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“Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number is Losing Meaning”


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If you want to make sense of the number of COVID hospitalizations at any given time, you need to know how sick each patient actually is. Until now, that’s been almost impossible to suss out. The federal government requires hospitals to report every patient who tests positive for COVID, yet the overall tallies of COVID hospitalizations, made available on various state and federal dashboards and widely reported on by the media, do not differentiate based on severity of illness. Some patients need extensive medical intervention, such as getting intubated. Others require supplemental oxygen or administration of the steroid dexamethasone. But there are many COVID patients in the hospital with fairly mild symptoms, too, who have been admitted for further observation on account of their comorbidities, or because they reported feeling short of breath. Another portion of the patients in this tally are in the hospital for something unrelated to COVID, and discovered that they were infected only because they were tested upon admission. How many patients fall into each category has been a topic of much speculation. In August, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System decided to find out.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/

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In our state, they report how many are hospitalized with covid and how many of those are using a vent.  And of course, ICU beds being used.   What I've found in my region is that it is nearly impossible to be admitted with covid unless you are seriously at risk of dying within a short time.   Otherwise, they do the infusion and send you home, even if you want to be admitted.   They just have no space anymore to admit even very ill covid patients.   

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Hospital ICU beds are so jammed up in many parts of the country with unvaccinated people on vents that normal healthcare isn't taking place for people with serious issues. People are dying as a result of other people's horrendous decisions.

We had an elderly man in our remote circle die last week (not from Covid) because he was sent home due to lack of hospital space.

Hospitals are not taking in people "just because."

And, unfortunately, we have a new metric: How many refrigerated trucks are in hospital parking lots serving as temporary morgues due to Covid?

Bill

 

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59 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

Hospital ICU beds are so jammed up in many parts of the country with unvaccinated people on vents that normal healthcare isn't taking place for people with serious issues. People are dying as a result of other people's horrendous decisions.

We had an elderly man in our remote circle die last week (not from Covid) because he was sent home due to lack of hospital space.

Hospitals are not taking in people "just because."

And, unfortunately, we have a new metric: How many refrigerated trucks are in hospital parking lots serving as temporary morgues due to Covid?

Bill

 

Unfortunately vaccinated patients are on vents as well in some cases. Not in the same numbers of course, but it is happening.

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8 minutes ago, Fritz said:

Unfortunately vaccinated patients are on vents as well in some cases. Not in the same numbers of course, but it is happening.

Those on vents and dying are disproportionately (and vastly so) people who are unvaccinated.

Hospital ICUs would not be swamped without the enabling actions of vaccine refusers. Those people are breaking the healthcare system and causing needless death.

Bill

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The large hospital system where I like posts every weekday their current Covid numbers.  They give the numbers of people hospitalized with Covid, how many in icu, and how many on vents.  They recently started giving a breakdown of how many of the total patients are vaccinated/unvaccinated. I’ve been following their numbers for a while.  They were very high recently, but in the last 2 weeks have slowly started to decline.  

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2 hours ago, Fritz said:

Unfortunately vaccinated patients are on vents as well in some cases. Not in the same numbers of course, but it is happening.

Unfortunately so. But the small percentage of those clearly isn’t why the hospitals are overflowing. 

4 minutes ago, athena1277 said:

The large hospital system where I like posts every weekday their current Covid numbers.  They give the numbers of people hospitalized with Covid, how many in icu, and how many on vents.  They recently started giving a breakdown of how many of the total patients are vaccinated/unvaccinated. 

That’s how it works in my area as well. I think that’s pretty standard for the majority of hospitals at this point in the pandemic. Which makes the article all the more head scratching for why they are making this point. I typically like the Atlantic a lot, but they’ve had a few questionable articles like this lately.

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3 hours ago, Spy Car said:

Hospital ICU beds are so jammed up in many parts of the country with unvaccinated people on vents that normal healthcare isn't taking place for people with serious issues. People are dying as a result of other people's horrendous decisions.

