This photo shows hospital staff at the Cleveland Clinic removing the body of a deceased COVID patient from their intensive care unit yesterday. It's a regular occurrence there, and in hospitals across the U.S.
COVID cases in Ohio have increased 47% in the last 7 days. That's a lot, but not compared to the worst states (Texas 324%, and Oregon 259%). But hospitalizations from COVID in Ohio have increased 17% in the past week, the fourth worst state.
Every COVID hospitalization surge brings us near or to a breaking point in our health care system, which is nearly two years into the pandemic. From The Atlantic's Ed Yong:
"The little acts of compassion that make hospital stays tolerable disappear. Next go the acts of necessity that make stays survivable. Nurses might be so swamped that they can’t check whether a patient has their pain medications or if a ventilator is working correctly. People who would’ve been fine will get sicker. Eventually, people who would have lived will die. This is not conjecture; it is happening now, across the United States. 'It’s not a dramatic Armageddon; it happens inch by inch,' Anand Swaminathan, an emergency physician in New Jersey, told me."
Unvaccinated patients have been, and continue to be, the enemy of burned out and harried health care workers, who are seeing the results of the Omicron variant pushing their resources to the absolute limit. As we've said so often get tested, but more critically, get. the. damn. vaccine.
(photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)
