[HN Gopher] Intimate portraits of a hospital Covid unit from a p...
___________________________________________________________________
Intimate portraits of a hospital Covid unit from a photojournalist-
turned-nurse
Author : tzs
Score : 90 points
Date : 2021-12-26 19:06 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| lemming wrote:
| _Even after she has helped save a loved one 's life, she says,
| some family members have told her that they're still not sure
| they'll get vaccinated - and that the coronavirus is a hoax._
|
| _" I've been told by patients' families [who can't come to
| visit] that we are making this up to drum up business at the
| hospital," says Bucko._
|
| God, that must be so infuriating. When you're as tired and
| stressed as these medical staff are, I don't know how they can
| summon up the energy to deal with that. I've had a few
| conversations with friends about this, they're mostly hesitant
| rather than fully down the rabbit hole, but every one of those
| conversations is totally draining.
| Fomite wrote:
| Every clinician I know (I work with a lot of infectious disease
| doctors) have been cut to the bone with stuff like this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A few days ago a link was posted that made it to the homepage
| of a doctor that quit on account of being assaulted. People
| were falling over each other to claim that it was a hoax and
| that the account was created for the purpose of deceiving
| people and that such a thing would never happen.
|
| The article then got flagged. There is some serious denial
| going on about the impact of COVID and I really don't
| understand what is driving that.
| mythrwy wrote:
| Corona isn't a hoax but that doesn't mean this current
| generation of vaccines are needed by many people and they don't
| seem to stop community spread and there have been some injuries
| and deaths.
|
| It's nice to throw a ridiculous statement on top of an accurate
| one though so both can be discarded together and we can just
| keep pretending these vaccines actually work well and everyone
| needs to take them. Then shriek like a busload of Karens when
| someone questions the need.
|
| The best things about this pandemic is seeing how quickly
| people can turn irrational and authoritarian discarding actual
| science, testing protocols and basic logical sense in favor of
| emotional hysteria (as current top poster and many others do in
| this thread for instance).
| jacquesm wrote:
| The vaccines work quite well. Check the ratio of the number
| of infected people to the number of people that get seriously
| ill or die over time. Then correlate with when the main
| vaccine drive started. The effect is clear.
| mythrwy wrote:
| No they don't. Six month effective life? Might help a
| little, don't prevent? Injuries and deaths for people who
| would have almost certainly not have received such from
| Covid. Do little if anything to stop spread.
|
| That is not "well".
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, the effect slowly degrades. And helps a lot.
|
| > Injuries and deaths for people who would have almost
| certainly not have received such from Covid.
|
| Statistically the harm for _any_ age group except for the
| very youngest (though even there things are changing) is
| that you benefit from the vaccin vs the risks associated
| with a COVID infection without anything to help your
| immune system from dealing with it.
|
| > Do little if anything to stop spread.
|
| They do quite a bit, but they're not perfect.
|
| > That is not "well".
|
| It's a damn sight better than nothing and compared to
| where we were before it probably should be 'very well'
| instead of just well.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "that we are making this up to drum up business at the
| hospital"
|
| At least in the US this kind of thinking makes some sense if
| you ever had the pleasure of dealing with insane hospital
| bills. They are greedy bastards.
|
| It's sad a lot of health workers are doing great work and
| sacrificing their health while working for morally corrupt
| institutions like hospitals.
| ianhawes wrote:
| My wife and I are fully vaccinated and boosted. Our kids are too
| young to be vaccinated. We're all currently Covid positive.
| Fortunately, my wife and I have mild symptoms and our young
| children have manageable symptoms.
|
| I was thrilled to be vaccinated and in awe at the power of mRNA
| technology. I got everyone I knew that was un-techsavvy a
| vaccination appointment as early as possible.
|
| With that being said...
|
| I think we are coming to terms with our collective hubris.
| Omicron has caused many "breakthrough cases". The science would
| indicate that it either evolved in an immunocompromised human or
| through an animal. Those are particularly inconvenient paths to
| blame on "anti-vaxxers".
|
| We were all always going to get Covid whether we liked to or not.
