<\/p>\n
In northern Italy, just two weeks ago, doctors found themselves inundated with patients sickened by the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n
One large hospital had roughly 500 patients positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. As many as 90 new patients with COVID-19 symptoms arrived each day. The onrush of patients overwhelmed the hospital\u2019s medical supplies, protective equipment for workers and, most importantly, ventilators needed to keep many COVID-19 patients alive. And the scene was the same at every hospital across the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no way to find an exception,\u201d one Italian doctor told the New England Journal of Medicine. \u201cWe have to decide who must die and whom we shall keep alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Colorado\u2019s increasingly strict social distancing requirements fail, hospitals here could be facing this same situation in a matter of weeks. Health officials say there are 72 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 currently hospitalized across the state, but hospitals report dozens more with suspected cases occupying specially designated wards and intensive-care units.<\/p>\n
The possibility that Colorado hospitals could soon be overrun with more patients than they can treat has doctors now talking about doing something the state has never had to do before: activating the state\u2019s crisis standards of care plan, which would help doctors decide whom to save when they can\u2019t save everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very military-style triage,\u201d said Dr. Matthew Wynia, the director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and a national expert on crisis standards of care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we get hit that hard, we are going to have some very difficult decisions to make,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we can\u2019t wait until then to get ready for that. So at this point, our philosophy is that it would be irresponsible not to plan right now for a huge surge of patients.\u201d<\/p>\n