WY Gov: "Our Hospitals Are Overwhelmed Today" - Utah Hospitals Not Admitting WY, ID patients

[hatrack]

The impacts of Wyoming’s COVID-19 surge are being exacerbated by spikes in neighboring states and the concurrent strain on the region’s healthcare resources. Demand for Wyoming’s scarce hospital capacity is expected to build, at least in the short term: County health officers have counseled that the state could soon see 3,000 new cases a day with 2% of those patients requiring hospitalization, Gov. Mark Gordon said at a press conference Friday. “Our hospitals are overwhelmed today,” the governor said.

Hospital pressure in neighboring states — which often treat Wyoming’s most severely ill — makes managing demands on Wyoming’s hospitals all the more urgent, health officials have said since the pandemic’s beginning.

Gordon ticked off warning signs from neighboring states: “When you see Utah close its hospital, that’s a problem for Wyoming,” he said. “When you see Eastern Idaho Regional Medical close their hospital, that’s a problem. When you see Billings’ clinic close their hospital, that’s a problem. When South Dakota has to send their patients to Wyoming because they’re too full, that’s a problem, and when we have capacity issues down in Colorado that’s a problem.”

Current Utah Lieutenant Governor and now Gov.-Elect Spencer Cox told NPR in an interview aired Nov. 10 that hospitals in that state are no longer taking patients from southern Idaho and Wyoming. Rep. Roy Edwards of Gillette, the state’s first known official to die of COVID-19, wanted to be treated in South Dakota, according to his son Mitch, but was life flighted instead farther from home to Wyoming Medical Center in Casper. The hospital in Rapid City was prioritizing in-state patients, the family was told.

EDIT

https://www.wyofile.com/wyoming-losing-care-options-as-covid-floods-regions-hospitals/

[live love laugh]

1. I only hope that they don't leave their states. nt

[roamer65]

2. The states should be put under quarantine.

An enforceable one.

[orwell]

3. Take your life in your hands...

...Vote RepubliCon!

How about...Visit beautiful Wyoming...come in your car...leave in a box.

Idaho...for the vacation of your life!

Utah...We're building the wall!

Keep voting RepubliCon all you Red States. What could ever go wrong with TrumpWorship and fact-free science denial...

At least you have FreeDumb. At least you "owned the libs"...

[hlthe2b]

4. They will try to overwhelm Colorado hospitals.

[barbtries]

5. people will die

who did not have to die. #TrumpGenocide

[gratuitous]

6. Socialism!

Why should a hospital closure or at capacity in Utah or eastern Idaho or Montana have any effect at all on Wyoming's rapidly-filling hospitals? Isn't that everyone else's problem in those rugged individualist states? And South Dakota should be honored to admit Rep. Edwards of Wyoming, maybe even set aside a wing of a hospital for such a distinguished patient. That public servant has earned pride of place, hasn't he?

Hmmmm. Nope, those stupid arguments still sound stupid, even when you put it in the context of an unfolding rolling emergency like this.

[Yavin4]

7. Wow. I thought that the Electoral College existed to ensure that small states aren't ignored.

Gee. Guess that was wrong, huh.