COVID

How the Sausage is Made

From SocoRuss

Do you think you could do a post about what you see as a medical person and covid. We hear from the govt and CDC we are all going to die and the latest variant will wipe out the world so we should hide and take the next 27 booster shots . We dont get to hear that much from someone like us who who skips the bullshit. But what are you seeing? Are you see large numbers of cases, how severe are the cases, what type of people are coming in? The healthy, the old and weak, the immune compromised? Is the large influx of illegals the cause of the number to rise? The big question would probably be who is getting covid more now, the vaxxed or unvaxxed. there seems to be more and more doctors studies saying the vaxxed are getting covid more now, whats the truth?. Whats you opinion and advice on this? I think a lots of your readers would like to hear this also.

OK. My ED sees between 200 and 300 patients per day. We are seeing about 50 to 60 people who have respiratory complaints each day. The majority of them wind up with cardiac, emphysema, COPD, and other infections like pneumonia and the flu. About 15-25 of those 50-60 wind up being diagnosed with COVID. How does that happen? The following is going to be a bit heavy in technical details, but I will simplify it as much as I can, so that it is more understandable.

We are a protocol driven hospital. Under the law, nurses can’t do anything that they aren’t ordered to do by a doctor. So hospitals using protocols have a set of SOPs that nurses enter into a patient’s chart, and a doctor (or other provider) signs off on it. These protocols can be entered by the nurse that is using their professional judgement, or they can be initiated by the nurse after being alerted by our computerized charting system generating a “best practice advisory.”

Hospitals have something called SIRS criteria, as pretty much every hospital in the nation does. When a patient arrives in the ED, they are initially triaged. The computer (and nurse) looks for the following:

  • Body temperature over 38 or under 36 degrees Celsius.
  • Heart rate greater than 90 beats/minute
  • Respiratory rate greater than 20 breaths/minute
  • partial pressure of CO2 (either end tidal or arterial blood gas) less than 32 mmHg
  • Leukocyte >12000 or <4000 per microliter
  • >10% immature forms or bands

If the patient has two or more of the above, the nurse will enter a standardized set of orders for tests. Those tests include tests for lactic acid, a CBC, CMP, and if appropriate, COVID/Flu tests, urinalysis, and other tests. If the nurse doesn’t enter those orders, the computer will alert them that it is best practice to do so. If the nurse STILL doesn’t do so, the computer requires them to enter a note in the patient’s chart explaining why they didn’t. The system is designed to do this so as to prevent human error from missing something important. Once those orders are entered, a e-note is sent to the provider (doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) who is in charge of that patient, and they will sign off on those orders. It’s a quick, efficient system that is designed to be safest for the patient.

If any of those tests or a physical exam shows that an infection is also present, the patient is said to be positive for Sepsis criteria. This activates an entire other process. Every attempt is made to identify the particular pathogen involved, but the important thing is to start aggressive treatment at that point, before the patient goes into septic shock. So they get IV fluids and probably antibiotics while we are waiting for the results of testing. Time is of the essence here.

If a patient tests positive for Flu A or B, or COVID, they follow a different path. They don’t get antibiotics. Flu patients get flu drugs like Tamiflu. We check COVID patients to see if their blood is clotting normally (INR, PTT, and other similar tests), they get a chest Xray, and we monitor their oxygen saturation. They get some IV fluids, and oxygen (if indicated) and that’s it.

Does this sound like familiar advice? For decades, we have known that viral respiratory illnesses need fluids and rest. Remember that water is nature’s expectorant. It thins out respiratory secretions so that they are thinned enough to be easy to cough out. If you are sick enough to meet SIRS criteria, you likely haven’t been drinking enough water, so we give you a liter or so of either Normal Saline (0.9% NaCl in water) or Lactated Ringers solution. The vast majority of them get sent home after being monitored for a couple of hours. Occasionally, one will get admitted, maybe one or two a day.

