Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[PhaelixWW]

It looks pretty flat. You would assume with that many patients with Covid you would see the hospital bed utilization spike way up.

I'm not really sure why you're calling that flat, because it's not. It sure looks an awful lot like the start of last winter.

Also, that's just inpatient beds. The ICU beds naturally look more like a spike. It's notably higher than the delta surge high.



Nobody's arguing that omicron isn't affecting the numbers. Just that there's little proof that omicron is affecting the numbers so severely as to necessitate a policy shift towards considering COVID endemic just yet.

Based on conversation with my father who used to be the head of a hospital, 85% utilization or lower is considered good. Too low and you ended up with people twiddling their thumbs.

Yes, it's been brought up before ITT, even in the early days of the pandemic:

hospital ICUs normally run at 60-80% occupancy.

That's why I responded the way I did earlier when you said that SF hospitals were running at 20% ICU occupancy (80% available) because that's just not going to happen.

[Corvus]

Interesting bit of data out if Australia - the state of Queensland have said the average age of unvaccinated in hospital is 39, which is 20 years younger than the average age of the vaccinated.

[PACOX]

A woman fucked around and found out.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/us/vi...threat-gun-loa

[Edge-]

A woman fucked around and found out.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/us/vi...threat-gun-loa

Link is broke so here's another - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virgini...-mask-dispute/

Good on her for realizing she done fucked up and reaching out to apologize when she cooled off, but this shit is not acceptable even if you're just hot headed. Can't believe shit like wearing a fuckin mask is getting people so heated they're just openly threatening to bring loaded guns to kill people. Especially after all this fuckin time.

[Captain N]

Link is broke so here's another - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virgini...-mask-dispute/

Good on her for realizing she done fucked up and reaching out to apologize when she cooled off, but this shit is not acceptable even if you're just hot headed. Can't believe shit like wearing a fuckin mask is getting people so heated they're just openly threatening to bring loaded guns to kill people. Especially after all this fuckin time.

Well if your comment that Conservatives see everything as Combat means anything. This is the definitive evidence to it.

[Forogil]

The source from my previous post.

Roughly two-thirds of COVID-positive patients at hospitals run by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services were admitted for something other than the virus.

Marin County hospitals on had a near-record high of 19 COVID patients — but at least 42% were incidental cases.

And that is also seen elsewhere - but it's also a bit more complex; which makes it hard to get accurate numbers, even if the trend is clear (so it could be 42% incidental and 66% admitted for something else even at the same hospital).

Clearly some are admitted for covid and some for issues totally unrelated to covid (like a broken leg; but even the ones unrelated to covid is a bit of problem for the hospitals - as they have to make sure they don't infect other patients (or staff)).

However, there's also a grey area with patients admitted for something other than covid, but where covid will make that disease significantly more problematic.

[Rasulis]

Doing deeper dive in HHS ICU utilization numbers.

California has 3 counties in the red (>90%) - Amador, Merced and San Benito. Small counties with low ICU bed capacity (4 – 24).

The counties that we know have improved. San Francisco was at 80% and down to 73.6%. Napa was at max ICU capacity on January 4, and now is 77.3%. Fresno and San Joaquin are doing better than Delta. Between August and early December, their ICU utilization was over 100%. Currently, Fresno is 78.1% and San Joaquin 86.6%.

LA the most populated county in CA is 65.9%, OC – 65.7%, SD – 63.4%, Riverside – 74%, Sacramento – 84.5%.

New York has 13 counties in red. All are 32-bed capacity or less. New York County ICU utilization is 84.9%.

Florida has 8 counties in red. Four are small counties, and four are medium size counties with between 50 – 100 ICU bed capacity. Miami-Dade is at 77.6% utilization.

Texas is just bad. It has 15 counties that are not red. Out of 15, 8 are over 85%. Most of their high population counties are in red. Dallas – 98.1%, Denton – 95.7%, Galveston – 91.8%, Harris – 87.7%, Tarrant – 95.5%, and Travis – 90.6%.

