Statistics

Oh No! Hospitals Are Overwhelmed! Raging Surges Reported In…1957…2000…2003…2016…

Hospitals do not build beds and ICUs for Worst Case Scenarios, such as the coronadoom apocalypse that has long been promised but has not yet arrived, a time in which everybody falls ill and has to be tended to in hospital.

The average ICU occupancy rate is almost 70%. Which means it does not take much to “overwhelm!” one. Same with bed numbers. Money is lost when most beds are empty most of the time. So hospitals aren’t built to have scads of excess capacity.

Reports are everywhere now about raging surges and surging rages of coronadoom “cases”, all of which ignore testing levels and disease severity. Ignore that and let’s ask if we’ve seen this kind of hyperbolic hyperventilating hypersensitive headlines before.

Let’s start with the most sober source, which is to say, not a corporate media site. We’ll move from that to only what are considered “reputable” media sources to see how often they tried to panic us through the use of hyperbole and omission of perspective. Searching is limited to those things on line, which will of course give a recency bias.

2016: BMJ, Hospitals overwhelmed with patients after “thunderstorm asthma” hits Melbourne.

Wow! Sounds like a lot! “At least four people have died and thousands have been taken to hospital with respiratory problems after a ‘thunderstorm asthma’ event in Melbourne on Monday 21 November.” Also “Victoria’s health department said that since the event more than 8500 patients had presented to hospitals with respiratory problems…”

Tellingly, the BMJ does not say how unusual this number is. Is it normally 8400 and they got an extra 100? They do say 60 people are still undergoing treatment. Ah.

First lesson: ignore all stories that give no historical context. Where by “all” I mean all.

2018: Time, Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents.

Wow! Tents! Are Navy ships next?

The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with extraordinary measures: asking staff to work overtime, setting up triage tents, restricting friends and family visits and canceling elective surgeries, to name a few.

“We are pretty much at capacity, and the volume is certainly different from previous flu seasons,” says Dr. Alfred Tallia, professor and chair of family medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s been a good 15 or 20 years since I’ve seen a flu-related illness scenario like we’ve had this year.”

Tallia says his hospital is “managing, but just barely,” at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.

2016: Guardian, NHS hospitals now so overwhelmed patients could die, says top doctor.

Wow! The “NHS is now in an eternal winter.” Now where have we heard that phrase before…?

2011: Globe & Mail, Hospitals overwhelmed by surge of flu cases

Wow! “…clogged hospital emergency rooms, postponed elective surgeries…” Say!

2018: CBS, Hospitals overwhelmed by spike in flu cases.

2011: LA Times, Swamped hospitals fear an ER emergency

2014: Dayton Daily News, Hospitals overwhelmed by flu cases ask some to stay away

2009: News Perspective, ‘Worried well’ overload gives taste of pandemic scenario – cidrap, “…overwhelmed…”

2018: Fox 32, Chicago area hospitals overwhelmed with flu patients

2011: Taipei Times, German hospitals overwhelmed with E.coli outbreak

2009: CNBC, Swine Flu Might Overwhelm Hospitals in 15 States.

2018: UPI, Hospitals overwhelmed by mass influx of flu patients.

2013: BBC, Kirsty Williams claims hospital staff are ‘overwhelmed’.

2019: Daily Mail, Hospitalizations surge for sepsis, UTIs and kidney failure.

2019: Healio, Opioid-related hospitalizations surge for rheumatic diseases.

2018: SPH, Amphetamine-Related Hospitalizations Surge Between 2003 …

2009: ABC, H1N1 Crisis Could Swamp Intensive Care Units.

2018: Toronto City News, Surgeries postponed after severe flu cases overwhelmed hospital.

2019: National Geographic, The world’s second-biggest Ebola outbreak is still raging

2019: NIH, Leprosy—A raging persistent enigma.

2015: Euractiv, Report: Tuberculosis still raging in Eastern Europe.

2016: Global Contagions, While the world focuses on Zika, Dengue is raging in the background.

2014: NYT, Despite Aid Push, Ebola Is Raging in Sierra Leone.

2016: NYT, Zika Cases in Puerto Rico Are Skyrocketing

2018: NBC, Measles outbreak raging in Europe could be brought to U.S.

2013: Washington Post, The flu can kill millions.

2018: NPR, California STDs Raging At All Time Highs For Third Year In A Row.

