Covid 44: The Sickening

[Luzifer's right hand]

23 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.

I agree 100%. My GP has been called a Nazi by anti-measure people and elected politicians have called health care workers who speak out for vaccination murderers here. Health care workers have been assaulted on the street and people tried to storm ICUs to see if there are really patients in there. The UK might be different but I hear a lot of that from the US too.

I would totally understand if of all of them quit their jobs to be honest. Thankfully most of them are far better people than I will ever be but I would never blame health care workers quitting. 

35 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

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.

The people I talked with are actually thinking about moving to the places that pay the best to be honest. I total get them. They did their part during the last two years. None of them are looking to find work in normal hospitals from what I gathered. Just private clinics that pay well.

[Clueless Northman]

22 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The people I talked with are actually thinking about moving to the places that pay the best to be honest. I total get them. They did their part during the last two years. None of them are looking to find work in normal hospitals from what I gathered. Just private clinics that pay well.

Oh yeah obviously. Moving out of ICUs into more classical care, with more regular and normal work schedule, be back home for the evening - usually you can already find private clinics with better-paying less stressful jobs in your own country. I was mostly assuming you were thinking of ER and ICU staff moving to another country to do the same work, which isn't going to happen. Well, they might go to Dubai or Switzerland, but it would still be harsh working conditions if they stayed in ICU.

[Luzifer's right hand]

9 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Oh yeah obviously. Moving out of ICUs into more classical care, with more regular and normal work schedule, be back home for the evening - usually you can already find private clinics with better-paying less stressful jobs in your own country. I was mostly assuming you were thinking of ER and ICU staff moving to another country to do the same work, which isn't going to happen. Well, they might go to Dubai or Switzerland, but it would still be harsh working conditions if they stayed in ICU.

Taking over GP offices when someone retires seems to be somewhat interesting again. It is not the most well paying job in the field but you are your own boss and they hours are decent. They had problems finding people for those I heard but no anymore. You can also refuse people non-urgent treatment as a GP which seems to be a perk in the current environment. They do refuse non-urgent treatment for people that refuse to mask and get tested in some hospitals now.

 

[Which Tyler]

2 hours 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.

SNIP

You "forgot" that theyre doing all that, whilst under attack from the press, politicians and wannabe politicians, and often the people whose lives they're trying to save.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10371299/NHS-workers-took-average-14-DAYS-sick-year-Covid.html

I've clicked the link, and I'll quote it here so that no-one else has to.

Quote

NHS workers took average of 14 DAYS off sick every year BEFORE Covid struck - as it is revealed staff at 'critical incident' hospital trusts are STILL allowed to take holiday despite being on 'war footing' 

NHS staff took more than three times as many sick days as the average worker even before the pandemic struck - with stress, anxiety and depression blamed for a third of all absences, official figures revealed today.  Health service data shows there were 17.7million days of leave taken between April 2018 and March 2019 – the equivalent of around 14 days per worker - mainly for mental health problems or muscle and back pain.   But the average Briton took off just 4.2 days over roughly the same period, according to the Office for National Statistics.  Overall NHS absence in England peaked at the start of the pandemic and sick days were highest among support staff - and the lowest among doctors. One in ten NHS staff are currently off sick or self-isolating - but some hospitals have higher rates.  MailOnline can also reveal that staff working at the NHS trusts currently cancelling all non-urgent operations and appointments due to Omicron are still allowing employees to go on holiday while on a 'war footing', according to Boris Johnson.  The United Lincolnshire NHS Trust and the Great Western NHS Foundation Trust have admitted that they have no ban on annual leave despite declaring 'critical incidents'.  And on Boxing Day, two days before the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust declared a critical incident, just four of their 7,400 staff were registered as off sick with Covid or self-isolating, NHS England's latest data shows. But a further 312 staff were not at work due with other illnesses such as common winter bugs and stress.  Some 11 out of 137 hospital trusts in England have declared 'critical incidents' in recent days, signalling that they may struggle to deliver vital care to patients in the coming weeks because so many medics are off isolating. Seventeen hospitals in Greater Manchester have also started shelving operations.  At the same time, the number of Covid-infected patients being hospitalised is rising

How very dare someone dealing with sock people, get sick!

How very dare they take their annual leave after 2 years of working to and beyond breaking point!

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

You "forgot" that theyre doing all that, whilst under attack from the press, politicians and wannabe politicians, and often the people whose lives they're trying to save.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10371299/NHS-workers-took-average-14-DAYS-sick-year-Covid.html

I've clicked the link, and I'll quote it here so that no-one else has to.

