2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

[Phoenixmgs]

Everyone is so extreme.

Nurses and hospital staff are not so completely overwhelmed. I work across 9 hospitals (and all the offsites for each one) that are in rather populated suburbs, so not in the super dense cities. However, the nurses and staff in the suburbs of an extremely populated city (Chicago) have never been overrun by covid patients. I'm not saying it hasn't happened but that is not normal. Also, hospitals themselves are causing the patients to be funneled to hospitals over asinine policy like if you have a headache any satellite clinic sends you to the hospital because of possible covid. Clinics were near ghost towns a lot of the time because of this policy and lots of people got sent to the hospital for no reason. I saw it first hand, a lady was light-headed and had likely blood pressures issues (known issue she had) and she got turned away because she had a headache. Maybe she didn't go to the hospital because of the increase cost and something bad happened to her, maybe she did go and had to pay more than she could afford at the time and hospital staff had to take care of a patient that they shouldn't have had to, maybe she just went home and was fine, but whatever it was, it was pretty fucked up. That is policy of at least one other major healthcare system as well where I did some printer installs for a week. It's not like clinics can't treat early covid either. It's even worse that in the US covid isn't even treated early unless you find like the 2 doctors in your state that will actually treat you. People have been delayed treatments and screenings for stuff like cancer, my cousin graduated medical school to become a nurse for the cancer department and he waited months to start working because of the pandemic. There has definitely been or will be cancer deaths because it was caught too late (sure, it's probably not that many, but it is a thing). There's been so many failures in so many areas concerning the pandemic, it's pretty ridiculous.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

walking heart attack or grave dodger

What an interesting way to refer to other human beings. Let me ask, where is the cutoff age to you for being "worth saving"? 60? 50? 40? Or is it just anyone who's older than you, who is less healthy than you?

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Phoenixmgs]

In the psychiatric clinic where I work we've been running about 40-50% capacity for the last two months. It is an extremely slow period for us, likely because people don't want to go to a hospital during the pandemic. So while we have it relatively cozy, the people working the ICU's, IMW's and Covid adjacent wards in most of Europe are extremely overworked. As I said in an earlier post, the Swedish Care Union has seen a 28% rise in RN sick hours for 2020 compared to 2019, that's an absurd increase in one year and indicative of just how hard Covid-19 has hit. It is especially bad since those 28% aren't divided evenly but rather hit the aforementioned types of wards harder then us in psychiatric care or the orthopedic wards. So the same people that are bearing the brunt are on sick leave more often and are getting long term sick at much higher rates, which should scare everyone. Because there's a very real risk that ICU's and medical wards will be severely understaffed or running on diminished capacity for a long time after Covid-19 is over.

None of the hospitals I work at are understaffed (plenty of nurses at their nurses' stations like normal whether it's a department with covid patients or a department that has no covid patients). Sometimes we in IT get asked by a patient to see a nurse and I never couldn't find a nurse in a couple seconds at a nurse station and tell them such and such patient needs assistance. I can't comment on Sweden but in the US, where we did like everything wrong with regards to the pandemic, nurses being overworked is not the norm (not it's never happened) and this is in a state that had bars and restaurants open since the beginning of last summer (or late spring) the entire time throughout the fall/holiday spike.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Agema]

I want to give credence to your experience but I did a quick search for "us nurses overworked covid" and here's some of the articles I found:

One might point out that concerns over burnout also preceded covid-19 as well.

Nor should it be a surprise. Burnout is frequently due to excessive workload; excessive workload is the inevitable end result of systems that institutionally press for "efficiency" and so squeeze workers for ever more output with minimal additional cost.

