ICU nurse: "I really wish yall non healthcare folk understood the straight up apocalyptic vibe in.."

[steve2470]

"I really wish yall non healthcare folk understood the straight up apocalyptic vibe in hospitals right now"

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Easier-to-read version:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1439707392158142476.html

ETA: related article here

As covid-19 patients fill hospitals, health-care workers fight fear and exhaustion: ‘Here we go again’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/20/hospitals-dc-covid-increase-healthcare-workers/

The man in his 60s could no longer breathe on his own, so the doctor, respiratory therapist and nurses worked together, snaking an oxygen tube into his windpipe. That day in late July marked the first time they had intubated a covid-19 patient in weeks.

As they did so, the medical professionals exchanged silent looks: They knew what they were seeing was the beginning of a third surge of coronavirus patients in the Washington region.

“It was surreal,” said Kanak Patel, the director of critical care medicine at Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center. “We all knew: Here we go again.”

Nearly two months later, the surge continues, driven by the highly transmissible delta variant and affecting mostly unvaccinated people, including the man that staff at Doctors intubated that day.

[samnsara]

1. its gonna take a whole bunch of unvaxxed to die off before we get back to normal

.

[NurseJackie]

7. The sooner the better.

[Moostache]

21. I offer the non-vaxxed Alan Grayson's version of GOP Healthcare plan...

1) Don't get COVID.
2) If you do get COVID, die quickly.

Reminds me of this:

[NurseJackie]

38. Yes! They need to quit infecting others...

Yes! They need to quit infecting others... they need to stop being human incubators for the next mutant strain of Covid... they need to stop wasting limited hospital resources... they need to stop causing others to have necessary procedures delayed or denied due to lack of space.

The willingly unvaccinated need to be triaged to a hospice tent. Let some modern-day Mother Theresa "help" them.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. Sad but true

I have some thoughts based on my acceptance of the "Universe". I wish no harm on any human being - but I also can't continue to give empathy to those who won't help themselves.

It's like the Universe is clearing the way for those who believe in science, reason, and facts in America. Leaving behind those who have empathy to human beings in the developing world, who don't have access to the tool for survival.

[Ilsa]

15. They won't help themselves or the nation,

their doctors and nurses, others waiting for emergency surgery, children under age twelve, etc. They are selfish to the point of being sociopaths.

[JustAnotherGen]

22. I'm in global trade compliance

I have a vendor in India who has been waiting three months for her vaccine.

Three months - to even be able to sign up. And - note - she's part of their middle class.

At this point - yank it out of some of these sociopath states and give it to them. They've got families to take care of and a country to build.

[sanatanadharma]

39. I accept the corona-virus as an Avatara of the Cosmos

A message (messenger) from Gaia telling humanity to slow down, stop, consider empathy for the self and all beings in all worlds.
Stop being sequestered by 'me, my, mine', unable to stand alone; be instead 'I and we', shared humanity.

Covid testifies to the need for a forced-stop of frenetic human activity, based in objectivity and accepting of science, reason, and facts and identity rather than division. Then move on again together with greater connectedness, not avarice.

Considering that the unseen virus can only be defeated by stopping activity, giving up our binding desires and becoming temporary hermits; social-distancers who cease seeking constant self-affirmation through social interactions.

Unfortunately too many are addicted to "ME", a powerful mood adulterant, capable of great damage that goes unrecognized by the afflicted. The continued havoc wracking our worlds is fed, magnified, manifested by the extreme subjectivity of diseased egos wrongly demanding their right to demand they're right.

[Delphinus]

41. Gosh,

that message resonates with me. Thank you.

[JustAnotherGen]

44. Thank you

Will 'drop this here' . . . my mom is a person who lives in Spirit and the Esoteric. She was thrilled in the early 70's to have to Aquarius children who would literally be alive at the time of the Age of Aquarius.

I'm not necessarily a believer in astrology as a tool of prediction. But I do think the Universe/God/The Spirit is trying to tell us something. December 20, 2020 . . . and then we had a scientific answer to prevent death.

[IronLionZion]

9. How many is enough? Since 670,000 isn't enough

[MyMission]

29. How many voted for 45?

Not saying tens of millions should die, but I'm thinking Darwin, survival of the fittest.
And maybe these incorrigibles dying off will bring us closer to a better society.
And as they sicken and die, some of their ilk are getting vaccinated.
The ones that survive will still try to make trouble, but there will be less of them.

