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> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions? Depends on how full hospitals get. We all get into accidents. We fall

> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions? Depends on how full hospitals get. We all get into accidents. We fall and hit our heads, we might get a heart attack, a pregnancy might suddenly go bad and a C-section (or worse surgery) is needed. As COVID19 fills up hospitals around the country, the risk isn't from Omicron itself anymore, as much as it is from an overburdened health care system. -------- The big example was the Montana train derailment last summer. It was difficult (but possible) to get all of the injured to an appropriate hospital, many being forced to go to hospitals hours away because the nearby hospitals were full of COVID19 patients. But this new wave of Omicron is even worse than the summer of 2021 by any measurement. > - What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk? While the health care system of the USA is technically a free market, with a mix of for-profit hospitals (and charity / religious hospitals, and a few state-sponsored ones for groups like veterans)... people expect hospitals / health care systems to be functional. Since the state is ultimately responsible for the health care of its local population (whether they want to be responsible or not), its important to take actions needed to keep our hospital open. The state will pull in the national guard, they will call in Navy hospital ships, they will declare emergencies to help. From that perspective, asking everyone else to get vaccinated or booster-vaccinated is just more of the same, its another action to minimize hospitalizations. Forced vaccinations are far more effective than national guard in this situation. > Governments and societies have been acting out-of-control and it needs to stop. I know someone who went to work while testing positive for COVID19. The amount of apathy and callousness the "individual" has in this situation knows no bounds. "Individualism" is now selfishness. Its more important to save a few hours of PTO / leave rather than protect your fellow customers or coworkers from the disease. People have lost their goddamn minds over this. They ignore the hospitalization stats, they ignore the overflowing morgues. They focus on selfish self-centered action rather than community.

throwawayboise 5y ago
How many of the COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals really need to be there, and how many would be triaged out if more urgent cases presented? If a hospital has bed space, why would they not admit a COVID patient? It's money, and they are a business for the most part that wants to maximize revenue.
- postsantum 5y ago
  I fell like this rhetoric is fixed and is not changing with arrival of new data
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  The historical concern is that icus have been overfull. Those people need to be there. This is conspiracy fud.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > How many of the COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals really need to be there, and how many would be triaged out if more urgent cases presented? https://www.wbaltv.com/article/covid-19-emergency-actions-maryland-january-4-2022/38663529 https://www.wbaltv.com/article/covid-19-emergency-actions-ma... Hospitals in my area have cut 20% of surgeries (ie: triaged out care to make room for COVID19). The governor has deployed National Guard to the hospitals to help out with tasks. Are you just blind to the issues happening right now? This is happening, this is happening now. Take off your blindfolds and talk to a damn nurse or doctor. This is happening all over the place as far as the eye can see. --------- Just call up your local-clinic and ask them for a flu-shot. Stand in line for 4-hours for things _COMPLETELY_ unrelated to COVID19, and come back and tell me that its fake. Go ask the receptionist "why is the line so long", and they'll tell you: COVID19. I know because I done it. (Well, not for a flu-shot but for a TDAP. Nearly the same thing)
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    yeah, but... you know... of course they're prioritizing all the COVID patients first, before anyone else, because they get more money from the government for 'COVID' patients! /s That was an actual exchange I had with someone a few weeks ago with this same scenario. They'd gone from 'it's all faked' to "well, yeah, there may be people there now, and they're taking resources from non-covid patients, but the govt wants it that way, that's why they pay hospital more for covid patients! they're incentivizing people getting covid!" I don't think it makes any sense at all, but interactions like these are more signs to me that it's harder to have meaningful interactions 'across the divide' these days.
aantix 5y ago
Do the hospitals have any obligations in this in terms of scalability and sustainability of their workforce? I understand that adding a doctor or nurse isn't immediate. Just as I understand that if a production system I oversee crashes under load, it may not have been foreseeable. But if the system is still crashing under load in five years? Ten years? At what point is it my fault? The U.S. healthcare spending in 2020 was $4.1 trillion. I still see the same 100 ICU beds cited as capacity in our local COVID updates.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > But if the system is still crashing under load in five years? Ten years? At what point is it my fault? The Maryland hospital system can support a bit over 10,000 hospitalizations. Over 3000 of those hospitalizations are COVID19 right now, and our cases continue to grow exponentially. ---------- Our hospital systems don't _normally_ get hit with 3000+ cases of a singular disease. Compared to other parts of the country, we have more hospital space, nurses and more, and we're still feeling stressed from all of this. You _cant_ have enough hospital space during a pandemic. You just can't. The disease grows too fast, you get hit with way more cases than you've ever seen in the past 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years. It doesn't make sense to design a system with 100-years worth of slack. It makes more sense to ask the public to do actions to cut back on hospitalizations during these rare 1-in-a-hundred-year situations.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Also, chances are we’re going to exit this pandemic (whenever that happens) with a severely reduced medical system. We’re burning through medical personnel at an unsustainable rate, and we’re all going to suffer a diminished level of care until replacements can be retrained and hired.
chrischen 5y ago
Why not just charge unvaccinated people for their hospital bills? Then overburdened hospitals become profitable hospitals.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Unfortunately, the unvaccinated apparently are a bigger voting group / voting bloc than we expected, and have considerable political power.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    From what I understand most of the insurance covering COVID regardless of deductibles was a voluntary thing, and some have started billing for unvaccinated hospitalizations (within the constraints of the plans of course).
- cm2187 5y ago
  Let's do the same with every other risky behaviour then. Smokers, drug addicts, overweight people, people doing lots of outdoor sport, people who don't wear the appropriate personal protection at work,...
  - chrischen 5y ago
    I believe that is how car insurance works is it not? And yes there are different tiers of insurance for those who need to cover more things and those who cover fewer things. If the feedback mechanisms are completely detached from your premiums then you'd have no incentive to actually improve anything.
fallingknife 5y ago
> Forced vaccinations are far more effective than national guard in this situation And Chinese style hard lockdowns of whole cities are even more effective than that. Doesn't mean I want the government to have that power.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Jacobson v. Massachusetts 1905. The state has a right, (7-2 decision, hardly controversial) to forcibly vaccinate its citizens against Smallpox. It doesn't matter what you "want". There's well over 100 years of precedent on this particular issue. Go fight with history if you're really pissed.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change? Everything is just as controversial and the issues are the same. Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change? Are you complaining that I'm using rhetorical techniques against you? The smallpox and 1918 flu pandemics from 100 years ago are guidance for what is going on today. We can look at how our grandfathers solved the issue in their time, and compare-and-contrast with what worked today. As you mentioned, it was controversial back then. Both you and I have arguments we can borrow from them. --------- How about instead of arguing against history, you actually take those arguments and use them for yourself? Or perhaps you recognize that the arguments said 100+ years ago weren't actually that strong or powerful. > Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for Cool. Now explain how you'd get rid of smallpox in the early 1900s.
cryptonector 5y ago
News flash: hospitals are businesses, and like all businesses, they are most profitable when running at close to capacity, therefore they're at close to capacity most of the time because staffing is sized accordingly.
- shigawire 5y ago
  Which raises the separate point that they should probably not be businesses. A lot of our difficulties here go back to this privatized approach.
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    You imply that running any enterprise (public or private) at near capacity is a bad thing, but in fact it's an economic necessity. You also imply that making these public enterprises would make it possible to run them at less than near capacity, but it's pretty clear from rationing in, e.g., the UK, that this is not so. The reason public health care is run at near capacity is the same as private healthcare: wasting resources is silly. Yes, I referred to profit, because profit is what "not wasting resources" translates to for the capitalist, but the real underlying moving force is economic and real regardless of ideology.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      No. We largely imply that Denmark's hospitals are more efficient than US hospitals. In terms of cost, in terms of how much they can handle, in terms of number of COVID19 cases, etc. etc. Even if we cut down to highly-developed parts of the USA, such as New York vs Denmark specifically (rather than including all of the lesser-developed rural areas which puts the US at a disadvantage), we're clearly not as good at health care as Denmark.
      - cryptonector 5y ago
        Efficient or not, they must run at close to capacity. The comment I was replying to said "Depends on how full hospitals get", and, my response is that they're always close to full, and that is true regardless of whether they are public or private institutions. Please don't interject points that are not on-topic.