The thing to remember is that in the eyes of the system, employees are not valued individuals. They are collectively just a resource, no different from the metal, wood, electricity, etc. that a factory would use to turn into gizmos. We as workers are just small, replaceable cogs in giant machines, and it is cheaper for bosses to wear us out and replace us than it is to care for us, because somewhere out there there is always a fresh-faced new worker ready to do the job. When they are chewed up and spat out a few years later, likewise will there be a replacement for them.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I want to give credence to your experience but I did a quick search for "us nurses overworked covid" and here's some of the articles I found:

‘No One Is Listening to Us’

More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.

www.theatlantic.com

Hospitals have put their pandemic plans into action, adding more beds and creating makeshift COVID-19 wards. But in the hardest-hit areas, there are simply not enough doctors, nurses, and other specialists to staff those beds.

A Parallel Pandemic Hits Health Care Workers: Trauma and Exhaustion (Published 2021)

Vaccines may be on the way, but many on the front lines are burned out. Has the government done enough to help alleviate their stress?

www.nytimes.com

Researchers say the pandemic’s toll on the nation’s health care work force will play out long after the coronavirus is tamed. The impact, for now, can be measured in part by a surge of early retirements and the desperation of community hospitals struggling to hire enough workers to keep their emergency rooms running.

Healthcare workers experiencing burnout, stress due to COVID-19 pandemic

Stress, anxiety, frustration, burnout and feelings of being overwhelmed were the most common feelings reported by those on the front lines.

www.healthcarefinancenews.com

The responses collected from the 1,119 healthcare workers surveyed indicated they're stressed out and stretched too thin: 93% were experiencing stress, 86% reported experiencing anxiety, 77% reported frustration, 76% reported exhaustion and burnout, and 75% said they were overwhelmed.

"I've had to recently tell my staff I might not be able to honor vacation. My staff deserve their time off and to not allow that is heartbreaking."
"Staffing shortage has been a chronic problem in US Hospitals even before the pandemic"

As I said, I'm in the part of healthcare that is coasting on relatively well but I also know that many of my colleagues in the ICUs, IMWs and medical wards are struggling to cope both with the demand for healthcare and the long term effects of their vulnerable and stressful working conditions. I am certain some hospitals are doing relatively well, but the US is doing just like Sweden right now: Where Covid hits, it really hits the hospitals hard and it is the nurses and doctors in the Covid wards that bear the brunt of that.

Also, from personal experience I can tell you that as a RN I am usually easy to find (that comes with being responsible for my patients nursing) but I am very seldom not doing something or many things at once. We learn to adopt an easygoing demeanor when someone comes and asks us for assistance, even if we are in the middle of three other things, because we know our patients need assistance and that we can't get pissy when they ask for the help they came to the hospital for. It should not be mistaken for a low workload however, because it is a vocational skill for us to hide our own stress.

Again, I'm not seeing it in any of the hospitals I'm at, they're Catholic run hospitals in northwest Indiana and central Indiana (so it won't be hard to find on google). Maybe because they're non-profit, they don't pinch pennies as much as other places. At the hospital I'm at now, they have "converted" a department for ER overflow but since I've been here for the past 3 weeks, they've only used like 2 of those extra rooms ever, they don't even have nurses at that nurse station even and got the lights off. We've went around ER to now 4 hospitals deploying devices on this project (last few months) and there's mornings where half the rooms have been unoccupied. ER seems basically as busy as it normally is as I remember it being hard to get into ER rooms during our Win10 project a couple years back because we had to manually upgraded those PCs because ER is 24/7 department and you can't just have the computers upgrade overnight when they could be in use. I feel like the departments like ICU have more occupied rooms than normal but most projects don't have us needing to get into patient rooms often so that estimation could be totally wrong. There seems to be just as many nurses as normal and they don't seem to be running around too much more than normal (they joke around and whatnot like normal), there's always a few at their nurse stations, though only a few departments actually do have covid patients though. They kinda sealed off the ICU and a small part of another department (not sure the name as they just use numbers for departments at this hospital) but it seems kinda pointless, you just need to put on a hairnet thing and some booties on your shoes and you can go in, other hospitals haven't done that though, maybe it's a state thing because this is the only Illinois hospital they run as the rest are in Indiana.

