Omicron anecdata?

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, bolt. said:

I know this might be a distraction to the thread, but I found this paragraph fascinating, and it made me curious. Could you maybe briefly explain what you mean by hospitals that "compete"? What are they competing for / about? Do they have excess capacity that they are eager to fill? In what ways is the competition made evident such that people know about it?

I'm here in a country with nonprofit medicine, but I'm aware of the American system. I just kind of thought that for-profit medicine was profitable because people need healthcare. In my imagination a hospital would be profitable because it was well-run and efficient, and that they were all basically likely to do reasonably well. An angle of competition hadn't occurred to me. So I'm curious how that works.

Actually, being for profit there is a lot of competition for patients who will require procedures and hospitalizations that are low ish cost to the hospital but bill out very high. One way this has worked out in my region is that the hospital many in our area use spent a very large sum of money to woo a prestigious orthopedic surgical practice to their hospital. They offered an unholy amount of money to the doctors, and gave them an entire wing of the hospital remodeled to look like the Taj Mahal. (okay. Maybe not the T.am. but you get my drift.) Insurance pays out big time in Michigan on bone injuries, and due to the way car insurance laws work here, as a secondary payer, car insurance picks up ANYTHING billed for medical care post care accidents even if utterly rejected by the first payer, medical insurance. Thus they can bill just ungodly amounts of dollars for procedures and care from that wing, and will recoup the entire cost, and because of the reputations of the docs, everyone wants to go there if they have been injured in a car wreck.

In order to afford that gargantuan sum of money (every one of the doctors are getting a half million a year in salary and the PA's for them are getting $275,000) plus the remodel, they gutted two areas of the hospital down to the barest minimum. These two areas are low pay outs and high liability. Pediatrics and Obstetrics. They were the only hospital in a five county area with obstetrics services, but they gutted it down to two small OBGYN practices, and the 5 CNM's who had built it up into a premier birthing center where women from all over were happy to go to have their babies, were let go. Another hospital, much further away, picked them up and now has this amazing birth center. It is also 2 hrs away from some of the counties that the previous hospital serviced. So yes, now a five county area representing about 200,000 people (these are very rural counties) troop to a city of 35,000 people and share six OBGN's and no CNM's. So you can imagine. That whole - supposed to see the doctor every other week and then every week in that last trimester? Ha ha ha ha ha! Not happening. Labor and delivery get busy? You may just be hoping a nurse will stop and catch your baby as she breezes by because you most certainly will not have a CNM or OBGYN in attendance.

Is it legal for hospitals to do this? Yup. For.profit.medicine. Hospital administrators run medical care as a corporation, and the quality of care you receive is based entirely on the agreement between the hospital and your insurance. Uninsured? Yes, if you go to the ER, they are required by law to stabilize you. They are NOT required by law to treat you in the long term. So they have to safe your life if they can, and then they can turf you to the street with a life threatening condition, a chronic illness, a horrible injury, and not provide any further treatment.

When my son and I were in a horrible car wreck, I begged the paramedics not to take me to the hospital even though I was loaded, ready to go, and suspected of bleeding internally because the state police officer who was trying to find my purse in that mangled mess, had not yet returned with it. I was afraid without my insurance card and a credit card so I could pay our $7500 deductible up front, the hospital might choose not to give my son the best care or would send him to a lower ranked hospital without a good orthopedic department. This is what Americans think about when they think they or a loved one might be dying. I refused pain meds despite being in excruciating pain and refused a CT so I could stay lucid to make sure I could produce that insurance card when it arrived. As it was, dh ended up at the hospital first. My purse was trapped in the van, and it was a couple of firefighters who finally found it and freed it.

It is not the fault of the medical practitioners! They are trapped in this system, and a good half of America would prefer it not change because they think any stab at all at fixing it is "communism". People worship at the feet of capitalism.

[mommyoffive]

Scientists are closely watching an Omicron subtype spreading in Denmark, the UK, Singapore and India (msn.com)

 

Free N95 masks arriving at pharmacies and stores around the country (msn.com)

 

 

Fauci expects most states to reach peak omicron by February. Close to half already have. (msn.com)

[busymama7]

53 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Actually, being for profit there is a lot of competition for patients who will require procedures and hospitalizations that are low ish cost to the hospital but bill out very high. One way this has worked out in my region is that the hospital many in our area use spent a very large sum of money to woo a prestigious orthopedic surgical practice to their hospital. They offered an unholy amount of money to the doctors, and gave them an entire wing of the hospital remodeled to look like the Taj Mahal. (okay. Maybe not the T.am. but you get my drift.) Insurance pays out big time in Michigan on bone injuries, and due to the way car insurance laws work here, as a secondary payer, car insurance picks up ANYTHING billed for medical care post care accidents even if utterly rejected by the first payer, medical insurance. Thus they can bill just ungodly amounts of dollars for procedures and care from that wing, and will recoup the entire cost, and because of the reputations of the docs, everyone wants to go there if they have been injured in a car wreck.

In order to afford that gargantuan sum of money (every one of the doctors are getting a half million a year in salary and the PA's for them are getting $275,000) plus the remodel, they gutted two areas of the hospital down to the barest minimum. These two areas are low pay outs and high liability. Pediatrics and Obstetrics. They were the only hospital in a five county area with obstetrics services, but they gutted it down to two small OBGYN practices, and the 5 CNM's who had built it up into a premier birthing center where women from all over were happy to go to have their babies, were let go. Another hospital, much further away, picked them up and now has this amazing birth center. It is also 2 hrs away from some of the counties that the previous hospital serviced. So yes, now a five county area representing about 200,000 people (these are very rural counties) troop to a city of 35,000 people and share six OBGN's and no CNM's. So you can imagine. That whole - supposed to see the doctor every other week and then every week in that last trimester? Ha ha ha ha ha! Not happening. Labor and delivery get busy? You may just be hoping a nurse will stop and catch your baby as she breezes by because you most certainly will not have a CNM or OBGYN in attendance.

