5 ms·

All the lockdowns started because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospital system. In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fum

All the lockdowns started because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospital system. In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes. Our politicians have decided it's better to play world police and kill people overseas than invest in community hospitals. All the billions handed out to the vaccine companies and the propaganda machines, but no investment in increasing hospital capacity. These mega corporations that run the hospitals, they prey on people's caring capacity. Nurses haven't already left the field because nothing else pays a living wage and they have 60k in student debt to pay off. Let's just blame the unvaccinated though. That ensures Pfizer keeps buying ads on CNN.

aantix 5y ago
> In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes >but no investment in increasing hospital capacity Agree, where did all the billions go? The most expensive healthcare on the planet and we can't find the money to scale and expand a year and a half later.
- twox2 5y ago
  I mean, every hospital director needs at least three vacation homes and two boats right?
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    We have this whole additional trillion-dollar industry that other countries don't .. nearly every dollar of our healthcare spending flows through insurance companies who add zero value to actual health care but have hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of billions in salary to pay. Health insurers know their time in the crosshairs is coming which is why they're buying up pharmacy groups and providers, to give their offerings a sheen of actual care.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Health insurers (better called managed care organizations) are politically locked in. Politicians get to use them as scapegoats, and there is no way voters in the US accept taxpayer funded healthcare. Someone has to be the bad guy and allocate the limited amount of healthcare resources available, and I see no reason why the existing relationship of government makes the rules allocating the care, but MCO implements them and takes the heat would change. Traders also seem to think the same given the gains in MCO market caps. Also, all the MCOs have profit margins of 5% or less, so this game of punting responsibility costs relatively little in the grand scheme of things. At the root of it all is a demand for healthcare that far outstrips supply, and so these obfuscations are useful in making sure certain socioeconomic classes are able to attain a greater share of it than others.
  - octaonalocto 5y ago
    The average salary of a US hospital director is $125k. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salar...
    - twox2 5y ago
      I don't think kick backs, etc. are usually reported salary.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Many states ban new hospitals from starting without the approval of other hospitals. NO one wants to effect actual change, preferring instead to deal with superficial attempts to deal with the problem. That being said, hospitals have not been overwhelmed in the United States. The emergency hospitals we did build mainly went unused.
Filligree 5y ago
> All the lockdowns started because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospital system. In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes. Our politicians have decided it's better to play world police and kill people overseas than invest in community hospitals. America had more ER capacity than I think any other country on the planet. Perhaps due to a lack of preventative medicine? I don't know, but it shouldn't be due to lack of ER capacity that this is happening.
- dagsdgfhdgdj 5y ago
  > America had more ER capacity than I think any other country on the planet. ICU capacity per capita is larger in Germany and Austria at least. Source: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/intensive-care-beds-capacity https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/intensive-...
- mdorazio 5y ago
  I'm going to need to see some data to back that claim up. ED crowding has been a major problem in the US, but not really so much in Europe, Hong Kong, etc. [1] If you mean total capacity, that's a bad comparison because the US population is huge compared to most developed countries, so of course if capacity needed is a % of total population then the total capacity will be similarly large. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2011.01235.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1553-2712....
Uberphallus 5y ago
Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission. More hospital beds just fights a constant. Doubling healthcare capacity roughly lasts for about 3 extra days if no other measure is in place. I'm all for improving healthcare, in the US or otherwise, but you just can't fire up and destroy healthcare resources like it's your k8s cluster.
- linuxftw 5y ago
  > Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission Which trials demonstrated this?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    All of them. Even if the breakthrough infections are the same as an unvaccinated person (still being studied, but I've heard everything from one third to same for the first six days), there are fewer infections overall. This causes a sharp average reduction in R0.
    - linuxftw 5y ago
      The injections were only found to be efficacious in preventing severe illness. Everything else is conjecture at best.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - tehjoker 5y ago
        They were found to inhibit infection via PCR testing and comparison with a control group. There may be a waning effect, especially with delta. I don't believe they're perfect by any means, but they certainly aren't worthless.
rangoon626 5y ago
Ahh, I see we have one with some critical thinking facilities left! Hurry up HN, downvote this guy!!!! Sadly most don’t want to consider it and just parrot what they’ve been programmed to by the television. The worse part is they think they are righteous or whatever. So delusional.
- fumar 5y ago
  What about the parent's statement provides critical thinking? Would you invest billions in building out ER facilities now? I am curious what is the less-wrong solution to help citizens. Is to increase care for the sick or decrease the likelihood of sickness?
  - rangoon626 5y ago
    The less-wrong solution to help citizens is to encourage a healthy diet including weight loss, stop spreading FUD, and to implement the MATH+ protocol for those who do fall seriously ill instead of chiding and coercing a clearly hesitant public into taking an experimental therapeutic treatment (that seems to do less than originally promised as the days tick by) and harsh lockdowns. Instead we see the opposite, which has little to do with the best interests of the citizens, including the funneling of tax dollars to Pfizer and the rest. The parent comment highlights that and explains what’s actually going on, despite the narrative provided by <compliant> ”experts.”
    - fumar 5y ago
      You believe that encouraging Americans to be healthy will work? Has it worked before? In my experience from years in hospitals, the majority of people want less mental and physical health requirements. They want a heart pill or diabetes pill instead of a nutrition-based approach. What would you do in this scenario: as a physician, your patient is at high risk for heart disease, over weight, and above 45 years old. Do you recommend they drastically change their life style and increase routine lab work until improvements are made. Your patient could do nothing and be at risk for a stroke. Your other option is to have them ingest two pills daily to control their symptoms but not the root cause - their lifestyle. A life is in your hands. I’ve witnessed and lived through both scenarios. The majority of the time people want the pills. I am curious how you would solve for modern human ailments. Would you impose a government sanctioned food protocol? Would you let people die who refuse to increase their quality food intake and exercise?
koonsolo 5y ago
You seriously think you can scale number of hospital beds at an exponential rate?
dennis_jeeves 5y ago
>Let's just blame the unvaccinated though. It's a modern day witch hunt.

