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Health See other Health Articles Title: You Really Have No Idea This isn't a ramble. I have a number of lines of thought I've been stewing over at work all weekend, and I'll be going down each one until I'm done. Let's begin. 4000 is the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. now. (That we know about. Reality could be 100,000 or more.) If that original number doubles seventeen more times, the product is a number larger than the populations of the U.S. (330M), Mexico(137M), and Canada(37M), combined. IOW, it's virtually everywhere in North America at that point. (No, I'm not particularly concerned about the banana republics between Mexico and South America in this regard. They can lump it.) What I've read is that the outbreak is doubling every 4-6 days. So somewhere between 68 and 102 days from today, the shit sandwich on this continent reaches full maturity. If the spread of the disease is moving at that rate. If the current voluntary measures don't halt that growth, or even slow that pace. If it doesn't run out of people stupid enough to keep doing things to spread it. With the above caveats: May 22nd, to June 26th, give or take. It crests 100M cases a week to two earlier. Long before then, we'll have a great view of how lethal it is, and how many cases are serious. So by somewhere between mid-May and Mid-June, we'll either have metric f**ktons of people requiring hospitalization, and dead, or not. How much better or worse it is then will be a foolproof look at whether this is a nothingburger, or Spanish Flu. Oh, and if there are really 100,000 cases now, we get there a full month earlier. Now maybe you can figure out why POTUS said this will last through July or August, at minimum. And remember, the 85% (or more, or less) of all infected people who have symptoms ranging from none, to moderate flu, aren't the problem. They never were. They'll be just fine. It's the hordes dying in droves, and crashing the entire U.S. medical system that could put a kink in this country that'll last for decades. And crashing the stock market. And everyone going broke. And crashing the economy even after this passes. And so on. And so on. And so on. That's 5 1/2 months from now. How much food do you have? That little thought exercise should concentrate your minds wonderfully. ---------- Now, a reminder about some other numbers. 900,000 staffed hospital beds. And when I say staffed beds, I don't just mean doctors, nurses, and RTs. I also mean D.Os, PAs, EMTs, CNAs, pharmacists, radiology techs, facilities engineers, clean-up crew, supply workers, registration clerks, administration people, IT geeks, and hundreds of other clerks and jerks, without whose constant efforts and hard work, plus medical supplies in small mountains every single day, Dr. Hero and Nurse Awesome are just a couple of people in funny pajamas, and with about as much lifesaving ability on their own as there is actual magical ability in Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis. If it was just beds we needed, we could take all the surplus army cots from the 2M guys RIFFed from Uncle Sam in the 1990s, unfold them, and Presto!, have another 2M spots to dump patients. It doesn't work like that. I bring this up because if "only" 10% of Kung Flu victims require a hospital bed, because they're really that sick, then long about the time we hit 16,000,000 victims, in (44 to 66 days, so let's average it to) 55 days, we have more patients than we have beds for them. At that point, we're Italy. Say about May the 12th or so. (We may also have up to 480,000 dead, which if it happens would have crushed every ICU in the country 5 times over long before that point.) We've covered this before, but it bears keeping in mind. Keep your thumb in this spot, as we move along. ---------- This weekend, all considered, from purely a Kung Flu cases standpoint, was just ducky. Scenario One: You're in the military. In a combat zone. The enemy is known to have chemical weapons. One day, a shell whistles over from the enemy side of things, and goes off with a less than enthusiastic bang. Then another, and another. You see a hazy white cloud forming at each impact site, coalescing into a large white cloud, now drifting lazily towards your position. Do you Scenario Two: You're working in a hospital. An ambulance arrives, and unloads a patient spurting blood everywhere, who tells you he just arrived from the Congo, where he runs an HIV and Ebola Survivors Clinic, and tripped on the jetway and cut his leg open. Do you In case you were wondering, the correct answer to both scenarios is "d". You always assume the worst, from common sense, and institutional policy, and over-prepare, so you can deal with it easily if it turns out to be less-than. You don't grab your .22 to go take on that African Cape Buffalo, and then find out you needed a bit more to get it done. Unless you're a farking moron. I told you that story so I could tell you this one: ---------- Some days back, I stated that I didn't think we'd bring Kung Flu patients into the hospital, but instead, triage them in tents outside, then send the ones meeting criteria to some FEMA-set-up Kung Flu Treatment Center, staffed as possible, and serviced by dedicated Hazmat 9-1-1 ambulances, whisking members of the community there as appropriate, in full protective gear, 24/7/365. Because, as I argued with flawless logic, to do otherwise would be to a) risk our entire healthcare system being overwhelmed and destroyed, a la Italy, and b) make every other medical emergency impossible to deal with, thus doubling casualties from every other treatable and preventable cause of death, from heart attacks and strokes to appendicitis, because the entirety of any and every hospital would be filled with Kung Flu-infected plague petri dishes, in every nook and cranny. Turns out, TPTB, top to bottom, make the Italians look like Leonardo da Vinci. 1) We're not putting tents up everywhere. THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GETTING. Instead of learning from Italy's mistakes, and trying to save people and the overall healthcare system, we're going to keep on half-assing this until we're in it over our heads, and then drown. Instead of making the hard call early, and working the kinks out now, when it would have been easy, when it's five patients a week, we'll wait until it's 500 patients an hour, and then crash and burn in a glorious orgy of stupidity. I expect people to hit the wall. That last expectation was misguided, being most clearly irrational hubris overcoming a solid and well-founded pessimism about people in general, the universality of the Peter Principle, and the inevitability of people, left to their own devices, shooting themselves in the feet until they run out of feet, or ammunition. And then, reloading. Take care of yourselves. No one is coming to save you. Poster Comment: Author works in an ER on the West Coast Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 14.
#3. To: X-15, 4um (#0)
X, I did the best I could, got no family left (that I can trust. Just an estranged older sister that hates me for doing the right thing). Was taking care of my dying family. That's why I didn't get disability, set the biz aside to do what I had to do. Don't have anybody I could really call my friend anymore (your card from the accident in 2013 is the first thing you'd see if you come in my den). Used to have crews. They melted away after I got dusted off in 2013, but they all were Uhmerrikins and spoke English.
Thanks and glad to see you're still above the grass :) Those of us who practice a little common sense have a fighting chance.
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