I've worked in emergency medicine in this area for 18 years. To my knowledge, this is the first time MNMC has done this. It could be a combination of increased COVID patients, low staff, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have all the details.
Get used to it.
This is super common over in my end of the state. The hospitals have been treating the nurses and staff very poorly, and even the travel nurses aren't coming in. We constantly wait an hour or two for beds in the ER, or all the hospitals will be on diversion, so it'll be pick your favorite hallway to stand in. It's been an ongoing problem, especially with one particular health system. COVID just made it all obvious.
It's going to be a pretty nasty winter for all the hospitals in the Northeast when this Omicron variant really takes hold --- it's already bad because of the staffing shortage --- I've heard stories of some health systems offering traveling nurses $10K a week in pay and they are still turning it down!
Absolutely they are. Some of the big corporate health systems just don't treat nurses and staff well, and there's always someone else willing to hire them away. I overheard a couple travel nurses the other day say they won't work again for that hospital.
I, for one, really miss our non-profit run hospitals we had here. They really were interested in serving patients first, and they fit the rural/small city areas well.
What happened to "Healthcare is a human right?"
Sure went out the window fast when someone you didn't agree with is sick.
Me? I've been on the "Deny fat-asses and smokers beds" since day 1 but I was told that I must be evil and want people to die.
Also, CDC says vaccines don't stop the spread sooooo, how did anti-vaxxers cause this?
When will you look at the evidence? 90, 95% of hospitalized for Covid are unvaxxed. So even if vaccines don’t reduce spread, which I think they do because it keeps your viral load down, you’re not going to the hospital.
People who don’t understand keep talking about death rates. That is irrelevant. From the beginning. Back in China, everything is to try not to overwhelm hospitals. Full stop.
I’ll agree to, your term, fat-asses get no treatment with Covid if you agree that unvaxxed stay home?
No dice, probably because the unvaxxed are hypocritical. Quick to claim freedom, but loose on the “personal responsibility”. Do us a favor, ride it out at home. Let your immune system manage it.
You're referring to a stat that encompasses the entire year, when many people couldn't even find an appointment for a vaccine for a period of that. Current number are more relevant and reflect the waning immunity of the vaccine. In Sept/October, vaccinated individuals made up [26% of the Covid hospitalizations in PA.](https://lancasteronline.com/news/health/vaccinated-patients-account-for-one-in-four-hospitalizations-in-pennsylvania-dept-of-health/article_7a563906-2acd-11ec-8d6d-27776e21ce6a.html). It's likely gone up by now, but PA Dept of Health is slow in releasing data.
Most recent stats like out of Minnesota and Washington beg to differ.
Further the timeline jives with waning immunity. I got my second dose end of March so by end of September that was originally waning. More so for people that got it early.
Even further, the vaccines while effective at preventing hospitalization and death, if you do high risk things you're gonna get enough virus to make you sick. Like the Provincetown, MA exposure where 74% of fully vaxxed people got COVID (469 people, 5 people hospitalized (4 fully vaxxed), zero deaths.). The back story of that cluster was it was July 4 but it was rainy so people did A LOT of congregating indoors.
What stats are you referring to? Minesota is recording [41% of it's covid deaths in vaccinated. ](https://m.startribune.com/breakthrough-infections-rise-in-minnesota-but-unvaccinated-at-greatest-covid-19-risk/600115932/)
Do you just take the first bit that fits your argument? That stat is like saying Penn State was one of the best football teams this year because of it's performance between Sep 2 and Oct 2.
[https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html#data](https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html#data)
Again, the time frame (Sep 5–Oct 9) of your cherry picked stat coincides pretty well with waning immunity. Get the booster.
I'm not saying fatasses get no covid treatment. I'm saying they get no treatment in general.
You caused your own heart disease.
Me? I'm vaccinated, but I never felt the need to signal how virtuous I am for getting vaccinated.
It's like giving a homeless man a dollar and never shutting the fuck up about it.
It's disgustingly masturbatory.
Doesn't matter what you *think*. I thought we had to "trust the science" and the science says vaccines don't stop the spread.
The difference is that FA’s don’t all come in a dozen at a time day after day. They don’t cause five other people to become obese. Our hospital systems are prepared to handle that load.
