The U.S. has more ICU beds as it braces for coronavirus cases
Editorial Board March 17, 2020
Americans love to complain about their costly health-care system, but in the coronavirus pandemic that spending could pay off. Hospitals in the U.S. don’t skimp on costly care as they do in countries with socialized systems that are struggling to treat coronavirus patients amid a shortage of intensive-care beds.
Some who favor government-run health care are pointing out that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than other countries, but that’s in part because more surgeries are performed at outpatient centers where patients are less likely to catch infections. A more important metric is the number of intensive-care units, which have sophisticated equipment and a high staff to patient ratio. These are crucial for patients in respiratory distress.
A 2012 review in the journal Current Opinion in Critical Care found that the U.S. has 20 to 31.7 ICU beds per 100,000 people compared to 13.5 in Canada, 7.9 in Japan and between 3.5 and 7.4 in the U.K. Differences in how countries define “ICU” account for some of the disparity, the article notes, and the U.S. needs more ICU beds because it has a higher incidence of chronic conditions like heart disease. But importantly, the article finds that health spending is correlated “with increasing delivery of critical care.”
Countries with socialized systems ration intensive care. “Studies from Japan and the U.K determined that admissions to ICUs are severely limited for the very elderly and patients perceived to have little chance of survival,” the article says. In the U.K., many patients were “denied intensive care due to a lack of beds” and “discharged from the ICU prematurely.” The U.K.’s National Health Service already struggles each winter to provide adequate care during routine flu seasons, as our Joseph Sternberg documented on Friday.
A Personal Note: Years ago, while my husband and I were living in Sydney, Australia, we were having dinner at a restaurant when the waiter came over to our table and gave us a bottle of champagne. The waiter explained that the gentleman at another table had recognized that we were Americans and he wanted to thank us for The Battle of the Coral Sea. A very special moment that I will never forget. This article was written by Trevor Loudon and he explains why he feels such gratitude to the United States . It is because of our help to Australia and New Zealand during the Second World War. Nancy
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
CONTRIBUTOR
December 2, 2019
Over the Thanksgiving period, I pondered a lot on my debt to America. The first thing I owe this great country is probably my very existence. When growing up in 1960s New Zealand, it was accepted wisdom that we owed our freedom and our very lives to the “Yanks.”
In 1942, tens of thousands of young Kiwi and Aussie men were in North Africa fighting the Nazis and the Italian Fascist armies. The Japanese Imperial Army was marching relentlessly through the South Pacific and South East Asia. The Philippines fell; Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, all were invaded in a matter of months, capturing thousands of British, Dutch, and colonial troops in the process.
The Japanese air force bombed Darwin in Northern Australia. There were reports of Japanese submarines in New Zealand harbors. In 1942, 22 New Zealand prisoners of war were beheaded by the Japanese on Tarawa. In 1943, Japanese prisoners rioted at a prisoner of war camp in our little North Island town of Featherston. More than 30 Japanese and one New Zealand guard were killed before order was restored. Rumors flew that the Japanese had already printed up the currency they were going to use when they invaded us.
Though the comments in the video linked below are directed to Asian-Americans, most also apply to any ethnic group in America which has been stuck with Democrats to their own detriment; i.e., blacks, Jews, Latinos, etc. The Democrat Party is heavily invested in maintaining the victim status of these groups, so it cannot afford to promote policies that actually lead to their success. Prosperity for ALL is what will kill the Democrat Party
Most people don’t realize that the percentage of Asian-Americans in the USA is approximately half of the Af-Am population, and that percentage is growing while the percentage of blacks is shrinking. Asian-Americans are, by far, the most financially successful ethnic group in this nation – extinguishing the “white privilege ” myth for all but the most racist leftists in the nation.
Is the Trump administration out to wreck the liberal world order? No, insisted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview at his office in Foggy Bottom last week: The administration’s aim is to align that world order with 21st-century realities.
Many of the economic and diplomatic structures Mr. Trump stands accused of undermining, Mr. Pompeo argues, were developed in the aftermath of World War II. Back then, he tells me, they “made sense for America.” But in the post-Cold War era, amid a resurgence of geopolitical competition, “I think President Trump has properly identified a need for a reset.”
Mr. Trump is suspicious of global institutions and alliances, many of which he believes are no longer paying dividends for the U.S. “When I watch President Trump give guidance to our team,” Mr. Pompeo says, “his question is always, ‘How does that structure impact America?’ ” The president isn’t interested in how a given rule “may have impacted America in the ’60s or the ’80s, or even the early 2000s,” but rather how it will enhance American power “in 2018 and beyond.”
