Covid and Hospitals: How are things now?

[CrunchRN]

Just curious. Here in DFW I see hospitalizations are rising to 14%. How are things in the hospitals? Are things relatively normal? No more furloughs?

Please share. I am not in acute care, but I am of course very interested in the effects on acute care staff.

[JVBT, ASN]

6 hours ago, nursej22 said:

Except that there is no effective vaccine to prevent TB infection. 

There are vaccines, they are just not used in the US. FWIW, I have heard, but don't know for sure, that the TB vaccines are mostly used to prevent an encephalopathy in children as opposed to respiratory complications in adults, but that is second hand.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

11 minutes ago, turtlesRcool said:

True, but does TB mutate at the rate coronavirus does?  I feel like corona is going to be more similar to influenza in that you can never quite get ahead of it because it will keep slipping around vaccines.

Along with that, I wonder if mRNA technology will eventually make a flu vaccine that is more effective than our current vaccine models.

TB is a bacterium, not a virus, so does not mutate in the same way. But antibiotic resistant strains continue to evolve. 

Not sure about mRNA vaccine for flu, because there is no spike protein to target. I think there is research on vaccines that target parts of the flu virus that don't change, as the hemagglutinins and neuramanidases do. 

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

6 minutes ago, JVBT said:

There are vaccines, they are just not used in the US. FWIW, I have heard, but don't know for sure, that the TB vaccines are mostly used to prevent an encephalopathy in children as opposed to respiratory complications in adults, but that is second hand.

Yes, BCG vaccine is available, but it doesn't prevent infection, it prevents  TB meningitis and military TB in children, something they are prone to. And it only lasts a few years. Children can still acquire latent infection, that can become active if one's immune system is weakened. 

[Wuzzie]

What's happening in Texas? 9000 new cases yesterday?! ?

[macawake, MSN]

1 hour ago, Wuzzie said:

What's happening in Texas? 9000 new cases yesterday?! ?

I haven’t kept up with U.S. news lately, but could it be the Delta variant? 

[toomuchbaloney]

6 minutes ago, macawake said:

I haven’t kept up with U.S. news lately, but could it be the Delta variant? 

My genetic sequencing child reports that the Delta variant is prevalent in her work in the west.  

[Wuzzie]

48 minutes ago, macawake said:

I haven’t kept up with U.S. news lately, but could it be the Delta variant? 

Maybe but that's an 8k jump from 2 days ago and the next highest state is Louisiana with 700 some new cases. Not sure a variant can account for the huge rise and if it does we're in for some big trouble. 

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

4 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

What's happening in Texas? 9000 new cases yesterday?! ?

Or it could be a large data upload of past cases. Reporting systems are so disjointed and each state has a different system. And within a state, many agencies don't interface. For instance in my state, we are having challenges coming up with accurate vaccine numbers because the Department of Defense, including the VA don't upload their numbers into the state department of health. We only recently got the numbers from a local tribe who has been awesome about administering vaccines, especially to teachers and college students. They added 4000 doses overnight, that had been given as long ago as April. 

And some states have been accused of withholding data for political reasons, which is stupid. 

I don't get too excited about 1 day's worth of numbers. 

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

4 hours ago, Wuzzie said:

What's happening in Texas? 9000 new cases yesterday?! ?

Where did you see that? Was it a particular area (?border towns). That is terrible. Here in FW it seems like people have just gone back to pre-pandemic behavior whether vaccinated or NOT.  Although I still see a significant amount still wearing masks. Nothing like before though.

[Wuzzie]

It was on the Johns Hopkins COVID resource page. It may very well have been a data dump but they usually make a disclaimer when that happens. I don't normally get my undies in a twist with a day or two of elevated numbers but that was a doozie and Texas dropped their mandates a month ago. Just wondering if the numbers are true is this possibly what is in store for us since our mandates have also lifted.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

I agree Wuzzie. A definite reason for concern.

 

[Wuzzie]

1 minute ago, CrunchRN said:

I agree Wuzzie. A definite reason for concern.

 

I'm definitely going to be monitoring it. I do think we have more vaccinated but my state is pretty heavily populated so the transmission is not easy to control.