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In Covid Surge, LA hospitals turn away ambulances and put patients in gift shops
- msandford 6y agoSuper tragic for sure. Seems like something was screwed up because the goal was to flatten the curve below hospital capacity, not merely delay the spike until later. At this point it seems like LA will probably be another Italy or NYC.
- Retric 6y agoAn extra 10+ months to gain experience and increase capacity made a huge difference in the 3rd spike. If this had happened 8 months ago things would have been vastly worse nationally. Further, this is very much a flattened curve. We could have easily seen 2 or more times the current rates of infection back then.
- avs733 6y ago> Seems like something was screwed up because the goal was to flatten the curve below hospital capacity, not merely delay the spike until later. Yes, people are screwed up. You have antimask morons protesting grocery stores. [1] The goal of flattening the curve was to flatten the curve...we never really did that. We gave it a shot until everyone got bored or were deemed essential or had a pre-existing condition of being poor. [1] https://citizen.com/-MPkpO03IQfFeYb_MLWT https://citizen.com/-MPkpO03IQfFeYb_MLWT
- basicneo 6y agoHow much has anti-mask protesters contributed to the surge? They got a lot of coverage in [social] media, but what's the marginal impact they have, given their frequency? It's important to establish the actual significant causes of issues, so we now how to improve in future. Actions of those on opposing political sides would be a convenient and perhaps comforting significant cause, so we should be careful in prematurely concluding that.
- mattzito 6y agoMy suspicion is that these events directly contributed very little overall. However, they normalized non-compliance and increased the number of people who don't wear masks as a point of resistance.
- basicneo 6y agoI agree it will have had some effects, both directly and indirectly. It's not clear to me how significant the effects are. Granted, we have to act on imperfect information at times.
- antris 6y agoAnti-maskers made masks political. Even people who aren't anti-mask themselves can be surrounded by a political atmosphere where wearing a mask can be construed as a political message. Also, people can get demoralized in their personal efforts when they see mask wearing as a "divisive" thing that is a matter of opinion, and when they see other people, especially public leaders not wearing masks themselves.
- in_cahoots 6y agoThis may be true, but if you want to blame LA’s situation on anti-maskers you also need to answer the question of why LA wasn’t so bad in April or November when much of the rest of the country was spiking. And on the flip side, why is LA so much worse than ‘red states’ today? I think a more likely explanation is that the lockdown worked up through the holidays, and then people went overboard the other way. If you lived in Texas or North Carolina, you may have seen your friends and family throughout the year. So it’s easier to keep Thanksgiving small, because the public messaging has been, ‘now it’s serious’. If you live in California, you’ve been told since March that basically any activity puts you at risk of the virus. Depending on your county, this year you’ve been told to wear a mask when you’re within 30 feet of someone outdoors; that playgrounds and parks must be closed while bars can stay open; that indoor dining is banned unless you’re the governor; that there’s a 10pm curfew despite no evidence that such a curfew will slow the spread. At some point people get COVID fatigue and start to tune the messaging out. And I’m betting that point is around the holidays for many, many people.
- sjg007 6y agoBecause people refuse to social distance.
- modzu 6y agoi live in canada, but this matches my experience in normal times... my brother had a bike accident and cracked his head off a car and we walked into a nearby hospital with blood running down his face, he was concussed such that he kept asking me where he parked.. and the triage nurse said, "just go home, unless you want to spend 3-4 hours waiting to see someone". we left. so the issue of hospital capacity seems to go way beyond covid, imo
- sieabahlpark 6y agoThat's a really known issue with Canada's nationalized healthcare in general.
- philliphaydon 6y agoI’m inclined to not believe your story, sorry, hospitals generally have a policy of someone bleeding from the head, or extensively, or serious injury, are bumped to the front of the queue over someone who is queuing for a sore stomach or checkup etc. So while you might have to wait, it shouldn’t be 3-4 hours, unless something like massive pile up happened and 25 people were rushed in, in critical condition.
- StanislavPetrov 6y agoIt doesn't matter how acute your condition is if all the beds in the ER, hospital and/or ICU are full with COVID patients - there is simply nowhere to put you. Getting emergency treatment on a gurney in a hallway by hospital staff that is stretched thin and exhausted due to overwork isn't as good or effective as getting proper care. Additionally, there are all sorts of treatments for chronic conditions, cancers and other maladies that take place in the hospital that are being delayed and/or cancelled due to lack of capacity.
