If you are willing to die so that your loyalty to the cult and the "tribe" will never be questioned, fine.

But you don't have the right to take other people with you.

It's time to seriously start talking about not wasting scarce resources on trying to save the lives of the unvaccinated.

They made their choice.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/editorials/article254287998.html

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article254283733.html

The day we all dreaded has finally arrived: Idaho is in crisis standards of care.

What does that mean to you? Be careful what you do out there.

The hospitals are overwhelmed with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients right now.

You probably shouldn’t go mountain biking, because if you wipe out and break your collarbone, it might be difficult to get proper medical treatment.

Be careful driving. You don’t want to get injured in a car crash right now.

Keep an eye on grandma and grandpa. Don’t let them fall and break their hip. They might just be sent home to heal up.

Need a knee replacement? You’ll need to live with that pain for a while more.

Don’t have a stroke, like Bob Ferguson of Tri-Cities, Washington, did while vacationing in Idaho. He needed an ICU bed, but none were available in North Idaho, so he had to spend two days in the emergency room waiting for a bed to open up.

Don’t get gallstones, like Boise’s Ophelia Ramirez did. She needed her gallbladder removed, but had to wait an extra week in pain for her surgery to get scheduled.

And whatever you do, don’t get COVID-19, especially if you’re not vaccinated.

The numbers show that nearly every patient in Idaho hospitals and intensive care units with the virus is unvaccinated.

This really is where the argument over health freedom breaks down. The decision to not get vaccinated and not wear a mask allows the novel coronavirus, and now its variants, to spread in the community. Because COVID-19 is so transmissible, so damaging and so deadly, it’s overwhelming our health care system — and that affects everyone.

Everyone.

Already, non-emergency surgeries are being delayed. Doctors who would otherwise perform routine checkups are being called in to help out in the hospitals, meaning you might need to forget about that annual physical or other appointment.

For COVID-19 cases reported in Idaho from May 15 through Sept. 11, 89.9% (39,256 of 43,672 total cases) were among individuals who were not fully vaccinated, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Unvaccinated individuals accounted for 91.1% of COVID-19 hospitalizations (1,683 of 1,847) during that same time period and 88% of deaths (316 of 359).

St. Luke’s reported that 92-94% of its COVID-19 patients in the past week have been unvaccinated. And 95-98% of its COVID-19 patients taking up ICU beds were unvaccinated.

Here’s an even scarier statement, from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s strategies during crisis standards of care:

“Universal DNR Order: Adult patients hospitalized during a public health emergency, when crisis standards of care have been declared, should receive aggressive interventions; however, they should receive NO attempts at resuscitation (compressions, shocks or intubation if not yet intubated) in the event of cardiac arrest. The likelihood of survival after a cardiac arrest is extremely low for adult patients. As well, resuscitation poses significant risk to healthcare workers due to aerosolization of body fluids and uses large quantities of scarce resources such as staff time, personal protective equipment, and lifesaving medications, with minimal opportunity for benefit.”

In other words, whether we’ve signed a “do not resuscitate” directive or not, everyone single one of us is now under a DNR directive in Idaho because we’ve reached crisis standards of care due to a deadly and overwhelming surge of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients in our hospitals.

And it’s all entirely preventable.

If people would simply get the vaccine, we could avoid all of this.

It’s as simple as that.

Please get vaccinated before you end up in the hospital or the ICU.

For your sake — and for everyone else’s.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2021 07:27PM by anybody.

her husband, 2 of her kids and their spouses, and 4 grand children. They are all vaccinated except my niece and her husband. She has an allergy to one of the ingredients in the vaccine. She has the virus, as does her husband. My sister luckily doesn't have it even if she spent a lot of time with her daughter the week she got it. They closed the school she teaches in. I don't know for how long.

I'm a vaccinated COVID patient and I do so hope it works for me as I'm pretty sick today. I was doing okay up until today, but not hospitalization material. But that scares me! As I didn't expect it to worsen after a week. Oh well. I'll get the booster, too. Why would you PICK to take a chance on this virus!

Hang in there cl2.

Maybe with your underlying issues you will check in with your MD sooner rather than later re how you're doing and definitely report any more worsening of symptoms and/or any new symptoms.

I don't think there's one expected course for this one such as with colds or even flu where you generally feel sick for a few days and then each subsequent day brings improvement and a steady course towards complete recovery. This one can throw out surprises.

Please update us as you can. Hope you're on the mend soon.

You've done your "due diligence." You got your vaccinations. But you got the virus anyway.

You are one of my mega-favorite posters on the board.

You will be in my thoughts (not prayers, because I no longer think they are worth anything) until you let us know that you're up and around again.

Fight with everything you've got, girlfriend - and know that we are with you.

Love and hugs -

catnip

That sucks cl2 :( I think you should talk to your doctor if you are not feeling better by Monday about Monoclonal Antibody Therapy. It seems to really work and could help you get over the hump. Keep us posted, you know some of us worry!

