Far more common are folks w/ chronic illnesses--heart problems, diabetes, etc.--that are being seriously exacerbated by COVID. Said illness might be listed as reason for admission, but the admission wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been infected. 3/
There are a lot of such cases cos the US has a lot of chronically ill people. They're being misleadingly bundled with the "broken-arm-and-oops-also-covid" group, even though COVID really isn't incidental to their health. 4/
And also, health problems don't split into easy buckets! It's not like they line up to afflict people one at a time. They intersect & overlap. This for/with-COVID debate hinges on a dichotomy that doesn't actually exist... 5/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
...and that, for hospitals, really doesn't matter right now. With or for, they're still there, COVID-positive, requiring isolation, PPE for providers, and space/attention that health-care workers do not have right now. 6/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
If the point is that hospitalization data is squishy, then yes, it is. But it's also squishy in ways that also underestimate the current toll, rather than overegging it. There's no easy metric or dashboard that tells you how badly the system is faring. 7/
So instead of cosplaying as data journalists, people might try just asking healthcare workers what's actually happening to them, right now, on the ground.
The bottom line is that the hospitalization numbers look bad, and *are* bad.
As @jeremyfaust says, "We’re still in the emergency phase of the pandemic, and everyone who is downplaying that should probably take a tour of a hospital before they do." /End theatlantic.com/health/archive…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I've often found that health-care workers are at their rawest and most emotionally vulnerable in the lulls, when hospitals are quieter (tho not quiet) and they can exhale and process. That's when people have just broken down on the phone. Or quit. 2/
By contrast, during the actual surges, they're more likely to be in adrenaline mode. They're just trying to get through it, to put aside the trauma so they can do their jobs. They have armor on, and if you listen, you really can hear it in their answers and their voices. 3/
🚨I wrote about what this surge is doing to the healthcare system.
It's bad.
Though less severe, Omicron is spreading quickly enough to inundate hospitals, which can't handle the strain cos so many healthcare workers had quit or are now sick. 1/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
The most important thing about this surge: It comes *after all the others*, & finds a workforce that’s exhausted, demoralized, & smaller because of waves of resignations.
Today’s system can’t handle what it used to handle. It must now handle a LOT. 2/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
COVID hospitalizations rose 40k to 65k in the 7 weeks before Christmas, and then to 110k in the 2 wks since.
The CDC is forecasting 25-54k extra patients *per day* by end-Jan.
That's... not good. 3/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
I think the pandemic traps us (people broadly, and journalists specifically) in the present moment, always reacting (too late) to the current surge or lull. But to really understand how we got here and how to get out, we need to grapple with the past, both recent and distant. 2/
So I wrote about the ways in which trauma lingers, even when some semblance of safety is reached... 3/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
This piece isn't a lecture or advice column. It's just me walking through my thoughts as I try to apply the lessons learned from my reporting to my own life.
I know many people are struggling with decisions about gatherings so maybe this might help. 2/
🚨Well, I wrote about Omicron--what we know & what it means.
I feel the core problem is unchanged: The variant poses a much greater threat at the societal level than the individual one, making it the kind of problem the US has consistently flubbed. 1/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
First, a clarification. It's v. easy to ascribe everything to the new variant but even if Omicron hadn’t emerged, we’d still looking at a bad winter.
Hospitalizations are rising. 1000+ deaths /day. That’s Delta. What’ll Omicron do *on top of that*? 2/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
This piece analyzes that question at 2 scales—individual and societal. Individually, things are... not great but also not catastrophic. Societally, I am sad to say it’s bleaker.
Most medically trained long-haulers I interviewed were shocked at how quick their own peers were to disregard their medical expertise and tell them their symptoms were in their heads. Their status as patients completely subsumed their qualifications. 2/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Healthcare workers w/ long COVID have told me that their own doctor made the finger-circling-a-temple gesture at them, or told them “hormones do funny things to women.” For some, the experience has shattered their trust in their own profession. 3/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…