via Oregon Live: If Oregonians stay home, state hospitals appear capable of handling coronavirus burden
Here’s some very hopeful news! Please share.
-Deb
By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Oregon possibly acted on social distancing quickly enough to avoid becoming the next Italy – or New York – as long as Oregonians actually stay home.
New modeling released Thursday by the Oregon Health Authority shows the state’s hospital system appears capable of handling the coronavirus cases that are expected in the next month. But that’s just a planning estimate and assumes that nine out of 10 Oregonians stay home.
“We know that is going to be very hard to achieve in the short-term and probably hasn’t been achieved,” said Dean Sidelinger, Oregon’s state epidemiologist, “and will be very difficult to achieve in the long term.
“We know that the only way to get that curve to be flat or go down is aggressive action that people listen to.”
If followed strictly, Gov. Kate Brown’s March 23 stay-home order appears to be strong enough to not just slow the growth of coronavirus cases in Oregon but to reduce the number of infections, estimates from the Institute for Disease Modeling show.
The Bellevue-based research center is part of the Global Good Fund, a collaboration that involves Bill and Melinda Gates. As of Monday, it estimated that Oregon had about four times more cases than have been diagnosed.