US Hospitals Rush to Find Beds for Surge of Virus Patients

SEATTLE (AP) — U.S. hospitals are rushing to find beds for a coming flood of COVID-19 patients, opening older closed hospitals and re-purposing other medical buildings. Simple math is spurring hospital leaders to prepare.

With total U.S. cases now doubling every three days, empty intensive care unit beds, needed by an estimated 5% of the sick, will rapidly fill.

An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data finds more than 7 million people age 60 and older — those most at risk of severe COVID-19 illness — live in counties without ICU beds.