- 8note 6y agoI imagine in the US you can pay to have somebody else kicked out and take their bed instead
- 6y ago
- avs733 6y ago[deleting a frustrated and sarcastic comment I shouldn't have made]
- gooseus 6y agoand instead decided on this? I do appreciate this over whatever comment you decided not to make, but still. I would gladly pay up to $1 (or 100 upvotes) for every comment I make here if only to prevent the steady decline into Reddit-style self-indulgent noise.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 6y ago> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gooseus 6y agoHas anyone considered that people periodically pointing out places where HN is being Reddit-like is part of what contributes to keeping this perception an illusion?
- farrarstan 6y agolmao
- mkl 6y agoFor future reference, there's a "delete" link along with the "edit" one, in the two hour window, but you can't delete if the comment has replies. See https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#editdelete-time-limits https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#editde...
- avs733 6y agoWas going for transparency vis a vis an apology. Apparently another commenter took offense.
- ck2 6y agoIf only we knew how to prevent this. Ten months ago.
- sieabahlpark 6y agoIf the strictest lockdown orders can't stop it from spreading then there is nothing that could in the first place.
- just-juan-post 6y agoSame thing happened in 2018 with the flu https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... And here is some excellent analysis of the current situation. See the sticked mod comment for a level headed summary: https://old.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/klftkv/california_is_lying_about_icu_capacity_heres_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/klftkv/... EDIT: Thanks for the shadowban https://i.imgur.com/dumPvHa.png https://i.imgur.com/dumPvHa.png
- olliej 6y agoDepressingly avoidable, but too many people are too self interested to do what they should have been doing ten months ago. Now we’ve got to where actual epidemiologists were warning: the overflow of COVID patients will start killing non-COVID patients through lack of care and ED resources.
- treeman79 6y agoI was dealing with a severe chronic issue at start of covid. Lost access to all my doctors. Avoided going to ER. Ended up having a small stroke. So yea. Lots of people suffering from general lack of care.
- ashtonkem 6y agoAnecdotally, I noticed that private indoor parties started back up in ~August back when I lived in Santa Monica, and that mask compliance was pretty poor in the touristy areas. This was preventable, but I’m far from surprised sadly.
- pstuart 6y agoMost all of it was preventable, which is crazy making.
- KMag 6y agoMaybe I've been out of the US too long (spent my first 32 years in the Midwest / East Coast, out here in Hong Kong for 9 years now), but I don't understand why the public service announcements aren't just promoting it as incredibly rude beyond the pale to not take basic precautions. I can understand why some people's first reaction is to dig in their heels when they're confronted with the state's power of coercion. But, here in Hong Kong, not covering your nose and mouth is seen as spit-on-a-baby-rude. Yea, we have a mask ordinance and I'm sure there's a law against spitting on babies, but 98% of people were wearing masks before the ordinances were passed. Part of it is fear and self preservation, remembering SARS from 2004, but a lot of it is basic manners. If you see someone spit on a baby, your first reaction isn't "hey, the state will punish you for that". Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, and we've had SARS-CoV2 here since January 2020, but the population of 7.5 million has fewer than 9,000 confirmed cases. It helps that at tropical temperatures, the virus survives only a few hours on stainless steel or non-porous plastic, but basic precautions, testing, and contact tracing really work.
- ashtonkem 6y agoPeer pressure really only works if it crosses a critical mass. Maybe early on in the pandemic government leaders could have pulled off the messaging that you recommend, but they waffled on the initial messaging. The result is that we're now polarized into separate camps, and everyone is capable of retreating into their own side to seek affirmation if the other side expresses disapproval.
- Havoc 6y agoGrim. London sounds like it’s heading for the same unfortunately
- ashtonkem 6y agoUnclear. We’re not sure how dangerous the new strain that popped up in London is. Often viruses tend to get less lethal as they get more infectious, like the common cold. Certainly I’d still advise caution, but London might not be in terrible shape yet.
- tayo42 6y agoIsn't that because it's easier to transmit when the host doesn't die. Like a survival of the fittest thing. Covid isn't deadly enough to stop transmissions
- ashtonkem 6y agoGenerally speaking it’s better for the virus to not kill the host, yes. Covid isn’t lethal enough to burn itself out rapidly, but one can imagine that the R0 would be a smidge higher if it was less lethal, since all those dead people could’ve spread it just a bit more if they’d lived. But it doesn’t appear like Covid is the absolute Max lethality possible for a pandemic; the 1918 flu pandemic seems to indicate that a virus can have a higher CFR and not burn out. So it could certainly get worse, but in general the trend is towards being less lethal making viruses more fit.
- sjg007 6y agoNo.
- thewarrior 6y agoActually we’re pretty sure now. They did studies of the new strain based on contact tracing and it was found to have a 50 % greater chance of infecting contacts. It’s also in the US now.
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- tomohawk 6y agoFactor out CA, and the US is doing fairly well. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100k... All those measures that CA took that were lauded - they don't seem to be working as expected. The per capita rate in all other states is better, with only TN and AZ approaching CAs levels.
