dr. Joannes-Boyau says the first wave was like a sprint while the second will be more like a marathon.

Dr. Catherine Fleureau, director of the CHU, agreed and said: "It's also going to be harder than last time, because this wave, I think, will grow progressively and then last over time."

Hospitals in Florida are running out of intensive care unit beds as the state sees one of the worst surges of Covid-19 cases in the United States. A report by Florida's health authority shows that 30 hospitals are at 90 percent ICU capacity while almost 50 hospitals have no more available ICU beds.

In a video published on March 18th, the insides of a Bergamo hospital are shown. The cameraperson is walking around and shows multiple people attached to venting machines in rooms, but also in the hallway between rooms and a doctor in full protection gear.