 

[Agema]

Again, I'm not seeing it in any of the hospitals I'm at, they're Catholic run hospitals in northwest Indiana and central Indiana (so it won't be hard to find on google). Maybe because they're non-profit, they don't pinch pennies as much as other places. At the hospital I'm at now, they have "converted" a department for ER overflow but since I've been here for the past 3 weeks, they've only used like 2 of those extra rooms ever, they don't even have nurses at that nurse station even and got the lights off. We've went around ER to now 4 hospitals deploying devices on this project (last few months) and there's mornings where half the rooms have been unoccupied. ER seems basically as busy as it normally is as I remember it being hard to get into ER rooms during our Win10 project a couple years back because we had to manually upgraded those PCs because ER is 24/7 department and you can't just have the computers upgrade overnight when they could be in use. I feel like the departments like ICU have more occupied rooms than normal but most projects don't have us needing to get into patient rooms often so that estimation could be totally wrong. There seems to be just as many nurses as normal and they don't seem to be running around too much more than normal (they joke around and whatnot like normal), there's always a few at their nurse stations, though only a few departments actually do have covid patients though. They kinda sealed off the ICU and a small part of another department (not sure the name as they just use numbers for departments at this hospital) but it seems kinda pointless, you just need to put on a hairnet thing and some booties on your shoes and you can go in, other hospitals haven't done that though, maybe it's a state thing because this is the only Illinois hospital they run as the rest are in Indiana.

Hospitals often do seem strangely quiet under covid. That's because ICU requires much higher staffing, so they tend to be concentrated into the affected areas, which people are almost certainly not allowed into without a good reason. Non-vital patients may have been cleared out, operations postponed, non-critical staff working from home where possible and visitors are likely to be heavily restricted.

Although of course burnout also includes emotional stress. Inevitably hospitals are places where people die, but in practice not that many. Covid has caused a huge amount of hospital death and that takes its toll on the carers as well.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Hospitals often do seem strangely quiet under covid. That's because ICU requires much higher staffing, so they tend to be concentrated into the affected areas, which people are almost certainly not allowed into without a good reason. Non-vital patients may have been cleared out, operations postponed, non-critical staff working from home where possible and visitors are likely to be heavily restricted.

Although of course burnout also includes emotional stress. Inevitably hospitals are places where people die, but in practice not that many. Covid has caused a huge amount of hospital death and that takes its toll on the carers as well.

All the departments are staffed liked normal, there isn't any "quiet" departments. Departments without covid patients are like 80% full, I just had to install 20+ devices last Friday in non-covid departments and almost all the rooms I went it had patients in them. There's was like 4 or so that were empty. The one part of one department that is covid, I asked if it was OK to got into these 2 rooms (since no covid sign on them) and they're like, they're all empty, we just keep the doors closed. The one department that is quiet is quiet because they really don't need it for ER overflow and it's literally not used currently.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

CDC just said you can see people if you're vaccinated. NO SHIT SHERLOCK. However, you have to "vet" people to make sure they're not lying about being vaccinated

 

[tstorm823]

CDC just said you can see people if you're vaccinated. NO SHIT SHERLOCK. However, you have to "vet" people to make sure they're not lying about being vaccinated

To be fair, nobody has been following CDC guidance the entire time. Between the people who think they know better and super overreact and the people who disregard safety measures, the total rounds up to 100% of everyone.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

To be fair, nobody has been following CDC guidance the entire time. Between the people who think they know better and super overreact and the people who disregard safety measures, the total rounds up to 100% of everyone.

CDC is so late to anything, it ain't worth paying attention to them. The video popped up in the news feed on Youtube and wanted to see what bullshit they are saying now, I can't believe dude said you have to "vet" people.

 

[tstorm823]

CDC is so late to anything, it ain't worth paying attention to them. The video popped up in the news feed on Youtube and wanted to see what bullshit they are saying now, I can't believe dude said you have to "vet" people.

