The coronavirus epidemic is about to hit us. It has been known for weeks from the drastic actions taken by the Chinese government in Wuhan that the scale of this pandemic creates a healthcare crisis that will swamp and overwhelm normal health care provisions.

Some estimates suggest as much as 4% of population will need acute care yet for example in the UK the NHS only has a handful (15) of the most intensive care beds available and regularly fails to cope with seasonal flu. The situation is similar in the US, Scotland and in most other countries.

There is a complete mismatch between what is available in terms of beds and particularly the most acute beds and what is needed. We need a WWII style mobilisation to increase the number of beds available and we need it now.