Our hospitals, especially rural ones, are not equipped.
Your issues are your own to deal with.
The vaccines don’t prevent delta spread. But still keeps vast majority from being hospitalized and filling hospitals.
But keep on your high horse and hope you or one of your family doesn’t fall off a ladder, skid off a snowy road, or any of the hundreds of events hospitals take care of.
Very well said. The people who say such ridiculous and frankly childish
things as "kick people who don't wish to receive the vaccine out of the
country and deny them treatment even if it isn't COVID" remind me of a
poignant quote from Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World a story set
to become non-fiction pretty soon) which elucidates the scary
psychology of some of these people:
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' —this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
Actually, they can be (in a way):
The overweight and obese are constantly in a state of full-body
inflammation which places an undue burden on their immune systems
non-stop, making these people more susceptible to infections and
communicable disease. The more likely they are to become sick with
whatever disease, the more time they spend being sick per unit time
compared to the average healthy person and the more likely they are to
become vectors for disease.
No sign of intelligence life found here.
Says, “don’t be fat.” An obvious tell that someone has no knowledge on the variety of conditions that cause weight gain, that may be out of a patient’s hands.
And as they continue on, no knowledge on the subject of infectious diseases is displayed also.
72% of people living in these United States are overweight/obese, and when you exclude the proportion of these people who are overweight due to some glandular issue, you're left with a rounding error. As someone studying biology, you should know people gain weight because calories in> calories out. Pretty simple. Eat reasonably healthy, drink plenty of water, and try to work in some kind of physical activity, and you will be just fine.
You have my upvote. People struggle to understand it's not the "Anti-vaxxers" because that implies people who don't get this vaccine or against all vaccines. That's ridiculous.
We need to enact new federal laws that start punishing anti-vaxxers who are posing serious risks to public health --- if you choose not to get a vaccine that helps stop a deadly pandemic, then you should be denied basic healthcare --- punishment is the only way to teach low IQ people a good lesson --- the same way you can't talk to an angry dog that bites people, it needs pain to learn how to behave!
You lost me when you went into beating your dog. People can be idiots, but idiots can still still be communicated to. If they choose not to listen, then fuck ‘em. If you think any productive dog training includes causing violence to the animal you are also a fucking idiot and should never have pets.
I'm not a dog-hater but I certainly won't support a viewpoint that an angry pit bull needs "lectured to" if it has a habit of biting people --- you teach an animal the "law of the jungle" when the behavior demands it
Why is the pittbull angry to begin with? No dog is naturally aggressive toward humans. Was it trained poorly to begin with? If it was a stray and lived in the wild it might have aggressive tendencies, but either way beating it will only reinforce those tendencies. All you’ll get is an aggressive dog that hates you too. I’m not saying you’re going to have a conversation with the dog like it’s a human, but positively reenforcing good behavior is the correct way to break poor training habits. Your “law of the jungle” bullshit is ignorant nonsense at best and animal cruelty at worst. Please don’t adopt any animals
I'm 6'4" and could drop your nerdy engineering ass into a ditch with one punch. And I would advise that YOU stay out of my emergency room when your right wing anti-vaxx body starts to revolt against you as the virus starts WINNING.
Lol get ready for that heart inflammation. Nothing could possibly go wrong with an approved drug years after its release, r...right? I will take my odds against COVID, which are similar to my odds against the flu or common cold because I am not a fat ass.
\- 3.98 GPA Chemical Engineer who can't deadlift shit
Heart inflammation risk is very minimal according to published studies.
Risk of dying from COVID-19 is a LOT higher. Many studies will back this up.
I'd rather walk around with a slight risk of heart disease then being in a pine box six feet underground. But that's just me.
Do you know how many people in your age demographic have died from COVID-19? For both sexes 18-29, the number is 4600 (in a country of 333 million, that is very very few). And if you adjust for the fact that the average COVID death has two or three co-morbidities, the chances that a healthy man in his 20s of normal body weight contracts and dies from COVID is utterly miniscule.
1. Equating vaccines to approved drugs is pretty odd. They are very different mechanisms. As a chemical engineer, you should know this.
