There are going to be some terrible stories about what’s happening in our hospitals right now, and here’s one in the Guardian about New Jersey hospitals:
An emergency room doctor in northern New Jersey, who also feared retaliation and asked to remain anonymous, said his hospital has a similar caseload to Elmhurst Hospital, one of the hardest hit in New York City. […]
He describes how one 48-year-old patient’s oxygen levels dropped catastrophically low. The doctor rushed in without full personal protective equipment (PPE) so he could insert a breathing tube into the man’s airway, even as his patient was coughing up the virus.
An hour later, the doctor was on the phone with his patient’s daughter to update her on her father’s condition. He was grateful he had avoided a much more difficult call by making the choice he did, regardless of personal risk.
“The choice is stop and put on all your PPE, which can take a minute or two, or get on the most important stuff, and get in there and save his life,” the doctor said. “Not to be dramatic about it, but that quite literally was the choice that I felt I was faced with.”
[…] He said he thinks his hospital and New Jersey’s state government are doing the best they can in the circumstances, but is frustrated with the federal government, and especially Donald Trump, for minimizing the disease’s seriousness and creating what he believes are unrealistic expectations around available resources as well as how long this pandemic will last.“All of that as an emergency room doctor has made my work harder, not easier, and it’s made it harder in ways that are very tangible,” he said.
He describes walking into a shift weeks ago, when he quickly realized that within two hours of the president going on television and saying testing was readily available – even though it wasn’t – somewhere between 40 and 60 patients had flooded into his emergency room looking for tests.
The piece also documents nurses re-using disposable face shields and even running out of antiseptic wipes to clean them.
Trump didn’t make the virus, but he certainly made it worse. The lack of PPE, and the people listening to his lies and flocking to the hospital–probably the most dangerous thing they could do–are just two of the many things in this single story that can be traced directly to him. Trump’s lying, loafing and whining made these hospitals Trumpvilles, Trump Misery Manors and Trump Death Houses.
JPL
If the doctor would thank him preferable on Fox news, he’d get more supplies. am I right?
WereBear
According to sources in Florida, Trump makes big deal of sending PPE, then Jared shows up and takes back half the shipment.
joel hanes
Trump and his minions and allies slow-walked the availability of testing, because Trump thought that if the true situation were known, if there were to be accurate data about the number of infected, it would make him look bad, hurt his “ratings”, depress the stock market.
So they purposely sabotaged the test availability.
He still thinks that, so they floated the idea of ending federal support for the testing programs run by the states.
They deliberately lied about the nature of the crisis, while, in private, selling their vulnerable stocks and speculating on stocks that would be strong in a pandemic. They concentrated on destroying those remaining vestiges of accountability in the government, lest there be any IG or whistleblower to tell us what they had done and were doing.
This is premeditated.
MattF
@joel hanes: Well, it’s what Trump’s gut tells him to do, so I’ll quibble with ‘premeditated’. Meditating and premeditating are deliberately minimized in his repertoire. So, thoughtless and evil, worse is not just better, it’s only way. But the Orange Toddler’s minders chose evil, and are all guilty as hell.
SFAW
@joel hanes:
I’ll be a broken record here: This is why I have started referring to him as the Murderer-in-Chief.
And I can only imagine how much death and destruction will be caused by the Trump Depression. Which he’ll blame on the Chinese, the Demon-craps (esp Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer), poor people, and so forth.
SFAW
@MattF:
Quibble away, but when he makes it clear that he is sending ventilators to states with Rethug officeholders in jeopardy of losing their election, whilst screwing Blue states, it’s premeditated.
Citizen_X
You left off the Trump Graves that are necessary for the hundreds of coffins.
m.glafmer
I casually refer to it as the Trump Virus.
He’s not the cause, but he does like his branding.
OzarkHillbilly
@Citizen_X: You misspelled “thousands”.
MagdaInBlack
Because we cannot get masks, even for the techs, Thursday a corp person brought us cloth masks….and a furnace filter to cut up to fit them. Yes a furnace filter.
Friday they laid off everyone but the manager and estimator. Collisions, there are none to repair.
Today Im dealing with the Illinois Dept of Employment Security site.
