Hospitals in Idaho, Alaska, Alabama, Montana and other states are rationing care – a painful decision necessitated by unvaccinated patients suffering from severe COVID infections overwhelming available facilities.

In Idaho, the State Department of Health and Welfare now “allows hospitals to allot scarce resources like intensive care unit rooms to patients most likely to survive and make other dramatic changes to the way they treat patients.

• In Kootenai Health’s ICU, one critical care nurse might be supervising up to six patients with the help of two other non-critical care nurses. The usual ratio is one ICU nurse for one ICU patient.
• “nearly 92% of all of the COVID-19 patients in St. Luke’s hospitals were unvaccinated. Sixty-one of the hospital’s 78 ICU patients had COVID-19.”

A Montana hospital “was also forced to implement crisis standards of care amid a surge in COVID-19 patients” when all critical care beds were already occupied.

In Houston Texas, a military veteran died when no hospitals near him had space or staff to treat a sudden case of gallstone pancreatitis.

A 73 year old Alabama man died of a cardiac condition when the hospital in his hometown of Cullman, Ala., contacted 43 others in three states — and all were unable to give him the care he needed. Three weeks ago there were 60 more ICU patients than beds in ICUs.

There are many. many more examples.

This. Should. Never. Have. Happened.

And wouldn’t have if not for COVID deniers, anti-vaxxers, and the media channels that gave them a megaphone to spread their nonsense.

Getting anti-vaxxers to change their views is incredibly difficult; the media is replete with stories of COVID patients telling their doctors they don’t believe they have the virus (look them up).

Medical providers’s option is stark indeed – treat the patients with a self-inflicted disease, or send them home…and treat the heart attack, car crash, pancreatitis, stroke, burn, asthma attack and other patients.

It has come to this.

What does this mean for you?

With personal choice comes personal responsibility. 

Did exactly what it was intended to do – engaged with a lot of people, bluntly stating what many are thinking.

Some of the willingly unvaccinated are very good friends, people I admire, respect, and care about. It grieves me to no end that we are so far apart on this issue, and that it has come to this.

The title and some of the language offended a few (out of 2567 subscribers, 21 unsubscribed). While I absolutely do not apologize for my language I do understand why you may have been offended. Long time readers know that I almost never curse on MCM (although I am more profane in person); I think I’ve used profanity fewer than 5 times in over 3500 posts.

On the other side, 8 new subscribers signed up and comments and private emails were overwhelmingly supportive.

What is apparent is this.  Anger with the willfully unvaccinated is growing, and for very good reason. Unless you are a Native or Black American or have a legitimate medical issue, you have no valid reason to put your family and friends and the rest of us at risk because you don’t want to get the vaccine.

(Native and Black Americans should absolutely get vaccinated; however knowing how we killed millions of Native Americans and infected Blacks in the name of science one can certainly understand vaccine fears, fears we must overcome.)

You have already been vaccinated to protect you from polio, mumps, measles, rubella, and many other childhood ailments. Many of us have vaccinations protecting us from the flu, tetanus, rabies, shingles and myriad other diseases.

You didn’t rebel, protest, or demonstrate when your kids had to get those vaccinations to attend school.

You didn’t scream and shout when you asked for a shingles vaccine to protect you from this painful and debilitating infection.

No one was outraged when we effectively ended small pox and polio infections through mass vaccinations.

So ask yourself – why are you so angry about COVID vaccines?  And be honest. Do not spout meaningless nonsense you read somewhere on Facebook about VAERS or breakthrough infection issues or other blather. We are done refuting arguments that don’t stand up to the most cursory examination.

And I will publicly call out commenters who spout such idiocy.

The reason is tribalism. You and your friends and family have been duped into making COVID a divisive issue, to separate us and push us apart. After 20 months of attempting to educate, inform, discuss and debate, the majority of Americans are fed up with your intransigence, your willful ignorance, your refusal to accept the science.

