It’s easier to overthrow governments then international corporations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grand58742
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It’s easier to overthrow governments then international corporations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grand58742
Long as liberals are the driving force of that tech, we are going to be asked to sit in the back of the bus. It isn't like tv where we can just have a Fox news channel. We are going to either have to buy our way in with a hefty entry fee or make sure we are at the front of the new tech curve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grand58742
We were late to the game on the internet. We were late to the game when internet moved to personal phones. As conservatives we generally don't want to spend "lots of money on things that might work" and that is how we get left out in the cold.
My fiancee is an ER nurse (RN) at a major hospital in Indianapolis. She's been working with COVID-19 patients for nearly 2 months now.
About 2 weeks after the local closures, stay-at-home orders, etc. went into effect, the ICU at her hospital was already completely full, and they had to convert the PICU to an ICU. A few days later, the PICU was completely full (of COVID-19 patients).
You'll know that social distancing is working when everyone says it was an overreaction. That's the entire point.
Accordingly, the narrative that all the social distancing was done in error is farcical. Not trying to be combative, but that's about as polite as I can put it.
When I shared with her the opinions in this thread, she was as dumbfounded as some of us are when we hear certain left-wing politicians describe all black rifles as "machine guns" and call magazines "clips." Put another way, we are quick to criticize people that purport to be experts on subjects that they're not. I've seen a lot of us committing that very same sin ourselves ITT.
The downplaying of the virus/response to the virus is dangerous - full stop. She and her co-workers are starting to see healthy (i.e., no underlying conditions or comorbidities) patients in their 20s and 30s that are having the types of strokes that 75+ year-olds typically have.
When these stroke patients are tested, it turns out that they are COVID-19 positive, and that the virus caused major blockages (despite the patients being otherwise asymptomatic). There's still so much that the healthcare profession doesn't understand about this virus.
She and her co-workers are fearless going into work everyday. Meanwhile, I'm a nervous wreck every time she goes in. When I see people out protesting, packed together like sardines with no PPE, it's frustrating. It's like they're treating the lives of other citizens (including healthcare workers) as disposable.
This current situation is a public health crisis. It's real. Do we need to slowly start to open back up? Yes. And she's in support of that. But if we open back too soon, we will absolutely overwhelm the healthcare system, because when COVID-19 patients go on the ventilator, they stay on it for a long time.
I can't be the only one on here who has a SO or someone else they care about selflessly busting their butts in this crisis. Everyone can do what they want, but I'm more than happy to sacrifice a little of my personal freedom for a while if it helps other people live longer lives and enjoy their freedom when things get back to normal.
Some of the media coverage has absolutely been sensationalist (on both sides). If anyone has questions about what is really going on - feel free to post them, and I will share them with my fiancee.
Stay safe everyone.
It's hard for people to imagine they are wrong about something when nothing terrible happened.Quote:
Originally Posted by zibby43
It's like if we somehow prevented 9-11 but on that day we grounded every single aircraft and cancelled every single flight. People would still be bitching 20 years later about how the government SHUT DOWN the entire aircraft industry over some threat that they can't even prove could have happened.
Well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by SteyrAUG
A lot of people distrust the news these days, and as a result, they're less likely to believe/care about an issue in the news unless they have personally been touched by said issue. Also, from a psychology perspective, most people have a mindset that "X won't happen to me." In this context, "I am healthy; I don't have to worry about COVID-19."
The first week of the pandemic, I was getting firsthand reports of 30-year-old patients with 0 health issues going on the ventilator, people dying of multiple organ failure, etc.
Next to what my fiancee and her colleagues are doing right now to fight this pandemic, I feel pretty useless. However, whenever I have had an opportunity to share her ongoing experiences, it has opened some people's eyes. If anything, I feel blessed that we're in the central Indiana area and not in an area that's even harder hit.
She has friends that are travel nurses out on the east coast, and the stories I'm hearing from them are so horrific that I couldn't even dream them up. On a side note, she was one of the first nurses in our State to get a COVID-19 antibody test today. We think that she may have had it at the end of February (before all healthcare professionals in the ER were wearing PPE everywhere).
I've never seen her take a sick day since we've been together (5+ years). She was laid out by whatever she got (couldn't get a test back then). Sore throat, extreme fatigue, headache, nauseousness, runny nose. It eventually moved into her chest where she developed a nasty cough. She was prescribed antibiotics, but they didn't have an effect. Results on the antibody test are due in 2-3 days.