We had an elderly man in our remote circle die last week (not from Covid) because he was sent home due to lack of hospital space.

Hospitals are not taking in people "just because."

And, unfortunately, we have a new metric: How many refrigerated trucks are in hospital parking lots serving as temporary morgues due to Covid?

Bill

 

Before the vaccines, we turned an ice rink into an overflow morgue. That’s never happened before so all this “TheY’Re coUntiNg deATHs WITH Covid NoT Frrrrooooommm Covid” people are getting on my last nerve. Fortunately for me, MOST of them don’t live HERE. Unfortunately, they play for Team Virus and are helping these mutations along. 
 

ICUs are FULL of unvaccinated Covid patients. The much smaller number of vaccinated ICU Covid patients are NOT what is pushing hospitals to the limit. 

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4 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Before the vaccines, we turned an ice rink into an overflow morgue. That’s never happened before so all this “TheY’Re coUntiNg deATHs WITH Covid NoT Frrrrooooommm Covid” people are getting on my last nerve. Fortunately for me, MOST of them don’t live HERE. Unfortunately, they play for Team Virus and are helping these mutations along. 
 

ICUs are FULL of unvaccinated Covid patients. The much smaller number of vaccinated ICU Covid patients are NOT what is pushing hospitals to the limit. 

Team Virus sucks. Domestic biological terrorists as far as I'm concerned.

Bill

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2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Before the vaccines, we turned an ice rink into an overflow morgue. That’s never happened before so all this “TheY’Re coUntiNg deATHs WITH Covid NoT Frrrrooooommm Covid” people are getting on my last nerve. Fortunately for me, MOST of them don’t live HERE. Unfortunately, they play for Team Virus and are helping these mutations along. 
 

ICUs are FULL of unvaccinated Covid patients. The much smaller number of vaccinated ICU Covid patients are NOT what is pushing hospitals to the limit. 

The new response here to every local Covid news article (since the ICU's are filling up - we have 10% available, a region in southern IL has 0) is that all the nurses quit because they refused the vaccine. Apparently, if hospitals didn't make people get vaccinated, we would have ICU beds available. This, despite the fact that the total # of ICU beds has remained unchanged or even increased in some regions.

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28 minutes ago, historically accurate said:

The new response here to every local Covid news article (since the ICU's are filling up - we have 10% available, a region in southern IL has 0) is that all the nurses quit because they refused the vaccine. Apparently, if hospitals didn't make people get vaccinated, we would have ICU beds available. This, despite the fact that the total # of ICU beds has remained unchanged or even increased in some regions.

I don't know why people use that as if the reasonable response would be "look what happens when you require nurses to be vaccinated! They need to stop requiring that!" rather than "Man, that's awful, and those nurses need to get vaccinated so we don't have this problem!"

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15 hours ago, KSera said:

I don't know why people use that as if the reasonable response would be "look what happens when you require nurses to be vaccinated! They need to stop requiring that!" rather than "Man, that's awful, and those nurses need to get vaccinated so we don't have this problem!"

Because it is immoral to coerce someone into a medical procedure.

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2 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

It is immoral to willfully spread a deadly illness when there is a safe and effective vaccine.

Your ethics are upside down.

Bill

Not being vaccinated is not willing fully spreading a deadly illness.

you’ve skipped quite a few factors that would equal a willful spread, firstly being having the illness.

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It's not immoral to tell someone "This job requires vaccination. If you choose not to get vaccinated, you'll need to choose a job with different requirements." Some people just really don't like to face the fact that choices have consequences. And having to find a different job isn't remotely the worst consequence of being unvaccinated. There are hundreds of thousands of devastated families, including young children, who wish their loved ones would have made a better choice.

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1 minute ago, Corraleno said:

There are hundreds of thousands of devastated families, including young children, who wish their loved ones would have made a better choice.

