Kenny, over at Knuckledraggin' , used to reside in Califrutopia, and makes no secret of the fact that he's happy to have decamped to Tennessee. Hey, that's great for you, man. Really.
But he also seems to take perverse delight in whipping up the Usual Idiots and their "Fuck California" mouth-breathing kneejerk responses. In this case, because of the re-institution of lockdowns and other restrictions as Kung Flu here in Idiotville now seeks, at last, to surpass the idiocy of former Kung Flu world death leader NYFS.
Now, to the fisking.
1) Most of the idiots in CA that aren't from Mexico came here from somewhere else: your states. Own that. Native Californians kept this state solid red for over a century. Sorry if that reality is inconvenient for anyone, but there it is.
[You can pick up your toothless, banjo-playing kinfolk any time you want them. Just know that when they destroy this state, and inevitably decamp from here as well, they'll return home, and they'll be bringing their illegal alien gardener, housekeeper, and their eleventy relatives and 20 anchor baby chillins, with them. Hope that works out for all y'all. You've got it coming.]
2) The Mexicans who're here (in the millions), along with the other illegal aliens, are here because the representatives from everywhere else - that'd be your states again - keep letting them come, and have for over 70 years. Ask Florida, Texas, and Arizona how that's working out for them, too. Hey, how about that president-elect Biden, huh? Not building The Wall got you His Fraudulency.
3)There are more hispanics in L.A. county hospitals (as opposed to private ones) because it's last-ditch care, they have no insurance, so that's where they go. And because they have too little education in general, or scientific savvy specifically, and live in large, extended family groups, with 6-8-10-more people from age 1-84 all in the same apartment or small house. It's one big multi-generational COVID party. And they wait until the last second before they'll risk going to the hospital, because someone in the family is usually illegal. QED.
4) The lockdowns ended here for the most part in June, when things were small, and tapering off, Which is what prompted people to be idiots, and blow it up again. The lockdowns weren't re-instituted until about Halloween, but by then it was too late, and stupid people playing stupid games win stupid prizes.
5) Kenny's county, in TN, probably only has about a 1% or less penetration of virus.
SoCal, OTOH, has 10-20%, based on actual results from testing millions and millions of people in this state. If/when TN, or anywhere, gets that many people sick, you're going to be dealing with CA levels of COVID. It's just math, not politics.
6) We aren't having problems because of the lockdowns as much as we're having lockdowns because of stupidity: People thought this was over when things were eased up, and stopped doing common-sense things like they were before, and gravity works.
If you wear a snot-mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance as much as possible, you won't get Kung Flu, and you won't spread Kung Flu. (That's why seasonal flu nationwide is a non-issue: handwashing, masks, and distancing kill a lot of communicable disease spread, just like every actual medical expert - Pasteur, Lister, Semmelweis, Nightingale, Barton, etc. - 100-150 years ago figured out.)
7) CA is paying for, now, the idiots who thought those rules were no longer operative from 4th of July to Thanksgiving. Just like the @$$holes in NYFS who did that from New Year's to Easter. As bad as it is now - and trust me, it's bad, here - we're still bracing for the biggest coming peak, which will be the bigger @$$holes from Christmas and New Year's. About 1-3 weeks from now, most likely. LA and Orange County are completely full, most days, with no capacity to deal with ordinary problems like car accidents, heart attacks, strokes, shootings, stabbings, or any other serious medical issues. So now, people we used to save will die too, and not from COVID. But even more fun: now our traumas are coming in with COVID, to a trauma area that has no ability to function in MOPP Level IV, or decon quickly, nor isolate patients with COVID from the other trauma patients. So if you come in after a car accident without COVID, you're probably going to leave with it anyway. We already have half our trauma docs out with it, and they're no spring chickens. We may lose any or all of them.
At that point, you have no one who can save you from anything that happens, and we're about a hot minute or a bad day from beginning to put patients outside, into "Don't Bother" and "Maybe Worth Trying" piles.
Like Italy did, 11 months ago.
Good luck and best wishes when - not so much if - you or your hometowns have to deal with that someplace with a lot less medical capacity than what we have here. (That'd be 120 hospitals in just 2 counties serving 14M people, BTW, which is twice as many people as live in the entire state of TN, Kenny.) I really hope you don't have to find out about this firsthand, but some people everywhere only learn about hot stoves after pressing their hands on one, instead of learning from other people's mistakes.