How very dare someone dealing with sock people, get sick!

How very dare they take their annual leave after 2 years of working to and beyond breaking point!

I have encountered real people with that opinion. I guess that is the fate of essential workers even if they are decently paid like doctors.

[Raja]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

And as the article points out, there has been no remission for them, no point at which that work has slowed down.

Indeed. Emergency Departments & Hospitals were seeing their busiest times over this past summer whilst we were trying to deal with COVID and everything else. In the UK, 4 hour wait times in A&E have been getting worse - here are a couple of tweets from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in the UK specifically, but these things will apply to most departments in the world.

All of these things have an impact, but these impacts will only *really* be understood by the health professionals who care for these patients and know that delays like this translate into delays in diagnosis, treatment & management of disease, and they are also likely understood by the patients that we see. They won't show up in cases, hospitalizations or excess deaths, though perhaps with analysis like this we might get a hint of the effect that has 

Relentless is the only way I would describe how work has been for the 18 months - there's certainly no let up and hasn't been through the summer and the autumn. Meanwhile, you see the leaders of this country having parties, downplaying the virus & being completely corrupt and handing out money to their Tory donors - our covid policy has been a disaster for months in the UK given that we have accepted a 1000 deaths a week and tens of thousands of cases everyday and pretended that the latter will have no morbidity.

Years of under funding under the Tories & poor workforce planning has come back to effect everyone in this country

There is no end in sight of the busy shifts, all I can do is try and make the most of the days when I'm not working. And of course the pay is an issue, you just can't buy anything this government says about there not being any money to do x,y and z.

I hesitate to get too personal on these threads, especially as I have strong feelings about the consistent downplaying of the virus in some comments that has gone on for months, but I have basically been working non-stop since I moved to this country and I already know I will not be working full time when I'm older - there is just no way I can work full time for 40+ years given how much work there is, and especially the stress involved with the work.

I don't think I could ever do anything else because I love what I do and there's nothing else like it, but I know that not doing this full time would be better for me.

[Luzifer's right hand]

7 hours ago, Raja said:

Indeed. Emergency Departments & Hospitals were seeing their busiest times over this past summer whilst we were trying to deal with COVID and everything else. In the UK, 4 hour wait times in A&E have been getting worse - here are a couple of tweets from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in the UK specifically, but these things will apply to most departments in the world.

All of these things have an impact, but these impacts will only *really* be understood by the health professionals who care for these patients and know that delays like this translate into delays in diagnosis, treatment & management of disease, and they are also likely understood by the patients that we see. They won't show up in cases, hospitalizations or excess deaths, though perhaps with analysis like this we might get a hint of the effect that has 

Relentless is the only way I would describe how work has been for the 18 months - there's certainly no let up and hasn't been through the summer and the autumn. Meanwhile, you see the leaders of this country having parties, downplaying the virus & being completely corrupt and handing out money to their Tory donors - our covid policy has been a disaster for months in the UK given that we have accepted a 1000 deaths a week and tens of thousands of cases everyday and pretended that the latter will have no morbidity.

Years of under funding under the Tories & poor workforce planning has come back to effect everyone in this country

There is no end in sight of the busy shifts, all I can do is try and make the most of the days when I'm not working. And of course the pay is an issue, you just can't buy anything this government says about there not being any money to do x,y and z.

I hesitate to get too personal on these threads, especially as I have strong feelings about the consistent downplaying of the virus in some comments that has gone on for months, but I have basically been working non-stop since I moved to this country and I already know I will not be working full time when I'm older - there is just no way I can work full time for 40+ years given how much work there is, and especially the stress involved with the work.

I don't think I could ever do anything else because I love what I do and there's nothing else like it, but I know that not doing this full time would be better for me.

Very interesting thank you.

Take good care of yourself!

[BigFatCoward]

@Raja twice in my career I've had to work obscene hours (after the London bombings and after the riots) and I remember being broken after a month.

I have genuinely no idea how staff in NHS are doing it. And with no end in sight and knowing how so much of it is avoidable. 

[Spockydog]

10 hours ago, Raja said:

I don't think I could ever do anything else because I love what I do and there's nothing else like it, but I know that not doing this full time would be better for me.

I am so sorry that you are having to experience this. All I can say is thank you.

[Heartofice]

16 hours ago, Padraig said:

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.

