Not necessarily news, but a reminder that our publicly available hospital data gives us a statewide look. For example, we know the state's ICU availability. Health officials have the same information for the state's hospital regions and individual hospitals, but it's not public.
Something to keep in mind as we get back to discussing possible strains on hospital capacity.
Also, that risk map won't show red without some triggers, the most likely of which being the regional hospital capacity reaches a low threshold. Public data won't show that coming.
Former versions of the map wouldn't trigger red until statewide hospital capacity was spent, but health officials updated those protocols.
One thing to look out for: One of the state's plans to combat hospital capacity issues is suspending elective surgeries. Medical professionals will tell you "elective" surgeries are still critical, and this can create a backlog of necessary medical care.
These are some of the details that were in the spotlight earlier in the pandemic, when hospitalizations were this high. They had dropped and held steady for a few months. This information I think will be helpful to remember as we keep an eye on hospitalizations next week.
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The Senate is hearing HB 1007. It appropriates hundreds of millions of dollars to university hospitals, but it says they can't use any of it for gender-affirming care. Link to the hearing: oksenate.gov/live-chamber
Link to the bill: oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?…
Minority Leader Kay Floyd: There was a comment that the majority of Oklahomans don't support gender-affirming care. Where did you get that figure?
Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat: We haven't done polling, but that is the consensus in who is reaching out to our offices. #okhealth
Floyd: Minors have to have parents' permission to undergo any health care. Is this measure anti-choice?
Treat: We don't allow minors to make life-changing decisions — to get tattoos, buy cigarettes or enter contracts.
Floyd: Are you likening health care to getting a tattoo?
Idk growing up we didn’t really learn what fascism was. We heard Nazis were evil but not much about their platform outside of the genocide. Didn’t learn the difference between right and left authoritarians. A girl in my class once started a speech, “Hitler was a communist.”
It was drama, speech and debate class and one of the few hippie edgelords in all of Muskogee was there with his copy of the communist manifesto in his bag and just looked at her so haggard. They were friends. What a time.
Anyway I think that teaching about fascism in the Bush years would have been to hard and it’s not an accident that we didn’t do it. My own edgelord take I guess.
OU Health statement: The center was neber slated to offer GA care, and "The OU Health Senior Leadership team is proactively planning the ceasing of certain gender medicine services across our facilities and that plan is already under development." #okhealth
Also, this isn't happening in a vacuum. Just a little context: Tucker Carlson has been on a campaign against GA care, in this segment, accusing hospitals of "sexually mutilating children for profit." video.foxnews.com/v/631272057011…
I had a helpful conversation with Dr. Aaron Wendelboe, a professor at OUHSC and former state epidemiologist, about waning antibodies this morning. Here's a little thread for anyone interested. #okhealth
We keep hearing that after six months, you don't have "circulating antibodies anymore." That does not mean your immunity is gone.
It is normal, for any disease response, to lose those circulating antibodies. They aren't your only defense.
Gov. Kevin Stitt and AG John O'Connor are giving an update on their legal fight against the Biden Administration regarding vaccine mandates. #okhealth Here's the link if you want to watch.
Stitt repeats the quote that President Biden, right after his election, said he would not mandate the vaccine. top-ranking Republicans, such as U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Here's a look at that. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
O'Connor: We've been asked, why so many lawsuits? "It's because the Biden Administration has rolled out its vaccine mandates on multiple fronts." He says the President does not have the authority under the Constitution or the laws of this country to mandate the vaccine.