The demographics haven’t changed a whole lot. The ones who are the sickest have underlying conditions like cancer, advanced cases of diabetes, COPD, or other inflammatory or respiratory diseases. My hospital doesn’t see a whole lot of illegals, so I can’t comment there. COVID vaccine status doesn’t seem to matter one way or the other. I really don’t think that the vaccine does anything. That’s why I got the first series back in the spring of ’21, but haven’t gotten anything since. (I had COVID twice just a couple of months after I got vaccinated. I haven’t worn a mask since, yet I have been exposed to COVID at least once every working day, and haven’t gotten shit.)

I haven’t seen a COVID death in at least six months. We admit a few, but the VAST majority are treated and released. I will say that we are getting more cases lately, but I don’t see the cases we are getting now being as severe as the ones from 2020. I think that this is because of a few things:

  • We know how to treat COVID now. That wasn’t true three years ago.
  • COVID already killed off the weakest and sickest.
  • The original strain of COVID was the most virulent, IMO. These new variants are not as deadly as the first one.

We have had a lot of staff testing positive for COVID. We had 15 call ins just in the ED staff on the last day that I worked. It seems to be going around and is more contagious than before, but it seems to be no worse than the flu. I have been beefing up my immune system in the meantime by taking vitamins (especially C, D, and E), calcium, and zinc, trying to be a bit proactive.

Understand that this is the experience of one nurse in one hospital, and we all know that anecdotes are not data.

By Divemedic, ago

Now They Tell Us

I took Ivermectin and HCQ when I got COVID. It sure didn’t hurt. It may have helped, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell when there is an illness with a 99% survival rate.

By Divemedic, ago

Vaccine Banned

The CDC has banned the Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine and ordered all health care providers to destroy all remaining doses. I will say that I remember when claiming this vaccine was bad for you would get you a ban from social media. I’m betting that the friendly folks at the CDC and in government knew this all along, since they gave themselves AND the vaccine manufacturers complete immunity from all legal liability.

I will begin this by saying that I got the Moderna vaccine. I don’t regret getting it, because no one I know suffered ill effects after receiving it. At this point, I will not suggest that anyone take another dose of any of the COVID vaccines.

All of society, all of civilization, relies on trust. You trust that the person behind you won’t shove you onto the subway tracks. You trust that the cars in the oncoming lane won’t swerve into your path. You trust that the person who just cooked your meal in the restaurant didn’t poison your meal, or that the waiter didn’t spit in it.

Like society, the entire scientific community, the entire medical community relies on trust. You trust that the supplies in the package that says “sterile” actually IS sterile. You trust that the vial labelled as “dopamine” doesn’t contain something else, and that it actually will work for its intended use.

Likewise, when other medical professionals tell you that a vaccine is safe and effective, you have no choice but to believe them, because a failure in that trust means that the entire system will fail.

Believe it or not, nearly every medical professional got into the medical field because they want to make a difference. They want to help people. Only a person that is truly psychotic would deliberately harm someone else, but that is exactly what the CDC and the rest of the government has done.

Not only did they make the choice to deliberately harm people, but they did something that is far, far worse. They damaged the trust that underpinned the medical profession, and by extension, all of civilization. This was a deliberate attack. Not just a biological warfare attack, but an attack on the very fabric of our society.

EDIT: Now that Godwin’s law has shown its head, comments are closed.

By Divemedic, ago

Teaching Pigs to Sing

A report has come out, showing that math and reading proficiency dropped nationwide during the COVID lockdowns. Maryland students have the lowest test scores in reading and math of any US state or territory, with only 19 percent of Maryland students performing math that is appropriate for their grade level. Some schools in Baltimore had NO students who were proficient in math.

It doesn’t take long to figure out why. The scores are available online. It isn’t that the test is too hard or that teachers in general aren’t doing their jobs- there are schools in Maryland that had 91% of students proficient in math. In general, whites and Asians score higher on standardized tests than do other races, and the more affluent a student is, the higher the test scores.