I was just thinking the same, but of the people themselves. Almost 100,000 Americans now who died unnecessarily, wishing they’d made a better choice. Some of them begging for the vaccine before being intubated 😢. I can’t fathom why so many people don’t find that a tragedy. 

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2 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

Not an "attempt," what you are doing is shameful in the extreme. That's on you.

You own your evil behavior.

Bill

 

 

Ok, buddy. I think we are done here. You’re repeating yourself. Maybe have some oatmeal and get some rest.

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39 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

It's not immoral to tell someone "This job requires vaccination. If you choose not to get vaccinated, you'll need to choose a job with different requirements." 

Well, I think the mention wasn't, "gosh, these poor nurses are out of a job" but "if these nurses/staff hadn't been fired, there would be more capacity." Except the person mentioning it actually didn't make this argument but said the response in their area was something along the latter's line.

I will say that the hospital system in Big City near be admitted they are already short of staff for non-pandemic times and that their vaccine mandate will make that situation worse. The spokesman clearly stated they would rather be short of vaccinated staff and reduce the number of patients they can care for than have some of their staff unvaccinated because those staff might also get sick and they both care about them getting sick and would still be short of staff during that illness. So, in my area, there was a shortage of nurses & other staff before Covid and that shortage will only get worse. (There was a consolidation of hospitals a few years ago when quite a few physicians, nurses, volunteers, and staff left the hospital system and area.) I have no idea if the number of listed available ICU beds has changed recently, but at least one nurse who normally does not work in ICU (and who expressed concern that she did not feel comfortable with the assignment) was pressed into working ICU.

Deaths as a percentage of population in my state are still low compared to other US states. But we do run full on hospital space (presumably, in part, due to staffing) occasionally.

Edited by RootAnn
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45 minutes ago, pinball said:

Not being vaccinated is not willing fully spreading a deadly illness.

you’ve skipped quite a few factors that would equal a willful spread, firstly being having the illness.

Willfully spreading lies and misinformation can be just as deadly as spreading the virus. I wonder what goes through the minds of unvaccinated people when the doctor tells them they need to be intubated and there's a 10% chance they'll ever wake up, as they realize they've been conned by a bunch of grifters who exploited their ignorance for political and financial gain.

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15 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Willfully spreading lies and misinformation can be just as deadly as spreading the virus. 

QFT. 100,000 dead in the US alone due to the willful spread of misinformation and lies. I don’t understand what people are getting out of this that it’s just a *shrug* to them as they continue on spreading the lies. 

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1 minute ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

We've been through this a few times already. 

I'm curious whether you were also throwing hissy fits about hospitals that required measles vaccinations or chest x-rays. You know that's routine, right? I remember having to be tested for TB every year for my job. It was that test where they injected something in your arm that made a bubble. 

It is immoral to coerce someone into a medical procedure. I agree. However, it is not immoral for employers to require certain conditions to work. 

Right. And the good of the many does tend to outweigh the good of the few and of the one most of the time with the courts. 

No one has a constitutional right to work as a nurse, a lab tech, or whatever. No one. Plenty of other jobs out there that do not have a vaccine requirement. People with this mentality really need to get over themselves. Plus, I am not sure I would trust a nurse who is this brazen about violating health protocols during a pandemic. What next? Decides to inject me with whatever horse medicine he/she thinks is a magic cure? Starts spraying essential oils around my room? Decides to tell my family the whole thing can be cured with Vitamin C and vegetables (have a niece who thinks this and she wishes she had gone into healthcare so she could "set people straight"). Nope not to be trusted. 

 

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51 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

The spokesman clearly stated they would rather be short of vaccinated staff and reduce the number of patients they can care for than have some of their staff unvaccinated because those staff might also get sick and they both care about them getting sick and would still be short of staff during that illness.