throwawayboise 5y ago

How many of the COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals really need to be there, and how many would be triaged out if more urgent cases presented? If a hospital has bed space, why would they not admit a COVID patient? It's money, and they are a business for the most part that wants to maximize revenue.

postsantum 5y ago
I fell like this rhetoric is fixed and is not changing with arrival of new data
joshuamorton 5y ago
The historical concern is that icus have been overfull. Those people need to be there. This is conspiracy fud.
dragontamer 5y ago
> How many of the COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals really need to be there, and how many would be triaged out if more urgent cases presented? https://www.wbaltv.com/article/covid-19-emergency-actions-maryland-january-4-2022/38663529 https://www.wbaltv.com/article/covid-19-emergency-actions-ma... Hospitals in my area have cut 20% of surgeries (ie: triaged out care to make room for COVID19). The governor has deployed National Guard to the hospitals to help out with tasks. Are you just blind to the issues happening right now? This is happening, this is happening now. Take off your blindfolds and talk to a damn nurse or doctor. This is happening all over the place as far as the eye can see. --------- Just call up your local-clinic and ask them for a flu-shot. Stand in line for 4-hours for things _COMPLETELY_ unrelated to COVID19, and come back and tell me that its fake. Go ask the receptionist "why is the line so long", and they'll tell you: COVID19. I know because I done it. (Well, not for a flu-shot but for a TDAP. Nearly the same thing)
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  yeah, but... you know... of course they're prioritizing all the COVID patients first, before anyone else, because they get more money from the government for 'COVID' patients! /s That was an actual exchange I had with someone a few weeks ago with this same scenario. They'd gone from 'it's all faked' to "well, yeah, there may be people there now, and they're taking resources from non-covid patients, but the govt wants it that way, that's why they pay hospital more for covid patients! they're incentivizing people getting covid!" I don't think it makes any sense at all, but interactions like these are more signs to me that it's harder to have meaningful interactions 'across the divide' these days.