I think of several RW radio hosts and pastors who've died after refusing to be vaccinated. Each death prompts a few to get vaccinated at least, and also leads to more illness and death of the unvaccinated.

To paraphrase: Masks and vaccines are not a political issue, they're an IQ test.
As we've seen life expectancy decline during the pandemic, perhaps we'll see intelligence increase as a result!

[bdamomma]

18. They are killing themselves

off but they are putting so many people at risk, especially our hospitals, and healthcare workers.

So derelict of them of not giving a crap for other human beings.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

31. Unfortunately, not enough will die to fully hit home to them.

It would probably have to be a 14th Century Black Death level of deaths (anywhere from a third to a half of the total population) to impact these people. As terrible as this disease is, it's simply not terrible enough to make any realistic dent in population numbers.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Fullduplexxx]

3. Refuse the unvaxxed send them back home

[FakeNoose]

4. Vaccinate all school kids as soon as possible

Maybe some of their parents will take the hint and get shots for themselves.

I think the hospital employees who haven't quit their jobs should get an extra gift from Uncle Sam, like maybe a combat pay bonus? Or however they can justify it. These people are heroes!

[Glorfindel]

5. My niece, who is an emergency room RN

already gets $1,000.00 per 12-hour shift over and above her usual compensation. This is at a small, rural hospital in the north Georgia mountains. Like most nurses, she's a total workaholic, but the stress is really getting to her.

I agree with you that these health-care professionals are heroes. I also agree about the vaccinations, but, sadly, it may be too late to save a whole generation of self-deluded imbeciles.

[Tarc]

6. Then we need to do something radical in regards to healthcare for the antivaxxers

If one willfully chooses to not get the Covid vaccine, then either outright denial of care for Covid-related issues, or they pay 100% out-of-pocket.

[mrsadm]

20. This!!!!

[Moostache]

23. Hear, hear!!

I have been at that point for a few weeks now...if you CAN get vaccinated and CHOOSE not to do so, then the CONSEQUENCES of that decision belong with YOU, not US.

Vaccinated, rationale and sane society should no longer countenance the stupidity and dangerous behavior of the lunatic fringe.

I am not advocating kicking in doors and jabbing the reluctant and foolish by force...they are of course free to choose - but I am 100% behind making them OWN THE RESULTS OF THAT CHOICE.

Be an asshole all you want - over there, well away from society and apart from the benefits of being a full member of society, including goods and services otherwise unavailable.

I look at these asshat no vaxxers the same way I do bush people in the hinterlands of Alaska - fine, just stay the hell away from polite society and hang out in the bush to your heart's content. Your choice, your consequences. But do not think for one second that the rest of us should be bringing you supplies to support your choices.

[grantcart]

27. +1

I expect insurance companies will be enforcing huge increases in company premiums for companies w/o mandates.

[lambchopp59]

32. Although it can be constued as unethical for me to agree with you

Oh, I do wholeheartedly for one other reason: The Trumpers tend to be the absolute worst, non-compliant, whining, complaining, troublemaking assholes of all the patients who have no notion of ever paying one red cent of their medical bills to boot. Oh, I could get a whole lot more cynical about the loss of the ilk too... but I'm soon coming out of retirement because of the anti-vaxxers in my ancillary field. I have to do the tests no matter what an asshole the patient may act and maintain equinamity. It can happen to the best of us, but the best usually sheepishly apologize later.
The "ilk" just die.

[Girard442]

10. This is Civil War II and the MAGATs are being used in suicidal human wave attacks.

Their behavior makes a certain perverted kind of sense for someone who'd rather die than see the Libs triumphant. Don't be sympathetic to the unvaxxed. See them as brothers and sisters with the 9/11 terrorists.

[traitorsgalore]

37. Agreed, as horrible as it is

I've been calling covid "germ warfare" since it began. Magats are domestic terrorists in a lot of different ways.

[johnthewoodworker]

11. Health care workers are right. Republican/Nazis are scientific moron who will never be

taught to vaccinate. Unvaccinated people, at this time, are real dumb shits. Dumb shits die. So it goes.

[Wingus Dingus]

12. When your entire livelihood is that license you've earned, and you have to

potentially jeopardize it every shift by working on too many people with not enough resources, breaks, or sleep (having been a night-shift nurse, you never really get enough sleep and depend on a string of days off to feel normal)--that's a situation that can't be reasonably sustained and will certainly push some people out of the nursing field. I found it stressful and left the field long before Covid.