(Also too, I changed the email, so Im in moderation. Please free me ☺)
Baud
1932 Election
Just in case anyone has any unrealistic expectations about how low Trump’s popular vote can get.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
“The Democrat Party said that hundreds of millions would die, but I managed to get that number down to less than 100,000, because only I know how to fix things.”
SFAW
@Baud:
If Trump gets below 75 percent of the vote, it will be proof of voter fraud. He thinks he can get 95 percent, just like his buddy Vlad.
japa21
@Baud: Yesterday’s Rasmussen poll had him at 43/56 approval/disapproval. When Rasmussen has him at that level you know it is bad.
Baud
@SFAW: If the body count is lower than estimated, we need to be vocal about thanking our Dem governors.
@SFAW: Couldn’t care less what they think it’s proof of. Let’s drive that number as far low as it will go.
@japa21: Maybe their poll manipulators are all out sick with COVID.
Baud
Why are so many things suddenly italicized on this blog?
ETA: And as soon as I asked, it’s gone.
SFAW
@Baud:
Agreed. I’d also add Charlie Baker (R gov of MA) into that mix.
Jeez, calm down.
SFAW
@japa21:
I thought I had read that Rasmussen had cleaned up their act to some degree. No idea if that’s the case.
ETA: I might be confusing Rasmussen with another pollster, although I’ve known about Rasmussen’s biases for awhile.
Baud
@Baud:
Looks like the right side panel is italicized on the front page, but not in this post.
SFAW
@Baud:
I’m also seeing that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: FYWP.
Sab
@SFAW: Also thank Mike deWine (R) in Ohio.
TS (the original)
Off Topic
I’m not doing so well on the grocery home deliveries – ordered (or thought I ordered) 1kg (abt 2lbs) of tomatoes. Got 1 tomato. Did the same with potatoes. I notice today they have now changed to prepacked delivery weights for fruit/veg – I mustn’t have been the only one making the store shoppers laugh.
WaterGirl
@Baud: It’s something in one of the front page posts. A similar thing happened on Thursday night when one of the Thursday posts caused an issue where the right-hand side didn’t appear at all on the front page.
In both cases, if you click on page 2 (toward the bottom of the front page) then everything looks right. That’s how I know it’s something in one of the posts.
On Thursday, I “scheduled” each existing front-page post to a time in future – until the problem went away. Then I put everything back to the normal time except the problem post.
I’ll try that again now – while I am waiting for my breakfast bread to bake – and see what’s up. I am trying the beer bread recipe NotMac put up, only i made a sugar/cinnamon/little bit of water mixture and swirled it in to make cinnamon bread. (And left out the garlic!)
Probably shouldn’t have messed with the recipe the first time I tried it, but.. ?♀️ How bad can bread be if you screw it up
edit: so don’t worry if you see something disappear from the front page for a few minutes, it will be back. i’ll start at the bottom, which are hopefully dead threads.
Shalimar
@SFAW: Rasmussen has a history of cleaning up their act in election years, so the skewed polls in the final month before the vote will show a strong swing to Republicans. Not sure if that is happening now or not.
Sab
In Ohio Dr Amy Acton wonders why more women than men test positive. It is because we don’t do so well on social distancing. And that is because we can’t go a lot of places alone safely.
My husband complains ( I desperately want to say he “bitches”) about little herds of women in the park chattering together.
I agree with his complaint. But they probably feel that they cannot go alone safely. And if their companion gets too close, what do they do?
I am one of three sisters. I am the only one who hasn’t had a near rape experience. I have always had huge dogs. Other women need friends with them. This is women’s world.