Is it legal for hospitals to do this? Yup. For.profit.medicine. Hospital administrators run medical care as a corporation, and the quality of care you receive is based entirely on the agreement between the hospital and your insurance. Uninsured? Yes, if you go to the ER, they are required by law to stabilize you. They are NOT required by law to treat you in the long term. So they have to safe your life if they can, and then they can turf you to the street with a life threatening condition, a chronic illness, a horrible injury, and not provide any further treatment.

When my son and I were in a horrible car wreck, I begged the paramedics not to take me to the hospital even though I was loaded, ready to go, and suspected of bleeding internally because the state police officer who was trying to find my purse in that mangled mess, had not yet returned with it. I was afraid without my insurance card and a credit card so I could pay our $7500 deductible up front, the hospital might choose not to give my son the best care or would send him to a lower ranked hospital without a good orthopedic department. This is what Americans think about when they think they or a loved one might be dying. I refused pain meds despite being in excruciating pain and refused a CT so I could stay lucid to make sure I could produce that insurance card when it arrived. As it was, dh ended up at the hospital first. My purse was trapped in the van, and it was a couple of firefighters who finally found it and freed it.

It is not the fault of the medical practitioners! They are trapped in this system, and a good half of America would prefer it not change because they think any stab at all at fixing it is "communism". People worship at the feet of capitalism.

My husband was hit by a car while riding his bike.  He couldn't remember insurance information and wasn't very lucid.  They got him out of there so fast he still had uncleaned wounds with gravel in them when he got home. It really irked me when I realized why they had *barely* cared for him.  I did come but they didn't ask me for insurance info and just loaded him in my car before I figured out what was going on.  I didn't realize they didn't have it until later. It was a traumatic time.  

[KSera]

1 hour ago, kbutton said:

I know hospitals that normally compete are putting out joint notices about the rates of hospitalization of vaccinated vs. not and things like that. They are doing quite a few joint statements (Kettering and Premier). 

We're seeing that here as well. All the local hospitals have joined together to publish full page ads in papers and online begging people to get vaccinated, wear masks and stay out of crowded situations, because they're too overloaded and are having to cancel important non-urgent procedures.

44 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I was afraid without my insurance card and a credit card so I could pay our $7500 deductible up front, the hospital might choose not to give my son the best care or would send him to a lower ranked hospital without a good orthopedic department. This is what Americans think about when they think they or a loved one might be dying. I refused pain meds despite being in excruciating pain and refused a CT so I could stay lucid to make sure I could produce that insurance card when it arrived.

 

I might be naive because I've been lucky enough to always have had one kind of health insurance or another (it was the cheapest state subsidized plan when we were young marrieds), but I've honestly never worried about this when we have needed urgent medical care. In the most urgent of situations, no one has even asked about insurance until after things have settled down. I know that ERs are required to provide enough care to stabilize and presumably by the time someone is stable, most people with insurance will have someone who is able to provide insurance information to the hospital. We have tons to be fixed in our medical system, with making sure everyone has access to it without worrying how they will pay for it being paramount, but it it more common than I realized for people who do have insurance to worry they or their relatives aren't going to get care (barring there being no beds because we're in the middle of a pandemic)?

[KSera]

16 minutes ago, busymama7 said:

My husband was hit by a car while riding his bike.  He couldn't remember insurance information and wasn't very lucid.  They got him out of there so fast he still had uncleaned wounds with gravel in them when he got home. It really irked me when I realized why they had *barely* cared for him.  I did come but they didn't ask me for insurance info and just loaded him in my car before I figured out what was going on.  I didn't realize they didn't have it until later. It was a traumatic time.  

nt

Edited January 25, 2022 by KSera

[busymama7]

21 minutes ago, KSera said:

🤷‍♀️

Interesting.  Yeah there wasn't anything else they could have done for him really at the moment I was just so bugged that he wasn't even cleaned.  Maybe that wasn't to be expected but it sure felt like it at the time.  I mean for infection prevention at least. 

Edited January 25, 2022 by busymama7

[KSera]

4 minutes ago, busymama7 said:

Interesting.  Yeah there wasn't anything else they could have done for him really at the moment I was just so bugged that he wasn't even cleaned.  Maybe that wasn't to be expected but it sure felt like it at the time.  I mean for infection prevention at least. 

Oh, totally agree with you there. That is weird.

[Faith-manor]

25 minutes ago, KSera said:

We're seeing that here as well. All the local hospitals have joined together to publish full page ads in papers and online begging people to get vaccinated, wear masks and stay out of crowded situations, because they're too overloaded and are having to cancel important non-urgent procedures.

I might be naive because I've been lucky enough to always have had one kind of health insurance or another (it was the cheapest state subsidized plan when we were young marrieds), but I've honestly never worried about this when we have needed urgent medical care. In the most urgent of situations, no one has even asked about insurance until after things have settled down. I know that ERs are required to provide enough care to stabilize and presumably by the time someone is stable, most people with insurance will have someone who is able to provide insurance information to the hospital. We have tons to be fixed in our medical system, with making sure everyone has access to it without worrying how they will pay for it being paramount, but it it more common than I realized for people who do have insurance to worry they or their relatives aren't going to get care (barring there being no beds because we're in the middle of a pandemic)?

