Our Emergency Rooms Are Too Worn Down to Handle Another Wave

[Nevilledog]

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Craig Spencer MD MPH
@Craig_A_Spencer
Healthcare workers are exhausted.

Every time we come up for air another wave crashes and we’re drowning again.

Early in the pandemic we asked you to flatten the curve. But the next curve could truly flatten us.

My latest for @TheAtlantic

Our Emergency Rooms Are Too Worn Down to Handle Another Wave
Even a small surge could topple hospitals, and health-care workers already teetering on the brink.
theatlantic.com
7:51 AM · Dec 21, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/our-emergency-rooms-arent-ready-for-omicron/621080/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/fTGRI

Like most of my colleagues, I haven’t arrived at this moment unscathed. I weathered the brutal first wave of the pandemic, often witnessing more COVID deaths during my shifts in New York City than I saw working in an Ebola-treatment center in West Africa in 2014.

When I was vaccinated against COVID a year ago, I was already exhausted. But better times seemed close at hand. Perhaps soon we wouldn’t have to endure wearing full personal protective equipment for hours on end. I was wrong.

After two years of dealing with this virus—working extra shifts, watching families sob on grainy FaceTime calls while their loved ones slipped away—many health-care workers are already in a dark place. With a new wave of COVID upon us, we face this grim truth: You can’t surge a circuit that’s been burned out. For frontline providers, there’s simply no new fuse that can fix the fact that we’re fried.

Many people are holding out hope for the possibility that the Omicron variant may cause less severe disease. But this is little comfort for those worried about our hospitals and the people who work there: A large surge of even a more mild variant will still produce more patients than our already maxed-out system can handle. Moreover, doctors and nurses will themselves get sick.

*snip*

[Buckeyeblue]

1. This illustrates the problem with the unvaccinated

It's not about being able to refuse to be vaccinated. It's the downstream impacts of it. It's the other people you can infect, it's that you provide a vehicle for the virus to mutate, it's that you take up medical resources when you ultimately are hospitalized.

Getting vaccinated is like paying your taxes. It's for the common good. It's part of what you do to live in a free society. It's patriotic, really. It's a national security threat if we continue to have high rates of infection.

The irony is that the antivaxxers claim the vaccine infringes on their freedom. I think it's the opposite. Their refusing to get vaccinated infringes on my freedom.

[Irish_Dem]

4. The GOP is the party of ME ME ME.

They truly believe that their rights are the only thing that matters.

The concept of the social contract, civic duty, shared responsibility are all foreign and distasteful subjects for the GOP.

[Buckeyeblue]

6. Right! And yet they're the first ones to pull out the flag.

I personally am done with antivaxxers. I won't be friends with them. And I'm not doing business with them.

[Irish_Dem]

7. I feel the same way. Their attempts to kill me have not gone unnoticed.

[tanyev]

2. "Moreover, doctors and nurses will themselves get sick."

Yep, that could have horrible consequences. Even if they are only sick for a few days and get better, the staff at hospitals are stretched so thin that having lots of people not able to come into work will make things much, much worse.

[Docreed2003]

3. K&R

This is the current reality of every hospital in the country right now.

[2naSalit]

5. Are those field hospitals...

Not possible? I am thinking that a lack of personnel could be why but I haven't seen/heard anything about those in well over a year.

[LisaL]

8. My state can't even handle the already existing wave.

Hospitals are cancelling elective procedures. And yet we have omicron spreading and people congregating for the holidays, which no doubt will result in a bigger wave.

[bullwinkle428]

9. There is literally only ONE solution to this. Vaccine mandates, if one wants to

participate in essentially any aspect of society.

[Irish_Dem]

10. The GOP wants societal breakdown and institutional failure.

And a high death count.

They will blame the Dems, and weaken the country.
Weak, fearful citizens are much more able to be manipulated.

Part of the their war strategy to gain permanent power.

[Texaswitchy]

11. Yes.

Exactly.