How Long Will Covid Restrictions Remain In Place...?

[ABNAK]

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Even Tennessee’s largest hospital is running into capacity issues, with more than 200 staffers out sick with COVID-19 or quarantining because of close contact.

Tennessee hit a new high for hospitalizations over the weekend. Dr. Matthew Semler, a physician in the intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center caring for COVID patients, says patients are arriving from as far away as Arkansas and southwest Virginia because so many hospitals can’t take more patients.

“We’re already in a state where the vast majority of our patients now in the intensive care unit are not coming in through our emergency department,” he says. “They’re being sent hours to be at our hospital because all of the hospitals between here and where they present to the emergency department are on diversion.”

The Nashville Post reports Vanderbilt has begun converting beds in its children’s hospital to take non-COVID adult patients. The state has built out an empty floor at Nashville General Hospital to be used for COVID patients, but right now hospitals don’t have enough doctors and nurses available to use all of their existing capacity.

Oh that went out the window at the hospital where I work. They won't test you unless you're symptomatic, and if you've had close contact/exposure you continue to work if you are asymptomatic. Even though it's been shown that someone asymptomatic can still shed virus (though in theory not as much) they're hard-up for bodies.

Case in point: woman in my department has a husband who is COVID+. Occ Health wouldn't test her, told her to continue to work unless she showed symptoms.

The "guidelines" have changed since the Spring and the initial wave. I don't think it's necessarily due to more wisdom in dealing with COVID but instead practicality and needing warm bodies with stethoscopes. Kind of fvcked-up if you ask me.

[PracticalRifleman]

Oh that went out the window at the hospital where I work. They won't test you unless you're symptomatic, and if you've had close contact/exposure you continue to work if you are asymptomatic. Even though it's been shown that someone asymptomatic can still shed virus (though in theory not as much) they're hard-up for bodies.

Case in point: woman in my department has a husband who is COVID+. Occ Health wouldn't test her, told her to continue to work unless she showed symptoms.

The "guidelines" have changed since the Spring and the initial wave. I don't think it's necessarily due to more wisdom in dealing with COVID but instead practicality and needing warm bodies with stethoscopes. Kind of fvcked-up if you ask me.

Our institution has guidelines similar, but in practice it changes depending on who is making the decisions on a given day.


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[okie]

It was a student's article in a student publication, and lowest level info possible. Some interesting points made, but being taken way out of proportion and context to drive POVs. Taking it down was a mistake as it just supports the conspiracy types. The response by the editors was also useful in clarifying the facts. Having said all that, I woild not be all that surprised if in a year or so, once the dust settles and the data in, that all cause mortality not that much higher than prior years, and I touched on that issue a while ago on Medium:

https://medium.com/@willbrink/covid-...s-c1fb4ef96773

To be fair though that describes the vast majority of those journals at all levels, and that probably goes double for the average scholarly works on covid. They've never had problems with incomplete data, bias, and faulty logic before, so long as it supports their agenda.

[Business_Casual]

Let me ask you this, if I build a hotel with 100 rooms, should I keep 60 vacant at all times in case a tour bus shows up unannounced? If I build a hospital, which is also a business, should I as the administrator be concerned that it is near capacity or should I get a raise because I have accurately planned and executed my business model?

[PracticalRifleman]

Let me ask you this, if I build a hotel with 100 rooms, should I keep 60 vacant at all times in case a tour bus shows up unannounced? If I build a hospital, which is also a business, should I as the administrator be concerned that it is near capacity or should I get a raise because I have accurately planned and executed my business model?

If you’re the administrator of a hospital and plan to have empty beds, your license is likely to be taken away and Medicaid/Medicare are going to begin the recoupment process.

Hospitals are licensed and inspected for a specific range of capacity. If the hospital takes on a greater census than their license allows, they are in big trouble. Likewise, if they consistently have census below their license.

I know it’s trendy to blame the hospitals this month, but hospitals do not get to make the rules.


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[chuckman]

If you’re the administrator of a hospital and plan to have empty beds, your license is likely to be taken away and Medicaid/Medicare are going to begin the recoupment process.

Hospitals are licensed and inspected for a specific range of capacity. If the hospital takes on a greater census than their license allows, they are in big trouble. Likewise, if they consistently have census below their license.

I know it’s trendy to blame the hospitals this month, but hospitals do not get to make the rules.