I hesitate to throw this out here because I know you all don't agree with me, but... Presumably, these nurses managed to work through the early stages of the pandemic unvaccinated; therefore, they are either being careful and haven't contracted COVID, or they have already contracted COVID and, in my opinion, have the same or better immunity than conferred by the vaccine. It doesn't seem fair to throw them under the bus at this stage in the pandemic.

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22 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

We've been through this a few times already. 

I'm curious whether you were also throwing hissy fits about hospitals that required measles vaccinations or chest x-rays. You know that's routine, right? I remember having to be tested for TB every year for my job. It was that test where they injected something in your arm that made a bubble. 

It is immoral to coerce someone into a medical procedure. I agree. However, it is not immoral for employers to require certain conditions to work. 

I’d love to tone police you like you are so fond of doing to me, but instead I’ve decided to be the bigger person and simply not engage.

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1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Unless the nurses quitting due to the vaccination requirements are specifically ICU nurses, then their quitting has no impact on ICU beds.  Not just any nurse can work in an ICU.  It requires specialized training.  Obviously it could impact other staffing requirements in other units, though. 

Blaming the vax mandate for the nursing shortage also ignores the number of HCWs who are quitting because they're exhausted, burnt out, and traumatized by watching unvaxxed patients die in droves, while also being verbally and sometimes physically abused by antivaxxers. 

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These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

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Just now, MEmama said:

These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

Must be a slow day under the bridge...

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6 minutes ago, MEmama said:

These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

 

5 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Must be a slow day under the bridge...

 

1 minute ago, Jean in Newcastle said:


Nope.  Just moved to a different bridge (thread)

 

You all need to grow up and stop the name calling.

everyone who disagrees with you is not a troll or trolling.

 

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3 minutes ago, MEmama said:

These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

And then a few days/a week later it starts all over again.

Sometimes it's entertaining and sometimes it's boring. Depends on my mood. 😉 

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re The Cycle

26 minutes ago, MEmama said:

These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

Mmmm. Well, I've also noticed that shortly after the "I'm OUT!!" departure flounce...

3

2

1

... there is, more often than not, a return appearance.

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18 minutes ago, MEmama said:

These threads are so predictable.

Obvious misinformation is posted as a gotcha, OP is corrected with facts, OP digs in/attempts to gaslight/gets defensive instead of learns, OP finally claims to have something else to do/has no stake in the issue and disappears from conversation.

Every.single.time.

Weird. OP is still posting in the thread.

It is weird though that people are trying to debunk an argument that I didn't see made in this thread. I didn't see anyone claim there was a constitutional right to be a nurse. Or that anyone in this thread it was immoral to tell someone a job requires a medical procedure -- only that it was immoral to coerce someone into a medical procedure. 

The fact that thousands of people are being faced with accepting a medical procedure that was not previously required as a condition for employment is, IMO, not immoral but it does suck for those who do not wish to get that procedure but who want to keep their current job. Lots about this pandemic sucks, including the hundreds of thousands of deaths. Job loss sucks, too.

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1 hour ago, Martha in GA said:

It doesn't seem fair to throw them under the bus at this stage in the pandemic.

No one is being thrown under a bus though. It would be throwing them under the bus if they were prevented from getting the vaccine. What is throwing under the bus by requiring something that may save their life. This whole conversation, I keep thinking about this nurse I read about yesterday: 'I think it was from misinformation:' Nurse who died from COVID wouldn't get vaccine .She leaves twin ten year old girls orphaned. Had she gotten vaccinated because of her job, that hardly would have been throwing her under the bus; would have changed the trajectory of their entire lives. 

31 minutes ago, pinball said:

 

everyone who disagrees with you 

 

The issue isn’t disagreement though, it’s that there’s not even any substantive engagement with the thread. Many people have posted things that you might disagree with, but would be worth responding to, but instead there have been far more responses engaging in the name-calling with other people who like that sort of thing. It ends up feeling like you really aren’t interested in discussion, which leaves people (or at least me) wondering what the purpose of the thread is in that case. 