aantix 5y ago

Do the hospitals have any obligations in this in terms of scalability and sustainability of their workforce? I understand that adding a doctor or nurse isn't immediate. Just as I understand that if a production system I oversee crashes under load, it may not have been foreseeable. But if the system is still crashing under load in five years? Ten years? At what point is it my fault? The U.S. healthcare spending in 2020 was $4.1 trillion. I still see the same 100 ICU beds cited as capacity in our local COVID updates.

dragontamer 5y ago
> But if the system is still crashing under load in five years? Ten years? At what point is it my fault? The Maryland hospital system can support a bit over 10,000 hospitalizations. Over 3000 of those hospitalizations are COVID19 right now, and our cases continue to grow exponentially. ---------- Our hospital systems don't _normally_ get hit with 3000+ cases of a singular disease. Compared to other parts of the country, we have more hospital space, nurses and more, and we're still feeling stressed from all of this. You _cant_ have enough hospital space during a pandemic. You just can't. The disease grows too fast, you get hit with way more cases than you've ever seen in the past 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years. It doesn't make sense to design a system with 100-years worth of slack. It makes more sense to ask the public to do actions to cut back on hospitalizations during these rare 1-in-a-hundred-year situations.

ashtonkem 5y ago

Also, chances are we’re going to exit this pandemic (whenever that happens) with a severely reduced medical system. We’re burning through medical personnel at an unsustainable rate, and we’re all going to suffer a diminished level of care until replacements can be retrained and hired.

chrischen 5y ago

Why not just charge unvaccinated people for their hospital bills? Then overburdened hospitals become profitable hospitals.

dragontamer 5y ago
Unfortunately, the unvaccinated apparently are a bigger voting group / voting bloc than we expected, and have considerable political power.
- chrischen 5y ago
  From what I understand most of the insurance covering COVID regardless of deductibles was a voluntary thing, and some have started billing for unvaccinated hospitalizations (within the constraints of the plans of course).
cm2187 5y ago
Let's do the same with every other risky behaviour then. Smokers, drug addicts, overweight people, people doing lots of outdoor sport, people who don't wear the appropriate personal protection at work,...
- chrischen 5y ago
  I believe that is how car insurance works is it not? And yes there are different tiers of insurance for those who need to cover more things and those who cover fewer things. If the feedback mechanisms are completely detached from your premiums then you'd have no incentive to actually improve anything.

fallingknife 5y ago

> Forced vaccinations are far more effective than national guard in this situation And Chinese style hard lockdowns of whole cities are even more effective than that. Doesn't mean I want the government to have that power.

dragontamer 5y ago
Jacobson v. Massachusetts 1905. The state has a right, (7-2 decision, hardly controversial) to forcibly vaccinate its citizens against Smallpox. It doesn't matter what you "want". There's well over 100 years of precedent on this particular issue. Go fight with history if you're really pissed.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change? Everything is just as controversial and the issues are the same. Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change? Are you complaining that I'm using rhetorical techniques against you? The smallpox and 1918 flu pandemics from 100 years ago are guidance for what is going on today. We can look at how our grandfathers solved the issue in their time, and compare-and-contrast with what worked today. As you mentioned, it was controversial back then. Both you and I have arguments we can borrow from them. --------- How about instead of arguing against history, you actually take those arguments and use them for yourself? Or perhaps you recognize that the arguments said 100+ years ago weren't actually that strong or powerful. > Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for Cool. Now explain how you'd get rid of smallpox in the early 1900s.

cryptonector 5y ago

News flash: hospitals are businesses, and like all businesses, they are most profitable when running at close to capacity, therefore they're at close to capacity most of the time because staffing is sized accordingly.

shigawire 5y ago
Which raises the separate point that they should probably not be businesses. A lot of our difficulties here go back to this privatized approach.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  You imply that running any enterprise (public or private) at near capacity is a bad thing, but in fact it's an economic necessity. You also imply that making these public enterprises would make it possible to run them at less than near capacity, but it's pretty clear from rationing in, e.g., the UK, that this is not so. The reason public health care is run at near capacity is the same as private healthcare: wasting resources is silly. Yes, I referred to profit, because profit is what "not wasting resources" translates to for the capitalist, but the real underlying moving force is economic and real regardless of ideology.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    No. We largely imply that Denmark's hospitals are more efficient than US hospitals. In terms of cost, in terms of how much they can handle, in terms of number of COVID19 cases, etc. etc. Even if we cut down to highly-developed parts of the USA, such as New York vs Denmark specifically (rather than including all of the lesser-developed rural areas which puts the US at a disadvantage), we're clearly not as good at health care as Denmark.
    - cryptonector 5y ago
      Efficient or not, they must run at close to capacity. The comment I was replying to said "Depends on how full hospitals get", and, my response is that they're always close to full, and that is true regardless of whether they are public or private institutions. Please don't interject points that are not on-topic.