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Comment by Jansen312 | Hacker News Reader

In real world I got critized badly even for pointing out media only showing "numbers of infected" and walk into any hospitals now one will see significant less patients than during the peak.

We all will get sick from flu. Do we keep harping the potential of Spanish flu return? If we treat everything with utmost cdc-lab4 kind of safety, a lot of things we can't do and even earn a living. Up to a point, people need to realize we have to live with Covid just like everyone living with the virus descendent of Spanish flu.

And Omicron should be viewed as blessing to some extend as it is less severe and is one way nature provide immunity to us. A lot of people would want natural immunity than constantly getting jab every couple of months (Israel going for 4th right now).

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My mom had a heart attack about a month ago and while the hospital system in Seattle isn't hitting the redline of having to triage, the level of care you get is definitely lower than what I've seen in the past and its very busy all the time. You're going to have to put on your best "can I talk to your manager" level of aggressively trying to get through the system. Everyone there is overloaded and burned out from what I could see. Normal rates of influenza in the winter don't do this.

Hospitals are packed... idk what you are talking about.

Where are they packed? Genuinely curious to see some data about this.

I don't think you are genuinely curious at all. And if you were actually genuinely curious you could do a cursory Google search or even read a major newspaper. Instead you sit waiting on someone else to deal with your asinine request.

Man this is the most non constructive response I've heard. I'm looking for a resource of data showing hospital utilization and you come say me with this nonsense.

West coast, Midwest, and north east: Ohio, Rhode Island, Alaska, Iowa

Providence hospitals on the west coast are overwhelmed

Hennepin hospitals are overwhelmed in Minneapolis

Trinity Health with hospitals in 25 states is also getting overwhelmed

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/21/1066093...

“ The troops deployed to hospitals will include doctors, nurses, paramedics and other personnel during January and February as needed, the senior administration officials said. The White House is also deploying six emergency response teams to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont, the officials said.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/12/21/omi...

See this is exactly what they said last time, they said hospitals were being overwhelmed then it turned out later that the emergency wards had been empty the whole time.

Anyway, I was suspicious so I looked up some of the hospitals you mention. It turns out they are actually short of staff not beds... because they fired them all for not taking the vaccine.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2021/12/...

The media is in full spin trying to cover up the reason why hospital workers are leaving, claiming it is because they are exhausted, and ignoring the fact they were fired.

https://www.fox9.com/news/people-are-exhausted-health-care-w...

The Hennepin hospital you mention is getting the army to send more staff

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/defense-depa...

Obviously they aren't short of beds or more staff wouldn't help.

1. I wouldn’t call PJ media a reliable news source, and I lean right

2. Not all staff quit due to vaccine requirements. As some of the articles pointed out, they quit due to sheer exhaustion from the hospitals being continually overwhelmed

3. The percentage of nurses taken out due to vaccine requirements is less than 1%. Yes, every staff member counts, but that’s not the sole source or even the main source for hospitals being overwhelmed

4. The main cause of hospitals being overwhelmed is still due to a surge of incoming patients.

Uh, hospitals don't get short of furniture anywhere in the world. Most places don't even get short of equipment. It's almost always staff that is the limiting factor.

I remember Trump saying 50K people die from flu each year. Maybe slightly lower maybe slightly higher but let's use that number. We may be losing that many or maybe at least half that much every month despite 70% vaccination, despite masks, despite many companies still being remote. Basically the vulnerable population is smaller but the death rate is very likely an order of magnitude higher even if you consider the flu season is not a full year.

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