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by rumbeando Sat Jan 08, 2022 12:54 am
Ed Yong
9h, 16 tweets, 6 min readI wrote about what this surge is doing to the healthcare system.
It's bad.
Though less severe, Omicron is spreading quickly enough to inundate hospitals, which can't handle the strain cos so many healthcare workers had quit or are now sick. 1/
The most important thing about this surge: It comes *after all the others*, & finds a workforce that’s exhausted, demoralized, & smaller because of waves of resignations.
Today’s system can’t handle what it used to handle. It must now handle a LOT. 2/
COVID hospitalizations rose 40k to 65k in the 7 weeks before Christmas, and then to 110k in the 2 wks since.
The CDC is forecasting 25-54k extra patients *per day* by end-Jan.
That's... not good. 3/
Are these people with other problems who incidentally have Covid? Every doc/nurse I asked said no.
Vast majority have respiratory problems, or chronic illness that Covid tipped over the edge.
They're hospitalized by Covid, not simply with Covid. 4/
Omicron's less severe, so the average COVID patient in 2022 will be less sick than the one in 2021.
BUT tho the *percentage* of very sick people is lower, the *absolute number* is still high because the variant is spreading so quickly. 5/
So here's the bind: Omicron is less severe for individuals, but it’s disastrous for the health-care system that those individuals need. Once again, personal risk and collective risk are at odds, and the former is masking the latter. 6/
(Caveat: Many of the healthcare workers I talked to are seeing signs of Omicron's reduced severity in practice, which is great. But some aren't, which may be because a LOT of ppl are still unvaccinated & there's still a lot of Delta. Remember Delta? theatlantic.com/health/archive… 7/)
Some people argue that other countries got off lightly with Omicron. But compared to the US, those either have younger populations (SAfrica) or more vax/boosters (UK/Denmark). The same decoupling of cases/hosp’ns isn't guaranteed here. 8/
Hospital short-staffing was bad before Covid, and got worse as droves of people quit. It’s unbearable now cos unprecedented numbers of HCWs are out of play with breakthrough infections. Even places with fewer patients than last year feel fuller. 9/
To be clear, this isn’t just about Covid. Medical care is straining. People are sitting in emergency rooms for 6-12 hours waiting to be seen. Docs are discharging people who should be admitted cos there’s nowhere to put them. 10/
The whole system is straining.
Morale is failing. Healthcare workers see the reality of the pandemic daily. Then everywhere else, they see people living the fantasy that it’s over. The rest of the country is hell-bent on returning to normal, but their choices mean that HCWs cannot. 12/
This is what it looks like when a healthcare system collapses. It’s not a dramatic, movie-style thing. First, it’s just *a lot of waiting*. Things take longer, then they don’t happen. Care gets gradually worse. More staff leave. This is happening now. 13/
Many proposed solutions—troops! antivirals!—are insufficient, and can’t be deployed at scale or in time. Unbelievably, it’s 2022, and the fate of the healthcare system once again depends on flattening the curve, in days not weeks. 14/
And even then, when hospitalizations fall, it won't be over because, frankly, many healthcare workers have just had enough. More and more are talking about leaving—maybe not now, but perhaps once the adrenaline and need start to fade. 15/
And again, this is no longer just about Covid. It's now about our ability to get the standard of medical care that we've come to expect for *anything*. If you're impervious to harm or disease, or can regenerate, you can sit this one out. Otherwise... Fin/
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) January 7, 2022
I wrote about what this surge is doing to the healthcare system.
It's bad.
Though less severe, Omicron is spreading quickly enough to inundate hospitals, which can't handle the strain cos so many healthcare workers had quit or are now sick. 1/https://t.co/1OmtMu1mw7
