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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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9 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Rep, of course. A thank you not actually for what you do, although that is deserved by you and everyone who keeps showing up in the battle zone, but for letting us see a little of what is going on.

People like the yokel in the store can maintain their belief it is a hoax until confronted with a taste of reality. I harp on this, but I'll repeat it. We are being let down by the best news media for presenting the reality of this disease beyond statistics, charts, and talking heads. National TV news.

Where is the video of the person in their 40s discharged in a wheel chair with lung damage? Where is video of a patient coding in ICU? Where are testimonials from actual survivors and survivors of the deceased?

A non-jounalist might respond that it's difficult to report on this. Reporters have covered actual battlefields. They've been present at riots, revolutions, and hurricanes. If medical professionals can go to the ICU or ER, reporters can find a way to gear up, get releases from their subjects, and return with minimal risk.

Where is the coverage? Where are the imbedded reporters? Why not set up a permanent camera or two in a hospital and edit the video to protect identities and privacy?

This is a failure of initiative, imagination, and purpose of news reporting by the TV news media. They wait to repeat what the print journalists uncover and then just sit around talking about it. 

Persons on TV who call themselves journalists and don't go get stories should do some self analysis while they're sitting in the make-up chair. Are you vainly referring to yourself as a journalist? If you are one, you're lazy, incompetent, and seemingly hostile to actual news that is unpredictable and waiting for illumination. Your job wasn't supposed to be to explain the news to poor dumb me; you're supposed to find and publish it as free of analysis as possible.

The republic is ill-served in many ways, my friends.

Its actually a failure of people on social media as well.  I know a few normally prolific "always happy times" social media posters who were hospitalized for covid while their significant other continued to post photos of lunch. 

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9 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

So my hospital woes have been well documented by me here because this is my only real “safe space” I can vent anonymously because my other social media is relatively public and under my real name. This isn’t a big city and everyone knows where I work.

Just got the daily update.

We now currently have 48 CV-19 inpatients (they’ve stopped breaking out how many are in ICU and how many are “just” hospitalized), 32 PUIs, and EIGHTY ONE tests administered just today sitting in our lab to be processed.

The PUIs are almost certainly positive cases, so doing the math, that’s 80 patients (already hospitalized + PUIs).

We’re currently clipping along at a positive rate of 9.3%., so those 80 pending lab tests should result in approximately 10 positive cases.

Taking us up to ~90 Covid patients.

I won’t post specific population numbers for my county (don’t feel like courting a doxxing) but we are a Level III community hospital with ~260 beds. And 24 of those beds a L&D.

So we could be looking at 38% of our non L&D beds occupied by CB-19 inpatients.
I’ve felt a lot of emotions over the last few months. Today was the first time I felt truly frightened.

Sorry if this is a rambling mess and full of typos. I’m exhausted and I don’t claim to be any good at math and shit but our situation is terrifying.

Wait...Bama Chck is not your real name?

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23 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

 

To belabor a point, look who reports news! The Houston Chronicle. Standby for TV news to quote this actual reporter and then call in a panel of experts to talk about it. Maybe the political shows can discuss how it may impact the election that's months off!

Or maybe the TV guys haven't beaten some other story enough to death to make time for something new.

Can they handle more stories than Covid and bounties on American soldiers? Hard to say. Somebody comb Blitzer's beard! And more hairspray!

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I guess it's only fair that the EU bans travel from the United States.  What amazes me is this information, the stock market... Rises!

Bama Chick- thanks for sharing, some personal observations.  Imagine what the levels of alarm would be if we were actually trying to figure out how many people were positive, rather than trying to figure out how to mute the real number.  I need to go back a month or two and repost my assertion that we would be exactly here, because of a determination so simply do out best NOT to do widespread testing.  Biting us in the ass and will be even worse in August, September, October.... as the problem and solution are still largely the same.

Without smart UNIVERSAL wearing of masks, combined with a massive boost in testing capability AND CONTACT TRACING (which is basically non-existent now) beating this virus will be about a likely as thinking that low tides never rise.