I'm still irritated by last spring, when the CDC guidance was "wash yoru hands, don't touch your face, cancel public gatherings, and DON'T shut down businesses unless the health system is risk", and then a bunch of states went crazy and shut down all the small businesses leaving old people who didn't care about the virus to congregate at Lowes to get their house plants.

 

[Gergar12]

My state of Ohio decided to enable the vaccine to be taken at age 50 plus. Great right, now you can't even get ahold one if your 55 or older. I get the logic of wasted shots, but this is the PS5 all over again.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

The CDC director's intuition of "impending doom" is bullshit, shocker!!!

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm still irritated by last spring, when the CDC guidance was "wash yoru hands, don't touch your face, cancel public gatherings, and DON'T shut down businesses unless the health system is risk", and then a bunch of states went crazy and shut down all the small businesses leaving old people who didn't care about the virus to congregate at Lowes to get their house plants.

Which states shut down all the small businesses? Provide citations please.

 

[tstorm823]

Which states shut down all the small businesses? Provide citations please.

I will amend my statement, because I have only vague knowledge of other states, but I'm largely thinking of my state: Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania last March began with this: https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroo...nsylvanian-to-take-action-to-stop-the-spread/
That guidance is very close to the end state that most places reached. It's very much in line with CDC guidance at the time, and would still be except for the current addition of masks. Stop large gatherings, stop visiting vulnerable populations, limit restaurants, wash your hands, disinfect, stay home if you're feeling sick. And while there was separate guidance urging certain businesses to consider closing temporarily, it wasn't a mandate.

Then they did this: https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.tow...-11ea-ba4c-778e1c007dd3/5e760c683d14e.pdf.pdf
That is a list of what businesses were allowed to operate and which weren't. It's a dumb list. They had previously exempted pharmacies from their covid guidance, and decided not to include them in this list, and a pharmacists I know was inundated with phone calls making sure they'd be operating. Another company I know does printing as part of their operation, and the morning after this was published, the local hospitals were all calling to see if they'd be open, because they were putting together testing sites and needed signage, and the company genuinely didn't know the answer yet.

But like, getting past my complaints about the rollout to the part about small businesses. No, it doesn't say to shut down small businesses. What it does shut down is lawn and garden stores, florists, sporting goods stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, book stores, game stores, office supply stores, etc. But Target and Walmart sell food, so they get to stay open. Lowes and Home Depot sell home repair tools, so they get to stay open. The thing about small businesses is they tend to just be one thing, so if their one thing doesn't make the list, they're axed. Their competitors, the big chain stores, do more than one thing, so they got to stay open, and they sell all the things that were "non-essential" anyway. The end result is that people could still buy what they wanted in person but only in places like Walmart. I couldn't go to a locally owned game store, but I could certainly buy games at Target. And like, people were largely stuck at home, so a lot of people did projects around the house, so Lowes and Home Depot were just packed for months, because more specific stores couldn't be open to sell you new things for your garden or new light fixtures, but Lowes was allowed to.

Small businesses were disproportionately shut down by order of the governor, everyone who wanted to buy "non-essential" stuff was funneled into a half-dozen crowded stores run by mega-corporations, and that was the end result of their attempt to be smarter about disease control than the CDC.

 

[Gergar12]

Great I just got 6 nope 7 out of the 9 listed side effects from taking just one shot of the Pfizer. I knew I should have done J&J instead.

 

[stroopwafel]

Great I just got 6 nope 7 out of the 9 listed side effects from taking just one shot of the Pfizer. I knew I should have done J&J instead.

Doesn't that one have the same(although rare) side effect as the astra zeneca vaccin; combination of trombosis and thrombocytopenia(low platelet)? I'd take a slight fever or headache over paralysis or death. It would kind of suck when you have a negligent risk of complications from infection with the virus and then die from an auto immune response to the vaccine. Pfizer and moderna seem safest so far.