Covid punishments....

[*Go Cards*]

(07-25-2021, 10:32 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: This is a great post.  Brother, I feel for you.  The past 30 months have been a virtual shit show about facts and misinformation.  We used to have honest, unbiased, REPORTING (not the political activists of today, but honest reporting) of information that was important to society.

What is a citizen to do?  They are surrounded by news sources, social media, and their own physicians and families all shouting different things.  Mission accomplished, social engineers, we are clearly divided.

Two points I wish to respond to about your post:

The first, is the point about hospitals stating "covid-like symptoms" and calling it covid for billing purposes.  100% accurate.  Why did they do that?  It wasn't just money and greed, though that is the root of it, but it had to do with their loss of their greatest source of income:  elective surgeries.  Hip and knee replacements pay everyone in the hospital very well.  I have no problem with that as it helped to balance out the poor reimbursement on things such as a COPD stay.  It wasn't meant to offset the loss of those surgeries, but that is exactly what the inflated covid reimbursement became.  And therefore(to your last point), you got vastly inflated numbers of covid cases, and fatalities.  Don't believe me?  Look at the number of deaths attributed to the flu.  It was barely a number.  Some tin foil hat moron said "See!  Masks work!  It almost eliminated the flu!"  Good grief.

The consequences of those inflated numbers was the fear-mongering that lead to massive shutdowns and economic crippling. And the worst is yet to come.  On a recent flight (my first since covid), there were virtually no restaurants open in the Philly and Boston airports.  Charlotte?  Booming.  Why the difference?  State leadership, I suppose, and I was told they couldn't get anyone to work those jobs.  If we think everyone taking handouts that are perfectly capable of working won't come back to bite this country in the ass, just wait.  

That all being said, the bottom line is covid is real, and is a serious threat to anyone that is elderly or immune compromised.  The nation had a huge dilemma:  Do they shut down to protect a specific group that likely is retire?  Right or wrong, they shut down to help protect those at most risk.  There is a flu shot, and it helps protect the elderly who are most at risk of death from the flu because they can't handle the stress on their bodies.  There is a pneumonia vax.  There is a shingles vax.  These are designed to protect people.   The fact that the covid vaccine is based on something called messenger RNA technology instead of a piece of the virus only makes it safer and more effective.  This technology has been around for about a decade or more and the scientist that developed it won the Nobel Prize for medicine.  It is being used for a number of rare diseases and represents a huge step in medicine.  There is a covid vaccine based on this technology and is accessible to everyone.  I look at it as maybe everyone doesn't need to get it but all those at risk absolutely should.  I got it because of my job and the fact that I take care of my folks.  

I don't consider myself one of those at risk, but if my getting the vaccine helps to open our country back up, I am glad to do my part.  

Agree and it is real just not the #'s that are being tossed around. 

This will be my last post on this but will give a perspective of how its been through my eyes. 

When it started it was taken super serious at hospital and still is as far as patient care. Yet other things have changed throughout this time. 
Like I stated before there was a mask shortage and hospital employees were banned from wearing any kind of mask until patient was diagnosed and put in isolation room. By then they'd already set in waiting rooms, transported through halls and ridden elevators. Then if a House Manager deemed that you were going into the said patients room and at high risk you were given one mask and a paper sack to put it in when leaving the room and reused throughout the 12 hour shift. This also included that  NO MASKS were to be brought from home and worn for some odd reason. There was a major shortage of masks until China sent some reinforcements a couple months into this plague. Need to stop depending on foreign countries so much imo. 

We all just accepted the fact that we would all get this most contagious disease in world history. For once any employee contracted it would spread through the employees like wildfire without masks being worn and our close proximity while working and riding elevators together.. We removed our shoes and clothes before entering houses and jumped immediately into shower as to not infect families. The women made these sort of thick Aunt Jemima style bonnets to cover their hair per not washing daily and we all used sanitizer like crazy and gargled with peroxide frequently. Yet its still transmitted airborne and were certain we would catch eventually. People heard the reports and were scared and stressed out and many quit per having underlying conditions or pressure from family. One of my colleagues was told she would never see her grandchildren again if not quitting and of course she did quit. Then they added money to unemployment causing nobody to fill positions lost. No Drs that I know of left but quite a few nurses left or retired and obviously they can't be replaced with just anybody off the street. Yet also lost a ton of non skilled positions that nobody filled the shoes of either causing every department to be short handed throughout and still is today.. Before this happened there was no overtime allowed now they pass it out like cheap Halloween candy and pressure you to take it. Obviously We are not like regular businesses and must run around the clock.  

