3 ms·

> The hospital boat off the shore is completely empty. Most of our hospitals are significantly below capacity. I think a lot of people don't realize this. My

> The hospital boat off the shore is completely empty. Most of our hospitals are significantly below capacity. I think a lot of people don't realize this. My wife's friend is a nurse shift supervisor at our local hospital. The hospital is practically empty because there are no elective surgeries. They've been laying off nurses over the past month. She had her hours reduced. She's expecting to be laid off soon too. If the whole point of this is to buy time for hospitals, doing so to the point where they have to start laying off staff members is a pretty dumb way to do it.

robryan 7y ago
Government has to subsidise them to be ready in the event there is a surge in cases. If people are being laid off there was no point to cancelling elective surgeries.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  There was a real PPE shortage. There was also very poor visibility on the likely case growth, because testing was so limited. It's only the last couple of weeks where there are enough tests to be testing people with likely exposure instead of just people that were gravely sick (so now healthcare workers and first responders and other essential workers can be tested without requiring that they be symptomatic).
__blockcipher__ 7y ago
And so many elective surgeries are out-patient meaning there was no reason to pre-emptively suspend. If the capacity overwhelm that never happened had actually happened, we could have suspend surgeries then. And frankly it should be on a case-by-case basis. Some surgeries are more important than an extra hospital bed-day. I have a large labral tear in my shoulder, an impaction fracture on my humerus, there’s a bone bruise with bone marrow leaking out, my glenohumeral ligament is stripped from the glenoid rim, I have a new area of full-thickness articular cartilage loss... ...And because CA suspended ALL elective surgeries statewide for a month, my surgeon has a month backlog before he can get to me. Until then I cannot perform any of the activities that keep me healthy and sane. Also my arm is at risk of dislocating in my sleep until I get surgery Suspending elective surgeries was the dumbest possible decision we could have made yet our leaders won’t ever admit that they fucked up and completely botched their covid response.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  I hear what you're saying, but my understanding is that PPE shortages were behind the decision to suspend other medical activities. Failure to maintain an adequate stockpile of PPE is probably what made the lockdowns necessary, more than anything else. If everyone in the US could have been given masks and instructed to keep their distance from other people, that would probably have been enough to allow us to lock down only the most vulnerable. At least we could have begun with that approach, and moved on to heavier measures only if/when they proved necessary.
  - syshum 7y ago
    Some of that was/is pure speculation, they had data to say X number of people would need to be hospitalized, so they need Y number of PPE Y was more than they had to they panicked When X was found to be a massive over estimation they still doubled down and said "well in 2 week we will be over run" 2 weeks came, and it was "well in 2 weeks we will be over run" 2 weeks later and "well in 2 weeks...."

robryan 7y ago

Government has to subsidise them to be ready in the event there is a surge in cases. If people are being laid off there was no point to cancelling elective surgeries.

maxerickson 7y ago
There was a real PPE shortage. There was also very poor visibility on the likely case growth, because testing was so limited. It's only the last couple of weeks where there are enough tests to be testing people with likely exposure instead of just people that were gravely sick (so now healthcare workers and first responders and other essential workers can be tested without requiring that they be symptomatic).

__blockcipher__ 7y ago

And so many elective surgeries are out-patient meaning there was no reason to pre-emptively suspend. If the capacity overwhelm that never happened had actually happened, we could have suspend surgeries then. And frankly it should be on a case-by-case basis. Some surgeries are more important than an extra hospital bed-day. I have a large labral tear in my shoulder, an impaction fracture on my humerus, there’s a bone bruise with bone marrow leaking out, my glenohumeral ligament is stripped from the glenoid rim, I have a new area of full-thickness articular cartilage loss... ...And because CA suspended ALL elective surgeries statewide for a month, my surgeon has a month backlog before he can get to me. Until then I cannot perform any of the activities that keep me healthy and sane. Also my arm is at risk of dislocating in my sleep until I get surgery Suspending elective surgeries was the dumbest possible decision we could have made yet our leaders won’t ever admit that they fucked up and completely botched their covid response.

CamperBob2 7y ago
I hear what you're saying, but my understanding is that PPE shortages were behind the decision to suspend other medical activities. Failure to maintain an adequate stockpile of PPE is probably what made the lockdowns necessary, more than anything else. If everyone in the US could have been given masks and instructed to keep their distance from other people, that would probably have been enough to allow us to lock down only the most vulnerable. At least we could have begun with that approach, and moved on to heavier measures only if/when they proved necessary.
- syshum 7y ago
  Some of that was/is pure speculation, they had data to say X number of people would need to be hospitalized, so they need Y number of PPE Y was more than they had to they panicked When X was found to be a massive over estimation they still doubled down and said "well in 2 week we will be over run" 2 weeks came, and it was "well in 2 weeks we will be over run" 2 weeks later and "well in 2 weeks...."