Health | swine flu Swine Flu Victims Could Swamp Hospitals CDC estimates are more than US can handle By Kevin Spak Posted Oct 1, 2009 2:10 PM CDT Copied Dr. Jeffrey Starke, right, Chairman of the Infection Control Committee at Texas Children's Hospital, answers a question about the death of a child from swine flu, April 29, 2009. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Hospitals will be in big trouble if the swine flu outbreak matches the flu pandemic of 1968. In that mild pandemic, 35% of Americans got sick. If that happened today, 15 states would run out of hospital beds, and another dozen would have to fill 75% of their beds with nothing but flu victims, according to a new report based on CDC computer models. “Our point in doing this is not to cry Chicken Little,” says the director of the group behind the study, “but really to point out the potential even a mild pandemic can have and how readily that can overwhelm the health care delivery system.” Read These Next Two photos show 'person of interest' in Kirk shooting. Videos may have captured the shooter of Charlie Kirk on a roof. Disturbing video of Charlie Kirk shooting was spreading online. Moment of silence for Kirk ends in House shouting match. Report an error