Some states are better than others. Here, I personally know people whose loved ones had their hospital care trained down due to being uninsured. The paramedics don't do it. Scoop and run. But once administration finds out there is no insurance, you would be shocked to find out how quickly to seems you are good enough to go home. And not just uninsured. I nearly bled to.death after the birth of my third, and was sent home without my second and very necessary blood transfusion being done because we had an HMO, and they would only pay for 12 hours hospitalization for a vaginal birth. There were so many babies and moms that died back in the 90's due to HMO's that the state legislature passed a law that they have to pay 24 hrs. When our first was born, I had complications and she was badly jaundiced, but the doctor who had personally gotten on the phone to argue with the insurance company discharged us anyway because ultimately the insurance said no, and hospital administrators said we could not stay.

This happens a lot in some states. Others have passed quite a bit more regulation so it doesn't happen. But again without a national system we end up with a piecemeal system.

Case in point, the hospital had the choice of stitching ds's face in the ER utilizing the trauma doc or bringing in a plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon was absolutely called for due to the complicated nature of his face injury. But hospital billing came down and said they would have to check with insurance to see if they would approve the plastic surgeon. I told them "car accident, and the car insurance will pay up for the plastic surgeon or I will be suing a lot of people". He got the plastic surgeon. It was NOT approved by Blue Cross, and the car insurance company did pay up. However, if his face injury had not been from a car accident there is very little chance he would have and the proper care.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Faith-manor

[TexasProud]

11 hours ago, bolt. said:

I know this might be a distraction to the thread, but I found this paragraph fascinating, and it made me curious. Could you maybe briefly explain what you mean by hospitals that "compete"? What are they competing for / about? Do they have excess capacity that they are eager to fill? In what ways is the competition made evident such that people know about it?

I'm here in a country with nonprofit medicine, but I'm aware of the American system. I just kind of thought that for-profit medicine was profitable because people need healthcare. In my imagination a hospital would be profitable because it was well-run and efficient, and that they were all basically likely to do reasonably well. An angle of competition hadn't occurred to me. So I'm curious how that works.

They are competing for paying patients.  I live in poorer, rural area that has 2 hospitals. The small hospitals in individual towns have all closed and/or been turned into an ER for one of those 2 hospitals.  One is more known for being for the well off. They will quietly manage to have non-paying patients go to the other hospital. That said, the hospital was doing ok and had enough paying patients. What is really hurting both hospitals are the free standing ER's. Because now, if you have insurance and/or are wanting to pay a little more you can get "free" coffees, massages, and can be seen much more quickly than the hospital ER, particularly the one that is the county type hospital. So the hospital has hemorrhaged money, especially with having to pay the travel nurse rate for all nurses now. (Not saying they shouldn't.) Most of the people that go to that ER now cannot pay.  The paying patients have been siphoned off. 

[mommyto4]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:16 AM, mommyto4 said:

I thought I would add our experience with Omicron...

 

DS17 -- Tested positive on 4th -- tired, achy, sore throat, runny nose -- stayed in bed for three days, feeling better after 6 days

DD13 -- Tested negative on the 8th -- tired, sore throat, a bit of a cough -- stayed in bed for three days, better after 5 days

DS9 -- Tested positive on the 14th -- hoarse voice, sore throat, brief low-grade fever, good energy, and appetite

DD8 -- Tested positive on the 17th -- slight, brief fever, chills, runny nose, good energy 

So that leaves just DS15 and my husband and me (although I have a sore throat and runny nose today).

I have thought that it would spread quickly through our family, but it has taken a long time...  

All adults and teens are fully vaccinated with adults boosted.  Kids had one shot.

 

 

I thought I would update our Omicron situation.

DS15 -- Symptoms on the 19th -- runny nose, tired which lasted for 5 days.  Tested positive 24th

Me --Symptoms on the 23rd -- runny nose, tired, sneezing.  Tested positive on the 24th

 

So that leaves my husband who is feeling tired this morning and will test later today.  I think (and hope) that we have finally all gotten it and will be able to go out next week.  That will be four weeks for our family.

For us, it really has been like a cold.  I think the vaccinations and recent boosters made a huge difference.

 

 

 

 

[Pam in CT]

re "competition" within a for-profit healthcare system

12 hours ago, bolt. said:

I know this might be a distraction to the thread, but I found this paragraph fascinating, and it made me curious. Could you maybe briefly explain what you mean by hospitals that "compete"? What are they competing for / about? Do they have excess capacity that they are eager to fill? In what ways is the competition made evident such that people know about it?

I'm here in a country with nonprofit medicine, but I'm aware of the American system. I just kind of thought that for-profit medicine was profitable because people need healthcare. In my imagination a hospital would be profitable because it was well-run and efficient, and that they were all basically likely to do reasonably well. An angle of competition hadn't occurred to me. So I'm curious how that works.

As others have already alluded -- the competition is most visible for non-urgent and/or elective services, for which patients have the ability to evaluate and compare and choose where they want to (have a knee replaced, deliver their baby, etc).  The facilities for these kinds of services have to "match" one another's dreamy hotel-like wings, and headhunt one another's well-rated top-dollar specialists, to keep choosy customers choosing them.  And very few of the well-rated top-dollar specialists choose to work in low-cost or low-population-density parts of the country: they can't make nearly as much.  So specialties that tend toward (but are not always) non-urgent (orthopedics, plastic surgery) are very unevenly distributed geographically.

