Los Angeles County hospitals are preparing for potential *healthcare rationing* as ICUs overloaded with #COVID19. New proposed guidelines call for a shift towards maximizing saveable lives, and prioritizing care with best chance. 🧵 latimes.com/california/sto…
2) “Instead of trying everything to save a patient, their goal during a crisis is to save as many patients as possible, meaning those less likely to survive will not receive the same level of care they would have otherwise...”
3) “Doctors will no longer be pulling out all the stops to save a life but instead strategizing about how to keep as many people as possible from perishing.
4) “Some compromise of standard of care is unavoidable; it is not that an entity, system, or locale chooses to limit resources, it is that the resources are clearly not available to provide care in a regular manner,” the document reads.
5) “we don’t have enough trained staff for the number of patients who need care. We have brought in new staff, retrained and redeployed staff from other areas of the system, and have requested additional resources from the state,” Ghaly wrote.
6) “But these measures are not anticipated to be enough to meet the continuously escalating number of patients that are presenting across the county for care.”
Hence the need for the new LA county care rationing. #COVID19
7) In the latest HHS report— SoCal is in one of the worst areas of concern, and dubbed a “RAPID RISER” county.
8) SoCal is a major hotspot. But so is 3/4 of the country. Anticipate HC rationing to continue.
9) SoCal has also has one of the highest per capita cases in the US. California is doing horrible now. But so are so many other states too. Tennessee and Indiana and... it’s endless.
10) Why do I write these long threads🧵 on the coronavirus?
Besides being an epidemiologist, it’s because I have been wracked with guilt since January. Background on what happened.... nymag.com/intelligencer/…
11) and we have now officially arrived at rationing...
BREAKING—FDA suddenly cancels meeting to update next season’s flu vaccines, with zero explanations. Any delays will jeopardize next year’s vaccine supply chain.
2) Folks who follow me know that I’m no bullshitter. I criticized past pandemic response right and left, and have called balls and strikes without bias. And I often say things that doctors & epidemiologists are whispering among themselves but don’t say publicly. (Cough cough) ⬇️
3) While I don’t recommend hoarding… I think stocking up on flu antivirals, which you can obtain prophylactically (preventively) from doctors if you ask nicely why you’re high risk, can be a good idea. I know many doctors, epidemiologists and virologists who do for their family.
Doctors are debunking RFK Jr’s claim that 20 hospitalized measles cases in Texas are there for mainly quarantine. Doctors on the ground say the 20 kids hospitalized are having trouble breathing. Oh and they are all unvaccinated against measles, which RFK Jr neglects to mention.
2) RFK Jr told Trump today there’s now 2 measles deaths.
Woke or biology? There are actually more than the basic “male” XY & “female” XX sexes. Why? Because biology also creates people with single X chromosomes, or extra chromosomes like XXX, XXY, XYY, or XXX+, plus many 🧬genes. 👉All I’m asking is— please be kind to others. Thanks🙏
2) “The most frequent SCAs include Turner syndrome (45,X), Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY), Trisomy X syndrome (47,XXX), and Double Y syndrome (47,XYY).”
3) “The phenotype seen in SCAs is highly variable and may not merely be due to the direct genomic imbalance from altered sex chromosome gene dosage but also due to additive alterations in gene networks and regulatory pathways across the genome as well as individual genetic modifiers.”
I'm shocked a lot of doctors don't know about this newer flu antiviral drug called Baloxavir (XOFLUZA)... that shortens your flu illness by 33%, and reduces your viral load by day 2, versus what a placebo takes 5-6 days to achieve. Baloxavir also seems superior to TAMIFLU (oseltamivir) for smashing your viral load on 2 day, achieving what takes Tamiflu 3-4 days. CDC even lists Baloxavir on their website as one of the top 4 drugs that it tracks whether it works against new flu strains (it works)
2) "Baloxavir was associated with significantly more rapid declines in infectious viral load than placebo or oseltamivir (Figure 3A and 3B)." nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
3) Adverse events for baloxavir were no different than placebo. in fact theres even hints that it could be lower than Tamiflu.
"Adverse events that were considered to be related to the trial regimen were more common in oseltamivir recipients (8.4%) than in baloxavir recipients (4.4%, P=0.009)"
⚠️WORST FLU SEASON ever since 2002-2003 when we began to track flu (red, first graph). Worst hit this year are children ages 0-4 and 5-17. ▶️We also have significantly LOWER flu vaccine uptake this year, one of the lowest flu vaccine coverages (red 3rd graph). Indisputable facts.
2) I don't need to tell you that certain US states have vastly lower vaccination rates than others. See map (lighter green, less flu vaccination coverage), and which have higher (darker green)...
If you want to see details and demographics on which state has the LOWEST flu vaccine coverage rates... the data is here. cdc.gov/fluvaxview/das…
3) It’s not just the flu that is going around… Gaines County, TX, where the epicenter of the measles outbreak is, has one of the lowest measles vaccination rates too.