San Francisco has done a decent job of protecting its skilled nursing facilities residents. They account for only 1% of the official San Francisco Covid cases. Unfortunately, that 1% account for 19% of San Francisco Covid deaths. Around 100 of those deaths occurred during the previous winter surge.

[Forogil]

And now we have a new sub-variant, BA.2, that seem to be spreading even better than the original Omicron (at least it is outcompeting it in Denmark and India - some claim it was first detected in China and likely started in India); and it may confuse statistics since one simplify test will see as BA.2 as Delta instead of original - but assuming Delta is practically gone that seems easy to correct. (Still thinking that the pandemic-phase is likely to end soon.)

BA.2 It already are the majority of cases in Denmark, whose latest figure was that 4% were detected as cases last week (outcompeting Omicron); so it surely seems to spread fast. But it doesn't seem to be causing more severe cases than Omicron

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ons/ar-AAT2DGJ

[Endus]

Link is broke so here's another - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virgini...-mask-dispute/

Good on her for realizing she done fucked up and reaching out to apologize when she cooled off, but this shit is not acceptable even if you're just hot headed. Can't believe shit like wearing a fuckin mask is getting people so heated they're just openly threatening to bring loaded guns to kill people. Especially after all this fuckin time.

Like, the response to that e-mail just needs to be along the lines of "we appreciate your apology. We're still pressing charges, and if you meant that apology, we'll expect you to be submitting a guilty plea."

Apologies are good. Expecting forgiveness, especially legal forgiveness, is not. Pay the fuckin' price for your atrocious conduct, and don't whine about it.

Leniency from admission of wrongdoing comes in the form of the plea deal you work out with state prosecutors.

[Shadowferal]

[Forogil]

Video unavailable. Could you clarify the point?

[PhaelixWW]

Video unavailable. Could you clarify the point?

It's just a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch featuring the character of MacGruber, making fun of QAnon and the US far right's conspiracy theories, including their COVID misinformation.

[Rasulis]

Workers at a Wisconsin hospital sought new jobs with higher pay — then the hospital sued to stop them from leaving

A Wisconsin court has granted a hospital's request to block seven healthcare workers from leaving to start new jobs at a competitor.

ThedaCare, a hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin, asked the court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the employees from accepting jobs at Ascension Northeast Wisconsin, a competitor hospital.

Mark J. McGinnis, a judge for the Outagamie County Circuit Court, granted ThedaCare the temporary restraining order on January 20. Attorneys representing both hospitals agreed to meet the morning of January 24 to see if they could come to another resolution.

The granted order states Ascension must either give back ThedaCare a radiology technician and a registered nurse out of the seven workers resigning, or cease the hiring of all seven workers until ThedaCare has hired replacements.

[Edge-]

Workers at a Wisconsin hospital sought new jobs with higher pay — then the hospital sued to stop them from leaving

Yo, fucked up that at-will employees are legally prevented from working...anywhere? So they can't work at the place they quit, but they also can't work at their new job and get paid until...their old jobs they're not doing are filled.

Tell me society views workers as lesser than employers and as wage-slaves who serve the employer without telling us that explicitly, please.

It's amazing just how much of the society is barely holding together or grossly broken that are being highlighted by covid. Fuck ThedaCare, and fuck the judge that issued this ruling.

[Lenonis]

Yo, fucked up that at-will employees are legally prevented from working...anywhere? So they can't work at the place they quit, but they also can't work at their new job and get paid until...their old jobs they're not doing are filled.

Tell me society views workers as lesser than employers and as wage-slaves who serve the employer without telling us that explicitly, please.

It's amazing just how much of the society is barely holding together or grossly broken that are being highlighted by covid. Fuck ThedaCare, and fuck the judge that issued this ruling.

Well...this is likely a more complicated situation than it appears. For a few factors:
1) There is an accusation of poaching. The article didn't post the actual ruling so we don't know if the judge agreed there was.
2) If the hospital was able to put forward a case that this much loss of talent would result in patients lives being put at risk....I can understand the ruling.
3) It's not uncommon for companies to sue their competitors if they start losing too many people.

