Friday, April 3, 2020

Nice try, Cuomo

The governor of New York is demanding that all "extra" ventilators be shipped to New York City. He is also signing an executive order to for out-state hospitals to ship "un-used" ventilators to NYC.

He says that when NYC is done, they will ship the ventilators back to the originating source. He says this will work because different states will "peak" at different times.

This is the old shell game where the pea is not under the shell you are directed to look at.

The number of NEW cases will peak at different times. However, the need for ventilators will lag the discovery of new cases and, once a patient is hooked up to one, removing them from the ventilator is premeditated murder if that patient dies.

So New York City will be a black hole that sucks up all the "extra" ventilators in the nation and many of the patients will still be plugged into them three weeks after they were diagnosed. Oh, and that peak is not very sharp. NYC will continue to generate cases that indicate the need for a ventilator for WEEKS after the peak.

The up-state hospitals that shipped their ventilators will not get them in time as the cases peak in less densely populated areas.

So Cuomo's plan is to send the National Guard, armed, to hospitals to collect ventilators out of inventory. They will be transported to NYC where they are running out of respiratory professionals to use the ventilators  so they will either not get used or will be used inappropriately.

And at this time 65% of the patients who go on the ventilators die anyway. Sucks to have something other than Covid-19 in out-state NY and need a ventilator. I guess Cuomo doesn't need ANY out-state votes to get re-elected.

If I managed any of those out-state hospitals, I would coach my respiratory professionals that if they didn't have a patient plugged into one then they were going to lose it. So if they had a patient that they thought might-maybe need it in the future, to plug them in NOW.  After all, Cuomo can't tell doctors to unplug them because he would be guilty of first degree murder if that patient died.

Just saying, that knife cuts both ways.

***Added later*** 
Cuomo said he will return the ventilators or pay for them. Let's look at both options.

Is it possible that the returned ventilators will not be returned with all the pieces parts? Maybe it will come with a random bag of loose parts that may, or may not fit that model of ventilator. Maybe it won't even come with a full kit, that is, it will come back with some necessary parts missing or non-functional. Perhaps all the consumables will be consumed.

Cuomo's hands are tied with regards to repaying. New York is broke. He cannot pay this year but maybe he can pay next year. Even if he could pay cash-on-the-barrel-hea, there are no ventilators to be bought NOW. An electronic transfer of funds into the "donating" hospital's account does the cardiac patient no good when he needs a ventilator NOW, this very minute.

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7 comments:

  1. TPTB, both federal and state, need to be moving heaven and earth to get as much Chloroquine, Azithromycin, and zinc into the hands of doctors and hospitals as soon as humanly possible. Along with instructions to administer it immediately to everyone who arrives at the hospital with symptoms. If they would only just do this, they would not need most of the ventilators.

    And just as you have said, once someone has gotten so bad off that they need the vent, their odds of survival are not good. Possibly no better than one in three, and even if they eventually leave the hospital, they are likely to have permanent lung damage to such an extent that their odds of still being alive a year from now are not good.

    Even the hospitals who are using the CQ or HCQ are making the mistake of waiting till someone gets so bad that it is too late for the drug to pull them back from the brink. It needs to be given EARLY, just as soon as a patient shows up with symptoms or a positive diagnosis.

    President Trump was absolutely right about this, but the media has been pretending that it doesn't work, because they cannot stand it that Trump was right.

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  2. Been a long time since I read "Atlas Shrugged"; but wasn't there something in that book about food being taken from villages, and given to towns; then from towns, and given to cities; and then from small cities to large cities.......?

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    1. Not sure about that Iwoots but may be true. There is for sure a part in Atlas Shrugged about those with "Pull" getting supplies, food, jobs etc. All about who has Pull. Here we see different "pull". NYC has political pull over the entire state. Also on a Federal level certain businesses and industries have Wayyy more pull than others. Total bailouts for Airlines ( and big bucks for the Kennedy Center) while other businesses got nothing or just crumbs. They didn't have enough Pull.

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  3. As a resident of Upstate NY (Second class citizen) I can say honestly:

    'It would have been nice if he asked instead of ordering'

    Fact is that we upstate residents have been second class citizens of the state ever since Emperor Cuomo came to power. We are fed scraps and dribs and drabs when it comes to maintaining our infrastructure and all we have seen is cuts to funding to mandated services from the state and since outside of NYC most people OWN their property, this is essentially forced tax increases since that is how local governments are funded.

    Our resources are sized to meet our needs and when you take important medical equipment away from our medical facilities you leave us unprotected in the likely event that this virus eventually starts wreaking havoc up here as it is in Metro NYC. The state is very quick to take things but very very very slow to replace them. Add a budget that is negotiated by NYC democrats with no upstate representatives involved and you get a dictatorship.

    Lastly, It is painfully obvious how fragile Cuomo's ego is. He could not risk asking for help from upstate and being denied so he issues an executive order instead.

    His reputation upstate is that of a tyrant who despises us and we loathe him and he knows this. He so much as told us to leave back in 2014. I refuse to comply with his order to depart.

    I will outlast this petty never worked a day in his life, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, never ever had to worry about where he would sleep or where his next meal is coming from over indulged entitled liberal democrat who has no idea what real life is like for typical average people.

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    1. Dang Glenda, tell us what you really think. :-)

      If I was involved in this fiasco and in upstate NY, I'd get very good at hiding the things that your tin-pot dictator wants. Because, believe me, the vents are just the first on the list.

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  4. I can assure you on one thing: the NY Guard will NOT be going to hospitals armed to take ventilators at gun point, no matter what Cuomo orders them to do - because they are under both federal and state law, and federal law has much bigger penalties for violating it.
    The Guard cannot use federally owned guns on a state mission, and almost all of them are not trained for police missions. This piece on VA's threat to use the Guard to confiscate guns gives an idea of the rules the Guard operates under: http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/index.php?itemid=520
    I suspect cops or state health officials will be sent to "borrow" equipment, and the Guard may do the grunt work of carrying and transporting it - or maybe not, since even in NY state the Army Guard is less than 11,000 and many of them are deployed elsewhere. Also, I bet many Guardsmen are looking for reasons to not be called up and sent to a diseased hotspot.

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  5. The Good Governor knows where his votes come from, and knows how they may be, ahem, augmented for the purpose of.....the next victory. It won't be coming from upstate. Not that I'm cynical, mind you. I'm sure these tactical networks are among the family's crown jewels, passed down from Mario.

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