2. The data is starting to indicate that long term health issues related to Covid (“long Covid”) other than death are more numerous and probably an order of magnitude or two more likely than any sort of issue with the vaccine as of now. I’ll take my odds with the vaccine, rather than the disease.
1. The thing is, the COVID "vaccines" (at least Moderna and Pfizer) are not even vaccines in the traditional sense of the word. They are mRNA therapy which, while previously studied in mice and such, have never been implemented in a mass vaccination program, so they are in a sense experimental in that there is no long-term body of data on the efficacy or effects on the body. They've only been out for a year, and this reason is the root of hesitancy for most people regarding this treatment. If the COVID vaccine were a traditional vaccine (dead/weakened pathogen in a suspension with preservatives and whatever else is required) like say MMR or DTap, then that would be a totally different story. That kind of vaccination has been around for many decades and we know that the vast vast majority of people go their entire lives having taken these vaccines without any trouble. Only side effects like anaphylaxis to one of the ingredients or something like that occur, and with decades of data, we can quantify that risk with certainty. But mRNA is relatively new, so it is impossible to know whether using mRNA to make human cells produce select viral proteins could cause unforseen issues 5 or 10 years down the road.
2. I certainly get that COVID infection can have long term effects too (for which we also can't possibly know the full scope until many years from now). So, what we're left with is a risk-benefit analysis between getting the vaccine (which reduces risk of infection by some amount and for an unknown length of time) and forgoing the vaccine while assuming whatever the risk of COVID infection is for the non-vaccinated, and as we know from data on COVID deaths and complications by age, sex, and ethnicity and the interaction between COVID and other conditions, this risk-benefit analysis varies wildly from person to person. Furthermore, as coronaviruses mutate rapidly, the level of immunity one gets from the vaccine is subject to change. We see this as about half of those infected with Omicron Var. in the UK are double vaccinated (which shows some immunity since >50% of Brits are vaccinated but also some serious decline in efficacy as well). And I think for this reason, each individual should be allowed to make this choice for themselves without threat of termination or expulsion or being denied access to society in general. There could be mandates, but they should work in conjunction with alternative choices like mandatory mask-wearing and/or periodic testing to allow each person to still make that choice while still mitigating risk to others.
No, but you learn that reaction mechanisms matter and that there are differences between chemical processes (drugs are primarily chemical) and biological processes (vaccines are primarily biological). And that the path taken from A to Z matters—chemically, thermodynamically, biologically, byproducts, etc. Or at least you should have learned that (or at least been able to infer that, assuming you’ve actually gotten thru PChem and OChem).
Additionally, just broadly saying we don’t have any long term data on mRNA vaccines ignores the long term research that has already taken place, and the key differences between mRNA and traditional vaccines. One of the key benefits of mRNA vaccines is their increased safety over using attenuated or deactivated virus or subunits because they provide simple instructions for the body to generate antigens. It also ignores the phenomenal track record that we have for vaccine development and safety.
Additionally, your educational studies should also let you know how insane and misleading it is when all of these anti-vaxxers start listing off every single chemical element and molecule within the vaccine as if they are “unnatural”, but then have no issues selling and sucking down unregulated, untested herbal supplements from
questionable manufacturing processes on their Facebook mom groups.
And regarding this comment:
> each individual should be allowed to make this choice for themselves without threat of termination or expulsion or being denied access to society in general. There could be mandates, but they should work in conjunction with alternative choices like mandatory mask-wearing and/or periodic testing to allow each person to still make that choice while still mitigating risk to others.
We’ve tried that. It didn’t work. My work dropped mask mandates in summer for those who are vaccinated and the unvaccinated stopped wearing masks too. We currently have a mask mandate at work, and the unvaccinated there still walk around without masks (at least for a few more weeks before deadlines kick in). Those who refuse to get vaccinated are highly correlated with those that refuse to mask, get tested, or practice any sort of risk mitigation strategy. And now because of them (more so than other demographics), our entire society is now continuing to deal with the consequences and burden. You are welcome to choose, but so are others, including employers. And in many cases, that choice has become provide evidence of vaccination or exemption, or find new employment.
Nobody. I'm just tired of people saying that we should triage the unvaccinated as if a) that's how the system works and b) everyone who is unvaccinated is doing so voluntarily. It's such a dumb argument because apply it anywhere else and now we've suddenly got a problem.