2017: Ars Technica, Mysterious flesh-eating bacteria is raging in Australia.

2014: Tell Me Project, The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is still raging.

2013: Chicago Magazine, Chicago Has a Raging Case of Gonorrhea.

2019: Chicago Tribune, Commentary: Ebola is raging again — and the US is not ready.

2018: BBC, British PM May apologizes as overwhelmed hospitals cancel non-emergency operations.

2019: Irish Times, Half of Ireland’s hospital doctors exhausted and overwhelmed by work.

2018: LA Times, California hospitals face a ‘war zone’ of flu patients — and are setting up tents to treat them.

2019: Telegraph, Hospitals at ‘breaking point’ as winter NHS crisis deepens.

2017: France 24, French hospitals cancel operations amid brutal flu epidemic.

2018: LA Times, Swamped hospitals fear an ER emergency.

2017: Washington Post, Surge in human cases of deadly bird flu is prompting alarm.

2009: ABC, Seeming Overnight Surge in H1N1’s Death Toll.

2017: Stat, Human cases of bird flu are surging, alarming public health officials.

2019, U. Minnesota, DRC Ebola surge marks 2nd straight record-setting day.

2005: NYT, Hurricane and Floods Overwhelmed Hospitals.

1958: NYT, Virus Epidemic Hits India.

1966 NYT, FLU DEATH TOLL UP TO 7 ON WEST COAST. Maybe the first attempt to do daily panic death stats.

1966 NYT, Influenza Epidemic in Far East; Less Dangerous Type The 57-58 Asian flu went on the kill about 2 million worldwide, at a time when the population was about a third it is now.

The second lesson is never trust the corporate media. Seek second opinions.

2008: NYT, Fort Bragg baby boom overwhelms hospitals.

Well, not all news is bad.

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Categories: Statistics

23 replies »

  1. Oh, no, you’re using HISTORY to show how gullible people are. That is soooo unfair. And explaining how hospitals work? Very unfair. Hospitals TRYING to be the top hospital and cover every contingency is why medicine is so expensive. It’s a King of the Hill game, NOT medicine. Of course, medicine is all politics, ZERO science these days……

    We’ve already had one death threat against one of the Gods of Infectious Disease Tzars mask mandate and I suspect this will continue, eventually ending not well for one of the gods.

    This is the kind of information that has a slight chance of getting through to people. It’s not math, it’s reality and many were alive through all these “pandemics”, back when their brains actually may have functioned. I’ll be keeping this for future reference.

    Kind of off-topic, but not entirely. I remember wondering why measles “outbreaks” of EIGHT people were a crisis. I’m seeing the answer. Plus, there is the NBL and “stand up to cancer”. How can I put this most succinctly? ONLY COMPLETE UTTER STUPID MORONIC BRAINDEAD FOOLS believe this crap. A disease does not give a damn if you stand up, sit down, write names on idiot placards, etc. This is the HEIGHT OF IDIOCY and yet I see the ad of the IDIOTS over and over. We are apparently so stupid we have returned to shamans and witch doctors and magic. And no, God has no intention of helping us. WE DID THIS and we asked for it. God was tossed out and so was reality. Worship of magic and evil took the place. So, we’re on our own.

  2. Everyone distressed by our government and the elites who manage it should read ‘Assassin’ by Doug Casey and John Hunt. Contains lots of explanation for what’s happening now and what do about it.

    Biden and deep state should look out as surely the book (and reality) will energize some to take action.

  3. Dear Briggs. Kudos. Excellent.

    But shouldn’t we wait until your apparently credible argument gets an imprimatur from Cucker Carlson?

  4. Saw on the newsfeed today that the South Australian lockdown is ending due to a pizza worker lying about his activities. It also said:
    “The person who lied will not be fined or penalized, Stevens added.”
    So, folks, you can shut down South Australia by lying to authorities with ZERO punishment. Have fun using your godlike powers against the Covid Gods. It could be a wild ride. (kind of like the #metoo was until Biden came along–nasty rat killed that hashtag….)

  5. Funny that I don’t even remember a single thing about any of these recent alleged “alarming” instances of hospitals being “overwhelmed” so often in recent years! I didn’t even know until someone pointed it out on another thread the 2017-2018 was considered also an especially bad flu season. And the current panic is relying on that fact for most…enabling them to try to present Coronadoom as something unique and unprecedented, rather than a routine flu-like virus that pops up now and then but which isn’t the end of the world. The real question is why this one? That the response has been highly coordinated and manipulated is unquestionable, and it is clear this is not just the natural reaction of various countries, politicians, media, etc., to some allegedly “unprecedented” virus or health crisis. Why has this been the thing the powers that be have chosen as the triggering event for launching the Great Reset, Event201, and Agenda21 plans?