Another way the competition manifests is in the investment in testing equipment.  Hospitals and medical networks purchase and manage their own equipment.  A well-insured patient gets a LOT more tests done -- let's leave it there.

 

In some states, ERs are regulated such that they are required to treat everyone who shows up with an urgent problem.  But as pp have already mentioned, they are screened at entry for insurance, and the uninsured are minimally patched up and sent on their way pretty quickly. Even in those regulated states, hospitals are not obliged to provide follow-up care, or care for chronic conditions like diabetes, or treatment for cancer etc.  So there's a systemic sorting of the least able to pay OUT of the system entirely, while the better insured/better informed patients find their way over time to the better providers.

 

[mommyoffive]

Pfizer and BioNTech begin testing omicron-specific vaccine on adults (msn.com)

[Faith-manor]

26 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

They are competing for paying patients.  I live in poorer, rural area that has 2 hospitals. The small hospitals in individual towns have all closed and/or been turned into an ER for one of those 2 hospitals.  One is more known for being for the well off. They will quietly manage to have non-paying patients go to the other hospital. That said, the hospital was doing ok and had enough paying patients. What is really hurting both hospitals are the free standing ER's. Because now, if you have insurance and/or are wanting to pay a little more you can get "free" coffees, massages, and can be seen much more quickly than the hospital ER, particularly the one that is the county type hospital. So the hospital has hemorrhaged money, especially with having to pay the travel nurse rate for all nurses now. (Not saying they shouldn't.) Most of the people that go to that ER now cannot pay.  The paying patients have been siphoned off. 

Yes, this too. They have built "for the well off" free standing medical centers for those who can pay more for medical care. These things are palaces. One would think you landed at a resort. These are for "first class" patients. I am pretty certain you need and assets statement on file in order to use them.

Meanwhile, my mother who is visiting my sister in France where healthcare is a human right and universal, is paying out of pocket for some things she needs taken care of and can't afford here. She is getting a couple of teeth fixed, and getting more physical therapy for an injury plus some help with a neck issue. She has a $4500 deductible on her Medicare policy and then all kinds of copays, exclusions, etc. and being medicare, a host of really good practitioners she cannot see here. There, she is seeing tippy top of their profession people, and will get all of this done for less than her deductible here. We are talking about easily $15,000 or more US for that care here, for roughly $3000 there. The amount of time the doctors spend with patients is extraordinary. The nurses have time to fully educate their patients. And she does get a therapeutic soak of her ankle, and wonderful therapeutic massage to increase circulation and reduce inflammation before the doctor does her physical therapy. Yes. Doctor. It is not uncommon for orthopedic docs there to directly oversee therapy. Her doctor is shocked at how bad her ankle is, but she doesn't qualify for more physical therapy here. Actually, he is pretty damn angry that she can't get help for it anymore. 

The facilities in France are simple. They have everything they need, no bells and whistles that cost unnecessary money, and medical professionals are on salary from the taxpayers/government. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty dang effective and a hell of a lot more humane than our system.

My sister would be dead if she still lived here. Literally universal health in France saved her life. Post divorce from an abusive husband, she had no health insurance and when she got into some serious thyroid and adrenal gland dysfunction, she couldn't find a single specialist in Kentucky who would take her uninsured. She kept muddling along, went to France on what was supposed to be a one year trip through the University of Louisville where my sister had gotten a big scholarship to work on her master's degree in French, and her host family was so appalled by her health condition, they simply  drove her to their family doc who took her back right away, and then had her hospitalized immediately for tests. Multiple specialists, including one brought in from Belgium, and even though she had a deductible on her international insurance policy NO ONE even thought to ration her care. She eventually became a resident, and a few uears later, married. So she is there permanently. She can never move back home because she now needs routine care and annual very expensive US tests but would not have medical insurance here until she could earn enough money to buy a policy on the marketplace, and even then, ability to pay would have an effect on level of care.

Here meds here? Over $1000 a month, most of them not covered under any standard prescription policy here. There? Less than $100 a month.

For profit medicine is not humane.

 

[Faith-manor]

As much as I do not enjoy my vaccine reactions and sore arms, I will be getting in line for an omicron specific vax if they come up with one!

[Pam in CT]

2 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

As much as I do not enjoy my vaccine reactions and sore arms, I will be getting in line for an omicron specific vax if they come up with one!

Oh heavens yes.

One of the conclusions I have over time come to, about the Refuse to Live In Fear anti-vax crowd, is that there's a lot more needle phobia in this country than I ever appreciated. 

I first was jolted into even thinking about this when Dolly Parton, after going onstage (in a beyond.awesome cut-out-sleeve outfit) to get her first Moderna, looked straight into the camera and intoned, gently but seriously

Quote

Don't be a chicken sh!t -- it's just an itty bitty needle!

and the gears sort of clicked.  A good bit of all this sh!t is, people are afraid of needles. 

Big, strong men, straight out of central casting, guys who never cry and etc.  Are, genuinely, afraid of needles.

Phobias are real.

[Faith-manor]

12 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

Oh heavens yes.

One of the conclusions I have over time come to, about the Refuse to Live In Fear anti-vax crowd, is that there's a lot more needle phobia in this country than I ever appreciated. 

