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
As someone who has been in the hospital for various things once or twice, you're typically in a lot of pain and other forms of discomfort. I recently threw my back out, and was functionally bedridden for a few days. Shouting "please will someone bring me my piss bottle so I don't wet the bed I am begging you!" at the top of my lungs was not my proudest moment or my most diplomatic.
That, plus the anxiety/terror associated with not understanding what is wrong, leads to people being very ill-tempered.