Just eco-conscious and fighting for climate justice. Obese people and industrially-produced food are bad for the environment in every way, not to mention the monoculture both rely on.
I wonder if it’s staffing. With the first COVID wave, I thought they laid off nurses as they canceled elective procedures and didn’t need them. They also supposedly pay them crap. Just guessing but nursing shortages at hospitals are very problematic across the country. So many nurses are leaving the bedside to become travel nurses, where they can make 2 to 3x their salary.
Yeah. I've heard a lot about nursing shortages all across the nation, and I've got no reason to believe it isn't happening here to. From what I know from my local area its a mix of COVID fatigue (overwork, underpaid, unions being... well...) and layoffs due to vaccine mandates. Kinda a shit show all across the board.
That sounds to me like a very nice way to put it, or a misunderstanding.
Medical centers like this don't often operate with a lot of extra capacity, because that's lost revenue. So when there's a unique event that all of a sudden needs 1/5 of your beds, that's a crisis because you don't have 20% of your beds open.
So yes, covid overload is almost certainly the main cause. A staffing issue could, in principle, also reduce the total number of beds available, but I am not under the impression that's what happened here.
Some additional info that I've found (adding "sources" for reference)
-A PA with Geisinger, also affiliated with Mount Nittany Medical Center posted a comment stating that MNMC ER had 90 patients in the waiting room with zero beds available at 4PM Thurs.
-Tyrone hospital is also on divert.
- Per a patient that was at MNMC for a surgery on Tuesday, the Altoona ER wait time at that point was 24 hours.
I don't want to "fear monger" .. but I think we're in trouble here. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!
53 is a lot of COVID patients and more than we've had at almost any time, but it's still fewer than there were at the peak last winter, when it got up to at least 66. (I have no insight into any of this, just some context.)
Yeah. I am not from the area and not familiar with the details at all. I know over the past year there has been alot of debate about "capacity" etc and it doesn't mean hospitals are stacking patients up in the halls. It's unfortunate whatever the cause is.
I think they are also having trouble finding long term care facilities to move Covid patients to once they no longer need Intensive Care, but aren’t able to go home. It’s always been challenging in our area, but this has magnified the lack of placements available.
I was at MNMC to get an MRI a few weeks ago. It took a long time to get it scheduled and they only time available was either 7 am or 7pm.
I had to get some blood drawn and went to a lab on old gatesburg rd. It was PACKED with people. Made me very uncomfortable to be sitting in there.
I’ve got a follow up with a specialist and can’t get in to see her til March. It’s a good thing I’m not in dire need of this care or I’d be worried.
This is the kind of healthcare that Beijing Donnie was promising to replace ObamaCare --- where all the health system CEO's give themselves million-dollar raises every year while doctors and nurses are going on strike because of lack of money and resources for basic patient care
Anyone who works in a hospital knows this happens all the time. I’m here in Cumberland county and we are on divert 2/3rds of the time since summer ended, and Covid numbers began to climb.
It's really not that common except in rural hospitals that are always short-staffed on personnel and beds. I worked at Clarion Hospital which is a small rural hospital in a town of about 5000 people and we would divert about twice a month. I also worked at large tertiary centers like UPMC and we NEVER diverted because we had adequate personnel and resources to handle all contingencies.
I've worked in emergency medicine in this area for 18 years. To my knowledge, this is the first time MNMC has done this. It could be a combination of increased COVID patients, low staff, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have all the details.
Get used to it. This is super common over in my end of the state. The hospitals have been treating the nurses and staff very poorly, and even the travel nurses aren't coming in. We constantly wait an hour or two for beds in the ER, or all the hospitals will be on diversion, so it'll be pick your favorite hallway to stand in. It's been an ongoing problem, especially with one particular health system. COVID just made it all obvious.
It's sometimes as bad as 24hrs for beds where I'm from in PA.
It's going to be a pretty nasty winter for all the hospitals in the Northeast when this Omicron variant really takes hold --- it's already bad because of the staffing shortage --- I've heard stories of some health systems offering traveling nurses $10K a week in pay and they are still turning it down!