Sorry to hear that you got a breakthrough infection. People who claim "my body, my choice" made a choice for us.

My test came back positive about three weeks ago. Still struggling with cognition and energy level, but grateful to be alive.

Sending peaceful thoughts and healing wishes.

and things haven't changed much with how I feel since I posted this. I just got done talking to the doctor's office about 20 minutes ago. It took all day to get something settled. There is a committee who decides if you get the monoclonal antibodies and the doctor's office sent an e-mail to the committee and told me to send one. I meet the criteria for getting them, but it will depend on them.

I've been told that day 7 is a big day, but then I read day 5 can be, too, and I'm going into day 5. The thing is I want to believe I'll be fine, but then everyone tells me these scary things or I read them, but supposedly with the vaccination I should be okay.

Thank you for all your kind words. This has thrown me as I have been so afraid of it and I can't believe it caught up with me. Another think to thank my "husband" for!!! He's furious that I'm not getting approved RIGHT NOW. I can't believe how he is acting. He works at the hospital and knows a lot of the people and he is on the war path.

I'm really doing pretty good, but I fear the days to come. I'll be posting when I can. I don't think there will be a point I can't. Again, you are all so sweet. It really lifted my spirits reading what you wrote and, catnip, I agree, I only think in terms of in my thoughts.

My husband's still gay. I guess my prayers weren't answered. That's to be lighthearted. I'm glad he is still gay. It is a significant part of who he is. Now my boyfriend, he doesn't know yet what the doctor's office told me. He's the one who suggested monoclonal antibodies. He had been out of town for about 10 days and then I was exposed to this before he got back, so he hasn't been exposed.

Before my husband's results came back, I was already feeling sick. When he was positive, then I went and tested and I came up negative, but I have had the symptoms, so I tested again a few days later and I was positive. I read you can get false results quite a few times, so they consider me in day 5 right now. I'd say I'm further along than that. If I was further along, then I could quit worrying.

Quite possibly the most obnoxious, stupid denier I personally know is from Idaho. For many months he would show his state's (for a spell) low numbers as proof that it is all a gigantic hoax and in a "free state" (his words) you wouldn't be seeing any signs of the pandemic. Mind you this is someone who poo-pooed R-naught modeling, but suggested watching a video by David Icke on the matter. You know Icke, the mental defective that thinks shape-shifting lizard aliens rule the world. What can I say, this acquaintance is, how do I put this: a fucking idiot! Sadly, he votes.

"For your sake — and for everyone else’s"

Sadly, all too many people are taking the position of hey I'm healthy, it's just a cold, and they either don't get that their choices affect others or they don't care.

That attitude is hard to comprehend. Or maybe a significant number of people always felt that way in general and we didn't notice so much or it didn't matter as much as it does now.

An MD in Saskatchewan (a hard-hit province) said today that they are increasing ICU capacity by decreasing planned care. The reality of that emergency approach is that booked surgeries and treatment are being postponed (i.e. delaying patients with appointments to care for the onslaught of acutely ill people). She defined "urgent" as needing to be treated "within the next six weeks" according to a person's medical/surgical needs. She listed the top three categories of urgent/critical care needs as being patients with COVID-19, accident/emergency and cancer (surgery and treatments). She said their focus is "to save as many as we can who are facing acute illness".

The MD stated that they are now using their "Critical Care Resource Allocation Framework" which means that whoever has the highest likelihood of recovery gets treatment. Translation: Triage. That is essentially the DNR order you're discussing, anybody. I call it playing God but that obviously isn't the official name and isn't accurate and is likely offensive but it's my own shorthand. But you have to try and predict who has the highest likelihood of survival and concentrate your resources on them while others die. This is based largely on statistics (such as mentioned in the OP, that an older adult with co-morbidities in cardiac arrest has less chance of successful meaningful recovery than does a younger patient with fewer or no other medical risks). It's not a fool-proof system but is the best available approach at time of extreme emergency (and over-crowding and limited resources - including staff).

A news anchor asked the MD "Does vaccination status have any bearing on treatment decisions during triage?" and the doctor replied "No". This means that while this protocol is on, an unvaxxed person in critical condition with COVID-19 may well be intubated/vented while a non-COVID patient in crisis will not, depending on age, relative conditions of the two patients and other factors under the emergency protocol.

It must be unbearable for families of those who die to think that unvaxxed people get treatment while their loved one didn't. That would absolutely add to their grief a thousand-fold.

It can be hard to see why certain medical decisions are made.

So, this is where we've come to. Excruciating all 'round.

Sorry ID.

Sorry Saskatchewan.

Sorry Alberta.

Sorry everybody.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2021 08:01PM by Nightingale.

I don't know how so many do not believe in the medical benefits of vaccination, but then go to a hospital to be treated by medical professionals. I guess they don't get the irony.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know how so many do not believe in the
> medical benefits of vaccination, but then go to a
> hospital to be treated by medical professionals. I
> guess they don't get the irony.

