More populous state; no lock down; doubles down on Sturgis rally -- compare North Dakota and South Dakota:
- most recent data,
- North Dakota: four new Covid-19 associated deaths; South Dakota: 0
- Covid-19 deaths per capita: North Dakota ranks 34th, worse than Washington State (epicenter for early Covid-19; Kentucky; Idaho, and Oklahoma; then at 39th, South Dakota
Meanwhile, hospitals in Bismarck are near capacity -- The Bismarck Tribune.
Hospitalizations in North Dakota due to COVID-19 hit another high on Monday, and state health officials reported three more coronavirus-related deaths, including two in Burleigh County.
Hospitalizations rose to 105, up nine from Sunday and one more than the previous high on Saturday, according to state Department of Health data.
Hospitalizations in the past week have risen 21%. Employees of Sanford Health and CHI St. Alexius Health in Bismarck told the Burleigh-Morton COVID-19 Task Force on Friday that the facilities are nearing capacity due to the pandemic.
Gov. Doug Burgum's office issued a statement late Sunday saying state officials had met with leaders of the two hospitals about the issue. Sanford Health Bismarck President Michael LeBeau and CHI St. Alexius President and CEO Kurt Schley both said in the statement that their facilities have taken steps to address the spike. Sanford later this week will announce a plan to increase bed capacity, according to LeBeau.
They need to re-do the color scheme. Look at how they break out "number of active cases":
- 1 - 4 ;
- 5 - 9;
- 10 - 29;
- 30 or more
The 39 active cases in Richland; 32 in Logan; 33 in Pembina; 33 in Rolette, etc., are grouped along with:
- Burleigh: 719;
- Cass: 528;
- Stark: 416
In addition, look at the total number of deaths:
- Cass (Fargo): 77:
- Burleigh (Bismarck): 45
- Morton (Mandan): 24
The rest of the North Dakota counties, total number of deaths, are not even in the same ballpark. I don't know who color-coded / designed the map, but it certainly looks as if the purpose was to obfuscate the issue -- hiding Cass (Fargo), Burleigh (Bismarck), and, Stark (Dickinson) among the other counties.
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Brownies
Just a note about the Hospitals in ND. Trinity said that last week they had beds available, but no staff to cover them. Keep in mind those staff treating COVID patients can only treat COVID patients. This changes every day, but it goes to show you that bed capacity is not always a good indicator of capacity to admit a patient. Last week (In Minot). a stroke victim had to be airlifted to Fargo for treatment. Not a problem for Trinity in normal circumstances . . . but these are not normal times. There were beds, but they since they have to divert extra staff to treat those extra patients with COVID, there is no staff to treat those with "normal" emergencies.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you very much. You are absolutely correct. Bed count in a specific hospital, like counting the number of positive cases, is easy to do, but means very little in the big scheme of things.
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