It seems so backwards that we would be furloughing hospital workers right now. Hopefully those finding themselves without work can lend theirs skills in locations where we don't have enough workers.
Unknown to most people, the US medical system is nearly shutdown.
If you dig into nurses forums you will find nurses are being told that there is no work “low censused” across the US.
Only critical medical services are being delivered. All optional services have stopped. This included regular screenings.
Our local major regional hospital in Western Colorado which normally has a couple hundred patients in beds, last week had well under 30 beds full. This included the maternity ward. Only a couple of the beds are being used by COVID patients. The other local hospitals had even lower bed counts.
If your skills are needed for treating COVID you are told to wait (unpaid) for a call. If you are one of the majority of medical providers who are not focused on ICU or respiratory care you are told to stay home (unpaid) and study (unpaid) needed COVID skills.
The travel normal nursing system is likewise shutdown. While New York is asking for skilled nurses, it is not clear how a nurse in from another state could 1) secure a position, 2) arrange travel and housing
Source: my wife who is a hospital recovery room and public health nurse, friends who are ER doctors and Anesthesiologists
Meanwhile, ICU admissions have fallen off a cliff last week in NY, https://twitter.com/RebeccaJarvis/status/1247546048291143681... after they started giving HCQ to the patients en masse, at the long last. So they gave up their share of ventilators and they now project that they will not exceed capacity.
The link you posted does not have any data to support your claim. As yet I have seen no data to support the effectiveness of HCQ for c19. I understand that testing is still underway and that assumption for or against is entirely premature.
It is interesting that people are avoiding emergency care, but some reasons to look into:
1) A lot of hospital visits are from "frequent flyers" - lonely people, homeless people trying to get a free meal, etc. These frequent flyers try to go every day, consuming 1000x more resources than a normal person. (I've met some.) They may be afraid of catching corona virus this month.
2) Depending on the area of the US, you either get a lot of gunshot wounds (Chicago) or car accidents. With lockdown, there's less going on in the streets.
3) Also, uninsured people may be going to the hospital as a last resort in order to avoid getting corona virus. For example, those without insurance may just be waiting for the all clear to drop by again. (In the US, the fallback for no insurance is to go to the emergency ward.)
You have a point, but most of the items I mentioned involve ICU (gunshots, car accidents, fake ambulance calls for lunch) which should be down during lockdown.