 

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6 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

That audio sounds terrible, but there has to be more context to this story. 

1) there does.

2) you know what this really drives home?  That we absolutely need to repeal the ACA and let private insurance companies make these decisions, and for DAMNED sure make sure that we don't have any form of universal healthcare.  Yep, that's my takeaway.

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2 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:


I literally was looking at the screen when I typed that.

It's quite bizarre -- I had it paused because I was watching the Fauci, et al testimony, so I was about 45 minutes behind.  The number I quoted is what was on the screen.  I fast forwarded up to the live broadcast and maybe 30 minutes ago the number dropped to what you quoted.

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7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

1) there does.

2) you know what this really drives home?  That we absolutely need to repeal the ACA and let private insurance companies make these decisions, and for DAMNED sure make sure that we don't have any form of universal healthcare.  Yep, that's my takeaway.

But the death panels 

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11 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

So my hospital woes have been well documented by me here because this is my only real “safe space” I can vent anonymously because my other social media is relatively public and under my real name. This isn’t a big city and everyone knows where I work.

Just got the daily update.

We now currently have 48 CV-19 inpatients (they’ve stopped breaking out how many are in ICU and how many are “just” hospitalized), 32 PUIs, and EIGHTY ONE tests administered just today sitting in our lab to be processed.

The PUIs are almost certainly positive cases, so doing the math, that’s 80 patients (already hospitalized + PUIs).

We’re currently clipping along at a positive rate of 9.3%., so those 80 pending lab tests should result in approximately 10 positive cases.

Taking us up to ~90 Covid patients.

I won’t post specific population numbers for my county (don’t feel like courting a doxxing) but we are a Level III community hospital with ~260 beds. And 24 of those beds a L&D.

So we could be looking at 38% of our non L&D beds occupied by CB-19 inpatients.
I’ve felt a lot of emotions over the last few months. Today was the first time I felt truly frightened.

Sorry if this is a rambling mess and full of typos. I’m exhausted and I don’t claim to be any good at math and shit but our situation is terrifying.

 

I appreciate the kinds of posts from a layman's perspective, and sorry for what you're going through.  By the way, what is a "PUI?"

 

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3 hours ago, Mdhorn said:

Can't wait to see MAGA COVID masks.  Those would absolutely be an artistic statement--irony and self ownership, and they wouldn't get it.  I bet you could absolutely sell the f'k out of them in MAGA country and get them to finally wear masks.     

I have not understood why these were not there from the beginning.

Hell you could make a mask that says "All lives matter" and I'd still be at least happy they were wearing a mask.  If Trump is all about  cashing in, I feel he missed a good money making moment.

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12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

1) there does.

2) you know what this really drives home?  That we absolutely need to repeal the ACA and let private insurance companies make these decisions, and for DAMNED sure make sure that we don't have any form of universal healthcare.  Yep, that's my takeaway.

The reference to the "state" was the tell. 

Sounds like the individual may have had a court appointed guardian.  Maybe what this drives home, rather than what appears to be a tangent about insurance companies, are some of the problems with the state appointed guardian programs of this state.  

https://stdavids.com/about/newsroom/statement-on-the-death-of-michael-hickson

"The loss of life is tragic under any circumstances. In Mr. Hickson’s situation, his court-appointed guardian (who was granted decision-making authority in place of his spouse) made the decision in collaboration with the medical team to discontinue invasive care. This is always a difficult decision for all involved. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mr. Hickson’s family and loved ones and to all who are grieving his loss.”

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19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

The reference to the "state" was the tell. 

Sounds like the individual may have had a court appointed guardian.  Maybe what this drives home, rather than what appears to be a tangent about insurance companies, are some of the problems with the state appointed guardian programs of this state.  

https://stdavids.com/about/newsroom/statement-on-the-death-of-michael-hickson

"The loss of life is tragic under any circumstances. In Mr. Hickson’s situation, his court-appointed guardian (who was granted decision-making authority in place of his spouse) made the decision in collaboration with the medical team to discontinue invasive care. This is always a difficult decision for all involved. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mr. Hickson’s family and loved ones and to all who are grieving his loss.”

