CBS News reported that near Houston, Texas, hospitals are running out of COVID ICU bed space that transfer time is now several DAYS. The timer for a transfer is usually measured in MINUTES, tens of minutes, and occasionally, hundreds of minutes. But it should never go into THOUSANDS of minutes. Yet a patient more than an hour away from one of the largest concentrations of hospitals (80+ hospitals near Houston) is unable to find an ICU bed to take him for FIVE DAYS. ALL of the hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients. El Campo Hospital's ER has 19 COVID patients and 1 non-COVID patient. And it's been like that "for three weeks", according to Dr. Kakli. On the day Dr. Kakli finally found a bed for the patient in a Houston hospital, 5 NEW COVID patients were admitted. NONE were vaccinated. CBS News had previously reported that a Texas man who got gallstone pancreatitis died because all the other ICU bed spaces were taken up by COVID patients.
Idaho health officials have enacted "crisis standards of care" in 10 hospitals due to the overwhelming number of COVID cases. Residents are warned that they may NOT get the care they normally expect if they are hospitalized, esp. in northern parts of the state. Hospitals are now allowed to triage and reserve the treatment for the patients most likely to survive. Due to staff shortage, it is simply not possible to have one critical nurse per patient. Now, it's one critical care nurse and two non-critical care nurses watching over up to six patients. And hospitals are quickly turning conferences rooms and classrooms into temporary COVID wards, and many ER patients are left in the lobby or corridors. Rural hospitals are finding it nearly impossible to transfer trauma patients to the larger city hospitals.
It is worth noting that Idaho BARELY avoided declaring this step last year by ordering a state partial shutdown and slow reactivation.
Idaho Governor Little has already called in available aid from both the Federal government and the National Guard to help. It may not be enough. Idaho has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the US.
In other news, Hawaii governor David Ige has signed legislation releasing hospitals and staff from liability should an outbreak force the medical services to triage and ration health care. Despite orders to limit outdoor events to 25 or less, and indoor events to 10 or less, Honolulu police had to break up SEVERAL large events over the labor day weekend. With ICU and ER at capacity, Hawaiian officials fear the worst, as labor day can be another super-spreader event that will finally push the system over the breaking point, and they would be forced to implement care rationing.
Finally, several Oregon counties are requesting refrigerated trucks because their morgue is at or over capacity due to COVID cases, and the casualties are WORSE in 2021 than 2020.
In other words, if you are unvaxxed, expect to get sick, expect to NOT get the normal level of care, because all the unvaxxed people are getting sick. And if you died, you may not get buried in a timely manner either.
Don't be a COVIDiot. Get vaxxed ASAP.