Mr. Trump’s critics have charged that his “America First” strategy reflects a retreat from global leadership. “I see it fundamentally differently,” Mr. Pompeo says. He believes Mr. Trump “recognizes the importance of American leadership” but also of “American sovereignty.” That means Mr. Trump is “prepared to be disruptive” when the U.S. finds itself constrained by “arrangements that put America, and American workers, at a disadvantage.” Mr. Pompeo sees his task as trying to reform rules “that no longer are fair and equitable” while maintaining “the important historical relationships with Europe and the countries in Asia that are truly our partners.”
Does the U.S. want to continue as a great power? China’s navy is set to surpass our fleet by 2030.
By
Seth Cropsey Mr. Cropsey is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. He was a naval officer and a deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
The escalating territorial disputes in the Pacific between China and America’s allies create an ever-more-urgent need for U.S. sea power. But even as China rapidly expands and modernizes its navy, the Trump administration has not proposed enough funds to maintain America’s maritime advantage. Beginning with the coming 2019 federal budget, the president and Congress must commit to funding a full, modern fleet—or risk ceding essential U.S. and allied interests.
American sea power has secured the Pacific since the end of World War II, assuring safe and open trade, while defusing conflict throughout the region. Maintaining a powerful navy for these ends is hardly an American innovation: No great state or empire has ever retained its status without pre-eminent sea power. The histories of Athens, Venice, Spain, Holland and England show that losing control of the oceans leads ineluctably to losing great-power status.
The rapid growth and improvement of China’s naval forces is the major challenge to American sea dominance today, and likely for the foreseeable future. Retired Capt. James Fanell, former director of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stated in 2015 that China’s combat fleet will reach 415 ships in 2030. Beijing is particularly focused on adding submarines, amphibious vessels and small surface combatants. The buildup demonstrates China’s clear intention to dominate in coastal regions and amphibious operations—domains in which the U.S. has pre-eminence today.
As Adm. Phil Davidson, nominated to lead the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate in April: China “is no longer a rising power but an arrived great power and peer competitor.” He added that “China has undergone a rapid military modernization over the last three decades and is approaching parity in a number of critical areas; there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China.”
The White House has proposed expanding the U.S. Navy to 355 ships, but its plan is too slow and underfunded. The full fleet would not be complete until 2050 at the earliest. Although President Trump proposes to dedicate $20 billion for new ship construction in 2019, and about the same in constant dollars in each of the next five years, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the project requires an additional $6.6 billion a year over the next 30 years. Without increased funding, the fleet will be smaller in three decades than it is today, and China’s navy could surpass it by 2030.
The Japanese national flag flutters at half-staff at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in western Japan on August 6, 1998.PHOTO:REUTERS
The White House said this week that PresidentObamawill visit Hiroshima during his visit to Japan later this month, setting off speculation about what he would say in the city where America used the atomic bomb to end World War II without an invasion. Here’s the speech we don’t expect Mr. Obama to give—though he’s more than welcome to it.
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It is with mixed emotions that I stand before you today. Seven years ago, in Prague, I committed my Administration to the goal of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons—a cause I have championed since my student days. My country has since sharply reduced its nuclear arsenal through the 2010 New Start treaty with Russia, and my Administration has negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran. We have organized regular summits on nuclear security. And we have toughened international sanctions on North Korea after its nuclear tests.
Yet a nuclear-free world seems further out of reach today than when I entered office. As I near the end of my Presidency, I feel obliged to tell you how I think I went wrong.
Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. |Jun 18, 2015
Adolf Hitler started World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany moved only after it had already remilitarized the Rhineland, absorbed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia. Before the outbreak of the war, Hitler’s new Third Reich had created the largest German-speaking nation in European history.
Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese government had redrawn the map of Asia and the Pacific. Japan had occupied or annexed Indochina, Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan, in addition to swaths of coastal China. Attacking Hawaii, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia was merely the logical 1941 follow-up to more than a decade of Japanese aggression.
Fascist Italy, by the outbreak of World War II in Europe, had already been remaking the map of the Mediterranean region in imitation of ancient Rome. Strongman Benito Mussolini had annexed what is now Ethiopia, Albania and most of Libya. He promised Italians that the Mediterranean would soon be mare nostrum, “our sea.”
All of these hegemonies had arisen without triggering a global war. Had Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese just been satisfied and consolidated their winnings, there was no evidence that the tired Western democracies would ever have stopped them.
The contemporary world is starting to resemble the 1930s, and maps again must be redrawn.
The Islamic State plans to take Baghdad to make it the capital of a radical Sunni caliphate from what is left of Syria and Iraq. (more…)
In honor of Veterans Day, the following photos were taken at the funeral of U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert B. Erly, (retired). Admiral Erly was a decorated survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and died at the age of 100 on July 31, 2014 in Coronado, California, and was buried at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on November 3, 2014.
