Australia’s intensive care units will be completely overwhelmed with coronavirus patients in just 17 days unless the rapid spread of the virus is drastically cut.
TV presenter Dr Norman Swan warned on Monday night that the frightening scenario was less than three weeks away if current infection rates were not brought down.
‘If this hockey stick [sharp increase in cases] doesn’t change that much, is that we’ll be out of ICU beds in New South Wales, Victoria will be behind that, by April 10,’ he said on ABC’s Q&A.
‘And in that case ICU physicians will be faced with some very difficult decisions. And overseas, 30 per cent to 40 per cent of ICU beds are filled with young people’.
Dr Norman Swan told Q&A that doctors will have to choose who gets to have an ICU bed and who dies by April 10 if coronavirus case numbers do not drastically slow
Projections show Australia’s ICU units will be completely swamped in less than three weeks
Doctors will be forced to make difficult decisions with more patients than beds
Australia has just 2,229 intensive care unit beds, according to a 2018 report from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZIC).
About 5 percent of people with coronavirus become so seriously ill they need intensive care unit treatment to survive.
Dr Swan referred to estimates that by April 10 45,084 Australians will have coronavirus, based on current infection rates and government measures.
With that number of cases 2,254 people would need an intensive care unit bed by that date, complete with specialist nursing staff and a ventilator machine.
That is more people requiring intensive care than there are ICU beds in the entire country, in just 17 days.
This would not leave even one bed for those who need intensive care for injuries from car accidents, heart attacks or other causes.
Worse, ANZIC reports that Australia’s intensive care units have already been running at or near capacity without the coronavirus.
ANU College of Health and Medicine Professor Shane Thomas said the death rate would rise if there weren’t enough ICU beds.
The Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZIC) surveyed ICU bed numbers in 2017-18. For each bed, specially trained nurses and ventilator machines are also needed
Doctors will have to choose who gets an ICU bed and a chance to live – and who is left to die
There were just 2229 ICU beds in Australia in 2018, a number which will be completely swamped by coronavirus patients in less than three weeks
‘If there’s less beds (than people) you’ve got a problem as then you have to make decisions on who to save,’ he said.
Doctors in Italy have been completely overwhelmed and have had to choose who to give ICU beds to on the basis of who is most likely to survive, knowing that those who miss out will die.
As a result Italy’s death sits at 9.26 per cent, much higher than European countries such as Germany, which has a death rate of less than 1 per cent.
A paper signed by ten Italian physicians in the New England Journal of Medicine on Saturday detailed the horrors that had overwhelmed their hospital.
‘We work at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, a brand-new state-of-the-art facility with 48 intensive-care beds,’ the doctors wrote.
‘Our own hospital is highly contaminated, and we are far beyond the tipping point: 300 beds out of 900 are occupied by Covid-19 patients. Fully 70 percent of ICU beds in our hospital are reserved for critically ill Covid-19 patients with a reasonable chance to survive.’
New South Wales is the epicenter of Australia’s coronavirus outbreak as case numbers soar
‘Older patients are not being resuscitated and die alone without appropriate palliative care.’
The doctors wrote the situation in surrounding areas was even worse with patients lying on floor matresses and cemeteries have been overwhelmed which will create a public health problem.
Australia has an average of 8.92 ICU beds per 100,000 population, but Professor Thomas said it wasn’t just about the beds.
‘There’s the beds and also the ventilator units – a critical care bed doesn’t necessarily have a ventilator attached,’ he said.
ICU beds also need specially trained nurses to provide round-the-clock care.
‘It’s not just ventilators or beds but staff to run them, he said.
Professor Thomas said he was concerned there was not enough protective equipment to take care of the health care workers: masks, gowns and face shields.
Australia has an average of 8.92 ICU beds per 100,000 population and intensive care units are already running at capacity according to ANZIC
Without the qualified staff to run the ICU units, the capacity would fall further.
New South Wales is the epicentre of the virus with more cases than any other state.
Shadow Health Minister Ryan Park told Daily Mail Australia he was worried about the enormous pressure ICU units would soon be under.
‘The reality is we’re in for a very, very difficult period,’ he said.
‘We may need to look at building temporary hospitals like overseas. We all hope we’re not going to get to that.’
‘Look at Italy – it’s killing a lot of people every day. It’s not a mild cough or cold, it’s a dangerous pandemic, there’s no herd immunity and no vaccine.’
Professor Raina MacIntyre, the head of Biosecurity at the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, said if just 20 percent of Australia’s population were infected that would mean 1.6 million people would get coronavirus.
| Date | Number infected | Estimated ICU beds needed |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 23 March | 1,716 | 85 |
| Sunday 29 March | 8,997 | 450 |
| Thursday 2 April | 19,662 | 983 |
| Monday 6 April | 33,050 | 1652 |
| Friday 10 April | 45,084 | 2254 |
| Source: COVID-19 in Australia projections by Stefan von Imhof | ||
That would mean 80,000 Australians would need the 2,229 ICU beds.
‘People may occupy a bed for a week or more,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
Professor MacIntyre said that if the cases were spread out evenly then ICU units would manage – but that is not what the hockey-stick graph predicted.
‘Epidemic diseases surge, rather than spread evenly, so it’s likely at some point we may exceed capacity,’ she said.
‘This is why it is so important to use maximal social distancing measures now, to reduce the peak and spread the disease burden out.
TOP DOCTORS BEG SCOTT MORRISON TO PUT AUSTRALIA INTO LOCKDOWN
Sydney neurologist Dr Kate Ahmad is among a group of leading Australian doctors to call for a full escalation of the country’s lockdown to stem the coronavirus pandemic
Some of Australia’s leading medical experts have called for a full escalation of the country’s lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus before it’s too late.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison ordered a series of draconian measures from midday on Monday including the closure of bars, cafes and restaurants.
But as the national number of cases surged past 1,700 on Monday evening, top doctors from across Australia called on Mr Morrison to close schools and place the country into total lockdown.
As part of a joint video message, Sydney neurologist Dr Kate Ahmad said she was ‘terrified’ the rapidly increasing case count could overwhelm the country’s health system.
The number of infections in Australia has more than doubled in the space of four days from 710 last Thursday to 1,716 on Monday.
‘I am terrified the increasing number of cases are going to overwhelm our hospitals and we are going to have to make terrible triage decisions and we are not going to get the care we need,’ Dr Ahmad said.
‘I’ve been a doctor for 35 years and I’m scared,’ associate professor David Allen added.
Their comments were echoed by the Western Australian president of the Australian Medical Association Andrew Miller.
‘I’m calling on the government to jump on the breaks. We want them to impose lockdown until we have this under control,’ he said.
The editor of the Medical Journal of Australia Nick Talley meanwhile said more had to be done by the government to stem the virus’ spread.
Front line health workers are also being put at risk by the lack of a shutdown, the chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists warned.
‘All non-essential services should be shut down now, we ask governments of all persuasions to act now,’ Dr Angelo Virgona said in the video uploaded on Sunday.
‘The spread of this virus is going to lead to a catastrophe for health workers who are on the front line and we need to protect them.’