i've learned more about the real on-the-ground ugliness of COVID from r/nursing than I've learned from any other source. Even the most unflinching media portrayals of what COVID does to the unvaccinated and the people who have to care for them leaves a lot out.
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for example last week i learned that a lot of nurses have had to deal with maggots in the intubated bodies of COVID patients, because anybody who has to be intubated for as long as many COVID patients do makes an attractive home for fly larvae, even when they're still alive
where are the maggots? on the skin/bedsores?
From reading the thread linked at the top of OP's post, they mostly show up in bedsores or other open wounds, but they ... i'll spoiler this because it's so fucking gross.
spoiler
The maggots sometimes start nesting in the nose as well. These patients can't move, don't breathe through their nose for weeks and the nose is also full of slime, so some flies think it makes for a perfect nest. It seems they sometimes show up in the vent tubes as well.
spoiler
yeah I couldn't even bring myself to ask what I meant which was NOT IN THE RESPIRATORY TRACT RIGHT?
I've heard doctors talk about removing maggots from necrotized tissue in the past, but that stuff just hits differently.
As I understand it that's... kind of a mixed blessing.
They only eat dead tissue, which was going to cause its own problems anyway.
Not that it's good for them to do that except on purpose and tightly controlled
My understanding is that some kinds of maggots prefer dead tissue (the kinds that would be used to remove rotting flesh) but the idea that any of them eat it exclusively is a bit of a myth.
maggot therapy is an actual treatment that exists and is still legitimate, there are definitely some maggots that will exclusively eat rotting flesh
when i had the displeasure of finding maggots in my apartment once, i did notice that they seem to be surprisingly picky eaters
That is the worst fucking thing I have ever read
If it helps, there are situations in which people have mostly died. This particular thing is what got me radiclaizes in the first place. That family member is likely braindead or if not, near enough to brain dead that actual braindeath woudl be preferred. And while in this mostly dead state they are getting major money paid for their care that isn't helping and they cannot enjoy. This is money in the half million dollae range just wasted on a corpse and then some fortune 500 company.
So for this situation, the person would have been on a coctail of powerful medications to keep their lungs open and their heart beating. Unfortunately, the ammount of drugs to that in high enough doses for long enough time can kill most the other organs.
So for flies to nest like that they have to be undercleanred. Which will easily happen in a state with poor labor law and overworked staff.
It is the hat trick of failed conservative ideology. No vaccine, no labor rights, no dignity.