Anyway after awhile strangely hardly anybody contracted even though being around patients who definitely had it, and it is real and very sad to see in its advanced stages albeit its not alone in this per many diseases are horrendous when in advanced stage. 

Death is no stranger to big hospitals and we have an entire floor of our tower dedicated to palliative care. The employees know it as the dying floor and nurses bag and tag daily here. But no covid patients are ever taken here. We have a morgue as sure all hospitals do and is rare to walk by without a funeral director standing outside to pick up body. Its not uncommon at all to pass dead patients being transported through hospital on a double gurney where the patient is in the middle and the drape just makes it appear as a flat table atop. There are between 4 and 15 code blues a day here and these Drs are bad ass at reviving you to offer another chance at life and do it often and skillfully. Yet sadly most only make long enough to get into critical care unit for a few days longer, but some do get better which makes effort worth it.

When this started the song Here Comes the Sun was played every time a covid patient was released. It played so often that that they quit playing it after a few months per it was gumming up other announcements. The point is am NOT seeing any increase in deaths or gurneys rolling around since this began. Even the Military set up tents outside of our ER to help with overflow but was never once used and handled by the short staff internally and they disappeared long ago. . 

We have 499 patient rooms with two massive surgery areas, 6 CT scanners that are in constant use around the clock, an endoscopy room that does 100 scopes a day on full schedule and everything else a major hospital in a city requires. Our hospital is made up of 10 buildings with Dr and cancer center included but 3 building that make up the patient rooms consisting of 18 floors total. The point is its a small city by itself. 

Presently 6 of our rooms are filled with covid patients and one in ICU for a total of 7 covid patients and we are at full capacity presently per it being deemed safe to comeback to hospital presently and every department is up and running. 
Its just not what is being claimed and many are put down as covid deaths and patients to get the government money imo. They're presently putting tens of millions of dollars into our hospital since this began and people in shipping and receiving claim they can hardly keep up with all the things being bought all of a sudden and the hallways are being used as warehouse overflow now. 

Will end again by saying that it is a real disease and nobody wants to be in the room for longer than necessary with advanced patients and do there job quickly and leave per it being so heartbreaking to watch them if on ventilator and all alone. But no longer to hospital employees that I know take all the precautions previously mentioned and never where masks outside of hospital or even when coming in. We all just get the one at the door when entering and remove as soon as possible only to put on where required. Because for instance I received my first vaccination on 1-4-21 and second on 1-26-21 yet had been exposed almost daily to covid for 10 months since February of 2020 as did all my colleagues with very minimal spread.  

 Take precautions but live your life folks, nobody gets out alive anyway. I now carry sanitizer in pocket and use if touching something that many others have touched, door knobs, teller machine screens and so forth and obviously avoid those hacking and coughing or clearly being sick if at all possible.  If not having sanitizer I use one hand as dirty hand and other to touch face with until I can wash hands again. But have eaten out most all my meals since this began and have already been to multiple concerts with many more on agenda. Plus date those who are working around these patients as well. Everyone must make their own decision on how to combat this and maybe you know people with horror stories different than mine. Ive had 3 funerals to attend since this began but sadly all had underlying conditions that were going to take them down regardless. Yet have usually had to attend 5-10 a year before this started. 
Maybe the deaths of your family and friends has risen and my condolences if so, yet I believe #'s are inflated and do not buy that one can have the most horrendous disease known to mankind without having a single symptom. But Im not a Dr or scientist just somebody who has been around it since day one.
Once vaccine is proven effective I can understand a mandate but completely understand those that are skeptical as well. especially since the bar is constantly being moved. 
Will not being coming back to this thread per this being an escape from this stuff like this and a place to talk about my beloved Bengals in lieu of work. 
Stay safe folks