ICU providers, how are your units looking? Total COVID & Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated.

You are astonishingly dumb if you think there's a nationwide Covid conspiracy because doctors or hospitals want to make more money. No need for me to pile onto the rebuttals already provided, but that's just so ludicrous that I'm impressed people even bother responding to you.

Smaller community hospitals generally don't have two ICUs or do ECMO.

Hospitalist at a mid-sized academic community hospital in the northeast.

52 hospitalized covid patients, 11 of which are in our small ICU, which is at capacity. 6/11 ICU patients on vents.

All ICU covid patients are unvaccinated, and 38/41 of the med-surg and stepdown hospitalized patients are unvaccinated.

Two of the three vaccinated hospitalized patients are elderly, and one younger one (50s) is obese and only received one dose of the J&J vaccine, from what I can see from notes.

It will be OK. Fight the Good fight!

joed|rt wrote:

UK weekly surveillance reports can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports

Table 11 will give you the rates for infection, hospitalization and death across different demographics. Some interesting takeaways from the surveillance data:

Case rates are higher in vaccinated populations than in unvaccinated populations in the 18-69 demographics

Death rates are higher in vaccinated populations than unvaccinated populations in the under 18 demographic (even though case rates are more than 4 times greater).

With a sample size of 8 hospitalized individuals over 80, the expectation would be that between 5-6 would be vaccinated in an area where the vaccination rate is 93% in that demographic.

1) The first footnote of Table 11 cautions against making the sort of comparison you're making and references a different section of the document which efficacy estimates which consider confounding factors ignored in that table.

2) The UK data in Table 11 does not differentiate between the somewhat less effective AstraZeneca vaccine and the more effective Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Since AstraZeneca is not used in the US one would not expect the same top level efficacy.

3) I've pointed to the NY State vaccine efficacy for hospitalization several times over the past few days and it's around 95% for the top age group, so without other knowledge the expectation in a group of 8 individuals from a population of 93% vaccinated is slightly less than half, that is about 4. In such a small sample set the uncertainty in this expectation is large so 1 of 8 doesn't seem unlikely. Further a significant number of unvaccinated persons in the top age group are unvaccinated because of comorbidities that preclude their being vaccinated so they are a particularly vulnerable part of the age group.

STEVE THE ADDICT^^^^^^""""-""""--'-"--^' wrote:

Also, the ICUs have usually been full, especially PRE COVID. So saying an ICU is full is certainly not a revelation, it is more so an expectation than anything.

And therein lies the problem. ICUs which have historically been full already are now over-full thanks to COVID coming along. Sure, maybe most COVID cases don't land you in the ICU but if every ICU has to deal with a handful of cases, that's a handful of beds that can't be used for other patients with other issues, people who can't be treated because the doctors are busy with the COVID patients, etc.

Given that a large percentage (I won't make up numbers) of severe COVID cases are from unvaccinated people, this is the real argument for getting vaccinated - reducing unnecessary strain on the medical system.

Testing wrote:

Given that a large percentage (I won't make up numbers) of severe COVID cases are from unvaccinated people, this is the real argument for getting vaccinated - reducing unnecessary strain on the medical system.

And all because they want to be different and can’t understand that these are very well tested.

They somehow think that 99% of trained physicians all got this one wrong.

All those healthy young people out there actually had their death rates increase by a record amount, even though their total death rate from COVID was low. They ordinarily do not die until they are over 50, and then rates start increasing. But your obese and unhealthy and elderly do not normally die at anywhere near the rates they have died since the beginning of the pandemic. But their death rate for those vaccinated absolutely plummeted as a result of vaccination. Omicron has caused case rates to skyrocket, so it remains to be seen whether deaths and hospitalizations will drop. As I wrote here quite a while ago, Omicron might essentially bring the end of the pandemic, at least pending new contagious but virulent variants, but we don't know that yet. Give it another month and we should know.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

Testing wrote:

Given that a large percentage (I won't make up numbers) of severe COVID cases are from unvaccinated people, this is the real argument for getting vaccinated - reducing unnecessary strain on the medical system.

And all because they want to be different and can’t understand that these are very well tested.

They somehow think that 99% of trained physicians all got this one wrong.

You honestly believe 99% of doctors and scientists who are expert on this believe in forcing this vaccine?

You are a gullible one

carmine9 wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

And all because they want to be different and can’t understand that these are very well tested.

They somehow think that 99% of trained physicians all got this one wrong.

You honestly believe 99% of doctors and scientists who are expert on this believe in forcing this vaccine?

You are a gullible one

99% might be an exaggeration, but 90% sure.

EpiRunner wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

You honestly believe 99% of doctors and scientists who are expert on this believe in forcing this vaccine?

You are a gullible one

99% might be an exaggeration, but 90% sure.

I guess I'm going to edit that statement. I do not believe that 90% want to "force" the vaccine. But 90% would want to tie it to things like schooling, air travel, sporting events, concerts, indoor dining, etc.