That's why I call them Gilligans.
Every place has them.
And yours are going to get you here, given half a chance, just like always.
We're all at the mercy, in any pandemic, of the stupidest 10% of the population.
That's just how it works, everywhere, since ever.
Believe me, we'd stop talking about this if some people would start listening.
We can tell you common sense, and preach cold hard Reality, but we can't make you think and believe.
Apparently, neither can anyone else.
So here we all are.
And for those of you who've escaped this far: your day is coming. The wise prepare for that, and the foolish stick their fingers in their ears and go "La! La! La! I can't hear you!"
Suture self.
See if you can guess how long I feel empathy for you - for any value of that term - when that happens, before my epicaricacy kicks in, and without bounds. We tried warning people jumping off cliffs was bad. Now the crashes and screams afterwards just warm our heart, because that's more oxygen and food left for the rest of us.
Aesop!Love your blog. As a 3rd generation Californian (now in exile) I fully agree with your assessment of Cali, and who ruined it! Thank you for saying so, it is much needed.The COVID nesting due to small houses/apartments with family clusters of 10 -18 people is also a great point as to the rapid spread in what I call Occupied Calistine (note it is not occupied by the Mexican Army, but it IS occupied by an army of-------)Your blog has always been informative, and it is appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI know I've said this before, and while I know full well that this isn't "Just The Flu" for a certain percentage of people who get it, I can't help but recall the basic instructions given to people during the Bird Flu outbreak a few years ago, to wit:
ReplyDelete- If you're feeling sick, stay the fuck home. Don't go to work. Don't go to church. Don't meet your friends for drinks. Unless you're sick enough to require medical attention, stay home, drink fluids, take aspirin and sleep. Really.
- If you've been out of your home, wash your hands. If you're away from home, use the hand sanitizer you carry (you do, don't you?). When you get home, sanitize your door knobs, keys, light switches, steering wheel, computer keyboard, phone, etc. Treat your hands as if you'd just taken a dump in the woods without benefit of TP, running water or soap, i.e. keep them away from your face and wash them before you eat/pick your nose/rub your eye.
- Sneeze or cough into your elbow instead of your hand. This serves two purposes, first if you're sick, you're not contaminating the appendages you use to interact with the world, thereby getting germs on everything you touch. Second, if you're not sick, you avoid transferring any cooties you picked up since the last time you wash your hands to your mouth/nose, thereby cutting the risk of getting sick. Oh, don't touch other people's elbows either, you may come away damp.
- If you must be around someone who's likely to have severe problems if they get sick, wear a mask. If you're one of the people who's likely to have severe problems, either stay home or take precautions against getting sick, including everything above.
Did I miss anything?
Now for the $25,000 question: How much of a Gilligan do you need to be to not be able to follow those simple rules? Rhetorical question, if I had a dollar for every time I saw a co-worker come out of a bathroom stall after obviously performing a #2, then walk straight out the door without even looking at the sink, I'd have retired years ago.
Mark d
Most of the idiots in CA that aren't from Mexico came here from somewhere else: your states. Own that. Native Californians kept this state solid red for over a century.
ReplyDeleteI lived in CA during the late 80's and I suspect this is correct. Even in the 80's CA was mostly republican and was still considered to be a reasonable place to do business, even manufacturing. There was still a "pioneering" mentality to the place. That, of course, is long gone now. I felt some of this transformation during the late 80's.
The same people who ruined CA are also ruining OR and WA.
The COVID-19 outbreak at a San Jose hospital linked to an inflatable Christmas tree costume has now spread to at least 60 people.
ReplyDeleteKaiser Permanente has said it is investigating if the outfit worn by an emergency department employee on Christmas Day might have caused the spread that has killed one.
-the gift that keeps on giving. I actually feel sorry for the index patient. She wasn't feeling sick, and the hospital didn't institute a regular testing plan until NOW, so there is plenty of blame to go around. And it could just be a coincidence that something else on the floor that day was the real cause.
In the past I've been at work for so long, and under shitty circumstances, when things just get 'silly' for lack of any better word. It does help. And it does happen, even among sober professionals.
So I'm of two minds about the woman. But jeez o pete, is looks SO BAD.
n
Currently staffed at a small hospital in a mostly rural county. The third floor has only been used for storage in the past five years. Currently maintenance is working double time to turn it into a floor strictly for the Rice Rabies. Major push to get staff vaccinated. Be nice if we didn't have to deal with the crazies and junkies. If we get one it ties up six beds that could be used for ER overflow.