artem1s
I’ve been thinking that Land Grant Universities might be the only thing saving the rural areas of the Eastern US. A lot of them have the only large hospitals and staff. They support a significant part of their local economies. And they are providing a lot of basic services to folks who now have no where to turn. For the most part their staff leans left and they are the only pockets of Democratic voters in their counties. I’m wondering if we might see a resurgence of the rural Democratic voter, similar to what happened when FDR instituted the WWP and other New Deal programs that were targeted to helping rural Americas. The communities that were taught by Ronnie Raygun to hate those dirty hippy kids on campus might have a significantly different viewpoint of the value of having a large government run institution handy during an economic and healthcare meltdown. I’m hoping our governor – despite being a GOP Dominionist toady – is competent enough to start using the state universities and county community colleges as a way to institute statewide testing absent Federal help. OSU has already developed it’s own test. We have thousands of square feet of lab space across the state. A smart governor would start co-ordinating them (with nearby states and privately owned labs) to begin mass productions and stop waiting for Dumbass to get private labs up to speed. I can imagine it would be extremely difficult to do this, however,
We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win
The governor who steps up and takes on this healthcare challenge is going to run the table in the 2024 election. Whoever puts a statewide testing system into place to verify which of their communities can and cannot ease their lockdowns, will get their economies back on track more quickly. It could be Cuomo or Newsome. Or it could be DeWine or some other moderate Rethug. Kasucks blew his chance to be relevant during this crisis – King John has been hiding from mean tweets as far as I can tell. I sincerely hope that Dems just start working with whatever local resources they have and stop worrying about trying to get any support from Dump or overseas. It’s time to take on the challenge of producing the equivalent of 50,000 planes where there is no manufacturing base to support the effort. That’s the infrastructure the states should be focusing on re-purposing.
Rust belt America has abandoned factories, boarded up malls and big box stores run out of business by Walmart numbering in the thousands. You want to put people back to work, there is your new economy. Universities and community colleges to train the workers and space for the labs.
artem1s
@Sab:
I would argue that women are still the primary care takers for their immediate and extended families. Women are out there taking food to their neighbors. Men are sitting on the couch bitching about no sportsball on TV
Sab
@artem1s: Yes. That too.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Can’t they tell Jared to fuck the hell off? Jared’s just an errand boy with no autorateh.
West of the Rockies
I wish these stories of how the Blob’s incompetence affects people would be all over–not just MSNBC, the Post, BJ, and various online sites, but ALL OVER. Friggin’ Sinclair-owned conservative media is contributing monumentally to every problem there is.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
In a rational state/world, absolutely. Or a Florida with a Democrat as governor. But Florida/DeSantis? Seems unlikely.
WereBear
@trollhattan: Red states think pleasing Trump will save them. So, no.
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
I’m sure the FTFTFNYT will run an earth-shaking story/column on this. Maybe one co-written by Haberman and Hewitt (if the WaPo will let Hewitt opine in another paper, of course).
Roger Moore
@Sab:
I was going to go the other direction and say it’s because women are more likely to get tested when they feel sick, while men are more likely to try to tough it out.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: @Baud:
All fixed, I believe. Let me know if you still see it.
trollhattan
Oh goodie. Now how do I open my case of Lysol?
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Italics no longer there.
But the entire text appears to be translated into either Esperanto or Aramaic, not sure which. OK, maybe not that.
WaterGirl
@SFAW:
I have no idea what that means – hopefully it’s a joke?
debbie
@Roger Moore:
Actually, I heard men were more susceptible than women because women’s immune systems were stronger and more active, having been through childbirth, etc.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Yes, it was a(n attempted) joke.
Don’t worry, I haven’t quit my day job.
MomSense
@Sab:
Yup I’ll only walk alone in the woods if I have my dog with me. Last week I ran into a young woman walking in the woods alone. I got off the trail so we were more than six feel apart and asked her if it would be ok with her if I followed at a distance. She seemed surprised – until the lightbulb went off- and she said that would be welcome. She was very nice, a high school student from China who was staying here with her host family. I figured she was at risk for more than one reason.
SFAW
@MomSense:
Thanks for doing that. I’m sure she appreciated it.
Jinchi
Only if he has a couple of thousand swing votes in his back pocket.
Sab
@Roger Moore: That too. A friend/caretaker just lost a nephew. Age 27. Father of three kids. I don’t know what was different, but he is gone and those kids face a catastrophe.
I wish I had a hedge fund income so that I could help, but if I had a hedge fund income I would not help, I would be another shark in the pool.
I do hope those people do not know how angry we are.
West of the Rockies
@SFAW:
Does anyone anywhere take Baby Hughie’s little columns seriously? He is an intellectual lightweight even by Hannity standards.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
There are clearly differences between male and female immune systems, at least on average. I’m not an immunologist, but I have worked around immunologists for 25 years, so I’ve picked up a thing or two, and one is that there’s obviously some kind of sex-related difference in immune systems. Women seem to be more resistant to infections, but the down side is that they’re more prone to autoimmune diseases. And this is something that’s replicated in animal studies, so it’s not just a result of women being complainers or men being stoics or something.