aantix 5y ago

> In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes >but no investment in increasing hospital capacity Agree, where did all the billions go? The most expensive healthcare on the planet and we can't find the money to scale and expand a year and a half later.

twox2 5y ago
I mean, every hospital director needs at least three vacation homes and two boats right?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  We have this whole additional trillion-dollar industry that other countries don't .. nearly every dollar of our healthcare spending flows through insurance companies who add zero value to actual health care but have hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of billions in salary to pay. Health insurers know their time in the crosshairs is coming which is why they're buying up pharmacy groups and providers, to give their offerings a sheen of actual care.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Health insurers (better called managed care organizations) are politically locked in. Politicians get to use them as scapegoats, and there is no way voters in the US accept taxpayer funded healthcare. Someone has to be the bad guy and allocate the limited amount of healthcare resources available, and I see no reason why the existing relationship of government makes the rules allocating the care, but MCO implements them and takes the heat would change. Traders also seem to think the same given the gains in MCO market caps. Also, all the MCOs have profit margins of 5% or less, so this game of punting responsibility costs relatively little in the grand scheme of things. At the root of it all is a demand for healthcare that far outstrips supply, and so these obfuscations are useful in making sure certain socioeconomic classes are able to attain a greater share of it than others.
- octaonalocto 5y ago
  The average salary of a US hospital director is $125k. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salar...
  - twox2 5y ago
    I don't think kick backs, etc. are usually reported salary.
iammisc 5y ago
Many states ban new hospitals from starting without the approval of other hospitals. NO one wants to effect actual change, preferring instead to deal with superficial attempts to deal with the problem. That being said, hospitals have not been overwhelmed in the United States. The emergency hospitals we did build mainly went unused.

