Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Facebook.

Today is Friday, October 30th.

Stocks are down, the Texas vote total is up, and we're focused on how hospitals will handle

the new COVID surge. Bend the curve. Remember that line from back in March and April? The basic idea was that

COVID-19 might spread so fast that it would overwhelm hospitals, forcing healthcare workers to make

gut-wrenching decisions. In some cases, the curve did not bend fast enough, and hospitals did run out

of beds. Many made extra space by doing things like suspending elective surgeries, which are

the procedures that most hospitals rely upon for profits, thus ultimately leading them to ask

for and receive bailouts in the CARES Act.

Why all of this matters is that we are now in the midst of a new coronavirus spike, including

in parts of the country that were largely spared in the spring.

Cases and positivity rates are both up.

So are hospitalizations and deaths, more than 1,000 of them yesterday. It is quite possible that we once again will need to bend the curve, or else face the horrific

consequences.

So we want to dig into what hospitals have learned in the past nine months and how things might be different

this time around with the CEO of one of America's largest hospital chains.

That conversation in 15 seconds.

We're joined now by Lloyd Dean, CEO of Common Spirit Health, which operates over 140 hospitals

and another 700 healthcare sites.

If we are hitting another surge, from an operations

perspective, what are the big lessons you learned from the spring that you think could make

things run at least a bit more smoothly this fall?

...