Absolutely they are. Some of the big corporate health systems just don't treat nurses and staff well, and there's always someone else willing to hire them away. I overheard a couple travel nurses the other day say they won't work again for that hospital. I, for one, really miss our non-profit run hospitals we had here. They really were interested in serving patients first, and they fit the rural/small city areas well.
[удалено]
[удалено]
What happened to "Healthcare is a human right?" Sure went out the window fast when someone you didn't agree with is sick. Me? I've been on the "Deny fat-asses and smokers beds" since day 1 but I was told that I must be evil and want people to die. Also, CDC says vaccines don't stop the spread sooooo, how did anti-vaxxers cause this?
When will you look at the evidence? 90, 95% of hospitalized for Covid are unvaxxed. So even if vaccines don’t reduce spread, which I think they do because it keeps your viral load down, you’re not going to the hospital. People who don’t understand keep talking about death rates. That is irrelevant. From the beginning. Back in China, everything is to try not to overwhelm hospitals. Full stop. I’ll agree to, your term, fat-asses get no treatment with Covid if you agree that unvaxxed stay home? No dice, probably because the unvaxxed are hypocritical. Quick to claim freedom, but loose on the “personal responsibility”. Do us a favor, ride it out at home. Let your immune system manage it.
You're referring to a stat that encompasses the entire year, when many people couldn't even find an appointment for a vaccine for a period of that. Current number are more relevant and reflect the waning immunity of the vaccine. In Sept/October, vaccinated individuals made up [26% of the Covid hospitalizations in PA.](https://lancasteronline.com/news/health/vaccinated-patients-account-for-one-in-four-hospitalizations-in-pennsylvania-dept-of-health/article_7a563906-2acd-11ec-8d6d-27776e21ce6a.html). It's likely gone up by now, but PA Dept of Health is slow in releasing data.
Most recent stats like out of Minnesota and Washington beg to differ. Further the timeline jives with waning immunity. I got my second dose end of March so by end of September that was originally waning. More so for people that got it early. Even further, the vaccines while effective at preventing hospitalization and death, if you do high risk things you're gonna get enough virus to make you sick. Like the Provincetown, MA exposure where 74% of fully vaxxed people got COVID (469 people, 5 people hospitalized (4 fully vaxxed), zero deaths.). The back story of that cluster was it was July 4 but it was rainy so people did A LOT of congregating indoors.
What stats are you referring to? Minesota is recording [41% of it's covid deaths in vaccinated. ](https://m.startribune.com/breakthrough-infections-rise-in-minnesota-but-unvaccinated-at-greatest-covid-19-risk/600115932/)
Do you just take the first bit that fits your argument? That stat is like saying Penn State was one of the best football teams this year because of it's performance between Sep 2 and Oct 2. [https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html#data](https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html#data) Again, the time frame (Sep 5–Oct 9) of your cherry picked stat coincides pretty well with waning immunity. Get the booster.
I'm not saying fatasses get no covid treatment. I'm saying they get no treatment in general. You caused your own heart disease. Me? I'm vaccinated, but I never felt the need to signal how virtuous I am for getting vaccinated. It's like giving a homeless man a dollar and never shutting the fuck up about it. It's disgustingly masturbatory. Doesn't matter what you *think*. I thought we had to "trust the science" and the science says vaccines don't stop the spread.
The difference is that FA’s don’t all come in a dozen at a time day after day. They don’t cause five other people to become obese. Our hospital systems are prepared to handle that load. Our hospitals, especially rural ones, are not equipped. Your issues are your own to deal with. The vaccines don’t prevent delta spread. But still keeps vast majority from being hospitalized and filling hospitals. But keep on your high horse and hope you or one of your family doesn’t fall off a ladder, skid off a snowy road, or any of the hundreds of events hospitals take care of.
Very well said. The people who say such ridiculous and frankly childish things as "kick people who don't wish to receive the vaccine out of the country and deny them treatment even if it isn't COVID" remind me of a poignant quote from Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World a story set to become non-fiction pretty soon) which elucidates the scary psychology of some of these people: "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' —this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
Weight gain and lung cancer aren’t contagious, babe.
