Fogbow

ZinWhit wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:05 pm The National Guard is setting up a field hospital in an empty former KMART parking lot across from the hospital in Roseburg, Oregon. It's in a great location, one of the busiest shopping areas in town. People get to drive by and remind themselves covid isn't real.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:11 pm I was going to ask why they didn't use the Kmart building, but I guess it would take too much time to clean it up?

tek wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 3:08 pm What part of FL?

mask mask mask.

We are back to observing carefully when we enter a store/restaurant down here. If it doesn't look like the staff or the customers are serious, we turn right around and walk out the door.

Residents of some counties are way better than other counties about this.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:07 pm SWFL is probably the least deathly, but even I wouldn't visit me right now.

ZinWhit wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:05 pm The National Guard is setting up a field hospital in an empty former KMART parking lot across from the hospital in Roseburg, Oregon. It's in a great location, one of the busiest shopping areas in town. People get to drive by and remind themselves covid isn't real.

Usually, when hospital officials talk about available beds, they mean staffed beds. But at Providence Medford Medical Center, where some units are operating at 120% capacity. That’s so many people, according to Providence Medford Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jason Kuhl, that "literally we're out of physical beds."

At St. Charles Health System in Bend, there were 62 COVID-19 patients Thursday taking up about a third of its acute care beds.Oregon has fewer staffed hospital beds per person than most states, so there’s not a lot of room to expand capacity.

”These are beds that are being utilized for these very important patients with a severe infection. But [COVID-19 patients] are also taking the place of beds that are much needed for other care,” said Jeff Absalon, the president and CEO of St. Charles Health. “When you hear numbers about capacity, what I want you to know is, we are at or over capacity in our hospitals throughout the state.”

Those full hospitals have spillover effects. At Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland, all four intensive care units were completely full.

System overload
This overloaded health care system has consequences for everyone, not just the unvaccinated.

Since the pandemic began, St. Charles has canceled or postponed over 3,000 scheduled surgeries.

”These are not cosmetic surgeries. These are patients that have cancer, heart disease, neurological disease, surgeries that are necessary to preserve life and function and they’re being delayed right now,” Absalon said.

Only patients with the most severe surgical needs are being seen, Absalon explained. “I don’t want to mince my words here: we are rationing care.”

Hospitals are so full that emergency departments are experiencing long wait times, bad enough that ambulances have to wait longer to get their patients in. And once patients are admitted to the emergency department, they could wait days for critical care beds to become available.

This is why Absalon is asking people to stop taking risks that could expose them to the coronavirus. And that doesn’t just mean avoiding crowded, maskless bars.

”What scares me the most about this is what’s been alluded to. If someone gets in an accident or has a heart attack or need for acute care, they might not get the care they need in a timely fashion,” Absalon said. “This is a time to really be cautious about your activities and keep yourself safe".

Joel Valdez isn’t in the hospital for covid-19, but he’s feeling its effect.

For 10 days, Valdez has been in a hospital bed at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston awaiting surgery after he was shot six times outside a grocery store as an unlucky bystander to a domestic dispute.

“Having broken bones and bullets in me for over a week now, it’s a little frustrating,” Valdez told KRIV over the weekend.

He tallied his injuries, which include a neck wound and three gunshot wounds to a left shoulder that’s in need of surgery: “Everybody is really surprised I’m still in this bed a week later.”

Valdez confirmed Monday afternoon he was still awaiting surgery when contacted by The Washington Post, but declined to be interviewed on the record.

At Ben Taub Hospital where Valdez is awaiting surgery, the intensive care unit was at 103 percent capacity as of Monday morning, with 33 percent of those cases related to covid-19, a spokesperson for Harris Health System told The Post. Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, the other public hospital in the Harris Health System, remains similarly stretched at 94 percent ICU capacity, with 54 percent of those cases covid-related.

Amanda Callaway, a spokesperson for the health system, said via email that in response to the influx of coronavirus cases, Harris Health System doctors must triage a patient’s condition and review the surgical cases throughout the day.

“Due to strained resources, surgical patients are being prioritized based on several factors, which unfortunately may result in a delay of nonemergent surgical procedures,” Callaway said.

The troubling fourth wave of the pandemic brought on by the highly transmissible delta variant and millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated is now straining hospital capacity in hard-hit areas such as Houston.

Last week, Arkansas reported its capacity had fallen to just eight ICU beds statewide while health officials in Mississippi warned that surging infections had pushed the state’s hospital system to the brink of “failure.” On Friday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) activated 1,500 members of the National Guard to 20 hospitals around the state to shore up dwindling capacity. Officials in Louisiana warned Monday some hospitals are “days away” from being so overwhelmed, ambulances won’t be able to transport patients.

p0rtia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:36 pm

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:07 pm SWFL is probably the least deathly, but even I wouldn't visit me right now.

Actually, I think Lee Cty Health's last release said something about having a 30% positivity rate.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:01 pm

p0rtia wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:36 pm

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:07 pm SWFL is probably the least deathly, but even I wouldn't visit me right now.

Actually, I think Lee Cty Health's last release said something about having a 30% positivity rate.

Crap! When did that happen? I hadn't checked in about a week.

ZinWhit wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:28 am Hope this wakes area spreadnecks up.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:11 pm I think I'm seeing fewer rather than more masks here in SWFL. I think I may go back to wearing gloves. A 30% positivity rate and less than 10% people wearing masks.

I'll probably get yelled at for this, but as I left $ Tree, I held open the door for a masked woman but dropped it for the unmasked person behind her. Fuck 'em.

Kendra wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:29 pm

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:11 pm I think I'm seeing fewer rather than more masks here in SWFL. I think I may go back to wearing gloves. A 30% positivity rate and less than 10% people wearing masks.

I'll probably get yelled at for this, but as I left $ Tree, I held open the door for a masked woman but dropped it for the unmasked person behind her. Fuck 'em.

Kendra wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:03 pm WA, day one of everyone wears masks indoors vaccinated or not. Went to Safeway, saw three employees without masks. Two of those were working in produce.