| throw3849 wrote:
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| There can be multiple vectors sustaining COVID - the
| unvaccinated and anti-maskers certainly don't deserve all the
| blame, but they're certainly not helping either and are likely
| accelerating the speed of the spread and increasing the
| opportunities for more evolution of the virus.
| vaxxz wrote:
| > Those are particularly inconvenient paths to blame on "anti-
| vaxxers".
|
| Why would one feel the need to blame anti-vaxxers for new
| strains?
|
| > We were all always going to get Covid whether we liked to or
| not.
|
| That's not the point of vaccinations. The point of vaccination
| is to delay and spread out infection peaks as well as make
| infections as manageable as possible.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I love what this nurse is doing. I apologize in advance for this
| rant, but we're almost TWO YEARS into this thing and I have no
| more sympathy for the self-titled "dumb asses" who didn't get
| vaccinated, almost died, and now preach their story of redemption
| to everyone. I'm glad you made it through, but don't look to me
| for any thanks or recognition. How many cancer patients,
| transplant candidates, car accident victims, seniors and immune-
| compromised people died because you directly infected them, or
| took a hospital bed? How many health care workers will leave the
| field because you added largely preventable work? How many kids
| lost (and continue to be deprived of) the single safe place they
| could learn or get a decent meal when in-person schools shut
| down? A big part of this is YOUR FAULT and I'm not ready to
| forgive yet.
|
| Thank you to health care workers who keep grinding away to help
| others, and individuals like this who fight the ignorance and
| misinformation. You are heros in a time when we really need them.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| the lack of empathy, and I'm talking about true empathy that
| results in action when it comes to healthcare workers is still
| incredible.
|
| The amount of stress physically and mentally that nurses and
| doctors have been put through, by being exposed to covid
| themselves from the beginning, being separated from family,
| seeing people die every day is nuts.
|
| And the amount of people still who basically talk about this
| like "oh the hospitals aren't even full yet, it's not that
| bad", and have done so repeatedly really is just plain sad.
| Also goes for the food workers and delivery people and anyone
| else who keeps things running.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Yes, this needs to be said. What the unvaccinated are doing
| right now is conducing a DDOS attack on the whole medical
| system. This is going to cost them dearly, but everybody else
| will also pay a steep price. Is it really your freedom, if
| other people have to pay for it with their lives?
| michaelhenchard wrote:
| kdom13 wrote:
| Should we be similarly condemning speeders, drunk drivers,
| obese people, etc., for hogging up hospital beds as a result
| of their reckless behavior?
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Already two one word responses of "yes". I have to also
| echo the "yes" comments given here. Yes, obese people do
| deserve stigma/condemnation as their condition is not
| victimless.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| tzs wrote:
| Speeders and drunk drivers don't overwhelm hospital
| capacity because there aren't enough of them, and the
| injuries they cause are usually physical trauma that usual
| doesn't require as much resources to treat as does COVID.
|
| Obese people don't overwhelm hospital capacity because it
| is highly variable how long it takes for obesity to result
| in something that puts you in the hospital. Moderately
| obese people lose on average about 3 years of life. As far
| as hospital capacity goes the impact is that the people
| handling long term capacity planning have to change their
| forecasts to call for a little more capacity a little
| sooner.
| belltaco wrote:
| >speeders, drunk drivers
|
| Unsafe and drunk drivers are quite condemned.
|
| Obese people don't normally make hospital beds unavailable.
| If there was a safe, easy to take and effective vaccine
| against obesity, but they refused to take it, they would be
| condemned much more.
|
| Plus none of them can infect others with their affliction.
| [deleted]
| eliaspro wrote:
| None of these are infectious with a doubling rate of 2.5-4
| days.
| bsaul wrote:
| Well, if anything the past two months has taught us, is
| that vaccination rate in countries has zero impact on the
| number of cases of the next wave.
| simonh wrote:
| That certainly was not true pre-omicron. Here I'm the UK
| even with Delta, widespread early vaccination made a huge
| difference. Life here largely returned to normal for much
| of the past year with very low hospitalisation rates. It
| saved huge numbers of lives, with a relatively open
| society.
|
| Now with omicron it's spreading so fast that even though
| it seems to be less likely to put you in hospital, it's
| infecting so many people the numbers in hospital are
| shooting up anyway. Vaccination is still saving huge
| numbers of lives here, but we are phasing in some limited
| lockdown rules as they become necessary.
