[kxyvr]

If someone is COVID positive, then they are likely contagious even if they have no symptoms. This means that they must be isolated from the other patients that do not have COVID or else there is a high risk of infection spreading to other patients. In places like the ICU, where all of the patients are critically ill, any additional infection will likely kill them.

Isolation from other patients means that they need other rooms and other nurses. It is not safe to have a nurse go from a clean room to a COVID room repeatedly if they don't have enough PPE to fully gown between rooms. Otherwise, there is cross contamination. Currently, there is not enough PPE. If a hospital has the staff, they will also isolate the physicians to either COVID or non-COVID wards to prevent cross contamination. Often, they do not have the physicians, so there is a time cost to constantly changing PPE. Time spent changing PPE means time not taking care of patients.

When a patient dies in a COVID room, the room must be cleaned. This takes time and staff. Failure to do so can also lead to increased infections.

To be clear, infections that spread in the hospital are very well studied. It's the reason why hospitals have very strict rules about things like hand hygiene. It's one of those inspections that can cost a hospital a lot of money.

That's a long way to say, it's not a self made problem. A patient that comes in for something like a heart stent who is also COVID positive is far more work than one who does not have COVID. I do not know if these news articles are referring to these cases as COVID hospitalizations. In some sense, it doesn't impact the broader issue: In a good number of states, hospitals are effectively full. The reason behind this issue is unvaccinated people catching COVID.

[spookthesunset]

It is a self made problem. Imagine if we tested people for every infectious disease and put them into crazy protocol-land even if they don’t have symptoms. Nothing would ever get done!

We need to accept that vaccines exist and work. It shouldn’t matter if the dude in the hospital has a positive covid test because everybody in that room can be vaccinated if they want to.

This mass testing created a bunch more problems than it solved.

[kxyvr]

No. It is not.

The difference between COVID and something like cancer is that cancer is not highly contagious. COVID is. Further, it's contagious and deadly. That's why it requires special care. COVID is also not the only disease where these kind of precautions are taken. Another one is TB. Now, there are other diseases that are contagious, but not right now. For example, syphilis is both contagious and deadly. However, you're not going to catch syphilis when you're sitting next to someone who is positive. With COVID, you potentially will. That's why they have to test for it in the hospital.

Now, I will agree that vaccines exist and work. In the sense that there are people who choose to refuse vaccination, I will also agree it is a self made problem. However, this affects everyone to a high degree and not just the vaccinated.

Case in point, my wife and I are vaccinated. If she gets COVID, she most assuredly won't die, but she can't work in the ICU. She would risk getting her patients infected even though she is vaccinated. That means the hospital loses a physician in short supply. They're going to test you in the hospital because they can't afford you getting their staff sick.

This also affects you. You're vaccinated. However, say you're appendix bursts, you may or may not be able to get into the ER before you become septic. Yes, the ER will triage based on need. However, if there's no beds there's no beds and you will not be seen.

However, to reiterate, the hospital will always test you for diseases that they believe will affect their staff. You come in with respiratory symptoms. You're getting a COVID test. Having surgery? They'll test you for HIV. It's a protection issue. COVID is a pain because airborne infections are hard to contain.

[spookthesunset]

Stop counting cases. We already know covid is endemic and isn’t going away. Why continue to test every patient for it? What purpose does it serve? Anybody that wants to be protected can be with a simple vaccine.