I first was jolted into even thinking about this when Dolly Parton, after going onstage (in a beyond.awesome cut-out-sleeve outfit) to get her first Moderna, looked straight into the camera and intoned, gently but seriously

and the gears sort of clicked.  A good bit of all this sh!t is, people are afraid of needles. 

Big, strong men, straight out of central casting, guys who never cry and etc.  Are, genuinely, afraid of needles.

Phobias are real.

Oh yes, I have known folks who allowed their teeth to get into terrible shape because they were afraid of the shot in their mouth. And myself, I had a needle phobia (not severe but definitely anxiety producing) most of my life. The car accident and being the medical profession's personal pin cushion (sorry nurses, I know you we're just doing your job but the lab tech can go to hell because seriously DO NOT WAKE ME UP TO BE YOUR VAMPIRE VICTIM!!!! 😁) after the car wreck kind of cured me of it.

I guess maybe the messaging should be video images of tubes and wires and needles coming out of covid patients, and someone getting an IV for monoclonal antibodies. Make a nice montage, and put it on during the half time show of the Super Bowl. "You can have this needle and drastically reduce your chances of needing this needle or we can go straight to this!" Have Bruce Willis, worshipped by many a manly man, hold up some gauge needle like you'd use to start an IV on an elephant - just run down to the San Diego Zoo and get one. Then let James Earl Jones do the voice overs and say something like, "Get vaxed or you are going to look like Annakin getting his medical make over into Darth Vader!" Had they run that ad last winter, we might be in much better shape.

The CDC's messaging has been total crap. They should put me in charge of that. 😂

[ktgrok]

29 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

Oh heavens yes.

One of the conclusions I have over time come to, about the Refuse to Live In Fear anti-vax crowd, is that there's a lot more needle phobia in this country than I ever appreciated. 

I first was jolted into even thinking about this when Dolly Parton, after going onstage (in a beyond.awesome cut-out-sleeve outfit) to get her first Moderna, looked straight into the camera and intoned, gently but seriously

and the gears sort of clicked.  A good bit of all this sh!t is, people are afraid of needles. 

Big, strong men, straight out of central casting, guys who never cry and etc.  Are, genuinely, afraid of needles.

Phobias are real.

Definitely confused how it is okay to not live in fear, but then say you should be afraid of the vaccine!

[kokotg]

58 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

 

and the gears sort of clicked.  A good bit of all this sh!t is, people are afraid of needles. 

Big, strong men, straight out of central casting, guys who never cry and etc.  Are, genuinely, afraid of needles.

Phobias are real.

Right?! I've been so surprised by this, too. I also don't understand how so many people have managed to become grown up humans without regularly encountering and dealing with needles. After 4 pregnancies and now twice yearly bloodwork for thyroid stuff (but without thyroid stuff it would still be yearly), I feel like I've been poked constantly. And I'll take a shot over a blood draw any day. 

[Pam in CT]

re not living in fear vs living in (a different) fear

39 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Definitely confused how it is okay to not live in fear, but then say you should be afraid of the vaccine!

Well,  phobias are real.  Not RATIONAL. But real, with real effects.

 

At the time, Dolly's exhortation actually jolted me into a degree of compassion for the anti-vaxxers.

In fact if the anti-vaxxer phobic fury (I don't want to be forced to accept a needle in my body) weren't fused to an equally furious refusal to properly wear properly functioning masks (because frankly  **I** don't want to be forced to breathe your d@mn exhalations)  I would even today have a fair degree of sympathy for the position. 

Logically, proper masking SHOULD be the compromise ground between needle-averse Don't Tread on Me and COVID-cautious Don't Tread on Me.

 

It's the COMBINATION of anti-vax and anti-mask fervor that has led me, two years in, to shift my compassion about [an anxiety that is *different* from my anxiety, but which I recognize as real] over to [judgment that they just don't GAF about anyone other than themselves].

Ultimately, it boils down to a demand that My Anxieties Matter > Yours Don't, and all public policy must be drawn accordingly, 1M deaths + hospital overload + ever escalating supply chain problems + teacher shortages be damned.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Pam in CT
typ

[kbutton]

2 hours ago, TexasProud said:

What is really hurting both hospitals are the free standing ER's. Because now, if you have insurance and/or are wanting to pay a little more you can get "free" coffees, massages, and can be seen much more quickly than the hospital ER, particularly the one that is the county type hospital.

For hospitals that get a high percentage of their admits from the ER, freestanding ERs are horrible, horrible, horrible. I am not sure that you can always be seen more quickly at them around here, but you can be sure that if you need something serious, you'll be paying a fee to get transferred. But no one tells you that.

2 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

Even in those regulated states, hospitals are not obliged to provide follow-up care, or care for chronic conditions like diabetes, or treatment for cancer etc.  So there's a systemic sorting of the least able to pay OUT of the system entirely, while the better insured/better informed patients find their way over time to the better providers.

I will note that some hospitals have foundations (often largely funded by the doctors that work there and their friends) that facilitate care that would not be offered otherwise. That's one reason I am so irritated about the local free-standing ER (with some outpatient things like mammograms). The hospital that has endured 100 years here in a community of very mixed incomes and needs has found ways to serve much more of the whole community than would be expected, is losing business to freestanding places that did not have to build where they did--they were doing just fine without going into the pirating business.

The local hospital very much knows it's community and has responded compassionately and sensibly to the needs here. It kills me to see that effort undermined by the freestanding places, especially through misleading development plans. 

[mommyoffive]

Too young to retire but at risk for Covid, older Americans struggle to find work (msn.com)

[mommyoffive]

Free N95 masks are now available at some U.S. pharmacies.