|
| On a personal note I caught the virus 2 weeks ago. I was
| pretty sick for a few days, but shook it off after a week
| thanks to being fully vaccinated. The rest of my family
| had it too and my reaction was the worst. I hate to think
| what it would have been like if I hadn't had the vaccine
| working for me as well. I'd probably be dead.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's not what we've learned.
| kadoban wrote:
| I highly doubt you have data showing that. If you do, I'd
| be very interested in seeing it.
|
| At the very least though, the vaccination rate has a
| large effect on hospitalizations and deaths.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Yes
| eska wrote:
| What a poor attempt at causing a false choice logical
| fallacy.
|
| Drunk drivers are some of the most hated people in society.
|
| Obesity can occur without own responsibility or at least be
| much more difficult to deal with for some people. It also
| doesn't infect people that walk past.
| delecti wrote:
| > condemning speeders, drunk drivers
|
| Yes, absolutely, 100%. There's a reason we have laws
| against those things: to condemn that behavior.
|
| > obese people
|
| The causes of the obesity pandemic in the developed world
| are too complicated to blanket say that all obese people
| are "reckless". Certainly some are though.
| bsaul wrote:
| smokers ? skateboarders ? alcohol drinkers ? rough sport
| amateurs ? People who don't exercise enough ? Those who
| eat junk food on their coach the whole day ?
|
| Don't you see where this is going ? Do you really want
| the government to dictate every single decision in your
| life, as soon as they're deemed "dangeours for the rest
| of the society" in one way or another ?
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Yes
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Drunk and other reckless drivers are already breaking laws,
| for which many do suffer the consequences personally.
|
| As to the obese and immuno-compromised also ending up in
| hospitals, many were born with a much higher than average
| risk for their conditions. Getting vaccinated is likely
| much easier than maintaining a healthy weight in this age
| of industrial "food" or being born without a high risk
| condition.
| malchow wrote:
| belltaco wrote:
| >followed a nerve gas attack playbook for a respiratory
| illness with a 0.2% fatality rate
|
| >I'd love to see you illustrate with numbers the DDOS that
| you believe the unvaccinated population is visiting on
| hospitals.
|
| There are only about 2.5 hospital beds per 1000 in the US.
|
| 0.2% is already 20 per thousand. Plus a lot more need(ed)
| hospitalization and proper medical care and oxygen in order
| to survive. Not to mention that hospitals have a high
| occupancy outside of covid, so not all beds are available
| just for covid patients.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am not an antivaxxer, but 0.2 per cent is 2 per
| thousand, and 100 per cent of the population won't get
| covid at the same time, even if the entire population was
| naive to the virus.
|
| The worst problem with covid is probably not the raw
| death rate, but that the ICU patients often take weeks to
| either improve or die.
|
| ICUs are not designed for long stays; prior to covid,
| median ICU stay was fairly short (I found a figure of 2
| days and mean of 3.4 days [0]). But for example, my GP,
| who died of covid in early 2020, stayed on life support
| for six weeks before his body finally gave up.
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4792682/
| stavros wrote:
| > 0.2% is already 20 per thousand.
|
| Don't you mean 2 per thousand?
| lmilcin wrote:
| > In fact, I'd love for you even to make the first
| necessary point in that argument: that hospitals in the
| U.S. are currently widely running out of capacity to treat
| patients
|
| Don't be fooled by bed availability. They put more beds,
| sure, but AFAIK they still haven't found a way to mass
| produce more medical staff.
| malchow wrote:
| [deleted]
| detaro wrote:
| the "DDOS attack" quote is from somebody else...
| api wrote:
| Simple solution: if you refuse vaccination for a non-medical
| reason and require treatment for COVID, you pay out of
| pocket. No insurance, no medicare, no medicaid.
|
| Best of all isn't personal responsibility a classical
| conservative thing? Don't want to do something simple and
| _free_ to keep yourself out of the hospital? Fine, but you
| get to pay for it.
|
| Of course they will just go bankrupt and we'll end up paying
| for it anyway, but at least it will send a message.
