Great work, Igor! You are spot on. I’m an ICU RN, soon to be fired bc of mandate. My hospital is at capacity... for all the reasons you cited. Roughly 3/4 of our staff are vaccinated & THEY are getting sick too and missing shifts, adding to the staff shortage. And STILL the rush to get vaccinated/boosters continues. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re used to dealing with Infectious & potentially deadly viruses/diseases. It mystifies me that so many of my coworkers succumbed to the madness back in 2020 and are still asleep.
August, first let me express my admiration with your so difficult job that they are trying to make harder and harder! I hope that they give you an exemption or something, but it may be time to seek a job in some small medical office, to be honest.
Do you have any homemade stats, like are there any changes in your ICU population? More, or less heart attacks? Anything that stands out? Want to write a field report? Just make sure to write 100% truth! Truth is what makes us strong.
Talented AND humble, apparently. Your real job may not be reporting but here on your substack it is. Or analysis. Or whatever you want to call it. I subscribe to many substacks on this topic and yours is one of the best.
Thank you very much. I will try to write articles that I expect to be interesting and based mostly on things I found myself (to avoid duplication of other substacks).
Wow, what an interesting rabbit hole. I ran this for my local hospitals (6 hospitals in my IL county with a total of 1,860 beds) for the second week of November 2020/2021 and found that on average the COVID inpatient rate dropped 78.68% (which apparently includes influenza for some reason) and the non-COVID inpatient rate rose 17.69%. Perhaps even more telling for my county was the changes in ER visits. COVID positive visits (those that came to ER with covid-like illness and tested positive) decreased 36.20% over last year while non-COVID (covid-like illness that did not test positive) visits increased 53.57%. One hospital was down 63% for covid ER and up 106% for non-covid! A lot of data there to digest. Happy to send you my spreadsheet if interested.
Matt, I am also in Illinois and what you posted is even more amazing than what I uncovered in Grand Rapids, MI!
How about you write an article about it. "Mytown, Illinois hospitals are full -- and NOT with breakthrough Covid" or something?
But re-check your data 5 times prior to publishing to make sure you avoid any inadvertent mistakes. If you write an article, I will place a link to it.
Thanks Igor. I may do that. Just got on substack a couple weeks ago through a link and I am really liking everyone's "just look at the data" approach. It literally makes me sick how the data is selectively presented and the narrative carefully written to persuade (that's all sides of the issue btw). Sure I'm not a scientist, not nearly as smart or well-schooled as a scientist, but does that mean I cannot look at raw data? I cannot have an opinion? Can't have my own thoughts? More presentations like yours need to be provided to get people thinking again instead of just going along because they feel inadequate to have their own opinions. This data is DuPage County data btw. Thanks for the encouragement.
Of course you can look at data, you have the right since you are a born human being and humans were born to look and reason. You do not have to be a certified data analyst to look at simple numbers and arrive at simple conclusions.
Want to write about Massachusetts? Most likely the picture will be similar and you can make quite a stir in your local circles. I can help you a little.
You can plagiarize the format of my article -- I give you total permission -- and fit in your Massachusetts data, or write by yourself.
I'm a physicist. I love numbers that can tell the truth about a situation. Thanks for the fun article, I'll have a good time looking at data for hospital in my city, part of "Tidal Health", which incidentally sports the world's ugliest logo.
Would add to include Vitamin K2 (not K1) along with magnesium in your nutrient regimen. , These are both seriously lacking in our current diets and are necessary nutrients to maximize the vitamin D hormone (and to minimize calcium problems).
Holly, I am quite torn about recommending this. On the one hand, what you say makes total sense. On the other, it is not something I know as much as what I know about Vitamin D.
And I try not to recommend anything I do not feel being totally familiar with. Maybe I will add something general about "vitamins"? Thanks
That's perfectly okay. Am putting it out there but please do your own research because too much of a nutrient without other necessary nutrients can be very problematic (Zinc and Copper are other examples).
Chris Masterjohn PhD (recently spoke at the Covid rally in NY) is an excellent source.
just did it for my local hospital in San Jose, and for the main hospital in Marin County, CA. Very telling: definite decreases in COVID for both, but a large uptick (30 percent in San Jose, and 68 percent in Marin County) for non-Covid ICU counts year/year. Also, Marin is seeing a 27 percent increase in non-covid patients for hospital beds. Considering they are one of the most vaccinated counties in CA (94 percent have at least one dose, 83 percent two doses- I've even seen reports that 50 percent of their kids now has at least one dose), very interesting...thanks for this!
Thank you very much and you can try to write an article about it. Somebody might notice that and begin to doubt. Even if you make one person doubt. That is a day well spent.
