system weaknesses... future fridays

Covid infection/mortality rates and the partisan divide over the diseases are both becoming more and more terrifying, especially in wondering what the future will look like either in 2 weeks, 2 months, or 1 year. The many health care professionals speaking out have given me pause many times over. Please read all of this!

A retired doctor wrote this and is allowing me to share it as a message to the antimaskers out there. Fascinatingly she describes what the impact of a sick medical system is, rather than sick individuals (who cumulatively create that system) as she reminds us we all depend on systems and are not so ruggedly isolated as some among us imagine.

OK, Mask deniers: let’s say that you don’t really give a flying fuck about these skyrocketing COVID deaths because they’re happening to old people and brown people — not your demographic. So let’s say this pandemic really takes off, as it’s looking to do. Fills all the beds. Siphons away ever more staff to cope with huge numbers of sick people, including sick medical colleagues. Shuts down medical services for people with other semi- or even really urgent problems.

Let’s imagine that YOUR KID, riding his bike, gets hit by a car, and the ambulance is slow to arrive, due to COVID, or the ER wait is long, due to COVID. Let’s say the kid has a terrible outcome, not because he gets COVID, but because healthcare workers are overwhelmed by those who do.

Let’s say YOUR WIFE doesn’t get her routine colonoscopy, because it’s a “non-essential” exam, due to COVID. Let’s say her stage 3 colon cancer is not diagnosed until next year, and things do not go well.

Let’s say that YOU are T-boned by an angry Trump supporter wearing a MAGA hat whose truck runs a red light when he hears the GA recount has not gone the way he wanted. Let’s say that anesthesiology is not immediately available because — COVID intubations are peaking. So let’s watch you sit in the ER. Let’s imagine that the harried, hurried ER doc misses your splenic rupture, and you slowly slip into shock as you bleed into your splenic capsule.

Hey: YOU might want to re-think your position on wearing a COVID mask and taking COVID seriously.

In 50 years, when they make the documentaries of what this year was like, be like this guy... https://t.co/QxPz8ds60S

— Ryan Wubben (@MedFlightDoc) November 16, 2020

via {rebecca solnit}

picture via epidemiologist {dr. eric feigl-ding}

tweet via {deutschland}