MomSense
@SFAW:
I feel like I burst her bubble of feeling safe, though.
gene108
@artem1s:
Umiversities with needed expertise in areas to develop tests, textiles for masks and PPE, etc. are doing what they can, but even in states with good university systems you don’t usually have more than 1-2 top tier research universities that have resources to help with something innovative
Kelly
A note on masks. Mrs Kelly made us two layer masks from an old shirt. The flat wire and plastic closure thing from our Peet’s Coffee bags sewn into the top edge made a comfortable easily formed nose thing.
SFAW
@MomSense:
Understood. But better you, than someone with a different motive.
MoCA Ace
Trump Virus related.
Some asked for updates so here it is… my son (young and healthy nursing home worker) is in day four of his quarantine. Still a low grade fever with minor body aches and sinus pressure. He said he has little appetite and he feels really hot a night. Thankfully no respiratory symptoms. Also, they are not testing him, just assuming he has it based on symptoms and positive patients/coworkers he was in contact with. My wife insists on face timing him at least twice a day as he is alone in the house.
rikyrah
THIS is what just disgusts me. These folks are the ones who can keep us alive, and that muthaphucka can’t even make sure that they are protected. The rage I feel everytime I think about this.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
You are good people.
Brachiator
@joel hanes:
A very good indictment.
WaterGirl
@Sab:
My first thought is to wonder whether we are talking about sheer numbers, or about percentages? Because I can easily see more women getting tested.
dfh
Whoever says Trump is not just not doing anything, he’s actively doing harm.. is right. It’s on purpose.
And I’m glad to see this again: “lying, loafing and whining” — it’s totally correct.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Already doing that in IL. :)
Brachiator
@debbie:
@Roger Moore:
This was mentioned on a recent episode of the BBC math and everyday statistics podcast “More or Less.” You consistently see this difference, even though the reasons are unclear. Some speculate that it may relate to the fact that a gene for resisting infection is on the X chromosome, and women have two, among other ideas.
I think “More or Less” episodes are available on the BBC Radio 4 website, as well as on the iPlayer app, for those who know how to get it outside the UK.
rk
We had an update from the CEO at our hospital today. We’re in NJ. There are 3 possible scenarios. The best is that we hit the peak on April 15. We’ll manage if that happens. Worst case scenario is we hit the peak mid May. We’re totally fucked if that happens. Whole of NJ does not have enough ICU beds to deal with a May peak.
We were joking yesterday about when we would want to get the virus (everyone is convinced it’s a matter of when not if we all get it). One woman said she wants it after the peak so that there’s a ventilator available when she needs it. Another said she wants it when she has a bit more money in the bank. As far me, I want it when the treatment is available.
Betty
@MoCA Ace: Hope he is getting extra rest and hydration. Maybe do breathing exercises, just in case it drops down. Many people have experienced minor symptoms, felt better and suddenly had it hit their lungs. It is a strange virus that seems to follow a somewhat different course for each person. Wishing him a fast recovery.
Kattails
Hummm, it would appear that one of Ivanka’s trademarks with China involves coffins, as per Jon Cooper’s twitter feed.
Art
For Trump this virus has always been about him. His approval rating and how increased numbers of cases might look. The decision, direct or by implication, to delay testing. They couldn’t go with the WHO test, they had to have their own. Then the failures of the CDC tests, more delay, and ultimately they may have a 30% false negative rate. If you can get tested. Assurances, lies, that tests were available to everyone.
The downplaying of the virus. The promotion of drugs, made by people who payed (reported at over 1$ million ) to have Trump hear good things about them so he would dangle false hope in front of the desperate US citizenry. All the better to fleece the rubes. All of these failures and lies have come from Trump, people installed by Trump, and his allies.
Citing these facts, and the tendency of Trump to put his name on everything, I propose that from now on COVID-19 will be called “The Trump virus”. Trump, of course, will hate the idea.
So no down side.
Jinchi
Yes, unfortunately the Washington Post does.
Ksmiami
@joel hanes: the only question that should be asked these days is as follows: which Punishment does each Republican get? Death penalty, jail, or banishment. That’s it.