ReplyDeleteAesop, you wrote that your Cali Hispanics "And they wait until the last second before they'll risk going to the hospital", can you provide additional info ? Do they generally have co-morbidities ? What happens after they show up at the ER ? Do they bypass General admission and go straight to ICU ? Do they make it in general or die ? I understand they're a different kind of Covid-patients than the ones you saw early when this all started. Correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteTheir primary co-morbidities are what I stated: a total lack of health information, and living in larger, multi-generational households. They wait until they're very sick to come in, because no jobs, no insurance, no money. And frequently here illegally.
ReplyDeleteBTW, no one goes straight to ICU. The average wait time from ER to ICU is 3 days, and 5+ days waiting is not uncommon. Used to be, anything more than next shift was extraordinary. Now, getting there same week is cause for celebration. We only get beds when patients already there die. Really.
They're the same patients as before, just quite a bit more.
@Nick,
ReplyDeleteThe "inflatable Christmas Tree costume" didn't spread COVID. Gilligans did.
We got over teh stupid some months back, when a couple of younger staff jackasses decided they were invincible, and infected multiple staff members, by not wearing a mask, coming to work symptomatic, etc.
It isn't funny any more. One was hounded out the door and quit; the others are on the public shaming jackass list UFN.
We've had staff members die from this, a number are sick with it now, and several more have gotten it, got over it, and returned to work.
I live in an N95 for 13 hours/day, wash my hands about 10x/hour, and go through at least a box of gloves per shift. I scrub to my elbows before I eat, and I usually don't, once I get to work, for the entire shift. We haven't had actual breaks for meals or anything else for a month so a good shift is one where I pee twice, and neither time is in my own pants.
I'm making about an extra shift's pay per pay period for missed break penalties, and the hospital is fine with that. We're routinely 25% or more short-staffed daily, with no end in sight, and the only thing we have plenty of is patients.
That's "the new normal".
And it's worse in L.A. county.
kurt9: After the 1980 census, California was subjected to the first computerized gerrymander, the "Burtonmander" named after the guy who did it.
ReplyDeleteAesop: Yep, get ready for a new mini-wave. My part of flyover country got some relief in the middle of December, our hospitalized numbers dropped 1/5th from a peak where we were getting maxed out for some much lessor definition of that than in your area, probably due to Thanksgiving. And went down a bit more, but right now they're going back up, probably due to Christmas.
We have fairly different demographics including not hardly as many illegals, so I assume that's in part due to people who are more willing to seek out medical help when they get COVID-19. So while I don't need to tell you this, brace yourself, and good luck handling the coming influx of Gilligans, and keeping yourself and your coworkers as well as possible.
Behold Gilligan, The All Powerful!
ReplyDeleteYou effectively synopsize one of the largest dillemas in public health: the thought that, because *I* am special, the rules, for "the little people", don't apply to me. The other is double talking cretins (Cretins, everywhere, I apologize for sullying your good name) like Dr. Fauci, who tells us "masks are useless" in February, and in April it's "Mask or die!'
Once he convinces enough folks that he's an idiot/a list/ a weathervane, well, his effectiveness had dissipated.
Aesop, I reached out to you last week about my experiences with this virus. What I didn’t mention is that I am more than just an Internist. My passion is nutritional medicine and related biochemistry. Please take a look at this paper and linked studies regarding selenium.
ReplyDelete‘Lipinski 2015, Ebola and Selenium: How not to catch the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)’
They are fascinating. There is also a study detailing how host selenium prevents viral mutations
Sorry, I can’t find that link right now.
I personally take 300mcg/day of selenium on my work days and 100mcg/day on my off days. I also eat two Brazil nuts most days as they are excellent natural sources of the mineral. It is very difficult to overdose on this micronutrients My dose is very safe and I believe it is providing me with the same procreation against COVID and other enveloped viruses as the people have in the above mentioned studies
Selenium is not the only supplement I take but it seems to be a great start for protection
Good luck and may God Bless you and your coworkers
AE,
ReplyDeleteI may have missed it but do you have any general take on the real status of vaccine distribution in CA and elsewhere?
Butte county seems to have some sort of three tier system with three tiers inside tier 1.
{BTW: Your paragraphing is star class.}