CLEVELAND — Hosiptals all over Ohio are preparing for what will likely be a surge of coronavirus patients coming soon.
"We have empty beds now," Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton said earlier this week. "But it is the calm before the storm."
With coronavirus cases expected to increase drastically in the coming weeks, Acton said Ohio will need to at least double its current hotel capacity. Based on its current modeling, Acton said that Ohio is projected to peak with 10,000 new daily cases around mid-late April.
How is MetroHealth preparing for the coming surge? On Thursday, the hospital released a 15 minute video featuring President and CEO Dr. Akram Boutros and Dr. Brook Watts, Vice President and Chief Quality Officer.
"We're thinking about best-case scenario, average scenario, and worst-case scenario," Dr. Boutros says in the video. "We will prepare for the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is we may have a thousand patients at MetroHealth, about 800 of them would be COVID-positive patients. So we needed to make sure we have space for them. That's why we've asked to transfer many of our apprentice center patients to other facilities. We've also designed our ICUs specifically for this event."
You can watch the entire interview in the player below.
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