Why should I wear a mask?

[skater91]

On 6/30/2020 at 12:42 PM, remoandiris said:

 Do you have something showing Dallas and Houston hospitals are overrun with Covid patients, or are your percentages of all patients?

And if I thought masks were not needed, I wouldn't have posted a link to a Stanford article on masks.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/06/29/texas-medical-center-pulls-icu-numbers-from-covid-19-resource-website/

I am in Houston right now. The numbers posted by TMC, when they last did that, were 97% of ICU beds occupied in the city of Houston (the Medical Center, Harris county public hospitals BentTaub, Quentin Meese, and other private hospitals). They reported 31% of the ICU patients as being COVID and the rest non-COVID. As I expected, the next day after these stats were made public, the governor ordered a cancellation of elective surgery. That order had the immediate effect of relieving pressure on the ICU bed situation by not putting post surgical patients in beds that might be needed for COVID patients getting sicker and needing to be moved to the ICU. Beds and how sick patients are in each bed, ICU or not, is tabulated hourly by each hospital, with nurses identifying those patients who are not responding to treatment. If you have 1000 patients in a hospital, sick with COVID, but not in an ICU bed, the stats of those who take a turn for the worse, based on 1000 patients, indicates the ICU bed capacity is overrun. Particularly when you still have NON COVID patients showing up that need ICU beds (trauma, burns, accidents, complex surgeries, people not returning to breathing on their own after surgery, etc.). There is no crystal ball or statistics for medical administrators to work from, only the data from New York and other cities that have experienced their surge to date. Based on New York, I think Houston is doing much better, but ONLY because we have the benefit of watching what happened in New Yorker and learning what worked and didn't work. To those who carp about the Gov 'ordering' folks to nursing homes-the Gov of NY only clarified what is standard practice-nursing home patients go back to their 'home', just like you wouldn't be able to dump off your live-in mother or father and not pick them up when they were well enough to go home. Where else would you put them? If the hospital kept every nursing home patient that was over their acute phase and was stable for discharge they wouldn't have any beds for acute patients arriving by the hundreds.

Texas Med Center stopped reporting, then reorganized daily stats to dispell confusion over ICU beds, because the lay public doesn't have the information or background to understand how raw bed numbers don't reflect historical ICU bed use in the summer vs the added demands of COVID critically ill people piled on top of those usually high numbers. I can understand why they did it-who would want to be piloting a plane with someone looking at your instrument panel mid flight and questioning your every move. But, as someone who can read the instrument panel, it sucks to now be in the dark.

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by skater91

[Kirk W]

25 minutes ago, skater91 said:

I am in Houston right now.

Thank you for that post! It really explains a lot that I had questions about and also the reason for the change in reporting, which I'm not sure was a good decision. Great post!

And before I forget, thank you for what you do, and please stay safe! We all owe you a big debt of gratitude. 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Kirk W

[skater91]

Kirk, Thanks for the shout-out, back atcha!

[bigjim]

On 7/2/2020 at 3:12 PM, 2gypsies said:

I don't know if this has been posted previously but it's interesting:

https://www.foxnews.com/health/bandana-is-least-effective-face-mask-material-study-finds

I would feel a little better if some that do nothing would at least use the bandana. Better than nothing.

[bigjim]

On 7/2/2020 at 8:35 PM, telcoman said:

I'm making one out of saran wrap for my wife

Are you also getting her a funeral plot for her birthday?

Way back when I was married I stopped getting my wife birthday gifts since she didn't use the one I got her for her 40th bday.  ....... a funeral plot.     TADA

Edited July 4, 2020 by bigjim

[Kirk W]

7 hours ago, bigjim said:

Are you also getting her a funeral plot for her birthday?

I saw an advertisement for cremations for only $600! I thought that I'd get one for my brother's birthday but they said that he has to be dead first. 

[telcoman]

1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

I saw an advertisement for cremations for only $600! I thought that I'd get one for my brother's birthday but they said that he has to be dead first. 

This is a common problem. My parents are in their 90's and are being rather inconsiderate by staying alive and delaying my inheritance. They do have a garden so we are thinking they may as well be useful ,and we are planning to compost them.

[Blues]

On 6/30/2020 at 11:27 AM, telcoman said:

I fail to see why some people are so inconsiderate of others. My parents lived through the blitz. They say this inconvenience is nothing. They had to black out their homes and huddle in there as bombs fell, and to top that off they were starving. Are we really this spoiled and self centered?

I would never defend non-mask wearers, but there are two differences.  One, during the Blitz, they could feel and hear and see the damage from the bombs for themselves.  Hardly any of us have been similarly affected by the health effects of the virus.  Two, they themselves were benefiting from blacking out their homes and huddling in their homes, while we're being asked to do things to protect others.

But on top of that, yes, we really are this spoiled and self-centered.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 5:19 PM, docj said:

I'm sorry to say this, but but I've begun to "discard" friends like this. I won't discard a friend purely over political beliefs, but if someone is willing to risk my health and the health of others because of their political views then I no longer have anything in common with them.

I'm glad you're having the fortitude to do this.  It's not easy.  And maybe it's a slippery slope that you don't want to start down, but this could be just an obvious manifestation of their callous disregard for others, especially when one of the others is you.  But examination of a person's beliefs, unrelated to the virus, could reveal similar disregard that doesn't happen to affect you, or so obviously affect others.  But it's there.

[Pappy Yokum]

20 hours ago, telcoman said:

Hate to brag but we do seem to be handling this better in the great white north. I think the key has been keeping politics out of it.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/07/03/canada-flattens-coronavirus-curve-newton-newday-vpx.cnn

 

Saw that piece on CNN when scrolling thru the channels. 

Interesting to note that the Conservative party supports the Liberal party in "Crushing The Virus". 

Leadership at it's best.

.