American Hospitals Buckle Under Delta, With I.C.U.s Filling Up

[RV_]

 

Excerpt:

"The summer surge in coronavirus cases in the United States, led by the domination of the more contagious Delta variant, is well into its second month, and the number of those hospitalized with Covid-19 has reached heights last seen during the overwhelming winter wave.

The number of those patients who are critically ill, requiring treatment in an intensive care unit, has risen, too. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the number of hospitals with very full I.C.U.s doubled in recent weeks. Now, one in five I.C.U.s have reached or exceeded 95 percent of beds occupied, a level experts say makes it difficult or impossible for health professionals to maintain standards of care for the very sick.

Where I.C.U. Beds Are Nearly Full Now

Occupancy by hospital referral region for week ending Aug. 12

In many states, hospital workers are seeing admission numbers that resemble what they saw at the height of the pandemic over the winter. Some are struggling to find enough beds, while others have employees working overtime and are relying on contract nurses and emergency medical technicians. Outside some hospitals, officials are erecting large tents to house everyone.

Dr. David De La Zerda, who has spent more than a year treating patients in the I.C.U. at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, thought early this summer that a drop in cases meant the crisis phase of the pandemic was near its end. That feeling lasted just four weeks. According to federal data, there were over 300 patients hospitalized with Covid in the Jackson Memorial Hospital system in the week ending August 12, up from around 70 at the beginning of July.

For health care providers like Dr. De La Zerda, the rise in cases feels like déjà vu — but the emergence of vaccines is worsening the blow.

“This virus is becoming a more preventable disease than before, when this was all new, because now we know that there’s something that we can do,” he said, referring to vaccines, which are highly effective at preventing severe illness and death from Covid-19. “There’s this sense of a lack of concern, but we all know this isn’t true because we’re working in the hospitals.”

The share of hospitals with full I.C.U.s is rising

Typically, coronavirus patients are admitted to a hospital when their condition affects their ability to breathe, according to Dr. De La Zerda. But if a patient’s breathing deteriorates enough or their blood pressure falls too low, they are taken to the I.C.U.

“Some of them are so sick that they are immediately taken there,” he said. “And it’s usually around the second day of admission that they either get better or they get worse, but it all depends.”

The national average I.C.U. occupancy in 2010 was 67 percent, according to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, though the occupancy baseline changes depending on the place, time of year and size of hospital.

The number of people hospitalized nationally has already surpassed the level seen during last summer’s surge, and it is still climbing. In some states, particularly in the South, the hospitalization rate is approaching, or has already reached, an all-time high.

Seven states — Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oregon and Washington — have hospitalization levels exceeding their most recent winter and summer peaks. There are few signs that the rise in hospitalizations is slowing nationally, although in Missouri and Nevada, where hospitalizations started rising earlier in the summer, the increase may be slowing."

The maps did not come over so you'll have to go to the link https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/17/us/covid-delta-hospitalizations.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20210818&instance_id=38151&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=89993563&segment_id=66502&te=1&user_id=6aa01e18b29f7b6f9149f611f8eac228

 

[TXiceman]

It is simple, get the vaccine and mask up.  What is so hard about that.  Some clowns personal freedoms to not wear a mask is encroaching on my freedom to lead a healthy life.

Mask it or casket.

Ken

[2gypsies]

No one has the right or freedom to harm another person!  Get vaccinated!!

[bigjim]

Told to me by a trusted medical professional about 2 days ago.  A young boy with a brain tumor needing treatment asap also tested positive for Covid.  I don't know the severity but not the worst at that time. Couldn't be taken in by that facility and treated for the tumor until the Covid issue is resolved one way or the other. They will work with the facility he was taken to as much as possible.  The person that related this to me is very upset and hurt. Let us just say it is in the Mississippi/Alabama area.

[Kirk W]

Edited August 18, 2021 by Kirk W

[RV_]

Can't see the picture Kirk.

Edited August 18, 2021 by RV_

[2gypsies]

I see the photo.

[rynosback]

22 hours ago, RV_ said:

Can't see the picture Kirk.

I see it.

[RV_]

I see it today too. What did you change Kirk? These are from FB right?

[RV_]

An Alabama doctor watched patients reject coronavirus vaccine; now he’s refusing to treat them

In Alabama, where the nation’s lowest vaccination rate has helped push the state closer to a record number of hospitalizations, a physician has sent a clear message to his patients: Don’t come in for medical treatment if you are unvaccinated.

Jason Valentine, a physician at Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Ala., posted a photo on Facebook this week of him pointing to a sign taped to a door informing patients of his new policy coming Oct. 1.

“Dr. Valentine will no longer see patients that are not vaccinated against COVID-19,” the sign reads.

Valentine wrote in the post, which has since been made private but captured in online images, that there were “no conspiracy theories, no excuses” stopping anyone from being vaccinated, AL.com reported. The doctor, who said at least three unvaccinated patients have asked him where they could get a vaccine since he posted the photo, has remained resolute to those who have questioned his decision in recent days.

“If they asked why, I told them COVID is a miserable way to die and I can’t watch them die like that,” wrote Valentine, who has specialized in family medicine with Diagnostic and Medical Clinic since 2008.

Alabama reported 4,465 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, increasing its seven-day average of daily infections to 3,728, according to data compiled by The Post. All but one county in the state have been deemed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as areas of high community transmission. There are more than 2,900 people in Alabama hospitalized because of COVID-19, the fifth-highest state total in the country. The number of hospitalizations is approaching the record set in the state on Jan. 11, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health, when the vaccine was not widely available.

The dire situation has strained the state’s hospital system to the point that there are more patients in intensive care units than there are available ICU beds, according to the Alabama Hospital Association. Don Williamson, the association’s president, told WSFA that there were 1,568 patients who needed ICU beds Tuesday but only 1,557 ICU beds for the entire state. About half of the people in ICU beds are COVID patients, he told WBRC, adding that patients were still able to get ICU-level treatment in parts of the hospital not equipped for such care.

Williamson did, however, note whether the ICU situation would look different if more people were vaccinated.

“Only 12% of the patients who are in the hospital today are fully vaccinated,” he told the station. “This could have been prevented had we gotten vaccination numbers to higher levels.”

Source with more here: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/an-alabama-doctor-watched-patients-reject-coronavirus-vaccine-now-hes-refusing-to-treat-them/

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, RV_ said:

What did you change Kirk? These are from FB right?

Never was from Facebook. It was from Google pictures, but shifted to a different source, when some had problems with Google pictures.

[RV_]

Ohh gotcha! Yeah online free meme sources can be poorly maintained or set up. Good one!

[Kirk W]

‘Vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,’ the ACLU writes in an op-ed

[rynosback]

And think about people dying from simple things because they can not get help from a hospital because it is full of Covid patients. Even though they got vaccinated to help stop the spread, they can die because of it. Makes you wonder if hospitals should turn away people that have Covid that have not been vaccinated? That way people that need procedures to live can get them and live.