The time to build coronavirus field hospitals was yesterday
I am not privy to anything in the Murphy administration, so I don’t know what steps are being taken behind the scenes in New Jersey’s fight against the coronavirus, but I’ll use this space today to say this: Whatever it is Murphy and Co. are doing, they need to do more.
I’m not saying this as a slight against what’s been done so far; I’m saying this because it’s abundantly clear we need to over-prepare and overreact in this fight.
For starters and most importantly? Field hospitals need to be built. I don’t care if they’re in the middle of parks, or if empty office buildings are retrofitted, or if state universities are taken over. Money should be spent. Borrow, beg, and steal to make this happen.
The best case scenario? It’s a waste, and we don’t need it.
Worst case scenario? We’re overrun with people who need medical help in a few weeks and can’t get it, and then we scramble to build field hospitals.
As it stands now, Murphy has said there are discussions about opening one closed New Jersey hospital and re-opening four closed wings of other hospitals. If they pull this off, New Jersey will be adding … 200 extra hospital beds.
This won’t be enough. Right now, according to a Rutgers study released Monday, New Jersey has 23,000 hospital beds. Worst case scenario? We’re going to need 300,000 in two months. Best case scenario? We’re going to need over 100,000, spread out through October, assuming we’re not too late to the social distancing party.
Now granted, this *should* fall to the federal government, to the Army Corps of Engineers, and I have little doubt they will be doing this, eventually. But one thing has been clear from the start of this disaster: Waiting for the federal government is a fool’s errand. The New Jersey National Guard has been called up, and those 8,100 men and women should have one directive right now, and that’s to prepare as many hospital beds as they humanly can.
Obviously, there’s logistical hurdles here that I’m not aware of, but if I’m Murphy, I don’t care. Whatever hurdles there are he should run through and deal with the consequences later.
To me, there is nothing more important than preparing for the expected surge in hospitalizations. If we don’t act fast, things have the potential to spiral out of control. (See: Italy.)
Again: My dream is that we spend time and money preparing for this and end up not needing it. I’ll happily pay interest on that purchase for the next 50 years.
We - as a state and a nation already had one chance to act fast and close everything down weeks ago. We failed, because we were afraid of what would happen to the economy. Well, we see how that worked out. Economy in tatters, and we’re a country probably days away from total lockdown.
The lesson here is obvious: Act before you have to when it comes to COVID-19.
And as such, everything should be directed right now to prepare for the probability of hospital overrun.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@ trentonian.com, facebook. com/jeffreyedelstein and @ jeffedelstein on Twitter.