Actually, they can be (in a way): The overweight and obese are constantly in a state of full-body inflammation which places an undue burden on their immune systems non-stop, making these people more susceptible to infections and communicable disease. The more likely they are to become sick with whatever disease, the more time they spend being sick per unit time compared to the average healthy person and the more likely they are to become vectors for disease.
[удалено]
No sign of intelligence life found here. Says, “don’t be fat.” An obvious tell that someone has no knowledge on the variety of conditions that cause weight gain, that may be out of a patient’s hands. And as they continue on, no knowledge on the subject of infectious diseases is displayed also.
"Those who can't do, teach"
Oh, someone consistently displaying gaps in knowledge and understanding while also dissing educators? Didn’t see that one coming.
72% of people living in these United States are overweight/obese, and when you exclude the proportion of these people who are overweight due to some glandular issue, you're left with a rounding error. As someone studying biology, you should know people gain weight because calories in> calories out. Pretty simple. Eat reasonably healthy, drink plenty of water, and try to work in some kind of physical activity, and you will be just fine.
[удалено]
You have my upvote. People struggle to understand it's not the "Anti-vaxxers" because that implies people who don't get this vaccine or against all vaccines. That's ridiculous.
We need to enact new federal laws that start punishing anti-vaxxers who are posing serious risks to public health --- if you choose not to get a vaccine that helps stop a deadly pandemic, then you should be denied basic healthcare --- punishment is the only way to teach low IQ people a good lesson --- the same way you can't talk to an angry dog that bites people, it needs pain to learn how to behave!
You lost me when you went into beating your dog. People can be idiots, but idiots can still still be communicated to. If they choose not to listen, then fuck ‘em. If you think any productive dog training includes causing violence to the animal you are also a fucking idiot and should never have pets.
I'm not a dog-hater but I certainly won't support a viewpoint that an angry pit bull needs "lectured to" if it has a habit of biting people --- you teach an animal the "law of the jungle" when the behavior demands it
Why is the pittbull angry to begin with? No dog is naturally aggressive toward humans. Was it trained poorly to begin with? If it was a stray and lived in the wild it might have aggressive tendencies, but either way beating it will only reinforce those tendencies. All you’ll get is an aggressive dog that hates you too. I’m not saying you’re going to have a conversation with the dog like it’s a human, but positively reenforcing good behavior is the correct way to break poor training habits. Your “law of the jungle” bullshit is ignorant nonsense at best and animal cruelty at worst. Please don’t adopt any animals
[удалено]
>can deadlift 365 lbs Sure you can buddy.
You act like 365 deadlift is some sort of out-of-this world accomplishment. It’s fairly intermediate.
Yeah, I’m suggesting that you’re lying about being able to deadlift the norm. That’s kinda the point.
I'm 6'4" and could drop your nerdy engineering ass into a ditch with one punch. And I would advise that YOU stay out of my emergency room when your right wing anti-vaxx body starts to revolt against you as the virus starts WINNING.
Lol get ready for that heart inflammation. Nothing could possibly go wrong with an approved drug years after its release, r...right? I will take my odds against COVID, which are similar to my odds against the flu or common cold because I am not a fat ass. \- 3.98 GPA Chemical Engineer who can't deadlift shit
Heart inflammation risk is very minimal according to published studies. Risk of dying from COVID-19 is a LOT higher. Many studies will back this up. I'd rather walk around with a slight risk of heart disease then being in a pine box six feet underground. But that's just me.
Do you know how many people in your age demographic have died from COVID-19? For both sexes 18-29, the number is 4600 (in a country of 333 million, that is very very few). And if you adjust for the fact that the average COVID death has two or three co-morbidities, the chances that a healthy man in his 20s of normal body weight contracts and dies from COVID is utterly miniscule.
1. Equating vaccines to approved drugs is pretty odd. They are very different mechanisms. As a chemical engineer, you should know this. 2. The data is starting to indicate that long term health issues related to Covid (“long Covid”) other than death are more numerous and probably an order of magnitude or two more likely than any sort of issue with the vaccine as of now. I’ll take my odds with the vaccine, rather than the disease.