- rconti 6y agoThe problem is, every few weeks there's a new "well, if you ignore this state, the US is doing really well" story. CA is still only 34th/50 per capita in infections and 40th/50 per capita in deaths. We can't exclude outliers and expect to get a useful dataset. Especially when those outliers change all the time, and exhibit the same patterns as each other.
- tomohawk 6y agoAccording to the link I provided to the CDC, CA is at 95 per 100k, which is way more than any other state at this time.
- mkl 6y agoThat's in the last 7 days only. Is that what you mean by "at this time"? California is doing better than most US states in the longer term, and even the "best" state long term, Vermont, seems to be worse off than most countries.
- bandana 6y agoI see many other comments in this thread saying that this was preventable, how so ? Looks like California tried a lot of things (stay at own orders, business closures etc) and they are not in a better shape than more "relaxed" states.
- raziel2701 6y agoCut people a check so that they could have afforded to stay inside in a bubble.
- axaxs 6y agoNot to sound grim, but I now wonder if it would have been best to let things be. Of course inform the public, but enforce no action. Would/could it have led to a huge overwhelming initial spike that has died down months ago? It feels now that we've been in various states of lock down for a year and reached the same result, unfortunately.
- nharada 6y agoI don't know, the other side of that argument is imagine how much worse it could have been if we'd done nothing.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoThe problem is in the US hospitals get overloaded quite easily. Our healthcare is not as robust as Sweden's, so that option hasn't been able to be on the table. Keep in mind the surge we are seeing right now is from Thanksgiving. It is most likely going to get worse.
- jussij 6y agoWhile Sweden did adopt the 'do nothing' approach, their results so far have hardly been a success story. Currently Swedish deaths sit at 837 deaths per million: https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/sweden https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/sweden By comparison consider Sweden's neighbors. Norway currently sits at 80 deaths per million: https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/norway https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/norway Finland currently sits at 99 deaths per million: https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/finland https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/finland What is more troubling for Sweden is their current daily death rate is also very much higher than both Norway and Finland. So if the aim was to try an reduce the number of citizens dying from Covid 19 then based on those figures Sweden's 'do nothing' approach has failed.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoMy point was, if the US adopted that policy it would be far worse.
- alreadythrow 6y agoA few very notable politicians didn’t exactly set good examples...
- diogenescynic 6y agoAnd there are still idiots refusing to wear masks in public spaces like grocery stores and gas stations. Saw multiple occurrences over the weekend.
- dehrmann 6y ago> gas stations In the convenience store or at the pump? If it's just at the pump, a lot of stations let you pay by card at the pump, it's outdoors, it's pretty easy to stay six feet from someone, and you're there less than 15 minutes.
- dehrmann 6y agoI wonder how much was done to increase surge ER capacity between May and November. The was obviously a possibility, there were a lot of warnings about holiday gatherings. Hopefully hospitals are preparing for the surge in a few weeks, but I have a feeling they're too busy with the current surge.
- CydeWeys 6y agoThey simply don't have enough doctors and nurses. You can't train up the kind of people needed here over a summer.
- dehrmann 6y agoWe'll obviously give nurses more patients, though a nurses' group is pushing back. https://www.abc10.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/california-nurses-patient-ratio/103-494ece17-1818-43d4-82c0-58dfa68197cf https://www.abc10.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/califo... I wonder if we could have trained covid medics over three months.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYou can't just give nurses more patients indefinitely though. That reduces the quality of care and leads to more deaths. An intubated patient is literally only being kept alive by machinery 24/7 and needs a high level of nursing care, a level that you don't remotely get if every single nurse is responsible for more than a couple patients. We simply don't have enough medical staff.
- vimy 6y agoApparently the WHO is looking into ivermectin and might recommend it as a prophylaxis and cure in January. https://c19ivermectin.com/ https://c19ivermectin.com/ https://reddit.com/r/ivermectin https://reddit.com/r/ivermectin Edit: Why are people downvoting? The studies and experiences of patients are very promising. There are 25 studies on Ivermectin vs. COVID-19 • 12 of them peer-reviewed and published in international journals • 9 are randomized controlled trials • 4 are randomized placebo-controlled double-blind trials totaling 640 patients • Total number of patients treated with ivermectin in these studies: 6359 • Total number of patients treated without ivermectin in these studies: 8594
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6y agoDr. Paul Marik, who has treated thousands of acute COVID patients, had been highly recommending Ivermectin as a first line treatment since about early November (see page 3): https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_...
