Millions of Older Americans Live in Counties with No ICU Beds as Pandemic Intensifies

A Kaiser Health News analysis estimates that over half of U.S. counties lack intensive care unit (ICU) beds, potentially jeopardizing more than 7 million older Americans who face the highest risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. Numbers of ICU beds even in communities that have them vary wildly — some only have one bed available for thousands of senior residents, for example. Even counties listed in the top 10 percent for ICU bed count still have up to 450 older people potentially vying for every bed. "This is just another example of geography determining access to healthcare," said New York University Langone Medical Center Professor Arthur Caplan. In general, 18 million people live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU, and about 25 percent are 60 or older; almost 11 million more live in counties with no hospital, with roughly 2.7 million seniors. Washington University School of Medicine Professor Karen Joynt Maddox said hospitals with greater density of ICU beds usually concentrate in higher-income areas where many patients have private health insurance. University of Maine Center on Aging Director Lenard Kaye is worried that the pandemic will put older Americans at great risk due to a widespread lack of ICU beds. He suggested that healthcare workers may have resort to "triaging and tough decisions on who beds are allocated to."