U.S. hospitals call all hands on deck to brace for more coronavirus cases

As the coronavirus outbreak unfolds in the rest of the world — more than 31,400 people have been infected so far, and 638 people have died — hospitals in the U.S. are harnessing their resources to prepare for any spike in local cases. Only 12 people in the U.S. thus far have been diagnosed with the virus, but experts are recalling previous emergencies, including 2009’s H1N1 pandemic. U.S. hospitals struggled to keep sufficient supplies on hand and maintain their regular schedule of unrelated procedures. A decade ago, pulmonologists were concerned about a shortage of ventilators and other machines to help patients with the kind of respiratory distress that the flu — or now, the coronavirus — can cause, but these machines were often reserved for patients undergoing heart surgery. Hospitals are better prepared now, and some are holding near-daily meetings to check in on their emergency preparedness plans.