The Vax Of Life, Con't

Mississippi's hospital system is headed towards collapse, possibly early as next week, if COVID Delta variant hospitalization numbers don't change. Federal disaster officials are already saying they'll need to respond, and Mississippi will only be the first of many states where the Biden administration will need to intervene to save lives because Republican state governors have all failed.

With COVID-19 patients overflowing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, including in its pediatric center, hospital leaders are warning that the medical system statewide could be on the verge of failing without drastic intervention. Two days ago, Mississippi health officials announced that zero intensive-care beds remained available in hospitals statewide.

“Since the pandemic began, I think the thing that hospitals have feared the most is total failure of the hospital system. And if we track back a week or so when we look at the case positivity rate, the rate of new cases, the rate of hospitalizations—If we continue that trajectory within the next five to seven to 10 days, I think we’re going to see failure of the hospital system in Mississippi,” UMMC Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical Affairs Dr. Alan Jones said during an afternoon press conference.

“Hospitals are full from Memphis to Natchez to Gulfport. Hospitals are full.”

The dire pronouncement came as representatives from the federal government arrived in Jackson to assist with a field hospital in the medical center’s parking garage, news that Mississippi Free Press reporter broke early today. With UMMC short on staff and lacking in ICU care capacity, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is sending physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and pharmacists to help. Mississippi has about 2,000 fewer nurses working than eight months ago, and UMMC officials said their teams that remain “are stretched very thin.”

“At the end of the day, we’re not only faced with not being able to hire enough staff because so many nurses have left the state, but today we have 70 hospital employees and another 20 clinic employees that are out on quarantine or have COVID,” Jones said during today’s press conference.

UMMC’s pediatric hospital, Children’s of Mississippi, is also full, Jones said today. In late July, UMMC officials said they did not expect the pediatric hospital to fill up, but a surge in cases among children is happening just as children return to school—in many cases with no mask mandates and fewer precautions than last fall. Children’s of Mississippi currently has 26 pediatric COVID-19 patients, Jones said, with six in ICU care and four on ventilators.

Gov. Tate Reeves has refused to mandate masks in schools, saying late last month that federal guidance to do so was “foolish and harmful.” The Mississippi State Department of Health reported that almost 1,000 schoolchildren tested positive for COVID-19 last week alone.

The garage basement field hospital will be able to hold a maximum of 50 patients, but that capacity could diminish depending on the severity of patients’ illness, UMMC officials said. But UMMC Vice Chancellor Dr. LouAnn Woodward said it was only part of the solution. UMMC officials said the field hospital could be ready as soon as Friday.

 

We've already seen Florida's Ron DeSantis beg for federal help, which was approved with lightning speed. But several other southern red states are in worse shape than Florida and don't have the state's resources, states like Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas, that are all getting crushed by COVID delta. 

It will take video of thousands dying in hospital parking lots before any of these monsters lift a finger, and by then it will be too late. COVID is going parabolic in these areas, worse than it was over the winter in cases and hospitalizations, and the deaths, well, the deaths will catch up very, very soon.