Shot in the Dark

Surge!!!!!

Governor Walz’ team of experts confidently predicted a Surge of Covid cases so large it would overwhelm hospitals. Patients would die on gurneys in hallways and parking lots, untreated. Bodies would lie in streets, uncollected. Everyone was at risk, from 6-month-old infants to 91-year-old seniors. 75,000 people would die, unless we ‘flattened the curve.’

To prevent that, the Governor declared a Peacetime Emergency and issued a Stay Home order which effectively suspended the United States Constitution, an act never before attempted in this country. Religious worship was banned. Political assemblies were banned. Jury trials were banned. Non-essential travel was banned. And non-emergency medical treatments were also banned, to keep hospital beds open for the Surge of Covid cases.

There was no Surge. Hospitals had on-going expenses for heat and lights, payroll, benefits and insurance amounting to nearly $1 million A DAY for the state’s largest medical providers, but no patients to pay those expenses. Medical providers are still scrambling to catch up.
Fairview Health is closing two hospitals in St. Paul – Bethesda (two blocks North of the Capital) and St. Josephs (downtown). The move will save the company money but it will cost the community hundreds of hospital beds and the entire psychiatric care unit. The company also is closing 14 primary care clinics in Minnesota and two in Wisconsin, a total of 900 jobs in all, hoping to slash expenses fast enough to keep the company alive.

Ramsey County is helping out. It’s leasing Bethesda Hospital for $1.2 million to use as a homeless shelter, December through May. Room, board, staffing and security for 100 homeless people will run about $66 per person per day, which is a pretty good rate (slightly cheaper than staying at the Motel 6 on I-94 and White Bear Avenue). The Board of Commissioners didn’t mention where that money was coming from.

To date, rounded to the nearest whole number, Covid has killed Zero percent of Minnesotans. The long-term costs of the Stay Home order have yet to be totaled up.

Joe Doakes

It’s a crisis not to waste. They’re doing a fine job of it – or so the polls tell us.

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19 responses to “Surge!!!!!”

  1. shakingmyhead Avatar
    shakingmyhead

    Joe – had to look up about leasing the hospital. Sounds like it’s for 18 months, not 6. And, the neighbors aren’t happy. And the council doesn’t care.

  2. golfdoc50 Avatar
    golfdoc50

    None of the reporters at the Health Department Covid updates ever points out the disconnect between the lockdowns justification and the reality we see. We mustn’t let Grandma die! Because Science! And Testing!

  3. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    If you looks at the CDC’s description of what an epidemiologist does, they have failed by their own lights: https://www.cdc.gov/careerpaths/k12teacherroadmap/epidemiologists.html

  4. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    head shaker – my bad. I misread the dates.

    Shoot – an 18 month lease for 100 people for only $1.2 million makes it a much better bargain. I withdraw my criticism of the County Board on that point.

    Thanks for the clarification.

  5. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    And, despite the lock downs, the GDP grew 33%. Suck it, Communistas!

  6. shakingmyhead Avatar
    shakingmyhead

    JD – No worries. What got me looking was that 100 beds x $66/night with 182 nights (Dec through May) works out to $1.2 mil. Was trying to determine how they were able to get by without paying staff or security.

  7. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    It’s leasing Bethesda Hospital for $1.2 million to use as a homeless shelter

    Enter law of Intended Consequences – remaining working hospitals are overwhelmed and patients have to be housed in the hallways. See? Wuhan Flu is the end for the world as we know it! And I feel fine…

  8. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    $66/night per bed? You mean if I go to the hospital that is what the REAL rate is? I wonder, when this is all over, and it will be over, if one can use these numbers to argue their hospital stay bill. Hmmm…

  9. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    It strikes me that we could have avoided the closure of some of these hospitals if, instead of pretty much shutting down hospitals statewide except for high priority care, we had designated a number of hospitals–say ones where we have adequate emergency care close by and such–as COVID wards, staffed and provisioned them appropriately, and such. That way, vulnerable health care providers could keep most hospitals mostly open, COVID patients would get care from experts, we’d be able to separate the COVID providers from the rest of the population, etc..

    We might even have inferred that the National Guard medical corps would be an excellent resource for doing this. Of course, that wouldn’t put a vice grip on the economy, so no go for Walz.

  10. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    jpa – no, that’s not the real hospital rate. That’s the flop house rate, for Motel 8 or a homeless shelter. And as Shakingmyhead pointed out, I was mistaken about the dates – the County is getting a far better rate than I calculated.

    18 months – call it 550 days for 100 homeless people for $1.2 million – that’s less than $25 per person per day. At that rate, maybe the state should buy up all the hospitals and convert them all into homeless shelters. We don’t need hospitals for anything else, do we?

    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/10/29/latest-on-covid19-in-mn

  11. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    Fairview University Healthcare system was in the process of laying off hundreds of employees and closing St Joe’s and Bethesda in November of 2019. The layoffs were to take place in early 2020. People were concerned about losing mental health care then. Then Covid happened. In this case, I think they actually stayed open longer in anticipation of needed hospital beds.

  12. shakingmyhead Avatar
    shakingmyhead

    BikeBubba: Most National Guard medical providers are also civilian care providers. At least the doctors and nurses. The medics are all civilian licensed EMT’s, so may or may not also be in the health care industry.

    But, they can change/clean bedpans and mop floors. If I recall, that’s what they got to do when the long term care workers went on strike in 2001.

  13. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    JD, let me clarify. If the hospital is OK with taking $25/day for being a homeless shelter – and arguably survive on that rate, because why else would they do it? – why do they have to charge $1000 (I do not know what the real number is) for you and I if we have to be admitted? I am sure the number is much greater than $25, but surely NOT $1000. If only we had journalists left to do some investigative reporting.

  14. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Shakingmyhead: agreed. My point here is that since the national guard medical workers are already contractually obligated, it’s far easier to mobilize them than to motivate the private sector to provide these people–plus they’re trained and experienced in deployment for the most part. Doing a real quarantine with the private sector would also have been a good choice.

    Plus, we had the choice of either using marginal hospitals as COVID wards, or putting all hospitals back to working at 20% capacity or less. Obviously Walz chose the latter, and that put tens of thousands of medical personnel out of work–and made it difficult to get needed care done. What a mess!

  15. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    BB429 wrote: “And, despite the lock downs, the GDP grew 33%. Suck it, Communistas!”

    It’s not very complicated.

    If you start with $100 and lose 40%, you have $60.

    If you then grow by 30%, you end up with only $78.

  16. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    The Dow was 15,000 when President Obama assured us malaise was forever. It’s 26,000 now.

    End-of-the-month profit taking occurs at regular intervals, that is not a sign of impending doom, it’s a way to shake out amateurs so the experts can buy cheaper.

    Here, look – I’ll prove it to you. Sell all your shares of everything today, E, before the bottom falls out. In a month, buy them all back at the then-current price. See if it costs you less to buy them back, or more.

  17. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    👆Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time.

  18. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    Ah, look. Emery is pretending to do math!
    Cute!

  19. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Facts are uncomfortable. Statistics are more pliable. Real GDP is still 3.5% below pre-pandemic peak.

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