You definitely came across very interesting numbers that should not be forgotten
I'm going to try and follow your example for a few of the hospitals in my area but I find it interesting how you can create an ICU crisis by dropping ICU beds in 1/3:
Damn, this is a fine piece of real journalism. Who remembers the days when mainstream journalists actually tried to uncover the truth? Now we have to get the truth via obscure Substack writers. If you are a critical thinker you go out and find places like this but most people are just happy to be spoonfed propaganda disguised as "news". I really fear for the history of the human race. At this point we have to burn it all down and start from zero. The System has its tentacles everywhere, there is no aspect of society it doesn't influence. Cheers Igor.
Wow, thanks, but yes indeed why did "journalists" become so uncritical? This lack of critical writing actually makes the press stupid, not just dishonest. But the press was always critical to keep our government thinking better, that's no longer the case.
It's all part of the institutional capture that has happened in every sector of society. The System owns all media outlets just like it owns the politicians. Journalists are not going to submit a story that goes against the narrative if it results in getting them fired, or damages their career in other ways. This is the main drawback of capitalism. Wealth and power centralizes and consolidates to absurd degrees. And that wealth and power will then dictate the trajectory of society.
Very neat, thank you for this. And choosing MI for an example is a good hit. We have. Democratic governor who went full into COVID measures last year and just now the news about MI are front page in the Guardian. Most people I’m sorry to say, are completely connected to the narrative.
Clearly. She and others, and also for many other things. I am not very optimistic though. I would not be much surprised to see some sudden new restrictions. Just a few days ago they recommended (not mandated yet) masks for all over 2yo indoors.
Our family lives in Michigan. I have elsewhere elaborated on our difficulties in getting adequate non-emergent medical care in our area.
Many of the general practitioners here are in offices owned by hospitals or large practices. I can't help but wonder if my inability to be seen at my doctor's office for a secondary post-COVID infection might have to do with rules the owner/hospital has put in place. I have not been in my primary care physician's office since early September, before our family became ill. I was told that I could not even get a virtual appointment unless I was likely to need one as a prerequisite for admission to the hospital. At least they did refer me to an urgent care that was offering monoclonal antibodies.
My point is, that many in Michigan may not have adequate health care options at this time, short of going to an urgent care or emergency room, or being admitted to the hospital.
Meanwhile, my county is one that has been featured in an NPR piece recently (concerning overburdened hospitals). From the tool you linked, I see we aren't really that flooded with COVID patients in the hospitals. Also, our county (by order of the county health dept) has mandated masking in all k-12 schools, both public and private. The schools are having some outbreaks, and there have been a few short-terms closings of individual schools, but it's not as if people are dropping like flies here.
There is no reason the National Guard needs to be involved here, unless our delightful governor, Gretchen d'Ville, just enjoys a good parade.
You can check any state. While it does not break down to individual cities or regions, it does give a quick way to see if the statement is true or not and breaks down covid vs non covid admissions both in total inpatient and also in ICU - and one can compare to a year ago.
Yes! - fascinating link! - from the Belly of the Beast, even - Johns Hopkins - in my state - NJ - only 43% of ICU beds are occupied; 5.3% of total by Covid patients (so, tested). Looks like peak was Jan 2021 - 25% ICU beds Covid occupied - and this was the stuff of the fearsome pandemic?
This is some very fine citizen journalism. Sharing exactly how you did this and providing a model that we all might follow is very helpful. Going to see what I can find later; right now the website you provided is saying the information is N/A for my local hospitals.
Thanks for the tip. I haven’t looked, but is this “hospital utilization chart” info usually publicly available? Our main hospital is Novant. I’d love to compare this month w last year! Sadly though, most will believe the unvaxxed are “flooding”….the truth for most is hard to find!
Love your article. I have one small issue... When you refer to ICU "visits" this is not the reality. Patients don't visit, they are determined to need a higher level of care. They are usually beyond understanding anything. The staff determine the outcome.
Great work, Igor! You are spot on. I’m an ICU RN, soon to be fired bc of mandate. My hospital is at capacity... for all the reasons you cited. Roughly 3/4 of our staff are vaccinated & THEY are getting sick too and missing shifts, adding to the staff shortage. And STILL the rush to get vaccinated/boosters continues. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re used to dealing with Infectious & potentially deadly viruses/diseases. It mystifies me that so many of my coworkers succumbed to the madness back in 2020 and are still asleep.
August, first let me express my admiration with your so difficult job that they are trying to make harder and harder! I hope that they give you an exemption or something, but it may be time to seek a job in some small medical office, to be honest.
Do you have any homemade stats, like are there any changes in your ICU population? More, or less heart attacks? Anything that stands out? Want to write a field report? Just make sure to write 100% truth! Truth is what makes us strong.