Texas actually has pretty decent guardianship laws compared to a lot of states (somehow or other, and I tend to credit UT law school to some extent, Texas generally has pretty good laws).

What would be fascinating to learn is why his spouse was not appointed guardian.

The spouse could have taken the issue to court to get a full flesh-out of the issues.  I'm sure the ACLU or some other counsel would have been available to handle it.

While it sounds horrific and gut-wrenching, it may be just another reflection of our seeming obsession with extraordinary end-of-life measures.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Texas actually has pretty decent guardianship laws compared to a lot of states (somehow or other, and I tend to credit UT law school to some extent, Texas generally has pretty good laws).

What would be fascinating to learn is why his spouse was not appointed guardian.

The spouse could have taken the issue to court to get a full flesh-out of the issues.  I'm sure the ACLU or some other counsel would have been available to handle it.

While it sounds horrific and gut-wrenching, it may be just another reflection of our seeming obsession with extraordinary end-of-life measures.

I don't know the laws state to state, I only know what I have seen first hand. Court appointed attorneys bleeding little old ladies with legal fees.  

I agree that there is probably a lot more to the story.

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5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't know the laws state to state, I only know what I have seen first hand. Court appointed attorneys bleeding little old ladies with legal fees.  

I agree that there is probably a lot more to the story.

Yeah.  Nevada in particular has received bad publicity over guardians running amok, appointed by cronyism and unsupervised by the courts.

In Texas, courts pretty closely supervise guardians of the estate.  Annual reports are filed and scrutinized. etc.

This would fall under guardianship of the person, but I'm sure similar principles apply.

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Here's another aspect of this whole I'm not sure a lot of people are talking (enough) about. Crime is only going to go up as more people get desperate. Glad no one was hurt:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158746091481484&id=108425916483

For those not on fb:

 

Screenshot_20200630-140540_Facebook.jpg

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10 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

Here's another aspect of this whole I'm not sure a lot of people are talking (enough) about. Crime is only going to go up as more people get desperate. Glad no one was hurt:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158746091481484&id=108425916483

For those not on fb:

 

Screenshot_20200630-140540_Facebook.jpg

Yep.  That means its a great time to ditch the extra unemployment money and to allow for widespread evictions.

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1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

The reference to the "state" was the tell. 

Sounds like the individual may have had a court appointed guardian.  Maybe what this drives home, rather than what appears to be a tangent about insurance companies, are some of the problems with the state appointed guardian programs of this state.  

https://stdavids.com/about/newsroom/statement-on-the-death-of-michael-hickson

"The loss of life is tragic under any circumstances. In Mr. Hickson’s situation, his court-appointed guardian (who was granted decision-making authority in place of his spouse) made the decision in collaboration with the medical team to discontinue invasive care. This is always a difficult decision for all involved. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mr. Hickson’s family and loved ones and to all who are grieving his loss.”

I didn’t listen to the audio and don’t know any specifics of the case but my understanding is no matter what a patient wants or their self or state appointed proxy wants, no one has a right to continued care that is deemed futile. If the patient or their legal proxy disagrees with a decision to withdraw care deemed futile, typically another treating physician will be called in and if they agree further treatment is futile and the patient/proxy cannot accept it it goes to the hospital ethics committee. If the committee agrees further treatment is futile then all but comfort measures are withdrawn 

 

Does anyone here disagree that that should be the way to handle these things?

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Death toll bad. Trend in fatalities so far, at least in Texas, been ok.  We haven't see a spike correlated to the increased number of cases and hospitalizations.  We'll see if that holds...we are right on the leading edge of a two week window marking the spike in cases and hospitalizations. If the fatalities hold on trend, over the next couple weeks, that a really good thing given the trend in cases. 

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My county just had someone pass away yesterday who initially got sick in March.  The deaths can lag a lot.  I don't think it will as bad as the first round, but it's probably going to be worse than we are currently hoping it will be.

