Whatever we may choose I think hospital overwhelm is the limiting factor. You can’t really choose your way out of that. That really ‘is what it is’

Not my experience about better treatments really. Avoiding intubation if at all humanly possible seems to help some. We also seem to have sicker patients this time round - but that’s just my experience, don’t know if it means anything.

You know it really isn’t that hard. All of the “nothing we can do” is bs. I, and my family, have not caught and not passed on Covid to anyone, and I work looking after Covid patients. I am extremely careful at work - some that I work with aren’t. We do not eat inside restaurants, but we do get takeout and sometimes eat on the restaurant patio if it is pretty empty, which it almost always is because people around here don’t want to eat outside, even when the weather is perfect. We always wear masks when we go inside. We never get close, in distance, to older, vulnerable people we know. If exposed we quarantine. Last week I was tested because of congestion and cough - thankfully negative. My dd is a student at a university that had a really large outbreak initially. She followed all their rules, and ours, and has not caught it. If you insist on living your life like you always have, then many will get sick and a number will die. If you are prepared to make some small sacrifices then there’s a much bigger chance we will succeed. I don’t know the answer to schools since that is an area we aren’t really involved in. All I can say about that is, in my area, many families with kids in school are not being careful or making changes in any area of their lives.

Sounds like he’s on Team Herd Immunity. I feel despair myself. We have so many patients we can’t do all that we want to, we just have to survive and do the best we can. It is incredibly depressing and disheartening and also traumatizing.

They are back on delay here because there are so many Covid patients that we can’t do both. We are a perfect example of a “let er rip” approach as we have no mandates and very poor voluntary compliance in most areas. How does that work in the plan I wonder? The biggest problem with this virus, in my opinion, is the high rate of hospitalization and the resources needed to cope with that.

I erased the end of your first paragraph by mistake, but it sounds like all those measures, masks and restrictions, really do work then as you have so few cases near you. We have most definitely not had those measures here. As far as your last paragraph - I’ve seen many epidemiologists say that looking at excess deaths is the best thing to look at to assess the effects of a pandemic, but it sounds like your saying that isn’t correct.

I’m open to being persuaded with facts and welcome them. I find opinion, that doesn’t match with the facts I’m seeing, to not be persuasive. I think there is a very real danger of what we are experiencing here happening just about anywhere so am probably over vehement in my replies. Honestly it feels like denying reality or at least highly possible reality.

Like you said in your other post it’s different perspectives I guess. I personally think that the real danger with this virus is the number of people who need hospital care. The death rate is definitely not great either, but that too can be worse because of the volume of hospitalizations. What I’m trying to say is that I am out here in the middle of rural America and up until a little while ago most people around here could have said exactly what you said about not knowing anyone with Covid. We were not very careful around here, no mask mandate, other than some stores requesting them, opened back up pretty much like normal after a couple of weeks lockdown (not a very severe one), schools opened in person etc. Now we are having a really hard time with it and that could happen anywhere. I know I have a different opportunity to see the reality of it, but even when we had very few patients I could look at what was going on other places and see what could happen. I don’t quite understand why it’s so hard to look at what’s going on elsewhere. And just wanted to add that the extent of my media consumption is a daily look at the BBC and listening to podcasts from medical and scientific people / organizations, and what I read on this board. So we can still see what’s going on without having to rely on the media.

What is your assessment of the situation here? My assessment, as an ICU nurse in an ICU that is struggling mightily to cope right now with the number of Covid patients we’re having to try and help, is that the situation is pretty dire. I know that is not everywhere in this country but it has been so in many places before now and may well be so in many more places soon if we can’t get it under control.

I don’t find 2.5% to be a comforting figure when you think how many deaths there could be as this spreads more and more. That’s a lot of potential deaths.

Definitely appreciate prayers. Thanks!

I feel almost traumatized just by my experience this weekend lol so I really need to pull myself together for the long haul. My dd takes an important exam on Wednesday so I’m hoping to stay focused on that until then. But right now I’m sitting on my couch in tears. Someone at work last week said it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and it really was, except now it’s speeded up. It’s really difficult to make yourself believe what’s really happening so I guess I can understand the scoffers.

I must confess that I did not watch the whole thing, but after the start I just laughed out loud, and not in a good way. This thing is not over with yet. I don’t know where you are but you seem to have down played this thing all along. Maybe nothing much has gone on in your area yet, or you haven’t experienced it, and I sincerely hope you don’t, but from where I’m sitting right now, this virus is nothing to be trifled with.

We seem to be sliding into something of a disaster where I am. We have been teetering over the edge of the cliff for the last week, and a couple of times over the weekend we almost fell off. We are completely at capacity, barely hanging on, it’s hard to imagine sustaining this for long. People are so sick. We are trying to increase capacity but hard to staff. I feel so upset at the down players. I should just forget them I know, but those around here have said such horrible things that it’s hard to forget. I know it sometimes seems almost ridiculous when things are ticking along in your area, and the spread seems very limited. But please do everything you can to keep it that way! Once it gets out of control it can spread so fast.

Have you been self probing? That seems to really help some people. * proning not probing

We are struggling to deal with the amount of sick Covid patients we have. Our ICU is 100% full (mix of Covid and non Covid) and we are about to open up another Covid critical care area in an empty part of the hospital. It is so depressing because so many are very sick this time. I feel so angry at the deniers and down players I hardly know how to deal with the feelings.

I’m not a US government scholar or expert by any stretch of the imagination but I find Executive Orders troubling and think there should be very limited use of them.

Yes it would be interesting to see if that has an effect on compliance at his university.

I think this is untrue and unfair. ETA Just saw it was a joke. I broke my rule about waiting at least 24 hrs after working a shift lol

It was discussed on the TWIV podcast, but I can’t remember all the details. My understanding, from what I heard, was that the rapid test was likely to have false positives, but if you tested positive a further test should be done to confirm, either the same type or another kind. The early PCR test definitely had a high number of false negatives.

I thought that the rapid tests were more likely to give a false positive than a false negative, and if the rapid test is positive they recheck.

Well I too am a nurse and I just spent the weekend looking after Covid patients in an ICU. H1N1 was bad but there was a vaccine available very early on in the season. Based on my experience it sounds as though they are somewhat trying to downplay Covid. Do they work in ICU?

Have you looked at the recent data on masks? What I’ve seen does not seem anything like your statements.

I think a lot of people feel like that when there has not been a huge amount of spread in their immediate area. From what I’ve heard from those who’ve experienced a lot of spread around them, most people don’t after they’ve experienced what it can be like. I live in a touristy area and we have not had it bad despite that, so far. I don’t know if that is because people got it here but then went back to where they live so we didn’t know. Or maybe it just wasn’t spreading here - outdoors tourist stuff here. But now our positivity is up, hospitals around are starting to say they are filling, and more people are dying, so I think some are starting to change their tune. However there are still the dyed in the wool anti maskers proclaiming forth on social media so who knows. Before all this I did not realize how many people needed a bad personal experience before they could acknowledge risk.