The 5 cities with the best scores (racial makeup, median household income) were:

  • Bethesda: 88 percent white and Asian, $173K
  • Ellicott City: 83 percent white and Asian, $136K
  • Clarksville: 87 percent white and Asian, $161K
  • Rockville 68 percent white and Asian, $116K
  • Glenelg 88 percent white and Asian $181K

Some would see that and think that there was racism involved. That is what “equity” is all about- looking at outcomes, then trying to make them the same, but that is simply saying that correlation means causation. Instead, let’s look at the correlation and see if we can find the causation.

Parents who make more money do so because they value education, hard work, or some other trait. That doesn’t always mean college- it can mean trade school, learning to run a business, something. Those parents are also clever or intelligent, which is inheritable. The point is, parents who make money tend to impart the values that made them successful upon their children. Parents who are not successful pass their traits on as well. So children in affluent households tend to be successful. The children in poor households tend to be less successful.

How do you fix this? School and teachers can’t. Teachers who are with a student for less than 1100 hours a year can’t fix 18 years bad parenting coupled with the handicap of losing the genetic lottery. All of the programs in the world won’t turn a student with a 75 IQ and no motivation into a scholastically successful person. In that case, you are doing nothing more than trying to teach a pig to sing.

The other thing that I would like to point out is that the response to COVID had an effect on an entire generation of students, who lost learning opportunities that will hurt them in lost learning gains, thereby affecting them for their entire lives. The knowledge gap that they have as a result of missing a year or more of school will cause them to play catchup for years.

By Divemedic, ago

Back Pay

So now the military wants to reinstate those who were kicked out for refusing the vax, complete with back pay. So what happens to those who were kicked out, but whose normal EOAS date has since passed? Do they still get their checks? Or is it only the ones who agree to be reinstated?

But who says that any of them want to serve under the freak show that is their chain of command?

By Divemedic, ago

This One is a Better Example

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I don’t think that the collapse of Damar Hamlin had anything to do with the vax. However, if you want to see a great example of the collapse of a young athlete, look no further than the collapse of Old Dominion sophomore point guard Imo Essien. He collapsed about halfway through the first half a basketball game after having trouble catching his breath.

The team will be sending him to see a cardiologist before allowing him to return to play. Twenty year old collegiate athletes don’t typically collapse from idiopathic cardiac events. Granted, there is no evidence either way as to his vaccine status, but it would certainly be something to keep an eye on.

The pro vaccine folks are already calling it fake news because it isn’t like the collapse of Hamlin, but in my opinion the fact that it isn’t like the collapse of Hamlin is exactly WHY it needs to be looked at.

By Divemedic, ago

Misinformation

I am sick of hearing people talk about how this person or that one is spreading misinformation, and how people who do should be silenced, deplatformed, or even jailed, when this is the timeline of COVID vaccines, as told by the MSM:

November of 2020: Moderna said Monday that early analysis from its Phase 3 trial shows its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5 percent effective at preventing the illness, offering hope of a second breakthrough in as many weeks. The news comes a week after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said early analysis showed its vaccine candidate was more than 90 percent effective. NBC NEWS (emphasis added by me, in red)

March 4, 2021: Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were primarily evaluated for their ability to prevent symptomatic COVID-19, with the former having a 95% efficacy and the latter having a 94% efficacy in the clinical trial data submitted for the original authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. This means your risk of getting sick is cut by 94% or more if you are vaccinated. The final phase 3 data showed an efficacy of 91% for Pfizer/BioNTech and 93% for Moderna. A quote directly from factcheck.org (emphasis added by me, in red)

April 28, 2021: The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 94 percent effective in preventing hospitalization for COVID-19 among people age 65 and older, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released Wednesday. The Hill.com (emphasis added by me, in red)

March 28, 2022: Three doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines were 94 percent effective in preventing death or the need for a ventilator during the omicron surge, according to a new study. The Hill.com (emphasis added by me, in red)

Note that the goalposts continue to move. At first, it was two doses were 94% effective in preventing the illness, then it was preventing symptoms, then it morphed into preventing hospitalization in people over 65, then it became three doses preventing death or a ventilator.

So who exactly is spreading misinformation? My guess is, everyone. Simply because some people are lying, some don’t know anything, and no one really knows the truth. Well, someone does, but they aren’t telling anyone.

By Divemedic, ago