I can't even pretend it's me posting...
We ran out of oxygen at my ER yesterday. We had to put ambulances in the parking lot and run tubing into the ER. I have no Remdesivir and no plasma as we are a freestanding ER. I’m out of Toradol. I’m rationing steroids.
I have a patient here: 21 years old and on BiPAP. We’re concerned about how much oxygen we can use up. Because we can’t give him all the O2 he needs we are struggling to get an O2 saturation over 88%. No one in the state of Texas has beds for him. Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma are full. We are trying. I don’t have Vapotherm. Family is incredulous that there are no beds. We had one yesterday but overnight three nurses walked out on the shift they were on; so we lost the bed.
There are no favors left to call in. No one has anything. No one is special enough or sick enough to qualify for a bed. It hurts. It’s painful. I am not a good doctor today. I can not care for my patient the way he deserves.
21 million residents, 60k hospitals, 12k occupied for covid (20% of total), 100 died yesterday. 7 day moving average is about 62 deaths. Or about 3 per million per day.