How it works: The government is distributing 400 million across the country, and adults will be able to get up to three each.

The rollout is still in progress: In the Midwest, grocery stores Meijer and Hy-Vee said their pharmacies are ready to hand them out. Other major chains, including Walgreens, will start later this week.

Why N95s? They’re the best at protecting against the coronavirus.

Tuesday briefing: Free N95 masks in pharmacies; new version of omicron; digital SATs; baseball Hall of Famers; and more (msn.com)

[catz]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

 

The CDC's messaging has been total crap. They should put me in charge of that. 😂

But this is so true.  I think we'd be in a better place if we had a budget in public health for communications.  I can imagine a world where they released a short video weekly with pretty graphics to show where we were at with statistics and data and to remind people that science is constantly evolving.  So irritating.  

I think a lot of people have a lot of unresolved anxiety about needles.  We have needle anxiety here.  My 21 year old son is THE WORST with this. But he is fully vaxxed and boosted.  We need to be giving kids words to vocalize fears and not letting those fears turn to anger, conspiracy theories and other unhealthy emotional coping mechanisms.  

[TexasProud]

Well and my daughter used to be fearless about needles. She was the best kid ever at the doctor’s office…. Until her 5 yo visit where they gave her 4 shots-2 in each thigh. The first 2 she was fine. 3rd… not so fine, bawling by the 4th.  

 

Then I had to take her in a few days later because she turned out to have the same reaction to the pertussis vaccine that I did. Her leg was red and horribly swollen. 

 

Anyway, I regret that and wished I had asked them to do it differently. Those vaccines gave her horrible needle anxiety. 

[Corraleno]

2 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Pfizer and BioNTech begin testing omicron-specific vaccine on adults (msn.com)

That is a disappointingly limited trial, especially for the populations most likely to want an omicron-specific booster: people over 55 and cautious people who've already been boosted. There are no people over 55 in any of the groups, and only 300 people in the already-boosted group that will get the omicron booster as a 4th shot. (Another 300 already-boosted people will get a 4th shot of the original vaccine, which Israeli data has already suggested doesn't help at all.) They're also testing it in the unvaxxed and unboosted, which is probably irrelevant in the US, since the vast majority of people who've chosen not to get vaxxed or boosted are not going to change their minds.

Pfizer isn't even planning to start testing on over-55s until March, so if the most vulnerable wouldn't have access to the omicron booster until summer, when omicron is likely to have passed, I feel a bit like "what's the point?" Unless the BA2 variant leads to a major 6th wave, who's going to be lining up for an omicron-specific shot in early summer after omicron has passed? I think by then people will be more likely to figure they'll just wait and get a combined covid/flu shot (which Pfizer and several other companies are testing) in late summer/early fall, which could theoretically be tailored to whatever variants are circulating at that point. 

[cjzimmer1]

1 hour ago, kbutton said:

 

That's one reason I am so irritated about the local free-standing ER (with some outpatient things like mammograms). The hospital that has endured 100 years here in a community of very mixed incomes and needs has found ways to serve much more of the whole community than would be expected, is losing business to freestanding places that did not have to build where they did--they were doing just fine without going into the pirating business.

 

Curiosity, are you free standing ER's owned by different entities than the hospitals?

We have several free standing ER's around here but they are just extensions of the hospitals and are spread around the community so if one needs ER level care they can get to them much quicker than the hospitals which are all landlocked in the downtown area and thus have little room to expand as the community grew.  I find them to be a great asset to our community and I'm wondering why there is such a difference in our perception of them.

[TexasProud]

11 minutes ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Curiosity, are you free standing ER's owned by different entities than the hospitals?

We have several free standing ER's around here but they are just extensions of the hospitals and are spread around the community so if one needs ER level care they can get to them much quicker than the hospitals which are all landlocked in the downtown area and thus have little room to expand as the community grew.  I find them to be a great asset to our community and I'm wondering why there is such a difference in our perception of them.

We have some like you described. Yes, the ER in my town funnels to the county hospital in the next town. Yes, those are good.  The 3 or 4 specialty ER’s in the town with the hospitals are not affiliated with them at all. They have to send things to one of the 2 hospitals if need inpatient care. BUT  like ortho would just follow up later and bypass the hospital altogether. And surgery might be done at the physician owned surgical hospital. Again, bypassing the hospital. 

[Pawz4me]

31 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Unless the BA2 variant leads to a major 6th wave, who's going to be lining up for an omicron-specific shot in early summer after omicron has passed? I think by then people will be more likely to figure they'll just wait and get a combined covid/flu shot (which Pfizer and several other companies are testing) in late summer/early fall, which could theoretically be tailored to whatever variants are circulating at that point. 

Yep. I'm immunocompromised and was eligible for a fourth jab last week. For about two seconds I debated if it might be worthwhile to wait in the event an Omicron vaccine becomes available in the relatively near future. I got the jab, and am hoping that will carry me until the fall, when I'll be able to get a combo Covid/flu vaccine.

[KSera]

2 hours ago, kokotg said:

Right?! I've been so surprised by this, too. I also don't understand how so many people have managed to become grown up humans without regularly encountering and dealing with needles. After 4 pregnancies and now twice yearly bloodwork for thyroid stuff (but without thyroid stuff it would still be yearly), I feel like I've been poked constantly. And I'll take a shot over a blood draw any day. 

