Coronavirus Outbreak

[Ken]

Could this be because regular doctors are not treating early and just sending everyone to the hospital?

Probably more like regular doctors are so over-worked that they aren't seeing many non-critical patients at all. So people are going straight to the ER because they can't get a regular office visit.

Why would regular doctors be overworked?

Covid. There already was a physician shortage in many areas prior to Covid. Now doctors are forced to do a lot of extra Covid-related duties to plug holes in the health care system. And their regular non-Covid related clinical work takes a lot longer due to all the PPE and procedures. So you can’t just crank through as many patients assembly-line fashion as before. Someone comes into the clinic with any sort of respiratory symptoms, everyone has to gear up with the PPE just to see them and all that takes lots more time.

Plus, due to all the previous lockdowns, there is a lot of deferred care that clinicians are trying to work their way through. Stuff that has just been put off. So it all compounds to the fact that regular doctors are swamped and it is really hard to get any kind of office visit for anything right now. At least in my neck of the woods. Prior to Covid if I wanted to see my doctor I could go online to the appointment system and see all kinds of open appointment slots a month or two out. Now there is literally nothing. Best you can hope for is a virtual visit perhaps. Unless you show up at an urgent care clinic or the ER.

[ohio jones]

Now there is literally nothing. Best you can hope for is a virtual visit perhaps. Unless you show up at an urgent care clinic or the ER.

And even there, a long wait can be expected. Mom went to urgent care the other day with an infection from a random deer antler puncture wound, and had to wait over 3 hours.

[Josh]

The Atlantic: Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning

A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.

Could this be because regular doctors are not treating early and just sending everyone to the hospital?

Probably more like regular doctors are so over-worked that they aren't seeing many non-critical patients at all. So people are going straight to the ER because they can't get a regular office visit.

What on earth are you talking about?

I can get an appointment within a few days at my doctor. For an emergency I can usually get same or next day.

For my son’s family doctor I can almost always get a same day appointment - not that I needed one, but it’s been easy to call up and ask to reschedule an upcoming appointment a few days later to suit our schedules.

Specialists? No problem there either, at least in our health systems in Ohio. Need a dermatologist? Found same day openings.

ER? Waited a few hours, waiting room was mostly drug addicts withdrawing. Got taken care of. Went and filled Rx at the 24 hour pharmacy across the street.

Urgent care orthopaedic clinic? Went in and got seen within 20 minutes. This was after hours - at 7pm. (They ended up sending me to the above ER as I didn’t have an orthopaedic injury.)

Got COVID? No problem. My business partner went to her family doctor (appointments available) and went in an ivermectin / FLCCC regimen (filled by local pharmacy and paid by insurance) and cleared right up.

Serious root canal? Got in for an “urgent” appointment (after asking the dentist to make a plea for a sooner appt). Procedure took over 2 hours due to being a complex case. (Not for me thank goodness!)

Maybe Ohio and rural Tennessee are some kind of utopia for medical care.

[nett]

Probably more like regular doctors are so over-worked that they aren't seeing many non-critical patients at all. So people are going straight to the ER because they can't get a regular office visit.

Why would regular doctors be overworked?

Covid. There already was a physician shortage in many areas prior to Covid. Now doctors are forced to do a lot of extra Covid-related duties to plug holes in the health care system. And their regular non-Covid related clinical work takes a lot longer due to all the PPE and procedures. So you can’t just crank through as many patients assembly-line fashion as before. Someone comes into the clinic with any sort of respiratory symptoms, everyone has to gear up with the PPE just to see them and all that takes lots more time.

Plus, due to all the previous lockdowns, there is a lot of deferred care that clinicians are trying to work their way through. Stuff that has just been put off. So it all compounds to the fact that regular doctors are swamped and it is really hard to get any kind of office visit for anything right now. At least in my neck of the woods. Prior to Covid if I wanted to see my doctor I could go online to the appointment system and see all kinds of open appointment slots a month or two out. Now there is literally nothing. Best you can hope for is a virtual visit perhaps. Unless you show up at an urgent care clinic or the ER.

Can't say I've had that experience, or talked to anyone in real life who has had that experience either. All of the GPs in this area are wide open.

[nett]

There appears to be a major blindspot in the "scientific" consensus that vaccines are super effective.

Multiple countries with very high vaccination rates currently have significantly worse COVID numbers than they did last year.


There could be a variety of partial explanations for this, not enough masking, not enough lockdown, delta variant etc.

None of those explanations really matter though, because the original metric of success for vaccines would be efficacy that enables us to return to normal life, and that the the virus would not mutate due to the vaccine.

The metric of success has now changed to vaccination rate, ignoring plummeting efficacy that is becoming obvious from epidemiological data.

from an empirical point of view, the vaccines don't work. Small studies about efficacy are superseded by the knowledge of entire countries that are > 80% vaccinated now have 10x the number of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations as at this time last year.

The explanations also fall apart when you consider African countries that are experiencing no comparable outbreak, despite low vaccination rates, relaxation of local and travel restrictions.

[Ernie]

Yes, some states are able to handle Covid patients in addition to their usual work and it is not having an adverse affect. Other states that are dealing with high Covid hospitalizations are facing situations like this.

https://www.fox10tv.com/news/us_world_n ... f886c.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... als-before

[Josh]

Yes, some states are able to handle Covid patients in addition to their usual work and it is not having an adverse affect. Other states that are dealing with high Covid hospitalizations are facing situations like this.

https://www.fox10tv.com/news/us_world_n ... f886c.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... als-before

Which has nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with hospitals extracting as much profit as possible by running bare-bones staff and not opening additional ICUs.

They've had a year to hire more staff, build more hospital wings, and open more ICU floors. And they've done absolutely nothing.

The fact that hospitals don't want to staff adequately does not mean I need to go take a dangerous vaccine developed using fetal stem cells.

[Ernie]

Which has nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with hospitals extracting as much profit as possible by running bare-bones staff and not opening additional ICUs.

Not an accurate assessment.

[Josh]

Which has nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with hospitals extracting as much profit as possible by running bare-bones staff and not opening additional ICUs.

Not an accurate assessment.

So, you don't think it's accurate that hospitals are running with more bare-bones staff then they did 10 or 20 years ago?

[Biblical Anabaptist]

Some of the shortage of staff may be a result of personnel quitting or being terminated because of their refusal to take the vaccine. Our neighbor lady has been a nurse (she hs been an RN for a number of years) in the local hospital for 25+ years. She doesn't know what she is going to do. The pressure is on to take the vaccine but she refuses to do that because of the adverse reactions that she has seen from the vaccine.