Stadiums transformed in temporary hospitals for Coronavirus patients

Dr. David Samadi explains why corona patients should be treated in exclusive locations. Also, Dr. Samadi answers important questions about how to prepare for the pick of the disease.

Newsmax  – Alright! We will bring in Dr. David Samadi. He is the Head of Men’s Health at St. Francis Hospital, NY. He has been great on this issue. Dr., welcome back! Nice to see you!

Dr. David Samadi – Thank you, Greg! Thank you!

Newsmax – The other night we were talking and you wanted to talk about stadiums. Stadiums, sports arenas, major facilities that are not being utilized because of o the coronavirus. Do you think that they can be utilized as temporary hospitals for coronavirus patients?

Stadiums can become treatment places for corona patients

Dr. David Samadi – I think we need to get ready and prepare ourselves because the eye of the storm is gonna be coming to us in about ten days to two weeks. This is when the real tsunami is gonna hit our country. If you look at the curves form the European, from South Korea and from Iran and if it is following the same trend, you can see that this is coming up very soon. We are about two weeks behind.

So what is gonna happen? Our healthcare system is gonna be overwhelmed and the way to do this, in my opinion, is to really take the patients with corona to exclusive centers that are dedicated with respirators, ISU beds, nurses that are absolutely trained in infectious disease and they have the hazmat suit and they really care how to take care of this instead of binging them to the hospital.

As you mentioned, we have all these stadiums, basketball courts, buildings that are empty and we could very quickly turn them into like major ICU triage, Coronacenters. There are also two things: we are talking about social distancing but we should also talk about patient distancing. Keep the healthier ones in the hospitals and make sure to divert through all the phone systems that we have and apps and other teleconferencing. Bring the patients to these corona centers and take care of them. I think that is really smart.

Newsmax – It makes sense. I think you have got to get the word out for the public to get used to that idea. I know you do not want the public to panic, but the idea of going to a stadium sounds like something that is foreign to us, something we are not used to. I think we will need to get used to it, we have to get the word out there and perhaps prepare the public. Let me ask this very briefly. Italy and what they have gone through…I keep hearing and I think you alluded to that. We’re only a couple of weeks behind them. What is happening to Italy may happen here. I am not sure. Is that 100% true? Cause my understanding is that our systems, our healthcare system, and even our people are better prepared for something like this.

Is the US ready for fighting COVID-19?

Dr. David Samadi – There is no question that we have probably a better healthcare system than Italians. But the bottom line is again about the numbers. So, what happened in Italy? In fact, if you look at the number of beds they have in South Korea, you will see that they have around 12.8 beds/1000 patients. In China the number is about 4.8, in Italy it is about 3.2 and guess what, in the US is 2.8. So you could argue that the Italians have more numbers of beds/patient, even though we have more ICU beds. In Italy, the population is older, which is exactly what this virus is going after. The social distancing did not happen on time and it was slow, slow, slow until the curve really spiked and they were caught off guard. We do not want this to happen.

This is one of the reasons, Greg, why we need to prepare our beds, we need more ventilators, we need more respirators and we need to clear a lot of the patients.

70% of our beds are already occupied by flu patients. So, getting them out and getting prepared is absolutely the way to go.

Newsmax – Dr. Samadi, it makes total sense. Thank you very much! One thing that Italians do more than we do is smoke. Much greater rate of smoking in Italy than in America. Dr. Samadi, thank you very much!