While You Were Busy Ignoring Reality, The Consequences Called...

"You can ignore reality. You cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality." - Ayn Rand

Just a small update from the pandemic trenches:

1) Had two patients last week, both suspected for Kung Flu, who turned out to have it, absolutely.

First confirmed cases we've seen in over a month in the hospital that required hospitalization.

(And to be fair, only two patients out of several hundred, in a patient load best described as lighter-than-average.)

That coincides with the average lag between case spikes (about which IDGAF, generally), and hospitalization spikes. 

(Next come death spikes, like winter follows fall.)

2) But this was the significant takeaway.

One patient was confirmed to have been infected with it back last spring.

Double positive.

But minor symptoms, and never needed hospitalization. Like about 90+% of Kung Flu victims.

Then, once lockdowns largely ended in the U.S., he had a minor surgical procedure scheduled, which had been postponed earlier. 

So, COVID tests were done, and showed negative, two times, before being allowed to have the procedure. That was back around August.

So far, so good.

Now, three months later, in the ED last week, with sudden-onset shortness of breath, low oxygen saturation on room air, and a beautiful case of raging bilateral diffuse multi-focal pneumonia, and a positive rapid COVID-19 swab test.

In his 40s, and no co-morbidities.

Otherwise healthy.

Hospitalized.

Short answer:

You can get this again.

And again.

And again.

And subsequent infection is worse the second time.

You can kiss mythological "herd immunity" good bye when infection confers no immunity from subsequent infection waves.

Any Gilligans out there, keep preaching that "just the flu, bro" line of utter bullshit.

Lick handrails, and pee on electric fences, while you're at it.

{Hint: Don't screw around. Don't catch this. It isn't fake, and it isn't funny. Period. Full stop.}

3) Just to drive the point home, we also had a non-critical patient some weeks back, confirmed not to have it, who was hospitalized with another non-critical patient unsuspected and totally asymptomatic. Who, it turned out, was fully infectious with Kung Flu.

And gave it to patient #1.

Who subsequently declined, ending up sick enough in short order to be put in our ICU in critical condition.

But before COVID was diagnosed as the problem on that ICU visit, and the infected patient placed in respiratory isolation, they infected 10 ICU nurses, several of them seriously enough to be hospitalized.

The nurse with the worst case died of Kung Flu last week, after about a month's struggle.

Our ICU is currently (and perpetually) running at 1/2 capacity because of resultant staff shortages, and there's no one, anywhere, to bring in.

We've tried.

{This results in closing our ED regularly (to any incoming ambulances), forcing us to care for critical patients for days, rather than hours, and impacting medical care for the entire county, and by extension, a surrounding region encompassing 10% of the population of the entire U.S. of A. That's the razor-margin we work on even in good times. If things are fine for you in Mayberry or BFE, good for you. Your 0.001% success rate in an area with less than 0.1% infection is noted. You will, we hope, pardon us for a decided lack of interest in your infinitesimal success, against a virus you largely never encountered. Unlike, say, the 50 largest cities and suburban regions in the country suffering a far greater impact.}

No one wants to come play in COVID Land anymore, for any amount of money.

LIKE WE F##KING  TOLD  YOU WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, WAAAAY BACK IN MARCH.

I yell because I care.

4) BTW, our PPE is still cobbled-together horsesh*t, including souvenir-stand raincoats usually found at taco stands near tourist traps. Totally serious.

Remember than anytime you hear Fraudpeddler Fauci tell you "We can handle _______."

Like he said about Ebola in 2014.

People are going to fiddlefuck around on this, until they achieve the exact results predicted in worst-case scenarios, because the entire population is well-marbled with 80-IQ morons.

One Gilligan keeps seven castaways stranded forever, and one jackhole "just the flu, bro" asshole who takes zero precautions, because this is obviously an internet hoax, rather than some Frankenbug engineered virus, is going to be the actual super-spreader, eleven times out of ten.

For the oblivious @$$holes who will think this is pimping for another economy-killing shutdown, f##k off with that noise. It's probably a good argument for trimming activity back somewhat, only in the areas where this is raging, and by appropriate legislation, not imperial fiat.

But it's absolutely an exception-proof argument for you wearing a snot mask - not to protect you, but to protect everyone else from you - to curb the spread of the virus, and washing your g## d###ed hands, without exception, in 50 states and 7 territories, until this is either stamped out, or beaten by a Hail Mary vaccine. Wearing a sneeze mask is not communism, and washing your booger hookers is not Hitler, no matter about your pwecious feelz, Snowflake. Exactly like about 90% of you aren't doing, by observation, far outside of the local area.

And that's why you'll keep screwing yourselves, harder and faster, until even the dimmest bulbs amongst you figure that out.

Almost like Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, and Ignaz Semmelweiss all knew what they were talking about 150 years ago.

On those cheery notes, Have A Happy Day.