Covid 44: The Sickening

[A wilding]

Sure, the number of people in hospital is proportionally substantially smaller in this wave, and just as well, or the NHS would probably have already collapsed. But the coupling between a spike in cases and a spike in people in hospitals is still there.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

One of the reasons the army is being called in to assist is the huge case rates are leading to large numbers of absentees from NHS staff. Maybe we need to reconsider our rules for those who test positive. 

I said almost decoupled, and I think it does seem to be going that way. The time spent is hospital is much smaller now, far less people are in ICUs. This is very different to previous waves.
There is a small spike in deaths, need to pay attention to the fact that there are reporting lags so you get big numbers and small numbers in the same week. But the spike is not all that scary. 

The spike is scary in some places.  Hitting record hospitalizations I'm many parts of the US, for example:

 

 

 

[Heartofice]

 

Thats because the UK has higher levels of vaccination and probably higher levels of prior infection that many areas of the US

[Padraig]

And booster rate.  I really don't understand the US's booster rate.  22%.  A lot of countries are double that.  The US vaccination campaign was largely done by June last year, so there are a lot of people that were originally vaccinated well over 6 months ago.

The US is 25% off its previous ICU peak, which is a big enough difference but most countries are at worst half their previous ICU peak. And of course, that means there are some states that are a lot closer to their peak.

Delta is more prominent in the US also, which doesn't help.

But still, I feel like I'm missing something or something has gone even more awry with vaccinations there.

PS: I really don't think many people know what decouple means.  It's tiring.  To be precise: "to eliminate the interrelationship".  Not "to reduce the interrelationship".

[Which Tyler]

10 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I really don't think many people know what decouple means.  It's tiring.  To be precise: "to eliminate the interrelationship".  Not "to reduce the interrelationship".

hear hear.

I've seen no evidence of decoupling.

There's reasonable evidence that the link is weaker, but that's not the same thing at all.

[Heartofice]

Meh, decoupling is just a term that gets thrown around. You can imagine a bond getting weaker before it breaks. I doubt you'd ever get a total decoupling, but it will get to a point where large case numbers will not mean we really need to worry any more.

[Zorral]

Our hospitalizations -- highest ever -- are all over the place, literally.  In highly vaccinated areas many of those discovered with covid are there for other health reasons.  In low vax places, it's the opposite.  In many of those low vaxxed areas, it's Delta, not Omicron.

Plus the short staffing, which means in places like where I am, if you need some other sort of hospital care -- good luck.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/06/covid-hospitals-how-is-omicron-different/

Quote

 

.... In Los Angeles, where the fast-spreading omicron variant reigns, roughly two-thirds of covid patients in the county’s public hospitals were initially admitted for other causes, officials said Wednesday.

But at CoxHealth in Springfield, Mo., where officials say the older delta variant remains a ferocious threat, the coronavirus remains the immediate cause for 81 percent of covid hospitalizations. ....

...  the emerging picture varies dramatically from one region to the next, according to interviews with hospital leaders and health workers across 18 states. It ranges from omicron epicenters such as New York City, where many patients aren’t aware they’re infected until testing positive while visiting the hospital for other procedures, to Michigan and Minnesota, where health workers continue to treat patients fighting for survival against the more severe delta variant. ....

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Meh, decoupling is just a term that gets thrown around. You can imagine a bond getting weaker before it breaks. I doubt you'd ever get a total decoupling, but it will get to a point where large case numbers will not mean we really need to worry any more.

It seems very bizarre to look at increasing hospitalization rates and say "don't worry".  If we end up in some situation where hospitalizations aren't happening and people aren't dying while cases are at record highs, sure, go off.  But that doesn't seem to be reality.  

 

[Week]

11 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

It seems very bizarre to look at increasing hospitalization rates and say "don't worry".  If we end up in some situation where hospitalizations aren't happening and people aren't dying while cases are at record highs, sure, go off.  But that doesn't seem to be reality.  

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/omicron-mild-hospital-strain-health-care-workers/621193/

Hospitals are also running into staffing shortages due to sick employees, resignations, and burn out. 

Quote

This is why any comparisons between past and present hospitalization numbers are misleading: January 2021’s numbers would crush January 2022’s system because the workforce has been so diminished. Some institutions are now being overwhelmed by a fraction of their earlier patient loads. “I hope no one you know or love gets COVID or needs an emergency room right now, because there’s no room,” Janelle Thomas, an ICU nurse in Maryland[...]

