Mercury News Story
This is a real show of confidence on Newsom’s part. Highlights of the story, culled for fair use:
Executive Summary:
As the total number of coronavirus cases in California topped 16,000, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he is confident the state is building up its number of ventilators, hospital beds and workforce to meet the demand of a still-to-come surge in patients that he projects won’t peak until May.
Donating 500 Ventilators to NY
My wife found more info on this — basically we got a bunch of broken Vents and are repairing them, while sending the working ones to NY who needs them right now. Idea being that when we need them the broken ones will be repaired plus we might be able to recall the NY vents, if they are past their peak.
The generosity comes in the weeks after California — and other states — launched massive efforts to stockpile medical supplies and personal protective equipment to prepare before a surge of coronavirus patients overwhelmed the Golden State’s hospitals. California’s clout and partnerships with tech companies and other manufacturers have helped it amass supplies while its early adoption of stay-home orders has so far pushed back the expected crush of patients that New York and New Jersey are now experiencing
Evidence of Bay Area Stay at Home Flattening the Curve
But the Bay Area’s hospitals have still not experienced an anticipated surge in coronavirus patients, and it’s unclear when that might happen. Some of the forecasting models that the governor’s office rely on are now showing earlier dates for hospitalizations to peak in the Golden State, which don’t match what Newsom forecast on Monday.
Massive Hospital Bed expansion
Newsom and his team of health professionals repeated on Monday they are still preparing for the state to reach its capacity of permanent hospital beds — 50,000 — in mid-May.
My wife found more info on this too. If you remember, at the start of this crisis, right when Bay Area was going into lockdown Newsom talked about repurposing empty hotel rooms into hospital beds. We’ve seen efforts to repurpose museums and other areas as well. All of these beds are not for Cornoovirus patients, but for ICU and other hospital patients that need round the clock monitoring but aren’t COVID patients, so the health care professionals there can probably ease up on PPEs etc compared to the actual hospitals and mostly just need a clean, safe bed for the patient, not tons of expensive equipment.
So most of these beds won’t be in hospitals. Presumably there is some plan to staff these beds, at minimum I know they’re sending out medical students, repurposing idle folks (doctors, nurses, technicians) with the wrong skillset for COVID19 but plenty of medical expertise and probably trying to train a new workforce for the low skill, labor intensive jobs that could free up a skilled nurse or healthcare specialist for work that requires more training/experience.
Edit: California Health Corps is that plan. Over 80K signed up so far.