I don’t work in ICU. I’m an ED nurse and work in two different hospital systems. Same story in both places right now, and with the multiple Covid surges. Vaccination status is a routine question when being checked into ER. While we’ve had vaccinated Covid patients, very few require hospital admission and I’ve yet to have to a vaccinated patient sick enough for ICU. ICU’s are completely full in both places. This is multi factorial. Partly because of increased Covid cases currently, and partly because of less bedside nurses so they block inpatient rooms, and partly because people are just sick with everything and mental illness and substance abuse are on the rise. It has backed up into ED in a horrible way. A few weekends ago a 42 bed ED had 35 patients holding waiting for inpatient beds. A 14 bed ED had 10 patients holding. There are not extra ED staff to go around. As you can imagine, it’s rather difficult to run an ED when you are also med-surge and ICU. It’s a war zone. Patients strewn down hallways, patients waiting hours and hours in full waiting rooms, nurses with more patients than could ever be considered safe. One of my ED nurse friends had 8 patients one night, with 3 of them on vents. She’s going to quit. And people are horrible. They’re so mean. Patients are mean. Families are mean.

Thank you for what you do.

It's disappointing to hear that patients and their families have been difficult and/or disrespectful. I've experienced the same in my job as a hospitalist on med-surg and stepdown. It's a real gut punch.

carmine9 wrote:

You honestly believe 99% of doctors and scientists who are expert on this believe in forcing this vaccine?

You are a gullible one

You think it’s an incredible coincidence that almost all the covid patients in the hospital didn’t get vaccinated.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

You honestly believe 99% of doctors and scientists who are expert on this believe in forcing this vaccine?

You are a gullible one

You think it’s an incredible coincidence that almost all the covid patients in the hospital didn’t get vaccinated.

You think it’s an incredible coincidence that hospitals have the option of using observation status to distort admission statistics ?

Have You Really Been Admitted – as an Inpatient – to the Hospital?

It isn’t just a clerical distinction. Your status can significantly impact coverage and what you pay.

You're in a hospital bed, and there you remain overnight – perhaps longer. Whatever adversity you're facing, one thing you may never consider is whether or not you've been admitted to the hospital: that is, specifically, if you're an inpatient.

Any hospital workers on this thread. Does this happen where you work? Admitted or not is a pretty clear cut case where i work.

I'm still in residency and rotated a lot in ICU during the beginning of outbreak in 03/2020. It was rather uneventful at the time (clearly, I was not in New York), but the same ICU is now beset with COVID cases to the extent that nurses and other staff have been quitting in droves.

I'm not exactly sure why there is so much controversy about vaccination. It seems like a hot-button topic for little reason. If it matters (it shouldn't), I consider myself a moderate. I do become somewhat nauseous when seeing some of my colleagues posting images of themselves or their kids on social media baring their deltoids in preparation for their shots.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been extremely effective at preventing hospitalization or, if hospitalized, death. It is truly a marvel of modern medicine that we are able to come up with such effective preventive measures so quickly. I'm not entirely convinced about the push for boosters, but I would be willing to be convinced once something other than loud rhetoric proves their worth. I certainly care little about what most news anchors and public figures think about such issues (including Dr. Fauci, who has been somewhat erratic with his opinions, infamously claiming in 02/2020 that masks were unnecessary).

It is important to point out that people with multiple significant chronic illnesses (eg. diabetes, morbid obesity, peripheral vascular disease, heart disease, etc.) may suffer poor outcomes even after vaccination. This is not a reflection of the vaccination as much as of fragile underlying health.

Despite being in favor of vaccination for myself and family and in awe of our ability to produce such therapies so rapidly and effectively, I sympathize with people who feel that mandates take away something that is paramount to the practice of Medicine in the United States: Patient autonomy. At the end of the day, many people believe that it is their right to decide whether a certain treatment (or preventive measure) is injected into their bodies. I see many of my physician cohort posting on various social media outlets in ridicule of these people, and that saddens me. While vaccine-related events or illnesses appear to be truly quite rare, that fact matters little to those unfortunate enough to suffer such unlikely fortunes. Perhaps the best way to deal with all this noise is genuine discussion without snark or the need to assert one's superiority over another. I bet that would increase vaccination rates more than anything.

Vaccines decrease severe disease in most over 55 but will not help with Omicron. The nice thing about Omicron is that is more of a bronchitis than a alveolar destroying pneumonia. I cover multiple large hospitals. 20 % of admissions are vaccinated/boosted and 80%are unvaccinated. ICU is more unvaccinated, older and multiple comorbidities.. 80% effective rate of vaccine is about what one would expect. But anyone who claims to fully understand COVID is a liar. Strong words but accurate.

If you want everyone to get the next vaccination. Just limit it to white heterosexual males over the age of 21 with a gross income of $250,000. After a week of uproar, everyone will be begging for the vaccine.