This Minnesota Department of Health chart <\/a>says we only have about 1,000 total ICU beds in the state.\u00a0 What happened to the 3,000 Governor Walz said we had available on 72 hours’ notice, when he extended the lockdown last Spring?\u00a0 That same chart shows we almost always have 1,000 ICU beds in use and presently only 366 of the ICU beds are being used by Covid patients.\u00a0 Who’s using all the other ICU beds and if we need more ICU beds, why don’t we ramp up more ICU beds to handle all the patients? <\/p>\nCuriously, look at the map of Minnesota located below the chart.\u00a0 It shows “Staffed ICU beds.”\u00a0 Why “Staffed” and not just “Beds?”\u00a0 Because “ICU bed” isn’t a physical thing.\u00a0 The bed itself has no therapeutic properties.\u00a0 “ICU bed” is a billing code that entitles the hospital to higher reimbursement because the patient in an ICU bed is being attended by staff qualified to monitor the patient using special equipment such as a heart monitor or ventilator.\u00a0 That’s why we can set up ICU beds in tents or on a ship – it’s not about the beds, it’s about the staff and ancillary equipment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The chart says “Staffed” because you can’t bill it as an “ICU Bed” if you don’t have enough staff.\u00a0 And why aren’t there enough staff?\u00a0 What happened to all the caregivers?\u00a0 Burnout?\u00a0 Generous unemployment benefits?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Ask it quietly: vaccine mandates?\u00a0 But don’t expect an answer.\u00a0 Liberals don’t want to talk about that.<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
When you have to be a lawyer to decipher the law, that’s annoying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you have to be a lawyer to decipher the news, that’s a bureaucracy run amok. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Liberals claim Minnesota hospitals are being overwhelmed with Covid patients.\u00a0 I have questions about that. This Minnesota Department of Health chart says we only have about 1,000 total ICU beds in the state.\u00a0 What happened to the 3,000 Governor Walz said we had available on 72 hours’ notice, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[416],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80403,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80401\/revisions\/80403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}