Omicron’s main threat is its extreme contagiousness. It is infecting so many people that even if a smaller proportion need hospital care, the absolute numbers are still enough to saturate the system. It might be less of a threat to individual people, but it’s disastrous for the health-care system that those individuals will ultimately need.[....]

“it’s a mistake to think that we’ll see the same degree of decoupling between cases and hospitalizations that they did,” James Lawler, an infectious-disease physician in Nebraska[...]

These conditions are deepening the already profound exhaustion that health-care workers are feeling. “We’re still speaking of surges, but for me it’s been a constant riptide, pulling us under,” Brunson said. “Our reserves aren’t there. We feel like we’re tapped out, and that person who is going to come in to help you isn’t going to, because they’re also tapped out … or they’ve tested positive.” [...]

Some experts are hopeful that Omicron will peak quickly, which would help alleviate the pressure on hospitals. But what then? Ranney fears that once hospitalizations start falling, policy makers and the public will assume that the health-care system is safe, and do nothing to address the staffing shortages, burnout, exploitative working conditions, and just-in-time supply chains that pushed said system to the brink.

Let's wait a bit for any rosy forecasting.

[Fragile Bird]

Got boosted! Got the Glow!

Also managed to insult (?) the doctor who gave my brother and I the shot. The clinic has been asked by the UofT Medical School to take students in and I asked this tall scrawny dude if he was one of them. No, he says, I’m one of the doctors here, lol. Really nice guy, we had a good chat.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Week said:

Hospitals are also running into staffing shortages due to sick employees, resignations, and burn out. 

The nurse that jabbed me an hour ago was super talkative, and maybe because I'm also an employee in the hospital she was a bit too honest. She said she's about had it and ready to retire early (I'm bad at guessing ages, but she was probably late 50's to early 60's). She also said others are talking about maybe switching careers. They've apparently been having to recruit outside RNs to fill staffing shortages. Grim.

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Got boosted! Got the Glow!

 

 

So far no side effects. 

[Week]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The nurse that jabbed me an hour ago was super talkative, and maybe because I'm also an employee in the hospital she was a bit too honest. She said she's about had it and ready to retire early (I'm bad at guessing ages, but she was probably late 50's to early 60's). She also said others are talking about maybe switching careers. They've apparently been having to recruit outside RNs to fill staffing shortages. Grim.

I was reading a Twitter thread the other day about a nurse who saw their old job (<$30hr IIRC) posted for a >$4k per week seeking a travel nurse. From where? It's going to be scarcity to scarcity and only increasing pay for those that move. I have no idea what % of nurses travel but it seems like something that would be pretty popular for a pretty penny.

Look at the market working! Capitalism!

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Got boosted! Got the Glow!

Also managed to insult (?) the doctor who gave my brother and I the shot. The clinic has been asked by the UofT Medical School to take students in and I asked this tall scrawny dude if he was one of them. No, he says, I’m one of the doctors here, lol. Really nice guy, we had a good chat.

It's usually flattering to be mistaken for a more youthful person right?

Gotta see cup half full in such instances.

[Luzifer's right hand]

43 minutes ago, Week said:

I was reading a Twitter thread the other day about a nurse who saw their old job (<$30hr IIRC) posted for a >$4k per week seeking a travel nurse. From where? It's going to be scarcity to scarcity and only increasing pay for those that move. I have no idea what % of nurses travel but it seems like something that would be pretty popular for a pretty penny.

Look at the market working! Capitalism!

People here are trying to get out of hospitals and into the caretaking sector especially young nurses. Young doctors are looking for work abroad. That we are not focusing on supporting our health care workers will bite us in the butt mid/long term.

[Derfel Cadarn]

35 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

People here are trying to get out of hospitals and into the caretaking sector especially young nurses. Young doctors are looking for work abroad. That we are not focusing on supporting our health care workers will bite us in the butt mid/long term.

Our (uk) government’s basically using covid as an excuse to further run down the NHS, announce its broken and sell it (or its functions) off to the US pharmaceutical industry:<

 

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Meh, decoupling is just a term that gets thrown around. 

If somebody is trying to sell something, sure, abuse English!  But if somebody is trying to inform people about a major pandemic, it behoves them not to loosely throw around words.

And that's not directed at you.  But all those "experts" on Twitter.

[Clueless Northman]

1 hour ago, Luzifer&#x27;s right hand said:

Young doctors are looking for work abroad. That we are not focusing on supporting our health care workers will bite us in the butt mid/long term.

Thing is, there aren't many countries who truly supported healthcare workers and took the right measures at the right time. They should be ready to migrate to Oz, NZ, Taiwan, China and a few other places, because most of N. America and Europe would be a no-go.