I have tried and tried and tried again, writing over 120 posts about COVID only to be met with the same tissue-thin arguments based on nothing but a Facebook post.

So, we are done with you.

If you refuse to get vaccinated, then you get to own the consequences of your decision. You tout personal responsibility, you teach your kids to be responsible, you demand it of your elected officials, then fine – you get to:

• lose your job,
• pay for all your COVID-related medical care, and
• be sued for the care of others you infect.

What does this mean for you?

Your decisions have consequences. Own them.

Warning – I am really pissed off.

We are very close to several clinicians that work in medical facilities. They are overwhelmed with COVID patients – almost all of whom are unvaccinated. It is devastating to talk with these medical professionals, to hear their pain and immense frustration and anger and fear.

There are no more beds in the Pediatric ICU, no more ecmo machines available for anyone – covid patients or not. Many procedures are being postponed indefinitely because unvaccinated COVID patients are occupying all the beds, Unvaccinated COVID patients are sucking up all the care, all the energy, all the will and desire and expertise and passion and patience and resilience.

All because many Americans allow themselves to be duped into believing somehow COVID isn’t a problem, that kids won’t be affected, that vaccinations are dangerous, that bullshit from right wing pundits is more believable than facts from scientists or pleas from physicians.

And this is just one hospital, albeit a very big one that serves a very large area. Hospital beds in eastern Washington are full to beyond capacity because idiots in Idaho aren’t vaccinated. Hospitals in Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, and many other states are also overwhelmed, all because total assholes who know better are lying to people.

Hospitals in several states are doing battle triage – meaning if you are in a horrendous car accident, have a stroke or an embolism or fall off a ladder, if your baby falls in a pool or your mother falls down the stairs you/them are gonna die because the facilities and doctors you need are too busy caring for fucking idiots who refused to get vaccinated and are now dying of COVID.

This isn’t a short term problem.

Nurses doctors and other staff are running away from patient care because they cannot stomach treating yet another idiot for a dangerous disease because they were too lazy, too willfully ignorant, too willing to listen to some asshole on Facebook and not believe science, facts, nurses, doctors.

This is deeply personal for many. If your baby has a respiratory problem, good luck finding a facility with room and time and facilities needed to care for your baby – they are full with kids who got infected because assholes refused to get vaccinated.  Same thing with ICUs and CCUs, cath labs and operating rooms.

Republicans in many states are trying to pass laws allowing people to not get vaccinated, to not wear masks, in the name of “freedom.” I am done being politically correct when describing these pandering assholes.

They are the real baby-killers.

Through their willful ignorance, their calculating refusal to serve the people that elected them because they want more votes, their shameless pandering, more babies will die. more kids will be infected, more grandparents will be lost, more hospitals will close, more doctors and nurses will abandon their work.

The rightwing conspiracy-fomenting media decries the lack of “science” behind vaccinations, while touting a goddamn horse pill. These assholes recommend breathing in bleach – an incredibly stupid and dangerous idea with NO basis in science.

Personal freedom my ass.

We conquered polio, measles, chicken pox, small pox, mumps, diphtheria and countless other diseases by vaccinating people. You have had many vaccinations, and you are doing just fine.

If you don’t want a vaccine, fine.

You don’t get healthcare when you get COVID.

So goddamn confident in your beliefs and so committed to your “personal choice”? Fine.

You won’t need healthcare, and neither will your kids, mom, or grandparents, so the rest of us can get our heart bypasses, kidney transplants, cancer treatment, hip replacements, and emergency surgery.

Don’t be a goddamn hypocrite. Either get vaccinated and wear a mask, or stay the hell away from the rest of us, take your ivermectin, breathe in bleach, and bury your relatives by yourself.

Oh, and tell the mom with the sick baby who can’t find a Pediatric ICU bed that your personal freedom to be a complete idiot is more important than her baby’s life.

And I don’t want to hear any bullshit from COVID deniers and vaccine opponents. I am done trying to be polite, to explain, to use reason and facts and logic.