I was honored to attend his funeral as a member of my husband’s family who very fondly called Admiral Erly, “Uncle Bob”. Scroll down below the photos for Admiral Erly’s biography. He was one of the last of “The Greatest Generation”. Nancy
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert B. Erly, (retired)
Naval Academy Chapel
Rear Admiral Robert Broussard Erly
Rear Admiral Robert Broussard Erly, a resident of Coronado, California, and a highly decorated military veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam Conflict died Thursday, July 31, 2014, at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California, at age 100.
Admiral Erly was born in Washington, D. C., on June 12, 1914, to the late Alfred Angus and Beatrice Erly. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1933 with an at-large appointment and graduated in 1937.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, while Japanese planes were bombing his destroyer, the USS Cassin, the destroyer USS Downes, and the battleship USS Pennsylvania (the three ships were together in dry dock), then Lieutenant Junior Grade Erly organized the turning of water hoses on the burning ships. As the bombs continued to fall, Lt. Erly, with the help of two members of the ship’s crew, water hosed the torpedoes and depth charges to prevent them from exploding and further damaging the Pennsylvania and the two destroyers. All three ships were later repaired and returned to service. Erly received the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V.
During the remainder of the war, he served on various destroyers in the Pacific and Atlantic and commanded the destroyer USS Phelps. During the war and after, he also served many years on numerous missions to Cuba and Venezuela and received many medals and commendations.
During the Korean conflict, he commanded the USS James C. Owens, and in May l952, the Owens dueled with enemy shore batteries, hitting and destroying at least two enemy guns, rail lines, trains and storage yards in Songjen Harbor. He was awarded the Bronze Star with a Combat V.
Erly served tours of duty at the Pentagon and was a commander of amphibious forces. He was Deputy Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He received the Legion of Merit and three Gold Stars for meritorious service. He served as Director of Pan American Affairs and received medals and commendations from several South American countries.
His final tour of duty was in Portugal as Commander of Iberian Forces Atlantic Fleet and Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group to Portugal.
After his medical retirement as Rear Admiral in l974, he moved permanently to Coronado, California, where he was active in the Navy League, Community Playhouse, American Cancer Society, Navy Yacht Club of San Diego, San Diego Cruiser Association, and other civic associations. An avid boater, Erly, also a member of the Coronado Yacht Club, continued to race and win races through this year.
He was a member of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, the Retired Officers Association, a former trustee of the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation and a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
Admiral Erly was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife of 60 years, Lois Richards Erly; his sister, Clare Erly Wootten; and his brother, John K. Erly. He is survived by his wife, Thea H. Wallace Erly of Coronado and numerous nieces and nephews.
Burial services will be conducted at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland, at a later date.
Where do federal government reports go once they’ve been published and (lightly) chewed over by second-tier officials, congressional staffers and think-tank wonks? I picture them being packed into crates and stored in some vast warehouse, like the Ark of the Covenant in the last scene of “Indiana Jones.”
Every now and again, however, some of these reports are worth rescuing from premature burial.
So it is with the “Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Technologies,” the soporific title given to a report published last month by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board. The report is long on phrases like “adaptable holistic methodologies” and “institutionalized interagency planning processes.” But at its heart it makes three timely and terrifying claims.
First, we are entering a second nuclear age.
Second, the history of nuclear proliferation is no guide to the future.
Third, our ability to detect nuclear breakout—the point at which a regime decides to go for a bomb—is not good.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. AFP/Getty Images (more…)
As the U.S. deterrent fades, atomic weapons are poised to proliferate.
EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: The world can see the U.S. has acquiesced in North Korea’s weapons program and lacks the will to stop Iran. It can see the U.S. is shrinking its own nuclear capacity through arms control, even as rogue threats grow. And it can see the U.S. is ambivalent about its allies getting nuclear weapons even as it does little to shore up the U.S. umbrella or allied defenses. Above all, the world can hear Mr. Obama declare for domestic American audiences that “the tide of war is receding” despite the growing evidence to the contrary. On present trend, the President who promised to rid the world of nuclear weapons is setting the stage for their greatest proliferation since the dawn of the atomic age.
President Obama came to office in 2009 promising to negotiate with America’s enemies and create a world without nuclear weapons. Four years later, North Korea is threatening America with nuclear attack, Iran is closer to its own atomic arsenal, and the world is edging ever closer to a dangerous new era of nuclear proliferation. The promises and the reality are connected.
The latest talks between the West and Iran failed this weekend, with no immediate plans for another round. The negotiations by now follow a pattern in which the U.S. makes concessions that Iran rejects, followed by more concessions that Iran also rejects, and so on as Tehran plays for time.
Associated PressNorth Korean vehicle carrying a missile.
North Korea, meanwhile, has moved medium-range missiles to its east coast in preparation for what is expected to be another launch as early as this week. This follows its third nuclear test and an explicit government authorization to strike U.S. targets with nuclear weapons. South Korea and Japan are in the direct line of fire. (more…)