Now, that's all a bunch of "ifs" and speculation -- but I'm just putting out there it may be more complicated than a hospital trying to dick over its workers. I would also point out the lawsuit is not a block of the move but basically a "hey, work out a transition plan with us so we can serve our patients."

Again, it may just be a pure dick move by the hospital -- but it may not be.

[Rasulis]

Yo, fucked up that at-will employees are legally prevented from working...anywhere? So they can't work at the place they quit, but they also can't work at their new job and get paid until...their old jobs they're not doing are filled.

Tell me society views workers as lesser than employers and as wage-slaves who serve the employer without telling us that explicitly, please.

It's amazing just how much of the society is barely holding together or grossly broken that are being highlighted by covid. Fuck ThedaCare, and fuck the judge that issued this ruling.

"It is Ascension Wisconsin's understanding that ThedaCare had an opportunity but declined to make competitive counter offers to retain its former employees," the hospital said in a statement to a local ABC affiliate. "Given the unfortunate decision by ThedaCare to file a lawsuit to enjoin competitive labor practices, we will not be commenting further as this matter proceeds through litigation."

Yes. ThedaCare sucks. No wonder those workers left.

[Edge-]

1) There is an accusation of poaching. The article didn't post the actual ruling so we don't know if the judge agreed there was.

Poaching is 100% legal in at-will states. If you don't want to have your staff poached, treat them well and make sure they know they're valued.

Stopping employees from working anywhere at all is also completely, totally, 100% pointless and simply harms patients by preventing seven health care employees from caring for them.

2) If the hospital was able to put forward a case that this much loss of talent would result in patients lives being put at risk....I can understand the ruling.

That's not the argument, as the employees can't work at that hospital they quit anyways. They simply can't work anywhere until their previous jobs are filled. This is an arbitrary and capricious ruling.

3) It's not uncommon for companies to sue their competitors if they start losing too many people.

I'm sure, but what kind of examples are we talking about?

I'm just putting out there it may be more complicated than a hospital trying to dick over its workers.

See the quote from @Rasulis. If ThedaCare wanted to keep that staff they could have made a counter-offer to the employees. They chose not to, instead choosing to file a lawsuit to dick over its former workers.

It really does seem that simple.

[GreenJesus]

The source from my previous post.

Roughly two-thirds of COVID-positive patients at hospitals run by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Services were admitted for something other than the virus.

Marin County hospitals on had a near-record high of 19 COVID patients — but at least 42% were incidental cases.

Berkeley is experiencing a “phenomenal” surge in cases, but only three residents have been hospitalized for COVID-19 in December.

California hospital over time bed utilization looks pretty flat. You would assume with that many patients with Covid you would see the hospital bed utilization spike way up.



Based on conversation with my father who used to be the head of a hospital, 85% utilization or lower is considered good. Too low and you ended up with people twiddling their thumbs.

Exactly.. I can see 60-80% being effective business-wise. You need time for staff to take breaks, turn shifts, and maybe be able to give the patients you have more attention and care. But less than 60% and you just have too many people on staff and are bleeding money.

[Rasulis]

See the quote from @Rasulis. If ThedaCare wanted to keep that staff they could have made a counter-offer to the employees. They chose not to, instead choosing to file a lawsuit to dick over its former workers.

It really does seem that simple.

It appears that "at will" employment meant exactly that. Employers are free to fire their employees at will. However, if the employees try to quit, they get sued. The fact that the judge prevented from starting their new jobs with the new employer is BS.

[Edge-]

The fact that the judge prevented from starting their new jobs with the new employer is BS.

It's the arbitrarily cruel nature of it that gets me. Like, if the ruling was to force them to stay at ThedaCare until they could find replacements I could at least make some sense of that. It'd still be absolute dogshit of them to do, but at least you could see some line of coherent thought. Especially given the staffing shortages at many health care providers right now that are still a big problem.

This just basically nothing more than a giant, "Fuck you" from the courts. ThedaCare doesn't even get anything out of this, they just hurt their former employees. It's a wonder that employees would want to leave a health care provider that responds to multiple folks quitting this way.