Why not share these stories because all I hear is geriatrics and co morbidity or just other serious health issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by zibby43
Here's the thing, and I said it somewhere else here earlier. A lot of people NEED to work. If for no other reason than because state unemployment isn't working. I mean that literally. Broken. Not functioning! My state is using a program written in the 70s on a server so old it's being held together by duct tape. I'm not making this up. They confessed to it last week. The state is now sending out financial determination letters of ineligibility AFTER the deadline for appeals! Some people, like me, have been waiting months for some news. It's at the point where THE STATE is putting up job applications for other none government businesses. Warehouses, nursing homes, supermarkets...etc..
This whole thing defeats the purpose of having a stay at home order if I'm laid off one job specifically so that I have to go get another! Just so you don't think I'm making this up
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...ac56faaec4.jpg
And here "life sustaining" means Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, 711, So not exactly serious. It's not like they're looking for farmers, firemen and doctors
On top of this self employed have not yet been able to file, which is where my dad is stuck at. Now he's trying to get a second job but he's in the risk group so I'm now working a part time job to help my parents despite the fact that I was working a full time job before this. My sister is now working TWO jobs!! One requires constant contact with other people. Then she comes in contact with other people. They can pass it to her, she can pass it to others......
Well, I guess the on going destruction of the economy is completely justified...better to be destitute and without dignity than dead. Because of course there aren't any things worst than death. We can always just print more money to fix things. I say just to be on the safe side we close it down for another 3 months minimum and if even one person dies from this, we shut it down another 3 months...if it saves just one life it's worth it.
What's the number of deaths that is tolerable? 1...2...3...20...2,000...20,000...200,000. If we really want to get serious about saving lives then lets get really serious. Lower the speed limit to 30 mph, better yet ban cars, planes, and trains. Ban smoking, alcohol again, swimming pools, guns, hammers, ban all forms of fire, ban social interaction, it's the de rigueur most dangerous of them all.
I’m really not trying to trivialize your concerns, but I disagree. As a physician who cares for these patients in the ICU, I understand what your fiancée is going through. However, I think many on the front lines are only focusing on what’s right in front of them, which is the 1-2 critically ill patients for whom they’re directly responsible. These ICU nurses not only have to care for the patients, but serve as a communication liaison to their families who are not allowed to visit them in the hospital. I understand that it’s tough, but I do the same thing. I’m the one that has to call the family to have the end of life care discussions, and to inform them that their love one has passed. This is a part of medicine, especially critical care. This is what they signed up for. We do everything we can to save a life, but sometimes we can’t. Maybe I’m just jaded.Quote:
Originally Posted by zibby43
One thing that we must remember is that these critically ill patients are not the norm. They never were, and with the increased testing we see that they are an even smaller percentage. The overwhelming vast majority of these patients have multiple comorbidities at baseline (e.g. obesity, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, etc.). I have seen only 3 patients in the 20-30yo range, and none of them were healthy at baseline. My hospital converted 4 of their ICUs (~130 beds) to treat critically ill COVID patients.
Don’t forget that hospitals are getting paid lots of money for treating COVID positive patients (e.g. $6k per patient per day). Many causes of deaths are being certified as “COVID” just because a patient has a positive test result, regardless of the actual pathology or sequence of events that lead to their death.
Early on the global medical community was preemptively intubating and mechanically ventilating patients who probably didn’t need it. Unfortunately, we thought the respiratory failure from COVID most closely resembled classical or typical ARDS. It took a couple months for us to realize that there were two phenotypes of COVID induced respiratory failure , that require different treatment modalities. Our previous treatment paradigm may have actually contributed to the morbidity and mortality in these patients. We have since changed our practices.
TL;DR: I just don’t understand these ICU nurses posting shit all over Facebook like it’s the end of the world - because it’s not.
As Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel 1969-1974 put it, "Danger avoided cannot be demonstrated." The circumstances of the time were obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by SteyrAUG
We are not in a police state...yet. As others have observed, this forum and many others would not exist. What is happening is a bunch of localized quasi-police states. Some cities and towns, with full-of-themselves mayors and eager police have formed environments very close to police states, limited by their locations and sizes. Governors, too, have overstepped their bounds, going beyond their state constitutions and the US Constitution. They don't even think about it. It is fortunate these petty dictators outed themselves before they can do more harm. Hopefully, people will remember their excesses. One must observe the eagerness of many, not just some police, which should be considered when fools say "They'll be on our side if SHTF." No, they'll be on the side of the paycheck, especially if you are not getting yours, and none others are available. No, that's not cop-bashing, it's reality, which has been repeated many times, and even in earlier times.