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: that’s why we can’t move forward till all of these criminals are dealt with to the full extent. they have directly led to the deaths of thousands
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Some Stanford dotors suspect the reason why California isn’t a disaster is because the virus swept threw the state last fall and winter. I could believe that because I had something last winter that matched all the symptoms for Corona virus and work is directly linked to Wuhan, with many people traveling back and forth.
But on the other hand, yes we all got sick, but no one more seriously than take a few days off work. Like my boss had what ever it is, and he is serious blood pressure problem. another coworker has diabetes and the VP has heart problems. So erm?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@artem1s: Doubt it, going but the small town my family is from the politics won’t change until old people die and new people move in
Jinchi
If the virus swept through the state last fall and we didn’t even realize it, then the rightwingers would be correct in saying this is nothing more than a new case of the flu. (Odds are you had the flu). California is doing better than other states, because we started social distancing much earlier and “flattening the curve” is working.
Keep in mind, this story is being pushed by Fox favorite “Dems have weaponized Coronavirus” Victor David Hansen. It’s part of their push to minimize the concern over the virus. Don’t fall for their propaganda.
charon
Piece suggests ventilators are overused, do more harm than good for many patients.
Patients do better with less invasive assistance for oxygenation.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/
Another linky perhaps relevant:
https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173/5
Headline:
Haroldo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Some Stanford dotors suspect the reason why California isn’t a disaster is because the virus swept threw the state last fall and winter. I could believe that because I had something last winter that matched all the symptoms for Corona virus and work is directly linked to Wuhan, with many people traveling back and forth.
This is a result of nonsense from the mouth of Victor Davis Hanson, from the Hoover Institute, which is affilitated with Stanford. He is an historian, and a pro-Confedrate one at that. NOT a doctor.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html
Another Scott
@rk: I’ve been glancing at the number-of-new-cases-per-day graph at the JH site for Spain and Italy (and some others). It doesn’t look to me like there’s going to be a sharp peak and a rapid decline that many seem to be expecting. Not overwhelming ICUs is vitally important (and the fall in seasonal flu cases has helped that greatly) of course, but 1000+ deaths per day in hospitals in the USA until something good happens (effective treatment; vaccine; widespread fast, accurate, infection and antibody tests; etc.) would be a disaster too.
There’s still too much complacency in the federal response.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@MoCA Ace:
Will keep him in my thoughts and send healing his way.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
It is not going to get better. Little Donny is bored, now, and he is eager to move on to something else. And besides, the pandemic takes attention away from him, and that is not a good thing in his rancid little mind.
Brachiator
@MoCA Ace:
planetjanet
@Baud: That is an eye opener. Thanks for the info.
StringOnAStick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That was not covid19, it was an influenza A virus that ran around the country at that time. Lawyers, guns and money has post up that explains this, a d that this idea is being pushed by Victor David Hansen, who is a military historian associated with Stanford via a RW think tank. The reporting is written so that you could easily think he’s a Stanford medical guy, and he’s not.
cain
@SFAW:
You can blame it on however you want, that doesn;t mean you aren’t in charge of fixing it. You still have to fix it.
Of course this guy wants to be given credit for fixing it for not even doing the most basic intelligent moves on fixing it.
cain
oh shit, has Jared taken those too??
SFAW
@cain:
Socialize the blame (i.e., anyone but himself), privatize the credit (i.e., only he gets the credit). That’s the way he has dealt with the world since who-knows-when.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Reading around it sounds like consensus is the only way to manage this pandemic is threw mass testing, and Trump no want that because it would means giving someone else power and taking attention away from himself and his cheesy wannabe mafioso patronage games.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@StringOnAStick: No surprise Stanford involves Conservate agend.
But again, that flue that went threw the place worked at happened at the right time for community transmission in California and outside international airport employees the kind of place were the virus would start spreading in the US. And it had all the symptoms described for Virus; repeated fevers, dry cough and fatigue that took weeks to shake off.
Virus gets into Wuhan factory and infects staff -> American engineer visits factory and is infected -> If that didn’t infect the American Engineer, have a crowded airport and an nice long international flight with many infected and contagious people ->American engineer infects coworkers back in the US.
Considering how contagious this virus is the amazing bit would be if we weren’t infected in Jan -March at work. It seems really odd to me that Silicon Valley doesn’t have a similar mass mortality rate like New York. I really though I was dead when I read on the news about the Virus in Wuhan.