Coronavirus: Boston Hospitals Lack Beds To Handle Expected Cases

BOSTON — Boston-area hospitals would be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients under most likely scenarios for infection rates, according to a ProPublica report released Tuesday and based on data from the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The report underscores the seriousness of the need to "flatten the curve" through social distancing, which health officials hope will slow the spread of the disease and keep hospital caseloads manageable. But even in what experts consider a moderate rate of infection, ProPublica said, Boston-area hospitals could meet only one quarter of the demand for beds.

According to the ProPublica analysis, of 2018 greater Boston had 10,200 hospital beds, of which about 75 percent were occupied, potentially leaving only 2,550 beds open for additional patients. The bed count includes 1,160 beds in intensive care units, according to data from the American Hospital Association and the American Hospital Directory. Intensive care units are best equipped to handle the most acute coronavirus cases.

Under a "moderate scenario" outlined by researchers, in which 40 percent of the U.S. population contracts coronavirus over the next 12 months, Boston-area hospitals would need to treat 335,000 coronavirus patients. That influx would require 11,200 beds over 12 months, which is 4.4 times the number of typically available beds.

Even in the report's "best-case scenario," in which only 20 percent of the population is infected over 18 months, Boston-area hospitals would fall slightly short of the number of beds needed. And in the "worst-case scenario," where 60 percent of adults are infected within six months, Boston-area hospitals would have close to 10 patients needing hospitalization for every available bed.

The study assumed a fifth of infected adults would need to be hospitalized with an average hospital stay of 12 days, based on data from China.

On Monday, Dr. Ali Raja, vice chair of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said U.S. hospitals would be overwhelmed if efforts to "flatten the curve" fall short.

The report released Tuesday gives a clearer picture of just how overwhelmed hospitals would be. It shows that, in large swaths of the country, social distancing will not be enough to end the pandemic if hospitals are not able to increase capacity to treat people who get infected.

"The fact of the matter is if we don't flatten the curve, we run the risk of overwhelming our hospitals, even those like Mass General that have 1,000 beds," Raja said. "We're simply not built for the hundreds or thousands of new patients we'd see each week."

Hospitals have already been preparing for an unprecedented influx of patients. Most began canceling elective surgeries earlier this month, and many have been trying to discharge patients sooner.

But even with those efforts, 40 percent of the American population will be living in areas that could run short of hospital beds. Hospital executives project that they will need to increase capacity by 20 to 70 percent, depending on size and location.

"If we don’t make substantial changes, both in spreading the disease over time and expanding capacity, we’re going to run out of hospital beds," said Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. "And in that instance, we will not be able to take care of critically ill people, and people will die."

Read the full ProPublica report.