https://khn.org/news/article/montana-icu-overrun-with-covid-patients-staffing-shortage/The surprising statistic is that on average, among the continental states in the US, ~60% have now been infected. Vaxed percentage still around 35% in my small corner of the east coast and infection spiking. Yes, not all infected have to be hospitalized, but of those who are ~95% are not vaxed. It's like the flu shot, it may not keep you from getting it, but if you do it won't be as bad. Coming from a family with several doctors and nurses, I tend to listen to medical advice.
At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’
BILLINGS, Mont. — Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he’s on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital’s intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 — the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren’t permitted in these rooms, but the man’s mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
So much death and sickness that could easily be preventable by a free shot. It boggles the mind.The hospital announced it may soon implement “crisis standards of care,” which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It’s an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
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