The Chinese government was still determining what kind of virus they were dealing with when they locked down. I think the steps they took were appropriate.
Can anyone be trusted to make any correct decisions anymore?
No one with a profit motive should be trusted to make decisions.
someone to get so frustrated that they shot up a hospital.
I’ve thought about this too, it’s scary. What I tell myself is that by the time a covid denier is angry enough to lash out like that, they probably won’t be able to move unassisted anymore.
The confluence of trends between medical education being increasingly too expensive in a worsening economy and the pandemic causing a healthcare worker exodus has been at the top of my viewing list since it began
Expect even more NPs, although the costs of those programs has also increased over the last 5 years, so less people are applying. Student loan debt is causing many to stay at the RN or even CNA level.
Even before the pandemic I’d read stories about rural areas with like one GP or psychiatrist covering multiple counties with massive caseloads
We’ve already hired some docs who were previously rural GPs, but closed their practice and moved due to their communities not following quarantine / vaccinating. When your patients won’t listen to you, there’s not really a point in staying.
After this or if it worsens, which I’m guessing it will for upwards of a few years if vaccine-resistant variants proliferate, something has to give
History is repeating itself. I was afraid this was coming when we didn’t take the first wave seriously.
Peds cases in emergency are a whole other realm that we’re not meant to deal with repeatedly
I’m still doing medical work for the innocent people we save, but I’m leaving the field after the pandemic. Most of my colleagues are planning to as well.
America is going to have a severe healthcare worker shortage and it will take them a long time to rehire. I know multiple doctors already applying for visas in the EU and Canada.
If it shifts from the hogs killing themselves to the hogs murdering their children and still denying the virus, antivaxxers should line the Via Appia as a warning to anyone entering the city. Cross after cross after cross until there aren’t trees.
I’ve agreed with this for years, Organ donation should be mandatory. You shouldn’t have the right to condemn others to death by not donating.
When it comes to public health measures the pandemic made me agnostic-positive toward China because the draconian Wuhan crackdown was the only response brave enough to save lives.
I was also anti-china before Covid. I’m not that way anymore.
someone doesn’t understand what a vaccine is yet refuses to spend ten minutes learning
They know, they just don't care. Every adult in this country has had vaccines.
The pandemic turned me into a communist. I also no longer believe individual people without medical training should be able to make medical decisions for themselves. My exception to this is contraceptives and other reproductive rights.
I haven’t seen it talked about much online, but we can’t be the only hospital that’s shifted to this. It’s unspoken at my work, but everyone is doing it. Vaccinated patients go to the front.
We’ve also been pushing patients to hospice faster than we used to. The healthcare proxy, advanced directive, and/or family technically decides that, but if you don’t tell them it’s their choice then they often just go along with whatever they’re being told by a doctor or nurse.
This is for patients who are not coming back due to other issues and are no longer conscious (eg. brain trauma). We would normally let them take as long as they needed to grieve before making the shift. We don’t have enough time for that anymore.
the pandemic is triage mode but psychic beyond physical. As long as the antivaxxers exist, as long as that ideology is enabled through coddling them, harm is being done.
Yes, you put it perfectly. I know a number of acquaintances who only got vaccinated after a loved one died of covid. Like that article said, they thought they were immune to this until their husband or dad was dead. At this point, I think most antivaxxers are going to have to suffer directly before they get with the program.
If someone winds up in one of my beds, then I’m taking care of them, but anyone who woke up every day and decided to make this pandemic worse is at the bottom of our list for getting into one of those beds.
There are good people who they harmed that deserve treatment before them. When I look at an antivaxxer, I see all the people they murdered.
See my comment. Many of us are already starting to do this by prioritizing vaccinated patients. We’re not outright refusing care if there are no other patients, but this is a pandemic and there is always someone.
If we have to choose between a pregnant woman and a guy who went to a maskless motorcycle rally, we’re choosing the pregnant woman.
Created a throwaway to post this. I work in an ICU stretched overcapacity and we’re already deprioritizing the unvaccinated. It started happening once we reached the breaking point.
This is in a state with extremely high infection rates again because of Delta. We have doses expiring on the shelves here because people are refusing to get the vaccine.
We expanded our ICU beds by 30% and still have people waiting in the ER for hours to get a bed. We literally don’t have enough ventilators for everyone. We’re working double, sometimes triple shifts. All of us are vaccinated, but at any given time we have people out sick with covid breakthrough infections.
Without enough supplies and attention to go around, the people who are vaccinated but experiencing severe symptoms are getting care ahead of the antivaxxers.
The antivaxxers are easy to identify because they and their families come in without masks on and are either bragging that they’re unvaxxed or panicking because they didn’t get it and their lungs are now failing. We sometimes call them plaugers.
This is going to get so much worse over the next 1-2 months. Delta isn’t slowing down. I’ve lost vaccinated coworkers to these people’s selfishness. I don’t give a shit about the unvaccinated anymore.
The world will be better when they’re gone because when the next pandemic comes, these monsters won’t be around to spread it.
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Edit to clarify: the vaccine helps prevent severe covid symptoms in most people, but a percentage of delta breakthrough infections do result in hospitalization. Even with the comparatively small amount of breakthroughs, we’re still getting overwhelmed because of the low total vaccination rate in our region.
Get the vaccine, please wear a mask, and stay home as much as you can. Vaccinated people can still spread delta if infected. Vaccinated doesn’t equal mask-free anymore. You can thank antivaxxers and “first-world” vaccine hoarding for that.
The Chinese government was still determining what kind of virus they were dealing with when they locked down. I think the steps they took were appropriate.
No one with a profit motive should be trusted to make decisions.