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2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Death toll bad. Trend in fatalities so far, at least in Texas, been ok.  We haven't see a spike correlated to the increased number of cases and hospitalizations.  We'll see if that holds...we are right on the leading edge of a two week window marking the spike in cases and hospitalizations. If the fatalities hold on trend, over the next couple weeks, that a really good thing given the trend in cases. 

Seems as if most of the spread is in younger folks. If their number keeps rising then it's only a matter of time before Covid makes its way to infecting older populations at a higher rate. Once that happens, fatalities will skyrocket. 

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2 hours ago, kevwun said:

My county just had someone pass away yesterday who initially got sick in March.  The deaths can lag a lot.  I don't think it will as bad as the first round, but it's probably going to be worse than we are currently hoping it will be.

I think that 14 days is probably a reasonable lag period on average.  Maybe stretch it to 21 days. Happy to reassess if there are data behind it. 

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I appreciate the kinds of posts from a layman's perspective, and sorry for what you're going through.  By the way, what is a "PUI?"
 

Positives Under Investigation

Basically, a pulmonologist has clinically diagnosed the patient through chest X-ray, physical exam, and observation of the patient’s symptoms but they are still waiting on the test results from the lab.

Our system doesn’t classify a patient as a CV-19 patient until there’s a positive test result.

For example, there was a shortage of swabs a couple of weeks ago and it caused a backlog in testing and some results were taking a week or more for results to come in. We literally had two patients with a textbook CV-19 lung scan and they were on vents but the hospital would not report them as Covid patients until the tests came back.
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10 minutes ago, Skyline said:

Seems as if most of the spread is in younger folks. If their number keeps rising then it's only a matter of time before Covid makes its way to infecting older populations at a higher rate. Once that happens, fatalities will skyrocket. 

Secondary spread is a huge concern, I agree.  It's spreading not only among the 20-30s but also among the younger kids as well.  Those kids give granny a hug and it;s showtime.  We are trying to lock down and control the interactions with the grandparents as much as we can but man its not an easy calculus.  Some of them only have so many years left on this earth. I can't tell them that they can't see their grandchildren for a year with a clear conscience. If I was in their situation, I'd be willing to take certain very measured risks. 

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The reference to the "state" was the tell. 
Sounds like the individual may have had a court appointed guardian.  Maybe what this drives home, rather than what appears to be a tangent about insurance companies, are some of the problems with the state appointed guardian programs of this state.  
https://stdavids.com/about/newsroom/statement-on-the-death-of-michael-hickson
"The loss of life is tragic under any circumstances. In Mr. Hickson’s situation, his court-appointed guardian (who was granted decision-making authority in place of his spouse) made the decision in collaboration with the medical team to discontinue invasive care. This is always a difficult decision for all involved. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mr. Hickson’s family and loved ones and to all who are grieving his loss.”

John Oliver did a great feature on guardianship a while back and there was focus on Texas and how shitty the laws are there and how much harm can to people trapped in that system.


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Secondary spread is a huge concern, I agree.  It's spreading not only among the 20-30s but also among the younger kids as well.  Those kids give granny a hug and it;s showtime.  We are trying to lock down and control the interactions with the grandparents as much as we can but man its not an easy calculus.  Some of them only have so many years left on this earth. I can't tell them that they can't see their grandchildren for a year with a clear conscience. If I was in their situation, I'd be willing to take certain very measured risks. 

And it’s spreading more amongst the young because of selfish dumbasses.




Roll Tide, y’all.
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3 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

I didn’t listen to the audio and don’t know any specifics of the case but my understanding is no matter what a patient wants or their self or state appointed proxy wants, no one has a right to continued care that is deemed futile. If the patient or their legal proxy disagrees with a decision to withdraw care deemed futile, typically another treating physician will be called in and if they agree further treatment is futile and the patient/proxy cannot accept it it goes to the hospital ethics committee. If the committee agrees further treatment is futile then all but comfort measures are withdrawn 

 

Does anyone here disagree that that should be the way to handle these things?

No and since we don’t know all the facts this is the type of situation that should not ever be politicized unless and until the facts are known.

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