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11 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

Weird. OP is still posting in the thread.

It is weird though that people are trying to debunk an argument that I didn't see made in this thread. I didn't see anyone claim there was a constitutional right to be a nurse. Or that anyone in this thread it was immoral to tell someone a job requires a medical procedure -- only that it was immoral to coerce someone into a medical procedure. 

The fact that thousands of people are being faced with accepting a medical procedure that was not previously required as a condition for employment is, IMO, not immoral but it does suck for those who do not wish to get that procedure but who want to keep their current job. Lots about this pandemic sucks, including the hundreds of thousands of deaths. Job loss sucks, too.

Nursing already requires many vaccines.  And no one was squawking about that.  Or if they were, most weren't giving them the time of day.

No one is holding anyone down and forcing a needle into an arm.  (As has been said many times. )  Again - jobs have requirements.  This job now has this one.  (There is provision for individual healthcare facilities to provide a medical exemption for people who legitimately need one. )  If you don't legitimately need a medical exemption than I am not crying about "you" (general you) needing a vaccine to keep you and others safe. 

 

Edited by Jean in Newcastle
added "a vaccine"
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8 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re The Cycle

Mmmm. Well, I've also noticed that shortly after the "I'm OUT!!" departure flounce...

3

2

1

... there is, more often than not, a return appearance.

I never said I was leaving. 
 

and as far as I know, I’ve never flounced out of a thread…I have stopped interacting with posters in particular threads but people do that all the time. 
 

But, please, continue on with your (general your) petty little “jokes.” 
 

It is amusing the lengths you (general you) will go to to derail a thread and attempt to silence the Wrong Think

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5 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

That hurts.

Bill

 

I'm sorry.  Really.    You know, I have a love-hate relationship with you.   We actually agree on most everything, but you come across as a 'typical man' and it drives me nuts.     It's probably just how it comes across on the 'net, but still.  Pinball comes across as a know it-all and also an instigator (I wouldn't describe you as an instigator, just Pb).    

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4 minutes ago, KSera said:

No one is being thrown under a bus though. It would be throwing them under the bus if they were prevented from getting the vaccine. What is throwing under the bus by requiring something that may save their life.

Honest question -- how effective do you (general "you") think PPE is at preventing the spread of COVID? 

My main concern is the removal of the natural immunity card. It looks to me like more studies are coming out saying that natural immunity (from previous infection) is as good/better than the vaccine. I understand the difficulty of proving antibody levels -- much easier to just give everyone the jab -- but I don't feel natural immunity should be discounted, especially since there are breakthrough cases from the vaccine so it doesn't totally protect those around them (and yes, I do believe the vaccines confer milder cases to those who have had them).

Another unpopular opinion here, but I will have to admit that I am concerned about autoimmune diseases and prion diseases as a result of these vaccines, maybe 3 years or more down the road. Please don't call me a conspiracy theorist. I have always been a late adopter of new technologies (let them get all the kinks out first, lol). I desparately hope I am wrong because many people dear to me have had the vaccine.

 

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18 minutes ago, pinball said:

 

It is amusing the lengths you (general you) will go to to derail a thread and attempt to silence the Wrong Think

Other than the one line about it being immoral to coerce a medical procedure, you haven’t shared substance, though, so it has nothing to do with silencing any kind of opinion. Lots of people disagree about lots of things on here, but are still able to engage in discussions about those things. I don’t get the idea that you are actually looking for discussion. There’s any number of posts above that you could choose to reply to with actual discussion.

How about this one, for example:

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Willfully spreading lies and misinformation can be just as deadly as spreading the virus. I wonder what goes through the minds of unvaccinated people when the doctor tells them they need to be intubated and there's a 10% chance they'll ever wake up, as they realize they've been conned by a bunch of grifters who exploited their ignorance for political and financial gain.

 

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