for those in the bubble excerpts from reality:

As states across the American South and West grapple with shortages of vital testing equipment and a key antiviral drug, hospitals are being flooded with coronavirus patients, forcing them to cancel elective surgeries and discharge patients early, as doctors worry that the escalating hospital crunch may last much longer than in earlier-hit areas like New York.

Even as regular wards are being converted into intensive care units and long-term care facilities are being opened for patients still too sick to go home, doctors say they are barely managing...

...Florida is struggling with one of the worst outbreaks in the country, along with Texas, California and Arizona: 43 intensive care units in 21 Florida counties have hit capacity and have no beds available...

...At the Texas Medical Center hospitals in Houston, the average daily rate of new Covid-19 hospitalizations was 360, nearly double the rate of just two weeks ago.

“The hospitals are full,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and chief executive officer of the county’s two-hospital public health system, Harris Health. “We have been over capacity for a couple of weeks.”...

...Doctors and nurses interviewed said the current spike is unlike anything they have ever dealt with.

Rick Stern, a veteran oncology nurse who works with the Covid-19 patients at Eisenhower Health, said the job is a constant churn of gloves, gowns, masks, face shields and heart-wrenching misery.

His first day in the unit, he said, he watched a cancer patient who had become infected die in the space of 15 hours. At times during this surge, he said, as many as three patients a day have died on his ward; he personally has lost three so far.

One of his current patients is 35.

“I’ve had experience with death,” he said, “but this is different. These people aren’t ready to go yet.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/u...gtype=Homepage