“The numbers were much greater than we expected,” Blendon says, “and the delta variant changed what was going on.”
The survey he helped run found that nearly 1 in 5 U.S. households reported not being able to get treatment for a serious illness in the past few months; most of them said they had negative health outcomes because of that.
“This is the United States,” Blendon says. “You don’t expect people with serious illnesses to say they cannot be seen for care.”
This data, he says, shows that health care systems need to boost their capacity ahead of the next pandemic or serious natural disaster.
While Boise-area hospitals are bursting with COVID-19 patients, they’ve also had a surge in demand from people who’ve already delayed care during the pandemic.
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