|
| Could be extended to other forms of adherence to flagrant
| health quackery. I have zero sympathy for this insanity
| anymore. If you get your health information from YouTube you
| are an idiot.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Where does that line end? Smoking-related diseases? Obesity
| related presentations? Extreme sports injuries? Drunk
| driving crashes? Drug overdoses? Unwanted pregnancies?
|
| There's a whole lot of reasons people end up in the
| hospital, plenty of which someone will conclude "well, that
| was more stupid than I'm comfortable paying for", and
| having to do a full circumstances checkup to figure out
| which price and to whom to charge seems...problematic.
| klyrs wrote:
| Fun fact, there are insurance exemptions and penalties
| for at least a few of the things you've listed. Your
| jurisdiction & policy may vary, but where I live, smoking
| can increase your insurance rates and make you ineligible
| for things like kidney transplants; injuries sustained
| while intoxicated are considered at-fault and aren't
| insured. I think that includes overdoses. People who
| engage in extreme sports are encouraged to get specific
| life insurance because most policies don't cover wanton
| recklessness.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| ok_dad wrote:
| Honestly, I only hate the ones who don't see the error of their
| ways. The ones who realize they're dumb and make changes should
| be forgiven. Imagine if there were no room for forgiveness on
| anything, then you get a calcification of beliefs and that's
| not great. Forgiveness is what allows people to change their
| minds.
| VLM wrote:
| Its just a new religion, and the believers in it violently
| aggressively hate the non-members, which is scary to see.
|
| We as a race haven't eliminated a coronavirus yet, and we
| probably are not anytime soon, and hatred is starting against
| anyone weak enough to get bullied, because someone has to be
| made to pay. Gonna be a rough winter.
| timr wrote:
| > How many kids lost (and continue to be deprived of) the
| single safe place they could learn or get a decent meal when
| in-person schools shut down?
|
| Given that we're the ~only country in the world who insisted on
| kicking kids out of school long after it was shown that schools
| pose miniscule risk, this strikes me as a profoundly
| disingenuous remark.
|
| Kids weren't deprived of education because someone refused to
| get a vaccine; they were deprived of education _because we
| overreacted_.
| m-ee wrote:
| There's a lot of nuance missing from this. Schools pose
| minimal risk when appropriate measures are taken. These
| measures are frequently not taken, a friend of mine just
| caught Covid from the school she works at last week. Masking
| and distancing are semi enforced, but the biggest issue is
| kids are being sent to school sick repeatedly. Parents have
| relied on and feel entitled to schools as free childcare,
| sometimes without much choice if their jobs are at risk.
| Framing the school closings as an overreaction to a minimal
| risk is incorrect and dangerous.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Given that we're the ~only country in the world
|
| Well you're not the only country on the internet so...which
| country are you referring to? And how do you define "long
| after it was shown that schools pose miniscule risk"?
|
| Seems to me many countries did this for a long time and at
| least in my country cases spike when schools open and
| infections spread to older family members. This is visible
| both in cases/deaths correlating with school reopenings +
| from what I've seen anecdotally.
| woodpanel wrote:
| This!
| renewiltord wrote:
| yosito wrote:
| Triple vaxxed, here to play the devil's advocate. Stories like
| these are not to please you, or to recognize the person. But
| telling them is important for unvaccinated people to see. I'm
| really hoping that my unvaccinated family members see this kind
| of story from someone they follow and trust before it's too
| late for them.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| [deleted]
| colecut wrote:
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| 1123581321 wrote:
| This nurse is taking quite a different approach from yours.
| These photos are empathic and respectful and takes humans as
| they are, while still getting the message across. I don't think
| your mindset would lead to the same quality of journalism.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Sure, that's all fine. It just didn't make sense to me that
| you started by saying you loved the photojournalism. I see
| now that you didn't care about what the journalist was
| doing, just some of what was being portrayed as a come-
| uppance. It's okay.
|
| Edit: sorry, I thought you were the other person.
| Disregard. I'm not sure why you wrote any of that.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Sure, that's all fine.
|
| Really? Seeing anti-vaxxers as sub-human is _fine_?
|
| Even the Bush admin opted to argue that certain types of
| torture aren't really torture rather than go down the
| rabbit-hole of claiming that certain people aren't really
| human.
