wbt5845 said:

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My wife's hospitals biggest problem is the flood of people in the ER asking to be tested. Of course, the root cause of this problem is all the people who use her hospital's ER as their primary care doctor since they don't have insurance and never pay.

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no the root cause of this is the hysteria driven by the media

I'm sure our experience is being played out across much of the state.

Following the state's order on elective surgeries our hospital census is down. We have not seen a lot of Covid cases yet although our testing is very slow and we have several PUIs waiting for test results. Rooms are sitting empty, waiting for a respiratory patient surge that we hope never comes. This is putting a huge dent in our bottom line as elective surgeries are some of the biggest revenue drivers in the hospital.

This is just an absolutely bizarre situation. We are facing problems related to a low census in a time where we felt we may soon be overwhelmed. I choose to take this as a good sign, at least for my area, that the social distancing is working although the lag time for symptoms requiring hospitalization means we will likely see a tick up in cases over the next few days.

It's also a reminder that just because hospitals are staying open doesn't mean we aren't also feeling the economic effects of this.

Reading the update from Nawlins put this all in perspective. We would much rather be in our situation than in theirs.