Filligree 5y ago

> All the lockdowns started because we didn't want to overwhelm the hospital system. In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes. Our politicians have decided it's better to play world police and kill people overseas than invest in community hospitals. America had more ER capacity than I think any other country on the planet. Perhaps due to a lack of preventative medicine? I don't know, but it shouldn't be due to lack of ER capacity that this is happening.

dagsdgfhdgdj 5y ago
> America had more ER capacity than I think any other country on the planet. ICU capacity per capita is larger in Germany and Austria at least. Source: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/intensive-care-beds-capacity https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/data-insights/intensive-...
mdorazio 5y ago
I'm going to need to see some data to back that claim up. ED crowding has been a major problem in the US, but not really so much in Europe, Hong Kong, etc. [1] If you mean total capacity, that's a bad comparison because the US population is huge compared to most developed countries, so of course if capacity needed is a % of total population then the total capacity will be similarly large. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2011.01235.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1553-2712....

Uberphallus 5y ago

Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission. More hospital beds just fights a constant. Doubling healthcare capacity roughly lasts for about 3 extra days if no other measure is in place. I'm all for improving healthcare, in the US or otherwise, but you just can't fire up and destroy healthcare resources like it's your k8s cluster.

linuxftw 5y ago
> Vaccination reduces the exponential in the transmission Which trials demonstrated this?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tehjoker 5y ago
  All of them. Even if the breakthrough infections are the same as an unvaccinated person (still being studied, but I've heard everything from one third to same for the first six days), there are fewer infections overall. This causes a sharp average reduction in R0.
  - linuxftw 5y ago
    The injections were only found to be efficacious in preventing severe illness. Everything else is conjecture at best.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      They were found to inhibit infection via PCR testing and comparison with a control group. There may be a waning effect, especially with delta. I don't believe they're perfect by any means, but they certainly aren't worthless.

rangoon626 5y ago

Ahh, I see we have one with some critical thinking facilities left! Hurry up HN, downvote this guy!!!! Sadly most don’t want to consider it and just parrot what they’ve been programmed to by the television. The worse part is they think they are righteous or whatever. So delusional.

fumar 5y ago
What about the parent's statement provides critical thinking? Would you invest billions in building out ER facilities now? I am curious what is the less-wrong solution to help citizens. Is to increase care for the sick or decrease the likelihood of sickness?
- rangoon626 5y ago
  The less-wrong solution to help citizens is to encourage a healthy diet including weight loss, stop spreading FUD, and to implement the MATH+ protocol for those who do fall seriously ill instead of chiding and coercing a clearly hesitant public into taking an experimental therapeutic treatment (that seems to do less than originally promised as the days tick by) and harsh lockdowns. Instead we see the opposite, which has little to do with the best interests of the citizens, including the funneling of tax dollars to Pfizer and the rest. The parent comment highlights that and explains what’s actually going on, despite the narrative provided by <compliant> ”experts.”
  - fumar 5y ago
    You believe that encouraging Americans to be healthy will work? Has it worked before? In my experience from years in hospitals, the majority of people want less mental and physical health requirements. They want a heart pill or diabetes pill instead of a nutrition-based approach. What would you do in this scenario: as a physician, your patient is at high risk for heart disease, over weight, and above 45 years old. Do you recommend they drastically change their life style and increase routine lab work until improvements are made. Your patient could do nothing and be at risk for a stroke. Your other option is to have them ingest two pills daily to control their symptoms but not the root cause - their lifestyle. A life is in your hands. I’ve witnessed and lived through both scenarios. The majority of the time people want the pills. I am curious how you would solve for modern human ailments. Would you impose a government sanctioned food protocol? Would you let people die who refuse to increase their quality food intake and exercise?

koonsolo 5y ago

You seriously think you can scale number of hospital beds at an exponential rate?

dennis_jeeves 5y ago

>Let's just blame the unvaccinated though. It's a modern day witch hunt.