re: #57 darthstar

There will be regional staffing shortages based on Covid outbreaks, but I wish people would stop using the phrase ‘system collapse’

That depends on what’s meant by system collapse.

As more healthcare workers get infected, that throws more work on those who remain. Never-ending long hours and abuse by conservative patients and families is also driving people to quit who cannot be replaced (add to that ambulance drivers or EMTs who area also experiencing the same thing). On top of that, the CDC has changed their criteria to allow infected healthcare workers to work in hospital settings. So when you go into the emergency department to have a broken arm set, you may leave with a side of Covid-19.

If a hospital system collapses (for example the only major hospital here in the Nebraska Panhandle), all those patients have to go somewhere else.

In other states there have already been cases where physicians call around to adjacent states for any sort of hospital space.

While this scenario doesn’t happen much, take a look at Darthstar’s photo up there at #51. If he was the first person on the scene, how sanguine would he be about giving CPR? I’m not sure about there, but the odds here are 60% the person is not vaccinated at all if they are local. Even though I am, that doesn’t guarantee if I had to give CPR that I wouldn’t need medical care.