NYC COVID-19 Impact: Hospital ICU Capacity Constraints

Hospitals providing life-saving care for COVID-19 victims require equipment and staffing usually described and quantified as Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds. New York City is experiencing a surge of COVID-19 patients needing lifesaving ICU care. At the onset of the pandemic, New York City hospitals across the 5 boroughs (Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island) had reported an inventory of slightly more than 1,400 ICU beds. However, both the proportion of ICU beds to borough populations, and their geographic distribution, is hugely impacting New York City's outcome. Nearly half of the baseline ICU beds are in Manhattan. The ratio of population to ICU baseline beds in Manhattan is four times as great as Queens.

Below is the ratio of population to ICU beds, by borough.

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Meanwhile, tragically, the majority of patients needing immediate attention have in fact been in Brooklyn and Queens. The consequence of this imbalance has been a vast number of improvisations by hospitals to supply makeshift ICU units, and almost certainly a great number of lives lost that could have otherwise been saved.