10 ms·

> What exactly are they waiting on? The thing that needs to not happen is filling up hospitals. People died where I live because they could not get access to '

by davidw 5y ago

> What exactly are they waiting on? The thing that needs to not happen is filling up hospitals. People died where I live because they could not get access to 'elective' surgery due to the medical system being slammed during the most recent Delta wave. Once that's not a factor, things will start getting more normal.

johnisgood 5y ago
We reduced the number of surgeries dramatically around the whole country, but it has nothing to do with hospital capacity nor shortage of any sort.
toolz 5y ago
Elective procedures were mandated to stop by policy - not due to capacity constraints. Believe it or not, but 2020 hospital capacity was lower than projected using projections before anyone knew what covid even was.
- davidw 5y ago
  COVID patients completely overran the hospital where I live. We're a not so big city that serves a lot of really rural areas. The ICU was full. The regular hospital was full.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    A lot of rural hospitals were closed last year[0] [0]https://truthout.org/articles/20-rural-hospitals-closed-in-2020-13-were-in-the-south/ https://truthout.org/articles/20-rural-hospitals-closed-in-2...
spookthesunset 5y ago
If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? Wasn't that the entire rationale of these lockdowns in the first place? To build capacity for covid? Like, it's been 2 years. We shouldn't be doing any of these restrictions at all. We should be angry at our governments wasting 2 years of our non-refundable time on this earth while they did nothing. Blaming the public for hospital capacity at this point is absurd.
- ChrisRR 5y ago
  "Capacity" doesn't mean floor space. It means trained medical professionals, beds, equipment, consumables. These things don't just appear out of thin air
- davidw 5y ago
  A lot of it is finding the people, beyond the physical space. You can't just 'spin up' nurses like AWS instances. They're in short supply right now, and many are feeling burned out. There's a post going around about a doctor who got assaulted by deranged family members of a man who died. Don't know if it's real, but a lot of people were saying they've experienced similar and are just done with it.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    When you have virtually unlimited resources you can do almost anything you want. You just have to think outside of the box. If this truly was an emergency, we'd have found a way to staff covid ICU's. Dunno how because it ain't my expertise at all, but there would be a way. We managed to build giant ships in like 3 or 6 months in WWII. I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to staff 400 or so ICU's with people capable of managing sick covid patients. It might be all these people know how to do... but we could do it. We have almost unlimited resources to do so.
    - eropple 5y ago
      "I readily admit that I don't know what I'm talking about but at the same time I'm going to insist that my hypothetical situation is definitely correct and the knowledgeable people working on medical staffing and capacity management for their entire careers simply do not know as much as me, a computer toucher." Somehow I remain unconvinced that "thinking outside the box" conjures doctors and nurses into existence or makes those who refuse to work ICUs suddenly interested in the job. I guess you could demand the military have doctors and nurses work at the point of a gun, all so John Q. Public probably still couldn't go to Target without a mask on two years hence. That sounds great.

by davidw 5y ago

johnisgood 5y ago

We reduced the number of surgeries dramatically around the whole country, but it has nothing to do with hospital capacity nor shortage of any sort.

toolz 5y ago

Elective procedures were mandated to stop by policy - not due to capacity constraints. Believe it or not, but 2020 hospital capacity was lower than projected using projections before anyone knew what covid even was.

davidw 5y ago
COVID patients completely overran the hospital where I live. We're a not so big city that serves a lot of really rural areas. The ICU was full. The regular hospital was full.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  A lot of rural hospitals were closed last year[0] [0]https://truthout.org/articles/20-rural-hospitals-closed-in-2020-13-were-in-the-south/ https://truthout.org/articles/20-rural-hospitals-closed-in-2...

spookthesunset 5y ago

If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? Wasn't that the entire rationale of these lockdowns in the first place? To build capacity for covid? Like, it's been 2 years. We shouldn't be doing any of these restrictions at all. We should be angry at our governments wasting 2 years of our non-refundable time on this earth while they did nothing. Blaming the public for hospital capacity at this point is absurd.

ChrisRR 5y ago
"Capacity" doesn't mean floor space. It means trained medical professionals, beds, equipment, consumables. These things don't just appear out of thin air
davidw 5y ago
A lot of it is finding the people, beyond the physical space. You can't just 'spin up' nurses like AWS instances. They're in short supply right now, and many are feeling burned out. There's a post going around about a doctor who got assaulted by deranged family members of a man who died. Don't know if it's real, but a lot of people were saying they've experienced similar and are just done with it.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  When you have virtually unlimited resources you can do almost anything you want. You just have to think outside of the box. If this truly was an emergency, we'd have found a way to staff covid ICU's. Dunno how because it ain't my expertise at all, but there would be a way. We managed to build giant ships in like 3 or 6 months in WWII. I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to staff 400 or so ICU's with people capable of managing sick covid patients. It might be all these people know how to do... but we could do it. We have almost unlimited resources to do so.
  - eropple 5y ago
    "I readily admit that I don't know what I'm talking about but at the same time I'm going to insist that my hypothetical situation is definitely correct and the knowledgeable people working on medical staffing and capacity management for their entire careers simply do not know as much as me, a computer toucher." Somehow I remain unconvinced that "thinking outside the box" conjures doctors and nurses into existence or makes those who refuse to work ICUs suddenly interested in the job. I guess you could demand the military have doctors and nurses work at the point of a gun, all so John Q. Public probably still couldn't go to Target without a mask on two years hence. That sounds great.