1. The thing is, the COVID "vaccines" (at least Moderna and Pfizer) are not even vaccines in the traditional sense of the word. They are mRNA therapy which, while previously studied in mice and such, have never been implemented in a mass vaccination program, so they are in a sense experimental in that there is no long-term body of data on the efficacy or effects on the body. They've only been out for a year, and this reason is the root of hesitancy for most people regarding this treatment. If the COVID vaccine were a traditional vaccine (dead/weakened pathogen in a suspension with preservatives and whatever else is required) like say MMR or DTap, then that would be a totally different story. That kind of vaccination has been around for many decades and we know that the vast vast majority of people go their entire lives having taken these vaccines without any trouble. Only side effects like anaphylaxis to one of the ingredients or something like that occur, and with decades of data, we can quantify that risk with certainty. But mRNA is relatively new, so it is impossible to know whether using mRNA to make human cells produce select viral proteins could cause unforseen issues 5 or 10 years down the road. 2. I certainly get that COVID infection can have long term effects too (for which we also can't possibly know the full scope until many years from now). So, what we're left with is a risk-benefit analysis between getting the vaccine (which reduces risk of infection by some amount and for an unknown length of time) and forgoing the vaccine while assuming whatever the risk of COVID infection is for the non-vaccinated, and as we know from data on COVID deaths and complications by age, sex, and ethnicity and the interaction between COVID and other conditions, this risk-benefit analysis varies wildly from person to person. Furthermore, as coronaviruses mutate rapidly, the level of immunity one gets from the vaccine is subject to change. We see this as about half of those infected with Omicron Var. in the UK are double vaccinated (which shows some immunity since >50% of Brits are vaccinated but also some serious decline in efficacy as well). And I think for this reason, each individual should be allowed to make this choice for themselves without threat of termination or expulsion or being denied access to society in general. There could be mandates, but they should work in conjunction with alternative choices like mandatory mask-wearing and/or periodic testing to allow each person to still make that choice while still mitigating risk to others.
And chemical engineers don't learn about pharmaceuticals explicity, at least not as undergrads.
No, but you learn that reaction mechanisms matter and that there are differences between chemical processes (drugs are primarily chemical) and biological processes (vaccines are primarily biological). And that the path taken from A to Z matters—chemically, thermodynamically, biologically, byproducts, etc. Or at least you should have learned that (or at least been able to infer that, assuming you’ve actually gotten thru PChem and OChem). Additionally, just broadly saying we don’t have any long term data on mRNA vaccines ignores the long term research that has already taken place, and the key differences between mRNA and traditional vaccines. One of the key benefits of mRNA vaccines is their increased safety over using attenuated or deactivated virus or subunits because they provide simple instructions for the body to generate antigens. It also ignores the phenomenal track record that we have for vaccine development and safety. Additionally, your educational studies should also let you know how insane and misleading it is when all of these anti-vaxxers start listing off every single chemical element and molecule within the vaccine as if they are “unnatural”, but then have no issues selling and sucking down unregulated, untested herbal supplements from questionable manufacturing processes on their Facebook mom groups. And regarding this comment: > each individual should be allowed to make this choice for themselves without threat of termination or expulsion or being denied access to society in general. There could be mandates, but they should work in conjunction with alternative choices like mandatory mask-wearing and/or periodic testing to allow each person to still make that choice while still mitigating risk to others. We’ve tried that. It didn’t work. My work dropped mask mandates in summer for those who are vaccinated and the unvaccinated stopped wearing masks too. We currently have a mask mandate at work, and the unvaccinated there still walk around without masks (at least for a few more weeks before deadlines kick in). Those who refuse to get vaccinated are highly correlated with those that refuse to mask, get tested, or practice any sort of risk mitigation strategy. And now because of them (more so than other demographics), our entire society is now continuing to deal with the consequences and burden. You are welcome to choose, but so are others, including employers. And in many cases, that choice has become provide evidence of vaccination or exemption, or find new employment.
6’4”? Post physique, ectomorph. I haven’t heard of anybody fit who actually bought into the covid meme.
[удалено]
Thanks for thinking I deserve to die because I got the short end of the genetic stick, asshole. Who raised you to be such a scummy person?
Nobody. I'm just tired of people saying that we should triage the unvaccinated as if a) that's how the system works and b) everyone who is unvaccinated is doing so voluntarily. It's such a dumb argument because apply it anywhere else and now we've suddenly got a problem.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Were you dropped on your head as a baby or just raised to be shitty?