  6. The “Mutant strain of COVID-19 caught from a pizza box!” story is the last in many examples of how there is absolutely no credulity when it comes to analyzing COVID-19 stories. If it makes the Wuhan Flu look like a doomsday scenario, it’s assumed to be true, no investigation required.

  7. Interesting flip in the news.

    For weeks they’ve been encouraging testing on the notion that you must be tested to ensure that your Thanksgiving will be safe.

    Now there a multiple stories about how even if you tested negative you still need to bunker down and never see another human being, because you might be “reinfected.” (Even though many of the stories admit that no one’s sure if that’s even possible, and if it is how common it might be).

    It’s almost as if the urge for increased testing was entirely to increase case numbers, and now that states are locking down it has served its purpose.

  8. A weaponized pandemic was on the menu long before the time Prince Philip
    remarked that after he died he wanted to come back as a deadly
    virus to wipe out half of the human population. This remark was but
    a small ‘tell’ of the planning and occupation of the medical high ground
    especially in immunology and bio-weapons research. The litany of headlines
    in this post demonstrate the depth of the planning and media priming of the
    pump. Humanity itself is now at the Rubicon with Trump in the Vanguard,
    we need to do more than just pray for Trump.

    Enabling Act Approved and Signed Today!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaDDCOTK8Mk

  9. Found this article to give some context to what this “appropriate” level of testing is supposed to be:

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-testing.html

    According to this, having “enough” tests in Minnesota would mean testing over 200,000 people per day, or around 3.5% of the population of the state each and every day. Enough to test the state from scratch in less than a month. Or since 40% of the state has already been tested, enough to test the remainder of the state in just over two weeks.

    And what do we do when literally every single person has been tested? Does the “appropriate” amount of testing suddenly go down? I think we know the answer: if you test negative you must test again to make sure you haven’t gotten it in the interim. If you test positive you must test again to see if you got reinfected.

  10. Dad-gum it all, Briggs, was enjoying a nice quiet evening and now everything is surging and raging and overwhelming and outbreaking and killing and swamping and clogging and spiking and skyrocketing and alarming and frightening and distressing. Had to put down my snifter of Old Grand Dad, pause Claudio Arrau playing Chopin, and fall to the floor pinwheeling like Curly Howard snarling “nyuck, nyuck, nyuck”.

    Feeling better now. Old Grand Dad’s not bad, and Arrau is magnificent. That’s a pretty fun list of headlines you compiled there, and instructive. The two that caught my fancy: “Leprosy—A Raging Persistant Enigma”, that made my nose fall off. And: “Chicago Has a Raging Case of Gonorrhea”, a real oozy headline. Thanks Sarge, always a good time sitting here by the fire with friends at Briggs’ Pub.

  11. I suppose the following is a euphanism of the state of things in Chicago,
    Chicago Has a Raging Case of Gonorrhea
    . . . or perhaps it is just a sexually transmitted infection with an easy solution.
    The general state of things in Chicago has no real solution, so is a serious problem.

  12. This is great context. Our newspaper here has been running these hospital overwhelm headlines for weeks, beginning in August, when 10% of ICU beds were occupied by COVID patients. The majority of the rest were occupied by homeless or mental health patients who could not be discharged, because we have an administrative failure and no long term care facilities that can admit such patients. So, rather than admitting that a significant contribution to hospital overwhelm is ongoing hospital and healthcare mismanagement and a failure to (assuming the government really thought hospitals legitimately might be overwhelmed by COVID back when we were two weeks to flatten the curve) make any sort of concrete plans that might help with impending shortages, like, I don’t know, using that 18 months to create specific COVID treatment facilities or a myriad of other creative solutions (same could be said about the refusal to do anything except push vaccination), which, as actions speak louder than words, shows us that the leadership does not, in fact, genuinely care about COVID concerns or have any impetus to try and generate creative solutions. Instead, the solution is to villainize the unvaccinated, produce panic headlines on repeat, and fire (in our state) any unvaccinated health professionals – no weekly testing permitted.

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