[mormont]

7 hours ago, Week said:

Hospitals are also running into staffing shortages due to sick employees, resignations, and burn out. 

This is going to turn into a bit of a rant so if you're not up for that, skip this post.

But I wouldn't blame any healthcare professional who's thinking about quitting right now, wherever in the world they work. They have been working flat out for almost two years at this point. Flat out as in long, punishing hours of the most stressful, messy, emotionally and physically taxing work I can imagine under conditions that mean they're at almost constant risk of infection despite having to wear burdensome protective equipment for hours at a time.

And as the article points out, there has been no remission for them, no point at which that work has slowed down. Any time the COVID cases slow down, they get to start on the absolutely enormous backlog of other urgent life-saving and life-changing work that's been put back longer than it should have been. At least until the next COVID surge.

And it's not going to stop. There is no prospect of these folks getting a break at any time in the next twelve months, at least, and that's if we get COVID under control pretty much in the next couple of months, which is not going to happen. As things stand, who knows when healthcare workers can expect the pressure on them to end? Two more years? Five? More? Even after the pandemic ends, it's going to be intense for a significant period of time just trying to catch up.

And they're dealing in many cases with patients who're there because they refused or couldn't be bothered to do simple, easy things that would have kept them out of hospital and protected other people too.

And then they go home and see every public figure discussing this pandemic and if they're lucky, those people are talking about how heroic healthcare workers are even as they twist and turn to avoid taking the public health measures that would relieve the pressure on the system. If they're not lucky, those public figures are dismissing the whole thing as a hoax or an exaggeration and actively encouraging the public to do things that will increase that pressure. The only thing both groups of public figures have in common is the explicit agreement that we just can't afford to pay healthcare workers more, sorry. You have to keep dealing with this for the next however many years without a meaningful pay rise or a break.

Nothing shows better how Western capitalism, as it is currently structured, has completely failed to cope with this pandemic than the fact that we cannot pay the people who are actually having to deal with it what they have absolutely earned. Our system completely fails to correctly value their work and their worth. It's appalling.

[Zorral]

It's the same with teachers, and others too. This is capitalism at work, literally bleeding the populace for the sake that the ultra wealthy can continue to rake in a few million more dollars every quarter on top of the billions they already have. One might even think they believe an unhealthy, sick and uneducated, ignorant populace won't see what they did there.

[BigFatCoward]

18 minutes ago, mormont said:

This is going to turn into a bit of a rant so if you're not up for that, skip this post.

But I wouldn't blame any healthcare professional who's thinking about quitting right now, wherever in the world they work. They have been working flat out for almost two years at this point. Flat out as in long, punishing hours of the most stressful, messy, emotionally and physically taxing work I can imagine under conditions that mean they're at almost constant risk of infection despite having to wear burdensome protective equipment for hours at a time.

And as the article points out, there has been no remission for them, no point at which that work has slowed down. Any time the COVID cases slow down, they get to start on the absolutely enormous backlog of other urgen life-saving and life-changing work that's been put back longer than it should have been. At least until the next COVID surge.

And it's not going to stop. There is no prospect of these folks getting a break at any time in the next twelve months, at least, and that's if we get COVID under control pretty much in the next couple of months, which is not going to happen. As things stand, who knows when healthcare workers can expect the pressure on them to end? Two more years? Five? More? Even after the pandemic ends, it's going to be intense for a significant period of time just trying to catch up.

And they're dealing in many cases with patients who're there because they refused or couldn't be bothered to do simple, easy things that would have kept them out of hospital and protected other people too.

And then they go home and see every public figure discussing this pandemic in and if they're lucky, those people are talking about how heroic healthcare workers are even as they twist and turn to avoid taking the public health measures that would relieve the pressure on the system. If they're not lucky, those public figures are dismissing the whole thing as a hoax or an exaggeration and actively encouraging the public to do things that will increase that pressure. The only thing both groups of public figures have in common is the explicit agreement that we just can't afford to pay healthcare workers more, sorry. You have to keep dealing with this for the next however many years without a meaningful pay rise or a break.

Nothing shows better how Western capitalism, as it is currently structured, has completely failed to cope with this pandemic than the fact that we cannot pay the people who are actually having to deal with it what they have absolutely earned. Our system completely fails to correctly value their work and their worth. It's appalling.

But they got that big pay rise so it should be all OK? 

I can't even imagine how that decision was reached, 'let's give them pennies, they'll be thankful because everyone else in the public sector is getting less'. Shameless cunts.