- djsumdog 6y agoI agree. There have been many doctors across the US who have been using ivermectin or inhaled steroids with incredible success rates. Meanwhile controlled trails for using it have slowed to a halt (we've been waiting since August) while The Gavi Alliance and gates are promoting an mRNA vaccine of a type that has never been approved or deployed before. It's a clear money grab too. They want this vaccine out because it opens the door to a ton of other mRNA treatments they haven't been able to get approved.
- option 6y agoCA has had stricter lockdowns than most other states since the very beginning. Now our per capita rate is worse than Florida. I think CA has many counterproductive restrictions. For example, outdoor dining should’ve been open which could, in theory, prevent people from gathering inside. [*] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100k...
- redisman 6y agoWhy is CA doing so poorly? Is it just bigger cities? OR and WA seem to be doing relatively well
- option 6y agotoo many stupid restrictions just made people fed up and ignore most if not all of them. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but I was shocked to learn that many of my friends had inside guests for holidays. This is instead of going camping by themselves (banned) or going skiing by themselves (banned too). Even outdoor dining is banned - all you can do is gather inside now.
- _-david-_ 6y agoMany people see stuff like the curfew and know that there is absolutely no science behind such a restriction. If there are restrictions put on people for no good reason people will rebel against data based restrictions as well.
- bsder 6y ago> Why is CA doing so poorly? A lot of people who can't afford to stay home combined with a bunch of numbnuts who decided to go visit family over Thanksgiving. This isn't even the Christmas burst yet. It's about to get worse.
- option 6y agodo you think CA has a higher rate of “numbnuts” than Florida? I would assume about the same.
- juststfu 6y agoJust STFU already. I've flown every month since this bullshit started. I've flown international. I went to five packed bars tonight alone. You liberal fucks are destroying the world. I hope you all die in hell. Literally go fuck yourself.
- testplzignore 6y agoI've seen the "gift shop" thing reported by various sources today, but haven't found the origin of it. Doesn't pass the smell test to me. The logistics of gutting a gift shop and converting it to a treatment area seem non-trivial. Maybe it's just being used as a triage waiting room? Does anyone have any details on this?
- throwaway829 6y ago> placing patients in conference rooms and gift shops If there's any truth to it, I can imagine the hospital's snack/convenience shop is being used. So it's not a neighborhood gift shop but some room in the hospital that sells a branded keychain. Definitely a click-baity title though.
- djsumdog 6y agoYea, there are lots of aspects to this article that have the same feel of the article that made it to the top of HN news a few weeks back about a nurse who claimed her patients denied COIVD was real as they were dying. The Wired article that dug deeper into that story, showing the glaring holes in it, didn't get as much attention: https://www.wired.com/story/are-covid-patients-gasping-it-isnt-real-as-they-die/ https://www.wired.com/story/are-covid-patients-gasping-it-is... There are no indications in this story where the capacity is coming from. What percentage of people are in the ICU for other conditions (heart attacks, car crashes, delaying treatment for conditions they needed surgery for months ago) vs infections? What are the percentage for flu, strep and other serious infections vs COVID? There's a lot missing in this article.
- bagels 6y agoReally interesting article. I find it curious that they didn't get a statement from Doering though.
- belltaco 6y agoFrom ABC News. >The CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, Dr. Elaine Batchlor, separately said patients there have spilled over into the gift shop and five tents outside the emergency department.
- listless 6y agoWhy did they not extend capacity with field hospitals weeks ago? They’ve been telling us it was going to get bad, then it did and they’re not prepared for it? What is going on here?
- dhnajsjdnd 6y agoThere are tent hospitals in the parking lots. It seems like they have been trying.
- dangero 6y agoThis is a really good question —- earlier this year we had setup unused overflow facilities and those were taken down. Why were they dismantled?
- CydeWeys 6y agoThey weren't ultimately needed then and you couldn't staff them now that the pandemic is countrywide rather than restricted to NYC. The real limiting factor here is availability of trained medical personnel and there is no surplus of them anywhere.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> earlier this year we had setup unused overflow facilities and those were taken down. No, they mostly weren't. > Why were they dismantled? They have largely been activated, including ones which while prepared stood empty in the initial, far lower, peak, and many additional ones were set up for this surge.
- diogenescynic 6y agoMost hospitals are maxed out and nurses are quitting and calling out. We just don’t have resources to fall on, the bench isn’t that deep.
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- labster 6y agoI live near a hospital. At least they’ve stopped running the sirens all the time; there’s no point in rushing to the hospital when the ambulance will have to wait for hours anyway. It was getting pretty annoying on Christmas Day, no traffic noise save for the parade of ambulances. It’s sad that so many people are dying, but that’s the price of not living in an authoritarian mask state where humans care about each other’s survival.
- cmurf 6y agoWe make people cover up their butt holes to go into the grocery store. I don't see why some people get all neurologically bent out of shape over covering up their pie holes.