My area is experiencing a dramatic increase in drug overdoses requiring ER and ICU attention.
And since we are voting for who gets attention based on their morality, ethics and life choices…
I vote those folks go to the way back of the line. Or, if it’s a repeat offender they get no care at all.
Watch Dopesick on Hulu.
“While OSHA remains confident in its authority to protect workers in emergencies, OSHA has suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of the ETS pending future developments in the litigation.”
Can an EMT/ambulance team unilaterally decide not to take a patient to the hospital once the ambulance arrives at the call location? Fairly certain the answer is no.
We live in an extremely litigious country. I’m afraid that no rationing or way to limit unvaccinated patients would work. Hospitals will treat and doctors will treat and hope that our systems won’t be overwhelmed. They do not want to spend a bunch of money on lawsuits. There mission statement is to treat those in danger, that’s not doing to change.
The only way that changes is for medical malpractice laws to change. I’m pretty sure it won’t.
Regardless of how a hospital does triage or rationing when it is overwhelmed, wouldn’t there be vulnerability to lawsuits by any patient who arrives in the ER and ends up with a worse outcome because they “lost” the triage or rationing?
You can bet that parents of a kid whose appendix burst will sue the local hospital that didn’t have doctors and beds to take their kid due to the pediatric wing being converted to an extra covid wing, same thing if someone’s dad had a stroke and died because the ER was converted to covid triage and no one could take care of him. Whether the kid, kid’s parents, or dad were vaccinated is not the issue: right now, when covid patients overwhelm a hospital, they take away beds and doctors from everyone else and the situation is dire enough that people are being turned away or not treated in time – worse: it’s only going to get worse because Thanksgiving is upcoming then the deep of the Winter Season, which covid loves.
Presumably you mean that it is the season for indoor family gatherings, which are great for spreading airborne viruses…
yes, covid loves spreading when people travel (airports) then gather in enclosed space to eat together in close proximity, especially when it’s cold outside and would likely hesitate to open windows, then they leave and go home and meet more people whom covid can float into. 
Thanksgiving+Christmas+New Year’s= social gatherings
November-February = cold weather, short days, lots of time inside
March is still cold and snowy but days get longer, you can go outside more easily, and by April the worst is over. But November-February is holiday season for airborne viruses, so many people to contaminate! 
Hopefully vaccine armor&shield will protect most of us, so that it’s not TOO bad, but the deep midwinter is the scariest season if you want to escape airborne viruses, flu, covid… 
It’s quite the conundrum isn’t it. How do we treat all that need it with the resources that we have? Everyone pays in the end.
The vaccinated are getting frustrated by what they feel is a campaign of misinformation that they feel is affecting hospital and medical care for everyone.
This is true, and also the source of much of the frustration. Why should others pay (sometimes with their lives) for irresponsible “choices” of those who refuse to get vaccinated? That’s my main issue with the “choice” argument. People who “choose” not be vaccinated are not willing or able to bear the consequences of their choice. This is why, impractical as it may be, many people would like to see these people go to the back of the line when it comes to something like medical treatment. It isn’t to punish them, it is more to hold others harmless from the consequences of this “choice.”’
That said, I don’t think this sort of medical rationing is practical, nor do I think it will happen. But this imbalance of consequences is very good reason to support mandates. One should not be given a “choice” to put others at danger.
Where would that state be? I live in a state, Colorado, where the governor closed the ski hills (big industry), restaurants, almost all public schools and libraries and other ‘public’ things in 2020, and has encouraged vaccines in every group possible, plus now boosters. Are numbers are spiking and we don’t really know why. Our ICUs are full. We’re going back to mask mandates, requiring proof of vaccinations for any indoor event with 500 people (except church).
Yes, our numbers are higher than Florida’s.
CO and FL are similar in population vaxxed (63%/61% respectively) and yet here are their other numbers according to the NYT (all time numbers, not just now when it’s colder in CO so people are migrating indoors and nice in FL where people are migrating outdoors):
CO/FL:
per capita cases:
13,905/17,109
per capita deaths:
156/283
Personally, I think CO is doing better, esp considering that vaxxes weren’t available for most of a whole year’s cycle and vax rates between the two states are quite similar.
Whatever today’s snapshot numbers tell you, Colorado’s numbers have not been as bad as Florida’s . . .
Thanks for posting this link, @shawbridge . I think about this a lot-- how many deaths were actually Covid when they are not listed as such. I think we’ll have non-listed Covid deaths for years after the pandemic has subsided.
A healthy retiree from my hometown went on a cruise spring of 2020 and got Covid. She was hospitalized for more than 6 weeks and on a ventilator. Amazingly, she survived but they told her that her heart/circulatory system were profoundly damaged from Covid. She died in her sleep this spring of a heart attack. It was certainly because of Covid, but it wasn’t listed as such.
Florida’s covid numbers, this month, have been excellent. Moreover, Florida has a substantial elderly population more vulnerable to covid. I too wish things were different, but we do need to be objective in understanding what types of mitigation measures worked and what did not.
Some researchers have already begun data-based analysis of that, and hopefully we will be better prepared next time.
Some study in Texas estimated an additional 10k deaths occurred due to lax mitigation standards. Whether that is a reasonable tradeoff depends upon one’s perspective. Just as covid deaths are to some degree undercounted, so are noncovid deaths related to the lockdown.
@roycroftmom, interesting point with respect to non-Covid lockdown deaths. On a going forward basis, we should probably be looking at the health costs as well as benefits of various mitigation measures. I don’t think more lockdowns are likely, but I suppose if a new and highly transmissible variant appears, lockdowns may again become another option. It is not obvious that there are a lot of deaths that result from masks or social distancing, but what are thinking with respect to the health costs of mitigation measures?
No idea who the author is, but this piece caught me a little by surprise.
He states that gun violence is an issue on which one could take preventative measures to prevent unnecessary deaths. Gun rights advocates oppose preventative measures and fall back on individual responsibility as the only solution (though I think there is actually an attempt to evade responsibility as well at times). So, he argues that accepting any preventative measures for Covid would run counter to the underlying and deeply held beliefs on gun violence/gun rights. If you admit that the government should take preventative measures to reduce the risk of Covid, aren’t you also admitting that the government can take preventative measures to reduce deaths from guns? Hence the resistance to masks and vaccines. Not sure this is correct, but it is provacative.
PA is now reporting reinfections as separate cases. Numbers from a couple of days ago added 17,081 cases to our statewide account and over 100 of those were from my not very populated county.
I wonder if anyone putting off a vax due to thinking they had lifelong immunity from Covid itself will change their minds. At least numbers are out there refuting the claim.
That said, they don’t have hospitalization or death numbers from the reinfections to know where those stand. I hope they add them to compare to the hospitalizations/deaths post vaccine.
I’m also still curious to know if a combo of both Covid/vax or vax/Covid gives the best immunity.
Tonight will be the first time since early 2020 when my group from church will hold a birthday party for the kids in our local youth detention center. I got a text from the organizer that we will be required to show proof of vaccination. Glad I was responsible and managed to save multiple copies… It’s not that hard.
correct, anyone posting Florida deaths needs to age-adjust for state-by-state comparison. For example, Florida is 20+% seniors, whereas CO is 14.5%. (it’s a biostatistics problem.)