While COVID hospital admissions are not overwhelming, long lines have formed at California hospital emergency rooms of individuals with mild symptoms simply seeking a Covid test because they can’t find tests in pharmacies.
California’s healthcare capacity is holding up relatively well against a surge in coronavirus infections from the Omicron variant and an uptick in communal gatherings during the Holiday season. In fact, the number of hospitalizations caused by acute forms of Covid is still remarkably low.
But that hasn’t stopped California’s liberal media from offering a steady drum beat of fear-inspiring headlines along with alarmist comments from state and local political leaders.
Without a spike in hospitalizations to sensationalize, the media is now claiming that hospital “emergency rooms” are overwhelmed with Covid patients.
Well, sort of – but not in the way the media is leading the public to believe.
California’s hospital officials are reporting the individuals showing up in mass at local ERs are not needing acute care, but rather are just searching for a simple Covid test. A simple test.
These individuals are experiencing mild symptoms, but are showing up just to be tested in the ER because they cannot get tests through local pharmacies. Despite their lack of need for emergency care, with California’s high liability risks, the ER is still mandated to give these individuals with mild symptoms a full exam.
Dr. Scott Herskovitz, Director of Emergency Medical Services at Rady Children’s Hospital told the San Diego Union Tribune, “state law requires anyone who enters the hospital to be given a medical screening examination to determine if an emergency condition exists. A large number of such screenings, even if they’re for relatively minor symptoms, can swamp available resources.”
“The dirty little secret that the liberal media is trying to hide is the fact that there’s a national shortage of covid tests and the problem is acute here in California,” Carl DeMaio stated in covering this issue on his daily radio show on NewsRadio 600 KOGO. “The blame should be placed on liberal politicians who have fixated for months on their draconian and unworkable vaccine mandates when they should have been doing their job and ensuring we had adequate testing capacity,” DeMaio noted.
Public health officials are now even taking to social media to actively discourage people who are asymptomatic or have mild covid-19 symptoms from seeking coronavirus tests in emergency rooms and urgent care offices. DeMaio pointed out the irony of that over twitter just days ago. Twitter.com/CarlDeMaio
But it’s not just the amount of people heading to the emergency room just to find a simple Covid test. Hospitals are also experiencing staff shortages – exacerbated by ill-timed terminations of individuals who refused to comply with the vaccine mandate imposed by California politicians on health care workers.
“The evidence is mounting that the vaccine mandate backfired big time and drove good quality health care workers out of the workforce,” stated DeMaio. “Already short staffed, this week we are seeing a huge shortage of healthcare workers because many of these so-called vaccinated workers have surprisingly tested positive for Covid,” DeMaio pointed out.
“California politicians have claimed for months that we could face an emergency caused solely by the unvaccinated - but the truth is the biggest problems we are seeing right now have been caused by politicians who have exacerbated staffing shortages with their misguided decision to fire unvaccinated healthcare workers and by an inexcusable shortage of Covid tests that happened on their watch,” DeMaio concluded.
Listen to Carl dissect California’s Covid testing shortage and overrun ERs HERE!
Photo Credit: Getty Images