Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Jun 15, 2024 6:27:17 GMT
Hospitals are killing patients because they don't feel like doing infection control - Published Aug 23, 2023
People who have gone “back to normal” (ignore the existence of COVID-19) often justify their decision by pointing to their own health status as “not high risk”. Implicit in this statement is the existence of a high-risk group of people who should still be taking COVID precautions. Also implicit is the abandonment of collective care and public health, since the “back to normal” crowd places the burden of COVID precaution on disabled, immunocompromised and vulnerable people alone.
For the most part, high risk groups indeed shoulder this burden alone. They are no longer safe in public and many limit their time in critical spaces like grocery stores and pharmacies; forget going to concerts or other “inessential” activities. Millions of Long COVID patients in particular, all too aware of what a single COVID infection can do, have to expend inordinate time, energy, and money simply to continue existing in a society hellbent on infecting them again and again and again. But you might guess that healthcare settings- specifically designed to accommodate the sick and injured- are still a safe haven for vulnerable groups.
Guess again! As COVID continues to cycle through new variants and surges, hospitals are stripping away even the inadequate infection control measures they implemented at the beginning of the pandemic. Come in for heart surgery, leave with a heart-damaging virus. What a business model!
As of early 2021, it was scientifically established beyond any doubt that COVID, like TB, is a fully airborne virus. This means that it spreads and can hang in the air like smoke; it means that contrary to early public health instructions, you can indeed become infected at distances greater than six feet, and that unsealed masks like the blue surgical ones often seen in hospitals are inadequate to prevent infection. (To be clear, surgicals are far better than nothing; they are simply not the proper type of mask to best prevent infection with a fully airborne disease. For that, you need a mask that forms a seal around your nose and mouth.)
The pandemic might have been controlled in early 2020 if the WHO had defaulted to the precautionary principle and acted as if COVID-19 could be airborne. Instead they confidently announced that COVID was droplet spread- as in, spread via coughs and sneezes- and discouraged people from proper mask wearing. Their incorrect guidance also trained people to adopt measures like social distancing and hand washing, which are inadequate to control COVID, yet are still mentioned in public health guidance to this day. Even some healthcare workers remain under the impression that surgical masks are a proper tool for prevention of COVID spread, a reality that can be observed by stepping into any doctor’s office.