Hacker News Reader

Comment by JacobThreeThree | Hacker News Reader

>the goalposts are exactly the same as they were two years ago

Shouldn't the politicians have made progress on this issue over the course of two years? At what point is it incompetence or corruption, if the billions being spent to fight the pandemic make zero discernable impact on the most critical issue?

View on HN

>Shouldn't the politicians have made progress on this issue over the course of two years?

What do you mean? Should they should magically cause the number of doctors and hospitals to double inside two years?

>if the billions being spent to fight the pandemic make zero discernable impact on the most critical issue?

What leads you to believe that measures such as pushing vaccination haven't been having tremendous impact on that issue?

If we had started training more nurses at the beginning of this pandemic they would have graduated already.

Paying them more would also help...

You mean, training at home during lockdown?

>What leads you to believe that measures such as pushing vaccination haven't been having tremendous impact on that issue?

Do you believe that health care systems are currently overwhelmed by COVID?

In the United States, they are currently paying traveling nurses up to $10k per week. That is a 500% increase over normal pay. It's so bad that the Texas legislature and Congress are trying to limit interstate commerce and impose wage caps. These gigs are not hard to come by - anyone qualified can easily get them.

If that doesn't say "understaffed and overwhelmed", I'm not sure what evidence would.

You don't seem to have an "elective surgery" planned and then cancelled and postponed indefinitely, haven't you. Or a biopsy you cannot have for that worrisome mass down there... all because your local facilities are at capacity trying to keep no-vaxxers alive.

Good for you

I'm sorry, I don't understand the relation between me asking if a poster believes hospitals are overwhelmed, and your comment. I assume you believe hospital systems are still overwhelmed after two years, based on your sentiment.

Your comment is likely a rhetorical question. If you disagree to a statement please add some countering facts rather than simply challenging the statements with artifices and shifting the burden.

If the definition of "overwhelmed" is "past the point of functioning at all" then no. But if the definition is "at the point of functioning with an appreciably lower quality of care", then definitely yes in many areas (less so now, but more so a month ago).

Mainly in areas where many people haven't been vaccinated. Where I'm at, hospitals are fine.

> Should they should magically cause the number of doctors and hospitals to double inside two years?

It's not even magic. It just needs to be done. Find a way. There is an emergency. You don't just get to whine and complain that it is too hard. Your solution doesn't need to be perfect. Far from it, in fact. It just needs to patch the issue so we don't need to do restrictions of any kind.

Anybody that claims it is impossible to double or even quadruple healthcare capacity specifically for covid just isn't being creative about it enough. It's not magic. You just make it happen. You have almost infinite resources to do it even up to and including relaxing licensing laws or removing any other political or bureaucratic hurdle.

> You just make it happen.

Funny you're light on specifics. We talk about a situation where people die if it doesn't happen. So better propose something solid.

> almost infinite resources

Build hospital tents.

> relaxing licensing laws

Employ untrained people.

> removing any other political or bureaucratic hurdle

Eh that tends to happen, once you're in that triage situation.

Look you can't will medical care. You have to build it. It takes decades.

In most of the US life has been back to normal (give or take) for a year or more. A lot of people are still dying, but they are primarily higher risk individuals who have chosen not to get the vaccines that have been free and readily available for about a year.

So in terms of goalposts, what exactly is your goal? I'd like to see international travel normalize - it's maybe one of the few restrictions I still feel is constraining me - but there is little my government can do about that.

There's been plenty of progress on the issue of not overwhelming the healthcare system. In the areas with high vaccination rates. Most hospitalizations are by the unvaccinated. In those cases where unvaccinated overwhelm the system, that's not the politicians' fault except for the ones also spreading anti-vaxer misinformation.

They did make a lot of progress on it: they supported the extremely fast invention and roll out of vaccines that accomplish these goals. People have refused to take those vaccines and have refused to support politicians mandating that people take them. It is thus outside the hands of the politicians at this point, and in the hands of society at large.

Where I live (which may be different from the previous poster), the health system has not been overwhelmed yet. So guess that counts as success?

We didn't have to rig tents to use as hospitals, burn dead bodies on the street, or to pay exorbitant sums for oxygen on the black market, as it has happened in other countries.

And if you ask me, yes, that's worth billions, and a bit of self-discipline.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com