8 NYC Hospital ICUs Near-Full With Coronavirus Patients: Data

NEW YORK, NY — A number of New York City hospitals are nearing capacity in their intensive care units as coronavirus cases rise across the city and state, new data shows.

A total of eight hospitals across the five boroughs have reached more than 90 percent fullness in their ICUs, according to the data, which was recently-released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and compiled by Gothamist. The hospitals include three in Brooklyn, two in Manhattan, two in Queens and one in Staten Island.

The data comes as coronavirus hospitalizations increase across New York City. As of Friday, an average of 904 people have been admitted into the hospital each week over the last month.

Hospitals and public health officials have assured New Yorkers that, despite the surge, the state and medical response to the virus has improved since it first took hold of the city earlier this year.

“...NewYork-Presbyterian has been preparing for this possibility since the first wave," NewYork-Presbyterian, which runs Brooklyn Methodist, told Patch in a statement. "We have expanded ICU capacity and are redeploying resources as needed within the hospital and across the NewYork-Presbyterian system, and every patient is receiving the care they need."

One of the eight hospitals, Flushing Hospital in Queens, surpassed 100 percent capacity, with 123 percent of its ICU beds used by COVID-19 patients. Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, with 100 percent fullness, was the second highest.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday that the average length of stay in the hospital for coronavirus patients has decreased in New York from 11 days earlier this year to just five days given new treatment methods and better preparation.

The death rate has decreased from 20 recent to 8 percent, Cuomo said.

The governor has also pointed to state-mandated "load balancing" among hospital systems — or distributing patients among hospitals so no one facility is overwhelmed — as a major difference between the handling of the current surge and the first crisis earlier this year.

Though, he has warned that increasing hospitalizations could still lead to renewed lockdowns across the state.

"While there is hope on the horizon with the development of a vaccine, until inoculation is wide spread it is imperative that everyone continue to take the appropriate precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19," NewYork-Presbyterian said.

The state's overall hospital capacity is faring better than its intensive care units, the data shows.
Adult inpatient hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients is under 27 percent at all New York City hospitals. Jones Memorial Hospital, in Wellsville, reported the highest fullness in the state with 44 percent of its beds filled.

The HHS dataset does not include VA hospitals or those that did not report enough data to make a capacity calculation, Gothamist noted.

The numbers are also not total capacity percentages given that non-COVID patients are also in the hospital, Gothamist noted.

See maps with data on all the state's hospitals and read the full Gothamist report here.