Yeah, I don't get that either cludgie.

Shaking my head. Every minute of every day at present.

I like things to be logical and consistent. The anti positions are doing my head in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2021 08:03PM by Nightingale.

In Washington's Quad Cities area (Moscow, Clarkston, Lewiston, and Pullman), the damned Idahoans are sending people over the border. Ain't right.

Right. I'm pretty embarrassed to be in Idaho. Leave it to red states to need blue states to bail them out. Just sayin.

That's true of the pandemic and healthcare--liberal states with lower infection rates must absorb the surfeit of critically ill from Trumpian (not "conservative") states--but it is equally true of financial subsidies from Washington. If you list states by the ratio of their receipts of transfer payments from Washington over their payments to Washington, the Trumpian ones cluster at the high end of the scale and the liberal ones towards the bottom.

In short, those "small government", "rugged individualist" right-wingers are the true welfare moms of American society. Their states suck up national resources at a scandalous pace; they export debt to Washington as surely as they export the COVID comatose to their more prosperous and civic-minded liberal foes. These facts are quantifiable; they exist in government and private-sector databases and reports.

Yet the faithful, whether religious or political or both, disregard facts that contradict their mythical self-image. The Marlboro Man pretends that he pays his own bills as he rides herding cattle in publicly-subsidized fields and waters his crops with publicly-subsidized water. And when push comes to shove, they send their COVID-afflicted relatives to more responsible states where they receive publicly-subsidized healthcare.

It's tiresome for the rest of us to keep such irresponsible peoples on the doll at our expense.

Couldn't agree more with all points. The most curious thing is those living in Trumpian LaLa Land don't seem to grasp how outrageously ridiculous they appear to the functional adults in the rest of the world. Odd, to put it mildly, but suppose doesn't really matter as the dead are piled into fleets of refrigerated trucks. :\

Applause. Someone had to say it.

- Why aren't Sarah Palin and the RW media machine screaming about Death Panels? Oh, right. Freedom.

- Governor Wanna-Be Mammon Bundy is on record (April 2020) as saying he wants to get covid. Now's his big chance!

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/ammon-bundy-i-want-the-virus-now.html

https://www.kivitv.com/news/exclusive-one-on-one-with-ammon-bundy-on-his-plans-to-run-for-governor

Bundy is the governor Idaho deserves.

There are a lot of good people in Idaho. They, and the state and the country, don't deserve Bundy.

I find it maximally ironic that, on my computer, the news clip is preceded by a bright, cheery,upbeat ad for a multi-state medical conglomerate whose message is that all your troubles will go away if you just call them and let them cheerfully take care of you.It's called CareNow. I don't know if everybody gets that ad. They don't appear to have any presence in Idaho.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2021 12:14AM by slskipper.

"Covid 19: Making America Great Again!







...by attrition"

It looks like insurance companies have had enough.

Hospitalizing unvaccinated Americans cost nearly $6 billion over three months, report says

Insurance companies are increasingly shifting part of the cost burden of treating COVID-19 to unvaccinated people, a separate KFF analysis shows. In the early days of the pandemic, when no vaccine existed, most private insurers waived cost-sharing for patients under their plans or even covered the full cost of treatment for COVID-19.

As of November 2020, nearly 90% of insured individuals would have had their out-of-pocket costs — including copays, coinsurance or payments toward a deductible — waived if they had been hospitalized for COVID-19, according to KFF.

Now, with vaccines widely available, more than 70% of the nation's largest insurers are no longer waiving COVID-19 treatment costs, according to Kaiser, which surveyed the two largest insurers in each state and Washington, D.C.. Another 10% of plans plan to phase out cost-sharing by the end of October.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-unvaccinated-hospital-6-billion-dollars/

It could get worse. Back in the 1980s, during the height of the AIDS crisis, I was working in an industry that employed large numbers of gay people. One by one, health insurers that were willing to insure my company's employees dropped off. I felt that my company was in danger of losing health insurance altogether. It was one of the reasons that I left the industry.

For employers that decide to mandate Covid vaccinations, this could be a large reason why. The availability and affordability of health insurance could be a consideration.

Idaho - the 51st smartest state (includes DC)

https://www.khq.com/news/study-ranks-idaho-as-the-dumbest-state-in-america/article_d54b61ec-0fa4-11ea-9a14-dbd3e0a0ade1.html

Thanx for the laugh.

I agree, the unvaccinated deserve zero medical treatment, for putting the rest of us at risk.

That approach doesn't fly as it's out of line with medical/nursing oaths/ethics as they stand now.

Hence the agony all 'round.

DNR orders due to a patient's condition as well as prioritizing care (triage) are not the same as refusing care.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2021 04:38PM by Nightingale.

I'm glad, cl2. I was thinking about you today. I hope that your treatment goes well.