|
| If one's position is to the right of Cheney and gang,
| one's ethics have definitely taken a wrong turn.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I'm really getting it from both sides today. :)
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Nobody is advocating for torture. The only "torturing"
| these people are being subjected to is self-inflicted.
|
| They saw Massachusetts residents as sub-human during the
| early surge. They cackled with glee that the "libtards"
| were dying. Their golden boy and his family purposefully
| diverted shipments of PPE and medical supplies away from
| northeast states that were hardest hit.
|
| Where was your concern then, as my fellow residents died
| from a disease we had little understanding of and no
| vaccine for?
|
| Shoe's on the other foot, we now have a vacccine which
| means these hospitalizations are 99% preventable, and
| suddenly we're expected to have compassion? Fuck that
| noise.
|
| Try concerning yourself slightly more about the physical
| and mental welfare of people providing medical
| services....than the patients who are resisting treatment
| to the point of physical assault. Who were begged,
| cajoled, and even bribed to take a fucking vaccine but
| said no. People who saw their god-emperor get a booster
| shot and still couldn't handle reality.
| beebmam wrote:
| Frankly, people who buy into anti-vaxx ideology are victims of
| mass propaganda campaigns. And all of us suffer because of
| those mass propaganda campaigns.
| nostromo wrote:
| Should we extend this attitude to everyone else that taxes the
| healthcare system?
|
| If you got HIV from unprotected sex, should we shame you?
|
| If you're fat and get diabetes should we?
|
| Etc etc. This is inhumane thinking and shouldn't be encouraged.
| vaxxz wrote:
| It's a wee bit different to aid and abet an ongoing global
| pandemic.
| [deleted]
| vondur wrote:
| I thought vaccinated or unvaccinated you can still infect
| others? Mainly it's vaccinating yourself to have a less severe
| outcome if you do become infected is what I've been seeing be
| told.
| simonh wrote:
| The vaccines don't stop you getting it, but:
|
| 1. They reduce the chances you will get it because they
| increase the chances your system will fight it off before it
| gets established.
|
| 2. They reduce the time during which you are infectious, and
| the amount of the virus in your system that you output during
| that time. As a result they decreases the chances of you
| infecting others.
|
| The reduction for the original variants was very significant.
| Vaccinated people were very unlikely to infect anyone else
| prior to Delta. With Delta the benefits were significantly
| reduced. With Omicron the benefits in infectiousness are
| again much reduced.
|
| So for most of the last year the vaccines were a vital tool
| in reducing the spread of the virus as well as protecting the
| vaccinated. Now Omicron is so infectious the effect is much
| lower. Of course the vaccines do still seem to be real life
| savers against Omicron, and avoiding getting sick yourself
| still protects others by reducing the load on the health care
| system.
| miles wrote:
| > They reduce the time during which you are infectious, and
| the amount of the virus in your system that you output
| during that time.
|
| _Transmission potential of vaccinated and unvaccinated
| persons infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in a
| federal prison, July--August 2021_ https://www.medrxiv.org/
| content/10.1101/2021.11.12.21265796v...
|
| > A total of 978 specimens were provided by 95
| participants, of whom 78 (82%) were fully vaccinated and 17
| (18%) were not fully vaccinated. No significant differences
| were detected in duration of RT-PCR positivity among fully
| vaccinated participants (median: 13 days) versus those not
| fully vaccinated (median: 13 days; p=0.50), or in duration
| of culture positivity (medians: 5 days and 5 days; p=0.29).
| adventured wrote:
| That's correct, you can infect other people if you're
| vaccinated, and you can still get infected even if you're
| triple vaccinated. Break-through cases are very common, as
| witnessed in highly vaccinated nations that are still
| struggling with huge outbreaks.
|
| Your conclusion is essentially the right one, the leading
| vaccines (particularly the mRNA vaccines) can dramatically
| lower the risk of a bad outcome if you catch SARS2. They do
| not stop the spead of the virus and do not ensure you won't
| catch it.
| zip1 wrote:
| I love what this nurse is doing. Something that doesn't come
| through is how loud the air purifiers are in make-shift negative
| pressure rooms. The smell of incontinence. Foggy face shields and
| sweaty isolation gowns.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-26 23:01 UTC)