Just looking for someone to tell me why this wouldn't work.
If the problem is that we don't have the Hospital Supply to meet the demand, wouldn't this solve the problem?
We have the Govt footing the bill for CV healthcare already. We have airlines available. We have bus fleets available. We have hotels available.
If local area hospitals are full, simply transport the patients to get the help they need to areas that have capacity, even out of state if necessary. Either bus or fly them. Allow each patient one caretaker to take a separate flight/bus and stay at a nearby hotel (if they want/need to be near). This only applies to patients that actually need hospital care. Everyone else can meet with their outpatient doctor, and get drug prescriptions, and stay home.
So why not distribute the load across the hospitals? And tell America we can go back to work?
I think it's not a bad idea to distribute load to nearby hospitals. I hope that's being done already.
That said, it's not really a great idea to factor in buses and planes. Those aren't very well-equipped to transfer patients. If there's no easy way to handle long distance travel, then I could see shortages happening on the local level or in the hardest hit places (NY / NJ).
Yeah there are variations to this plan, I would leave that to the experts. But in general, distributing the load is the key point. For example, if you are over 65 and test positive, then before getting too sick, you could be bussed, flown, etc. out of town to stay in a hotel near a hospital that has the capacity to treat you if necessary, and then just wait out your recovery in a hotel and then come home if better, or go to the hospital if things took a turn for the worse. But also, tell the over 65 people to quarantine themselves for the next few months, but open up the economy in the meantime. I mean we are talking about a load that could be handled in a way that doesn't require a country-wide quarantine.