I think a lot of people with needle phobias develop them after childhood. The pattern with the two people in my family who have had it (both have eventually overcome it) was that it started with a shot that caused a vasovagal reaction with that never having happened before, and that scared the heck out of them, and then their anxiety becomes about having that happen again. Which causes a physical response and anxiety begets more anxiety and stronger physical response, so the more worries they have about passing out, the more likely it is to happen. It’s a vicious cycle and I do very much have compassion for people dealing with that. Fortunately, it really can be overcome, especially once people realize what’s going on and can communicate it to health care providers ahead of time and plan accordingly (lying down, for example). 

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Curiosity, are you free standing ER's owned by different entities than the hospitals?

We have several free standing ER's around here but they are just extensions of the hospitals and are spread around the community so if one needs ER level care they can get to them much quicker than the hospitals which are all landlocked in the downtown area and thus have little room to expand as the community grew.  I find them to be a great asset to our community and I'm wondering why there is such a difference in our perception of them.

Ours are owned by private investment firms, and the board of directors have very few physicians on them. One of them also has a huge investment in it from a drug company. It makes people pretty leery about the intent of the medical practice at it.

[mommyoffive]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

That is a disappointingly limited trial, especially for the populations most likely to want an omicron-specific booster: people over 55 and cautious people who've already been boosted. There are no people over 55 in any of the groups, and only 300 people in the already-boosted group that will get the omicron booster as a 4th shot. (Another 300 already-boosted people will get a 4th shot of the original vaccine, which Israeli data has already suggested doesn't help at all.) They're also testing it in the unvaxxed and unboosted, which is probably irrelevant in the US, since the vast majority of people who've chosen not to get vaxxed or boosted are not going to change their minds.

Pfizer isn't even planning to start testing on over-55s until March, so if the most vulnerable wouldn't have access to the omicron booster until summer, when omicron is likely to have passed, I feel a bit like "what's the point?" Unless the BA2 variant leads to a major 6th wave, who's going to be lining up for an omicron-specific shot in early summer after omicron has passed? I think by then people will be more likely to figure they'll just wait and get a combined covid/flu shot (which Pfizer and several other companies are testing) in late summer/early fall, which could theoretically be tailored to whatever variants are circulating at that point. 

I agree.  I got boosted in Oct.  Then Omicron happened and then the news of the Omicron booster coming out for a second I was kicking myself.  But that was when the news was saying the Omicron booster was going to be ready in March.   Glad I got boosted and didn't wait for this one. 

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Curiosity, are you free standing ER's owned by different entities than the hospitals?

We have several free standing ER's around here but they are just extensions of the hospitals and are spread around the community so if one needs ER level care they can get to them much quicker than the hospitals which are all landlocked in the downtown area and thus have little room to expand as the community grew.  I find them to be a great asset to our community and I'm wondering why there is such a difference in our perception of them.

Same here. 

There is a free standing ER that is owned and run by the same hospital chain that is located downtown. The free standing ER is down the street from me, so that is where we went when I broke my wrist last week. It was not fancy or anything, same as any ER I've ever been in. It was very not busy, but that seemed a fluke, the triage nurse was saying it was unusual. 

Basically, we have two hospital systems, Orlando Health and Advent Health. I actually prefer Orlando Health, but their nearest location was a ways away. Advent has more locations, including the freestanding ER near me. And those two groups also own most of the doctors offices - my primary is part of Advent I think now, the orthopedic clinic is part of Orlando Health, etc etc. 

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

Ours are owned by private investment firms, and the board of directors have very few physicians on them. One of them also has a huge investment in it from a drug company. It makes people pretty leery about the intent of the medical practice at it.

AH!

I think we do have one or two "mini ERs" in the area that are glorified urgent care centers - and private companies. Those sound like what you are talking about. Cant' do anything an urgent care can't do, for the most part. 

The actual free standing ER  is basically a level 1 ER versus higher care from what I can tell. And yes, they will transfer you if need be. For my "I need my arm set and pain meds to tide me over until I can see an ortho" care it was good. (won't go to an urgent care for ortho stuff if you paid me, I'd go to a vet first!)

For when my sister was having potential stroke symptoms I wish she'd gone to the full hospital rather than the stand alone ER - she ended up transferred anyway. She needed to be admitted, have her head scanned, etc. 

[mommyoffive]

COVID-19 Omicron Surge Peaks In Wisconsin: Analysis (yahoo.com)

[mommyoffive]

Who will get long Covid? Study may offer clues (msn.com)

 

 

It 'Went Downhill Extremely Fast': Nurse Dies 12 Hours After Testing Positive for COVID (msn.com)

[LinRTX]

My daughter just tested positive for covid. She sounds pretty awful. But her husband must now quarantine so he can take care of her 2 preschoolers. And thankfully she tested positive today instead of yesterday. She is a HCW and at her hospital that have to go in 5 days after they test positive, and since she only works Friday and Saturday, she will not have to work this weekend and has more time to recover.

[Hilltopmom]

NY is keeping the mask mandates for now but I had to walk out of my classroom to calm down today when my co teacher said we should just let the kids all stop wearing masks, blah, blah, blah- I said I’d quit and pull my kids out of school. Damn I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I ❤️ my job.

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Hilltopmom

[kbutton]

7 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Curiosity, are you free standing ER's owned by different entities than the hospitals?

We have several free standing ER's around here but they are just extensions of the hospitals and are spread around the community so if one needs ER level care they can get to them much quicker than the hospitals which are all landlocked in the downtown area and thus have little room to expand as the community grew.  I find them to be a great asset to our community and I'm wondering why there is such a difference in our perception of them.