Igor, you are such a talented reporter. I am so disgusted with this fearmongering. Which just promotes unjustified hatred of unvaxxed people.
Thanks. I am not talented at all and my real life job has nothing to do with reporting.
I just feel so bad about lies being spread around completely unchallenged. I just do my best writing about it.
I wanted to challenge one lie (Spectrum Health hospital problems blamed on unvaxxed) and show how to challenge hundreds of similar lies.
Talented AND humble, apparently. Your real job may not be reporting but here on your substack it is. Or analysis. Or whatever you want to call it. I subscribe to many substacks on this topic and yours is one of the best.
Thank you very much. I will try to write articles that I expect to be interesting and based mostly on things I found myself (to avoid duplication of other substacks).
Wow, what an interesting rabbit hole. I ran this for my local hospitals (6 hospitals in my IL county with a total of 1,860 beds) for the second week of November 2020/2021 and found that on average the COVID inpatient rate dropped 78.68% (which apparently includes influenza for some reason) and the non-COVID inpatient rate rose 17.69%. Perhaps even more telling for my county was the changes in ER visits. COVID positive visits (those that came to ER with covid-like illness and tested positive) decreased 36.20% over last year while non-COVID (covid-like illness that did not test positive) visits increased 53.57%. One hospital was down 63% for covid ER and up 106% for non-covid! A lot of data there to digest. Happy to send you my spreadsheet if interested.
Matt, I am also in Illinois and what you posted is even more amazing than what I uncovered in Grand Rapids, MI!
How about you write an article about it. "Mytown, Illinois hospitals are full -- and NOT with breakthrough Covid" or something?
But re-check your data 5 times prior to publishing to make sure you avoid any inadvertent mistakes. If you write an article, I will place a link to it.
Thanks Igor. I may do that. Just got on substack a couple weeks ago through a link and I am really liking everyone's "just look at the data" approach. It literally makes me sick how the data is selectively presented and the narrative carefully written to persuade (that's all sides of the issue btw). Sure I'm not a scientist, not nearly as smart or well-schooled as a scientist, but does that mean I cannot look at raw data? I cannot have an opinion? Can't have my own thoughts? More presentations like yours need to be provided to get people thinking again instead of just going along because they feel inadequate to have their own opinions. This data is DuPage County data btw. Thanks for the encouragement.
Of course you can look at data, you have the right since you are a born human being and humans were born to look and reason. You do not have to be a certified data analyst to look at simple numbers and arrive at simple conclusions.
I live in Lisle.
in massachusetts if you can get the break out the breakthruoughs are about the same % of vaxx v un vaxxed.....
Want to write about Massachusetts? Most likely the picture will be similar and you can make quite a stir in your local circles. I can help you a little.
You can plagiarize the format of my article -- I give you total permission -- and fit in your Massachusetts data, or write by yourself.
I'm a physicist. I love numbers that can tell the truth about a situation. Thanks for the fun article, I'll have a good time looking at data for hospital in my city, part of "Tidal Health", which incidentally sports the world's ugliest logo.
Would add to include Vitamin K2 (not K1) along with magnesium in your nutrient regimen. , These are both seriously lacking in our current diets and are necessary nutrients to maximize the vitamin D hormone (and to minimize calcium problems).
Holly, I am quite torn about recommending this. On the one hand, what you say makes total sense. On the other, it is not something I know as much as what I know about Vitamin D.
And I try not to recommend anything I do not feel being totally familiar with. Maybe I will add something general about "vitamins"? Thanks
That's perfectly okay. Am putting it out there but please do your own research because too much of a nutrient without other necessary nutrients can be very problematic (Zinc and Copper are other examples).
Chris Masterjohn PhD (recently spoke at the Covid rally in NY) is an excellent source.
just did it for my local hospital in San Jose, and for the main hospital in Marin County, CA. Very telling: definite decreases in COVID for both, but a large uptick (30 percent in San Jose, and 68 percent in Marin County) for non-Covid ICU counts year/year. Also, Marin is seeing a 27 percent increase in non-covid patients for hospital beds. Considering they are one of the most vaccinated counties in CA (94 percent have at least one dose, 83 percent two doses- I've even seen reports that 50 percent of their kids now has at least one dose), very interesting...thanks for this!
Thank you very much and you can try to write an article about it. Somebody might notice that and begin to doubt. Even if you make one person doubt. That is a day well spent.
You definitely came across very interesting numbers that should not be forgotten
I'm going to try and follow your example for a few of the hospitals in my area but I find it interesting how you can create an ICU crisis by dropping ICU beds in 1/3:
https://data.rgj.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity/facility/catholic-medical-center/300034/
Damn, this is a fine piece of real journalism. Who remembers the days when mainstream journalists actually tried to uncover the truth? Now we have to get the truth via obscure Substack writers. If you are a critical thinker you go out and find places like this but most people are just happy to be spoonfed propaganda disguised as "news". I really fear for the history of the human race. At this point we have to burn it all down and start from zero. The System has its tentacles everywhere, there is no aspect of society it doesn't influence. Cheers Igor.