[BidenRocks]

13. Things may slow when the hospital asks...

Are you vaccinated?
Got insurance?

I do not wish to pay for the unwilling and uncaring.
They are just not worthy.

[Hortensis]

43. They will ask for insurance. Vaccination will not be a criterion for care.

Many insurers are ending the emergency cost-sharing waivers for Covid care so that patients will now have to pay deductibles, coinsurance, etc. This wave of Covid patients is going to be getting bills.

The ACA and other federal laws do not allow insurers to charge more for lack of vaccination (all vaccines).

However, employers can use various means to require unvaccinated employees to pay more. Delta has begun a $200/month surcharge for unvaccinated employees.

“All of the low-hanging fruit has already been harvested. It’s the tough customers that are left now,” said Gretchen Chapman, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.

Some companies have offered cash to workers who get the vaccine, but as the cost of treating COVID-1 cases skyrocket, businesses are hiking insurance premiums, a penalty for employees who choose to remain unvaccinated. “There is reason to think that the fines will be more effective than the incentives,” said Chapman. “There is this idea of loss aversion, that losses are weighed more heavily than gains, so a $200 incentive will not have as much influence as a $200 fine.”

A new study from Affordable Health Insurance finds that 43% of unvaccinated employees say a premium surcharge would coax them into getting the vaccine. Another 25% responded that it might. Most said getting charged an extra $100 a month or so would probably seal the deal.

Obviously, the lower on the pay scale, the fewer people could afford even a $100 surcharge. And the higher the percentage of unvaccinated.

[OneGrassRoot]

14. I wish...

every “it’s a hoax” maskhole had to observe one of these ERs for one shift. In lieu of that I wish someone would make a documentary showing these hospitals in every state, every area, including showing brave personnel willing to come forward and say who they are so they cannot be accused of being a paid crisis actor. And I wish that could go viral.

[Marthe48]

16. Is the only way to get back to normal is to stop treating the sick, unvaxxed people?

I hate to say that. In the First Opium War (China vs. Britain 1839-42),the British wanted a trade balance. Chinese products were so popular, that China was ahead in trade profit. So the British started growing opium in Bengal, to smuggle into China. China's population of addicts grew at an alarming rate. In order to stop opium addiction, the Chinese gov. instituted the death penalty for smugglers and traffikers. The British and the Chinese smugglers willingly sacrificed other humans for the almighty dollar. I thought this historic episode was horrible, ever since I first heard about it.

Is turning our collective backs on the sick and dying the way to go? I don't think so. But I bet we are headed that way. I wonder every time I see news like the OP or hear someone interviewed, how long they can hold up. I thought about the Chinese dr. who treated some of the first Covid-19 patients, and then, caught the virus and died. The world should have paid attention to that tragic story right then. And then the NY family who lost 8 loved ones to covid-19. We should have been taking it seriously. But no. We are here today, watching the numbers of infected and dying going up, up, up. In early 2020, when hospitals couldn't get gloves and masks, when we couldn't get hand sanitizer, when traitor siezed shipments of hazard gear and rednecks bought up all of the Dollar Tree hand sanitizer and tried to cash in on eBay, those were all great big red flags and we should have been treating Covid-19 the way we treated Ebola. But no. Here we are. Too many of the sick and dying recklessly ignored the danger. Too many of the so-called leaders continue to downplay the risk, opting for opening the economy over preserving human life. I'm pretty sure the rich and famous will get treatment, but as time goes on, I am afraid the health industry is going to opt out of treating the masses. We are a much poorer nation for the travails we are enduring.

[grantcart]

30. One slight correction.

It wasn't Chinese products that was draining British Gold reserves it was Indian Tea which almost overnight became universally popular and available in GB. With nothing in GB that they could sell the subcontinent Indians they took Indian opium to China to raise gold to pay for the tea.

In one if history's greatest ironies the British warships used gunpowder invented in China to launch cannon attacks on defenseless Chinese cities. The Chinese only used it for fireworks.