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Well, hospitals can plus-up bed space in certain cases, but I'm sure you know this. Also the larger hospitals, academic medical centers, can be creative with allocating bedspace in ICUs. We are almost at 100% all the time, but based on admit holds in the emergency department and scheduled admits from surgery, sometimes we are over by as much as 10%.

Absolutely spot on, if you continually operate below census and have open beds, the state, which is at the end of the day who allows those beds to be open, will take a hard look on whether or not you need to have them open at all, and then the feds get involved as well.

Then you have the little 80-bed, 100-bed community hospitals, every closed bed or vacant room is real revenue they lose.

[a1fabweld]

How long will Covid restrictions remain in place? As long as you let them and as long as you’re willing to allow the Govt to restrict your constitutional rights.

[1168]

Yup. The change since spring has been dramatic. PPE such as masks, face shields and googles have always been single patient use, much like gloves. Then suddenly N95’s became like shoes.

When my last partner got Covid, we were literally eating off the same plate when she realized she couldn’t taste anything. Management got mad at me for not sending her home sooner with congestion, yet they made me continue to work, knowing there was 99% chance I had it too. While working a station rotation that primarily deals with the elderly. Couldn’t even use PTO because I didn’t have coverage. Another dude at that station had it and they kept trying to call him back in early, though he was bedridden. Rewind back to spring, and if someone found out you had travelled to see family, it was automatic 14 days off. Because think of your patients, right?

I must admit, I kinda liked the early lockdown. No traffic, and my patient contacts consisted of fewer “why did you call us, again?” and more “damn, that airway was super bloody”. Huge uptick in trauma, both intentional and unintentional.

Its just weird that we are keeping the restrictions as the new norm, while seemingly looking the other way from very real risks of exposing at-risk populations in small rooms and mobile metal boxes. The whole thing’s been frustrating, and I walked away from EMS for a while due to being overworked.

Oh that went out the window at the hospital where I work. They won't test you unless you're symptomatic, and if you've had close contact/exposure you continue to work if you are asymptomatic. Even though it's been shown that someone asymptomatic can still shed virus (though in theory not as much) they're hard-up for bodies.

Case in point: woman in my department has a husband who is COVID+. Occ Health wouldn't test her, told her to continue to work unless she showed symptoms.

The "guidelines" have changed since the Spring and the initial wave. I don't think it's necessarily due to more wisdom in dealing with COVID but instead practicality and needing warm bodies with stethoscopes. Kind of fvcked-up if you ask me.

[prepare]

Until they no longer serve their agenda or a new crisis they don’t want to let go to waste takes precedence.

[ABNAK]

Yup. The change since spring has been dramatic. PPE such as masks, face shields and googles have always been single patient use, much like gloves. Then suddenly N95’s became like shoes.

When my last partner got Covid, we were literally eating off the same plate when she realized she couldn’t taste anything. Management got mad at me for not sending her home sooner with congestion, yet they made me continue to work, knowing there was 99% chance I had it too. While working a station rotation that primarily deals with the elderly. Couldn’t even use PTO because I didn’t have coverage. Another dude at that station had it and they kept trying to call him back in early, though he was bedridden. Rewind back to spring, and if someone found out you had travelled to see family, it was automatic 14 days off. Because think of your patients, right?

I must admit, I kinda liked the early lockdown. No traffic, and my patient contacts consisted of fewer “why did you call us, again?” and more “damn, that airway was super bloody”. Huge uptick in trauma, both intentional and unintentional.

Its just weird that we are keeping the restrictions as the new norm, while seemingly looking the other way from very real risks of exposing at-risk populations in small rooms and mobile metal boxes. The whole thing’s been frustrating, and I walked away from EMS for a while due to being overworked.

Oh yeah, back then if you were exposed, God forbid actually testing positive, it was 14-day quarantine, and you got paid for it (for Federal employees anyway). Now I think it's 24 hours with no fever and not taking Tylenol to keep it down then you're back to work. If you're asymptomatic you keep on rolling bro!

Now, if you've been exposed they do their best NOT to test you. Like an ostrich sticking their head in the sand or Sgt. Shultz from Hogan's Heroes saying "I see nothing!"

COVID is indeed real and I sure as hell don't want it, but a lot of this crap associated with it is a facade pure and simple.