Wow, thanks, but yes indeed why did "journalists" become so uncritical? This lack of critical writing actually makes the press stupid, not just dishonest. But the press was always critical to keep our government thinking better, that's no longer the case.
It's all part of the institutional capture that has happened in every sector of society. The System owns all media outlets just like it owns the politicians. Journalists are not going to submit a story that goes against the narrative if it results in getting them fired, or damages their career in other ways. This is the main drawback of capitalism. Wealth and power centralizes and consolidates to absurd degrees. And that wealth and power will then dictate the trajectory of society.
Most excellent, Igor!! Thank you.
Very neat, thank you for this. And choosing MI for an example is a good hit. We have. Democratic governor who went full into COVID measures last year and just now the news about MI are front page in the Guardian. Most people I’m sorry to say, are completely connected to the narrative.
The governor is directly responsible for the situation with fired healthcare workers. There is no ifs or buts.
Clearly. She and others, and also for many other things. I am not very optimistic though. I would not be much surprised to see some sudden new restrictions. Just a few days ago they recommended (not mandated yet) masks for all over 2yo indoors.
Spelling err: We have a governor ..I meant, and all the people here...
How long before people of Michigan see the relationship between heavy-handed statism and the gritty get-through-it leadership of Florida.
They see it sooner if we help them a little! Know anyone from Michigan?
Our family lives in Michigan. I have elsewhere elaborated on our difficulties in getting adequate non-emergent medical care in our area.
Many of the general practitioners here are in offices owned by hospitals or large practices. I can't help but wonder if my inability to be seen at my doctor's office for a secondary post-COVID infection might have to do with rules the owner/hospital has put in place. I have not been in my primary care physician's office since early September, before our family became ill. I was told that I could not even get a virtual appointment unless I was likely to need one as a prerequisite for admission to the hospital. At least they did refer me to an urgent care that was offering monoclonal antibodies.
My point is, that many in Michigan may not have adequate health care options at this time, short of going to an urgent care or emergency room, or being admitted to the hospital.
Meanwhile, my county is one that has been featured in an NPR piece recently (concerning overburdened hospitals). From the tool you linked, I see we aren't really that flooded with COVID patients in the hospitals. Also, our county (by order of the county health dept) has mandated masking in all k-12 schools, both public and private. The schools are having some outbreaks, and there have been a few short-terms closings of individual schools, but it's not as if people are dropping like flies here.
There is no reason the National Guard needs to be involved here, unless our delightful governor, Gretchen d'Ville, just enjoys a good parade.
Whenever I hear a story that hospitals are overflowing in a particular state, I check this site: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend/michigan
You can check any state. While it does not break down to individual cities or regions, it does give a quick way to see if the statement is true or not and breaks down covid vs non covid admissions both in total inpatient and also in ICU - and one can compare to a year ago.
Thank you, Jeanne, for the great link!
Yes! - fascinating link! - from the Belly of the Beast, even - Johns Hopkins - in my state - NJ - only 43% of ICU beds are occupied; 5.3% of total by Covid patients (so, tested). Looks like peak was Jan 2021 - 25% ICU beds Covid occupied - and this was the stuff of the fearsome pandemic?
This is some very fine citizen journalism. Sharing exactly how you did this and providing a model that we all might follow is very helpful. Going to see what I can find later; right now the website you provided is saying the information is N/A for my local hospitals.
Thanks for the tip. I haven’t looked, but is this “hospital utilization chart” info usually publicly available? Our main hospital is Novant. I’d love to compare this month w last year! Sadly though, most will believe the unvaxxed are “flooding”….the truth for most is hard to find!
Sure. Go to
https://data.rgj.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity/facility/spectrum-health-butterworth-campus/230038/
Choose your state, county and hospital, and you have the same info for your hospital as I presented.
Thanks, my Saturday sleuthing!
Make sure to pick a big or the biggest hospital. Small ones can be specialized, like renal care facilities or whatever. So look at general hospitals.
Great analysis, thank you. One question, assume this should be UNvaccinated?
"You can instantly conclude that the vaccinated are not at fault for hospitals being overrun."
Yep, gonna fix right now! Thanks!
Love your article. I have one small issue... When you refer to ICU "visits" this is not the reality. Patients don't visit, they are determined to need a higher level of care. They are usually beyond understanding anything. The staff determine the outcome.
Well, I used the terminology from the utilization website. But I agree with you.