[Marthe48]

33. The refresher I read mentioned porcelain, silk and tea

I was less focused on what caused the trade imbalance than China imposing a death penalty. It like everything, complicated and hard to pull the least threads to get the most fabric. Thank you for the insight. I wonder if Joseph Heller drew on East India Co. to create Milo Minderbinder

[Jon King]

17. All they had to do is take a free vaccine at the local CVS, in secret.

The most bizarre thing I have ever seen. No one would even know if they got the jab. I could see maybe 2-3 months ago still being stupid. But geez, even these people have to at least have some doubts by now. They could have just snuck over to the drug store the next town over and gotten the shot. None of their friends and family even had to know.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. There is unfortunately another issue regarding healthcare workers

and now many themselves, have refused to get VAXed.

From an article that was just published a couple days ago -

In The Fight Against COVID, Health Workers Aren't Immune To Vaccine Misinformation

September 18, 20217:00 AM ET

Deepa Shivaram


As new data shows 1 in 500 Americans has died from COVID-19 and the delta variant continues to surge across the country, the next challenge many health care leaders face is within their own staffs: the 27% of of U.S. health care workers who have not been vaccinated against the disease as of July, according to a study by The COVID States Project.

On top of that, other research shows that since the vaccine first became available to health care workers in December 2020, the rate of vaccination among nurses and nursing home aides has been lower than that of physicians. This may be of particular concern because nurses and aides have such frequent and close contact with patients.

Data shows health care workers have gotten the COVID-19 vaccine at a higher rate than the general population: 73% versus 64% of non-health care workers. And many may assume that people who work in health care industry are more enthusiastic about the vaccine and less apprehensive. But there are limits, says David Lazer of Northeastern University, the lead researcher on The COVID States Project report.

The attitudes of health care workers toward the COVID-19 vaccine essentially mirror the rest of the country — with those living in rural areas, are Republican and have less education and income more likely to be vaccine-resistant. "The big takeaway for us is really that health care workers are like everyone else," Lazer tells NPR. "The same things that predict vaccine resistance or reluctance among the general population is also predicted among health care workers," he says.

More: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1037975289/unvaccinated-covid-19-vaccine-refuse-nurses-heath-care-workers

[Pepsidog]

24. Pictures of the sepsis bloated corpses may help drive the message home. Also, the willfully

s unvaccinated adults should be put at the back of the line for medical care.

[JackHughes]

25. Triage unvaxed adults

Due to near-collapse of our health care system, those who have chosen not to receive the free, universally available Covid vaccine, those adults infected with the virus that seek hospitalization should be offered their choice of invermectin or hydroxychloroquine and sent home.

[Submariner]

26. These republican anti-vaxxers better hope

serial killers are not on the loose in the hospitals.

I recall more than a few stories in decades past of male and female nurses purposely fatally overdosing patients, or administering drugs injected or swallowed that are hard to detect in autopsies.

A few of those characters let loose could show their disgust with these sorry souls filling up ICU's and reduce the right wing voting rolls for the benefit of the country.

[SergeStorms]

36. If they're not already, they soon will be.

Human beings can only take so much, and if people won't take it upon themselves to protect their lives, someone else will sure they don't clog up the system for others who do.

Right now I would call these people angels of mercy. Why prolong the inevitable? Anyone who's been ventilated will not survive this disease, and sooner or later this fact will outweigh any training they had in school about, "doing no harm". The harm has already been done, and it's irreversible and incurable.

Like you said, they're coming. It's as inevitable as the unvaccinated dying of COVID.

[Champp]

28. k and r

[Jilly_in_VA]

34. I'm so effing glad I'm retired now!

I let my license lapse this year. It was due to be renewed in June and I could have even though I'm not working any more. I was volunteering with RAM before the pandemic but I stopped when it hit and I didn't go back, partly because of my age and partly because I didn't feel like driving all over hell and half of the southeast any more. Normally I would have cried, because that license was so much a part of me, but I barely gave it a thought.

Now I work with cats and dogs. They might squall or yelp when you vaccinate them, but they forget all about it as soon as it's over and you give them a treat.

[Delphinus]

42. Thank you

for your work with RAM - I first learned about RAM back around 2007 when I was working for single payer healthcare. An amazing system set up here - a first world country - for those without medical access. Great work - thank you so much.

[Jilly_in_VA]

45. I really enjoyed working with RAM

but dammit, we shouldn't need them in this country!

[c-rational]

35. I am having less and less sympathy with the medical community and the unvaxxed. Where has the

the AMA been on this issue - generally silent as far as I know. Maybe they don't want to upset their reThuglican masters. Remember, they were against Medicare, and are generally against Obamacare or a single payer system.

[Blue Owl]

40. K&R for visibility