John Burn-Murdoch, who seems to be everyone’s go to guy for covid graphs these days, uses the the phrase without blinking. Seems happy to say cases have decoupled in the UK too

 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Regarding decoupling: The US saw 850k new cases yesterday, which is horrifying. Deaths there are ticking over 2k per day, but if there is still a strong correlation between infections and deaths, they could be seeing the better part of 10k per day in a few weeks. Even if there isn't it could still rise sharply because of the sheer number of cases.

Positivity here is now at 35%. Non-ICU hospital admissions are starting to tick up. We're all bracing for it.

[Fragile Bird]

12 hours ago, Raja said:

All of these things have an impact, but these impacts will only *really* be understood by the health professionals who care for these patients and know that delays like this translate into delays in diagnosis, treatment & management of disease,…

I hesitate to get too personal on these threads, especially as I have strong feelings about the consistent downplaying of the virus in some comments that has gone on for months,…

There have been numerous times when I’ve wanted to say something from the other side, from the patient’s side, but I also hesitate to get too personal. At this time last year we were in a bad situation with nearly 10,000 cases a day and critical numbers of patients in the hospitals and the ICU. Now we’re doing 40,000 cases a day and I just don’t know how the hospitals are going to handle it, even if fewer people end up in hospital percentage wise. Once again surgeries are being cancelled across the board, all except the most urgent, and people will die for lack of diagnosis or treatment.

Last year, in February, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and let me tell you, getting that diagnosis is gut wrenching enough without the additional fear piled on top of that by the fact there’s a bloody pandemic going on and surgeries have been cancelled. All surgeries except “urgent” surgeries. Is Stage 1 cancer “urgent”? At the same time my best friend’s husband was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (and a few months later another lump popped up and his diagnosis moved from Stage 1 to Stage 4), and we stressed together over the worry about when we’d receive treatment.

One of the cancer websites I read said, look, just because you’ve been diagnosed today doesn’t mean you need surgery tomorrow or next week, so stay calm. But as the weeks tick by you begin to wonder, even if the doctors and technicians at the hospital hugged you and said “don’t worry, you’ll have surgery and you’ll be okay”. I finally had my surgery at the end of April, and my best friend took me into her house for two weeks because I live alone and her husband was going to start chemo and she had room under her huge mother hen’s wings for me at the same time. All the while they still didn’t know when that chemo would start (a few weeks later). Then radiation was supposed to start within 12 weeks of surgery and as the weeks ticked by I wondered if that would be late. We started 16 days of radiation at the tail end of the period. Fortunately (I hope) I didn’t do chemo because these days they do genetic testing to see if chemo will help you and my testing suggested not.

I am so lucky I live in a big city with the country’s top cancer hospital in it, in a country with a universal health care system. I’m lucky I had friends who could support me, and a brother who drove me everywhere and waited patiently while I went to appointments and underwent treatment. It was stunning to see how busy, how non-stop busy, the hospital was. They take no Covid patients, concentrating on cancer only. The hospital beside it and the one across the street and the children’s hospital across the street all had Covid units. But the newspapers are full of stories about people who urgently need surgery who won’t get that surgery for who knows how long because their urgent isn’t as urgent as my urgent was. People who live in pain because their knee or hip surgery has been cancelled. People who are delaying their visits to the doctor because they figure their symptoms aren’t serious but they’re wrong.

Between burned-out medical workers and a population that has been seriously short-changed on medical care (not blaming the medical system, just the pandemic) we are going to be in bad shape for the next couple of years and I just don’t know that we can do any damn thing about it. If Covid keeps changing and killing people in different ways, we’ll be in even worse shape that I foresee right now. The people in our medical system, the doctors, the nurses, the technicians, the admin staffs, the paramedics, the lab workers, are all precious parts of that system and they are struggling. And on the other side of the fence the patients are struggling too. 
 

I want to go on and make comments about the segments of society who don’t seem to give a shit, but this post is too long already and I’m getting all tangled up in my thoughts now. And I’m still not sure if I should post this, because it’s kinda personal, ya know? There have been a few times when people have made comments about “hey, be nice, you have no idea what that boarder has been going through”, and fuck yes, you have no idea what some boarders have been going through. Which is neither here nor there, I guess.

[BigFatCoward]

Djokovic is a prize twat isn't he. Can't even beleive the nerve. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/sport/17258987/novak-djokovic-anti-vax-tennis-charity-kids-test-positive/amp/

 

[Zorral]

"America’s Omicron Wave Already Looks More Severe Than Europe’s'

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/americas-omicron-wave-now-looks-more-severe-than-europes.html

Um, that decoupling thang?