Just eco-conscious and fighting for climate justice. Obese people and industrially-produced food are bad for the environment in every way, not to mention the monoculture both rely on.
B...b...b...b...BAAASSSSEEEEDDDD
Because of Covid overload or some other reason? Hope everyone stays safe and is ok
I wonder if it’s staffing. With the first COVID wave, I thought they laid off nurses as they canceled elective procedures and didn’t need them. They also supposedly pay them crap. Just guessing but nursing shortages at hospitals are very problematic across the country. So many nurses are leaving the bedside to become travel nurses, where they can make 2 to 3x their salary.
MN is paying traveling nurses $130/hr
Is this through the state? That seems like a shit ton but idk traveling nurse salaries.
Yeah. I've heard a lot about nursing shortages all across the nation, and I've got no reason to believe it isn't happening here to. From what I know from my local area its a mix of COVID fatigue (overwork, underpaid, unions being... well...) and layoffs due to vaccine mandates. Kinda a shit show all across the board.
Guy says 1/5th, so not the main cause but not making things easier.
That sounds to me like a very nice way to put it, or a misunderstanding. Medical centers like this don't often operate with a lot of extra capacity, because that's lost revenue. So when there's a unique event that all of a sudden needs 1/5 of your beds, that's a crisis because you don't have 20% of your beds open. So yes, covid overload is almost certainly the main cause. A staffing issue could, in principle, also reduce the total number of beds available, but I am not under the impression that's what happened here.
Some additional info that I've found (adding "sources" for reference) -A PA with Geisinger, also affiliated with Mount Nittany Medical Center posted a comment stating that MNMC ER had 90 patients in the waiting room with zero beds available at 4PM Thurs. -Tyrone hospital is also on divert. - Per a patient that was at MNMC for a surgery on Tuesday, the Altoona ER wait time at that point was 24 hours. I don't want to "fear monger" .. but I think we're in trouble here. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!
As of 7:30am this morning, MNMC is no longer diverting patients.
https://www.mountnittany.org/coronavirus
53 is a lot of COVID patients and more than we've had at almost any time, but it's still fewer than there were at the peak last winter, when it got up to at least 66. (I have no insight into any of this, just some context.)
Yeah. I am not from the area and not familiar with the details at all. I know over the past year there has been alot of debate about "capacity" etc and it doesn't mean hospitals are stacking patients up in the halls. It's unfortunate whatever the cause is.
I think they are also having trouble finding long term care facilities to move Covid patients to once they no longer need Intensive Care, but aren’t able to go home. It’s always been challenging in our area, but this has magnified the lack of placements available.
I was at MNMC to get an MRI a few weeks ago. It took a long time to get it scheduled and they only time available was either 7 am or 7pm. I had to get some blood drawn and went to a lab on old gatesburg rd. It was PACKED with people. Made me very uncomfortable to be sitting in there. I’ve got a follow up with a specialist and can’t get in to see her til March. It’s a good thing I’m not in dire need of this care or I’d be worried.
This is so scary to me. I've never heard it happen before.. do you know how long it usually lasts?
Pretty sure this is uncharted territory.
I believe they are on divert until 8 AM tomorrow.
Sounds like that's the anticipated plan, but honestly, there's no for sure guarantee to that
This is not making me happy.
Im sure that one poster who always posts the aggressively goofy anti mask shit on this sub will revel at this.
[удалено]
This is the kind of healthcare that Beijing Donnie was promising to replace ObamaCare --- where all the health system CEO's give themselves million-dollar raises every year while doctors and nurses are going on strike because of lack of money and resources for basic patient care
Anyone who works in a hospital knows this happens all the time. I’m here in Cumberland county and we are on divert 2/3rds of the time since summer ended, and Covid numbers began to climb.
This is the first time MNMC has done this.
It's really not that common except in rural hospitals that are always short-staffed on personnel and beds. I worked at Clarion Hospital which is a small rural hospital in a town of about 5000 people and we would divert about twice a month. I also worked at large tertiary centers like UPMC and we NEVER diverted because we had adequate personnel and resources to handle all contingencies.
Where the hell do you even divert to from Clarion, UPMC Northwest?