Hurmanetar
New
Because of my work, I am aware of hospital utilization and the diagnoses involved. I see lots of beds utilized for back logged elective surgeries. I see people with chronic and emergent conditions that put off care last year due to covid concerns or covid restrictions on access, ending up in the hospital this year. I see very very few actual admissions for reason of covid infection. I do hear the same apocryphal stories that you relayed. I don't know what to say. It was explained to me at a conference (virtual, of course) that there are covid patients taking up beds, but I don't see them because they are Medicaid patients; indigent people and poor elderly in nursing homes that have spent through their Medicare long term care limits. Maybe so. If true, it's an important distinction to note, but no one outside the industry does. Not doing so furthers the big lie that we are all equally at risk. We're not. Once again, a normal healthy child to 55 year old has very little to fear from covid.
To counter anecdote with anecdote, my wife and I are not vaxxed. We go about our business, work out at the gym, eat out, etc and don't wear masks or any of that. We have lived in a supposedly high risk zip code in the SW since early May. We have not been sick nor known anyone who is here. Back East, where we moved from in May, I knew a few people that either contracted covid or had someone living in their house who did. In all instances, all household members were fine. At worst some bad cold/flu symptoms for a few days and that was it. My boss' son got it. He's 13. He was down and out for a few days and then back at it. Neither my boss, his wife or his daughter got sick even though they were all quarantined with the son for 14 days. Try doing that with a real wicked virus like Ebola or something like TB or even influenza A or B. ……..like I said, covid is very hinky.
I appreciate your point about entrenched sides. I reject that mentality. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Ideologies are a poor substitute for thinking and understanding situations.
A guy I work with came down with COVID on August 8th and has been in the hospital for about 3 weeks now and it is not looking good. He might not make it. We thought he was getting better at the end of last week, but when I checked on him yesterday his wife responded that he's on a ventilator now. I've been doing his job for the last few weeks. He's the only person I know who has been seriously ill with it. He's in his mid 50's and overweight and I think he's probably getting crappy treatment at the hospital. They wake him up every hour or two at night... of course no Ivermectin or anything that could help. He said he's lost 30 lbs in the last 2 weeks. Plenty of other people at work have had it, but didn't have a hard time with it.