They are owned by a hospital system and purposefully being built near hospitals that have EDs and are themselves already near the highway. This hospital system misrepresented the facility they were building and it’s purpose to the community (said it would be offices and for testing such as mammography, which are there but are not the primary business), and I think they even misrepresented it to whom ever would’ve had to approve the land use. It’s totally an in your face move. 

[mommyoffive]

14 hours ago, Hilltopmom said:

NY is keeping the mask mandates for now but I had to walk out of my classroom to calm down today when my co teacher said we should just let the kids all stop wearing masks, blah, blah, blah- I said I’d quit and pull my kids out of school. Damn I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I ❤️ my job.

 

I live in the land of no mask mandates.  The schools got rid of making kids wear masks in May 2021.  I just have no words.  Maybe there will be a time to take off the masks in the near future, but man during the surges I just don't think is the time. 

[mommyoffive]

Omicron's new variant cousin, BA.2, has arrived in the US. But don't panic yet, experts say. (msn.com)

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, mommyoffive said:

Omicron's new variant cousin, BA.2, has arrived in the US. But don't panic yet, experts say. (msn.com)

It Is already in Michigan. They sequenced a sample of it from a case back in Decemeber, the 21st if memory serves. So my guess is that this state will be in a very bad way for a long time. We had not even gotten on the downside of the Delta surgery and then had omicron bam. We haven't peaked get here on BA.1 and already have BA.2. I feel like we should have closed the airports and the borders, allowing only Michiganders and returning college students in, and then only allowed travel for people on the border who live on one side of the border yet worked on the other side.

We have almost no masks anywhere in schools. A few districts did a two week pause and are virtual. But what they need is an entire month virtual, and then everyone in KN95 or N95 after that. I really do not know how much more our HCW's can take.

We need a spring 2020 style shut down again.

But "freedumbs" won, so nothing is going to happen.

Another child from on my community, 16 year old with a seizure disorder has been hospitalized with double covid pneumonia. She is not expected to survive. The parents at the high school, many of whom know her and her family personally, have been posting "she was already sick, so this isn't a big deal, not our problem, don't mask my kid" and all kinds of crap. I cannot imagine the pain and horror her family feels seeing that sh#t!

The little 5 year old boy is stable. He isn't getting better, but has he gotten worse either so there is hope for him.

[Faith-manor]

Also, it should be pointed out that there are only 179 people living in my town, and 1476 in my zip code. Two kids hospitalized and one going to die of this should be a wake up call, a warning, something that moves the needle on the selfishness if nothing more from the scare that it might happen to their own child or grandchild. Nope.

[mommyoffive]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

It Is already in Michigan. They sequenced a sample of it from a case back in Decemeber, the 21st if memory serves. So my guess is that this state will be in a very bad way for a long time. We had not even gotten on the downside of the Delta surgery and then had omicron bam. We haven't peaked get here on BA.1 and already have BA.2. I feel like we should have closed the airports and the borders, allowing only Michiganders and returning college students in, and then only allowed travel for people on the border who live on one side of the border yet worked on the other side.

We have almost no masks anywhere in schools. A few districts did a two week pause and are virtual. But what they need is an entire month virtual, and then everyone in KN95 or N95 after that. I really do not know how much more our HCW's can take.

We need a spring 2020 style shut down again.

But "freedumbs" won, so nothing is going to happen.

Another child from on my community, 16 year old with a seizure disorder has been hospitalized with double covid pneumonia. She is not expected to survive. The parents at the high school, many of whom know her and her family personally, have been posting "she was already sick, so this isn't a big deal, not our problem, don't mask my kid" and all kinds of crap. I cannot imagine the pain and horror her family feels seeing that sh#t!

The little 5 year old boy is stable. He isn't getting better, but has he gotten worse either so there is hope for him.

 That poor family.

[mommyoffive]

Long-COVID symptoms less likely in vaccinated people, Israeli data say (nature.com)

[Kanin]

16 hours ago, Hilltopmom said:

NY is keeping the mask mandates for now but I had to walk out of my classroom to calm down today when my co teacher said we should just let the kids all stop wearing masks, blah, blah, blah- I said I’d quit and pull my kids out of school. Damn I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I ❤️ my job.

 

I hear you. I would feel the same and would want to quit my job, too. 😞 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Kanin

[mommyoffive]

What now? How pandemics end - Your Local Epidemiologist (substack.com)

[mommyoffive]

Pfizer Begins Study Testing Omicron Vaccine in People (msn.com)

 

Omicron Deaths in U.S. Exceed Delta's Peak (msn.com)

 

The next Covid variant will be more contagious than omicron, but the question is whether it will be more deadly, WHO says (msn.com)

[mommyoffive]

 

I noticed that Maine went back to burgundy.  I am not sure what happened there?  Testing back log? 

Hoping to see some more states go back down to red. 

[KSera]

30 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

Omicron Deaths in U.S. Exceed Delta's Peak (msn.com)

😢 Which is why it’s so frustrating and hard to understand that so much of the population thinks it’s no big deal anymore and we should all be back to normal now, since omicron is “mild”. There’s nothing mild about all those deaths. 

[Spryte]

21 minutes ago, KSera said:

😢 Which is why it’s so frustrating and hard to understand that so much of the population thinks it’s no big deal anymore and we should all be back to normal now, since omicron is “mild”. There’s nothing mild about all those deaths. 

Wishful thinking based on early speculation?