The Atlantic

Are Community Hospitals Ready for the Coronavirus?

A physician describes the gap between well-resourced institutions and those struggling to prepare.
Source: Misha Friedman

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

Daniel Horn is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital on a team charged with preparing the institution for an influx of coronavirus patients. Over the past few weeks, I’ve checked in with him periodically to get one doctor’s sense of how American health care has fared in the face of crisis. When I spoke with him on Friday afternoon, he told me he was growing concerned that the realities of income inequality were asserting themselves in the care for victims of the virus.

Franklin Foer: I’m aching for any shard of good news. So when you scan the horizon, is there anything short of bleakness that you see?

: I think we’re going to see lots of pockets of bleakness,

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