[TheRealThing]

Phil Kerpen
@kerpen
·
17h
So many sad things happening in our world right now, but the people dying at home of heart attack or stroke because they mistakenly think hospitals are too busy for them might be the saddest.

The CV spawned hysteria where it comes to "guidance" is a bit more draconian actually. People aren't just staying home, outside of some pretty hard hoops for them to jump through, their doctors aren't seeing patients right now. There is the danger that a patient could infect the doc and their staff with CV.

Hospitals are essentially on lockdown. The ER's are still taking walk-ins and ambulances are still bringing in emergencies, but as far as the casual eye can see access to the hospital is extremely limited. For the most part there is an X-ray room or two for diagnostic purposes, and 'labs' can come and go. However, ER patients are restricted to the ER area only. And that area's access points are either locked or guarded. But for the purposes of a possible CV infection, using the ER is at your own risk, although hospitals are going to great lengths to keep things sterile. That's not to say that one couldn't be admitted if their situation is deemed serious enough. But they'd be isolated until they were cleared.

But where appointments are concerned no matter how bad off one may think they are, patients must go through a strict CV screening first. And the way I take it that patient had better do a pretty good job of 'selling,' if he gets seen even then. The whole process is more likely to take around two weeks to actually be seen. Don't be surprised if the process stretches on quite a bit longer though, that's to get scheduled much less treated. And don't think some of the docs don't make people wait in waiting rooms, I can assure that they do.

So while the nation obsesses about CV, many more are going downhill in an express car for everything else. I wouldn't be at all surprised if more suffer serious deterioration or die of other causes in just having to wait out the threat, than in the worst case CV scenario.