[ad_1]
When Brittany Bankhead-Kendall received the Covid-19 vaccine in a beautiful boardroom at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, the flick finally gave her a dose of hope that she and her family would be safe.
But she still knew that down there, patients were fighting for their lives and dying every day, relying on surgical tubes and ventilators just to breathe.
“It’s a huge juxtaposition, and it’s a really precarious situation to have so much hope and so much heartache, in a way, all within the same walls,” said Bankhead-Kendall, surgeon. trauma specialist and intensive care physician at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
One year after the start of the pandemic, more than 13,500 Covid-19 patients languish in hospitals in Texas. With only 586 intensive care beds statewide and some areas strapped for space, “hospitals can’t take much more,” according to the State Department of Health Services (DSHS) recently tweeted.
Yet Covid is still raging: About one in six molecular tests in Texas are coming back positive right now, well above the 10% threshold Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of the state, once considered a “warning indicator For strong community spread.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is at its worst in Texas”, DSHS written online earlier this month, and “he’s probably never been so easy to catch.”
In a perfect world, Bankhead-Kendall said, Texas would take a page from other states, where leaders have strategically used economic shutdowns to give healthcare workers a break.
“If you’re not going to be in our hospitals to help take care of our patients, then you can at least be outside our walls and do your part to back down in another way,” she said.
But Abbott categorically rejected another lockdown, a successful but brutal instrument that would undoubtedly cause him political grief. And, although he instituted reductions in business occupancy and bar closures in areas with high hospital admissions, those restrictions have proven to be half-baked and generally ineffective.
In fact, other than promoting therapeutic treatments and bragging about the state’s vaccine rollout, the Abbott administration has done very little to alleviate the carnage of the virus in recent months, even as a new highly contagious variant threatens further devastation.
“Republican politicians are doing business as usual,” said Abhi Rahman, communications director for the Texas Democratic Party. “They act as if the pandemic never existed.”
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick stoked a widespread backlash last March when he pleaded for a swift reopening, insinuating that the country’s seniors were prepared to put their lives on the line to save the US economy. But despite Texas’ hasty exit from lockdown in May, its struggling workforce has failed to rebound, with the unemployment rate still remaining at 7.2% in December, down from 3.5% year-on-year. former.
Instead, Texas’ participatory approach rallied the virus, killing more than 33,700 Texans, leaving children orphans and forcing doctors to make painful decisions about rationing care. Today, after months of suffering, the pandemic has reached another hellish chapter, with hundreds of deaths every day.
“Elections have consequences, and it is the direct result of Republican leadership,” Rahman said.
In Fort Worth, criminal justice organizer Pamela Young hesitated at the city’s invitation to cram into a room for a seven-hour face-to-face interview with top contenders for police chief in January.
After witnessing near-constant and high-profile cases of police brutality in Fort Worth, she knows how much the position of Chief of Police matters. So she asked the deputy city manager if he could facilitate a virtual option for signs, similar to the remote meetings other local officials have held.
But the city insisted on face-to-face interviews, apparently ambivalent to whether they forced Young to put her life on the line or be excluded from high-stakes conversations about an issue she had championed for years.
“It’s scary to think that our municipal government and the leaders of our staff – whatever – have such disregard for human life in the midst of a global pandemic,” Young said.
Other cities and counties in Texas – especially the more democratic urban centers – have strayed from the state’s lead and tried to implement policies to reduce infections locally. But since last summer, Abbott and his colleagues have undermined the authority of other officials, sabotaging attempts to save lives in hard-hit communities.
“The state drives the car,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. “We are passengers.”
In December, Abbott – backed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – went so far as to encourage Austin businesses to thwart a local curfew and ring the New Year late at night.
Emboldened crowds gathered outside the open bars. Inside, revelers danced and hugged while bartenders did not wear masks, a deadly recipe for the surge in a flare that health experts say would occur if Americans didn’t. were not staying at home for the holidays.
Meanwhile, Bankhead-Kendall observed patients who survived, even mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 cases treat collapsed lungs or blood clots, possibly from the virus.
Since the introduction of a vaccine, the general public in Texas has become lax, she said, “feeling like it’s almost over.” But so far, only about 5% of the state’s roughly 29 million people have received at least a first dose, and widespread availability is likely still months away.
“They don’t understand the immediate or potential long-term consequences or sequelae of the disease,” Bankhead-Kendall said.
“Most people live, so that’s what a lot of people hang their hats on.”
[ad_2]
Source link