Quote

.... But while this is all encouraging, it is not clear that those same patterns observed abroad will hold here in the U.S. In fact, there are already early signs in hospitalization and ICU data that the experience of Omicron in America may be harsher than has been observed so far in Europe. This should perhaps not come as a surprise, given that Delta was much more lethal in the U.S. than in Europe — and the current data may still reflect some lingering cases of that variant. And it does not mean a tsunami of deaths is right around the corner or that this new variant will mean for the U.S. what Delta meant for India. (To begin with, the U.S. is, by global standards, very well vaccinated.) But the higher rate of severity observed so far is a reminder that the shape of a pandemic is not simply a matter of the biological properties of the virus; it is also determined by the social and immunological context in which that virus spreads. And it appears that, with Omicron as with Delta, the American context may be different enough to make a real difference, delivering perhaps considerably more severe illness and death than we’ve seen on the other side of the Atlantic. ....

.... With Delta, many Americans observed a miraculously light British wave and effectively ignored the real carnage that followed here — 100,000 Americans dead, and September and October was the deadliest two-month phase of the pandemic outside of last winter’s horrific surge. With Omicron, the same pattern — optimism from Europe followed by overlooked suffering here — seems troublingly possible again. And if you’re hoping for an outcome resembling South Africa’s, where COVID deaths during the Omicron wave didn’t reach even 10 percent of the previous peak, keep in mind that the U.S. began this wave on a Delta plateau 50 percent as high as our previous peak of daily deaths.

... a 70 percent jump in cases accompanied by a 60 percent jump in ICU admissions does not suggest a dramatic “decoupling” of the kind we’ve observed in South Africa and Europe and seemed almost trying to will into existence here. ....

 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I want to go on and make comments about the segments of society who don’t seem to give a shit, but this post is too long already and I’m getting all tangled up in my thoughts now.

Bird -- I'm so sorry.  It had to be so hard to write this.

Because Reasons I know how additionally excruciating this pandemic is for people who who are suffering from serious conditions that they didn't make for themselves, yet can't get the treatment and attention in a timely manner due to the overwhelming press of those who are suffering because they refuse to help themselves even while injuring everyone else.

 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

 

FB,  I'm sorry you have had to deal with Cancer,  Hoping everything works out for you.  Much love

 

 

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Djokovic is a prize twat isn't he. Can't even beleive the nerve. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/sport/17258987/novak-djokovic-anti-vax-tennis-charity-kids-test-positive/amp/

 

for those who want to read and don't want to download or read the sun

https://news.sky.com/story/novak-djokovic-pictured-with-young-players-the-day-after-lawyers-say-he-tested-positive-for-covid-12511669

 

short version.   he claims the medical exemption for his Australian visa because he tested positive on Dec 16.   On Dec17 he was at this Children's tennis even and is pictured hugging a Kid.  (maybe more)  No masks.  

They do stress he might not have known his test results at that time.

 

 

I wonder if he even took a test and just claimed to of had it so he could play in the Australian Open.  But I'm a suspicious person who very much doubts Anti-Vaxers who may be trying to get around the rules.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Self unawareness,

this lack of self awareness amongst the unvaxxed, has been the complete shocker for me this last year.

It's like rejecting the concept that you are potentially a walking, talking, infection spreader.

It's a form of "special snowflake" syndrome on steroids, in certain circles.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

 

I wonder if he even took a test and just claimed to of had it so he could play in the Australian Open.  But I'm a suspicious person who very much doubts Anti-Vaxers who may be trying to get around the rules.

The way his government has been, I wouldn't be surprised if they were faking his positive test for him. Fuck him and his vigil holding dumb shit countrymen. 

[Zorral]

https://gothamist.com/news/overwhelmed-unsettling-and-stressful-nyc-educators-first-week-school-2022

This is heartbreaking to read.

How can we do this to our schools and teachers? But we are.  While in another class of employee and work we have this:

"Citigroup prepares to fire unvaccinated employees at the end of January."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/business/citigroup-vaccine-mandate.html

[DireWolfSpirit]

We won't know for sure yet for a few weeks, but most of the editorializing I've seen seems to think the Conservative Supreme Court, formerly known as the Supreme Court, will axe Bidens Vaxx mandate for employers of 100 or more.

Best case scenario the healthcare worker mandate may be saved, according to these court watchers.

I hope they are misreading and we can get the OSHA jurisdiction over all workers though, just feeling it's a long shot.