Things Politicians Like: Alternate Covid Care Facilities

When the books are written about Covid and 2020, I hope to buy the one that lists everything that was dumb and wrong. I feel that at the top of the list would be the lust for politicians to show that they are “doing something” with the alternate care facilities.

This whole thing started with Cuomo and the big ass boat that parked in New York harbor, that ended up treating a hilariously low total of 182 patients before (I assume) the Navy said “f this”. I think New York also did the Javits Center and that also shut down pretty quickly. I still remember laughing at Cuomo when he was all but crying “we need fohty tousand ventuhlatuhs”. Of course, we now know that most of the people on ventuhlatuhs were getting their lungs blown up, but I digress.

Governor “you all stay home but myself and my family can do whatever they want during Covid” Pritzker of Illinois and Chicago Mayor Lori “lockdown for you, unless you are blowing up the city or going to a Joe Biden rally” Lightfoot gave each other a high five (figuratively) when they opened up McCormick Place to see Covid patients. A cool $81 million to treat 38 patients. That’s $2,131,578.95 each.

Recently the governor of Wisconsin, “one term” Tony Evers opened up an Alternate Care Facility outside of Milwaukee, at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. I have been watching the patient count there – you can too, right here. From Saturday to Sunday, there was an insane increase of 20% (!!!) of patients. While this sounds menacing, we went from five to six in reality (see, I can do covid pOrn just as good as the media). Since then we have had a FIFTY percent reduction in patients at that facility, from six down to three. I would assume that this place will also shut down fairly soon. But good on the docs and nurses there, I am sure they are catching up on some reading, knitting and whatever else they haven’t been able to get to as of late.

20 thoughts on “Things Politicians Like: Alternate Covid Care Facilities”

  1. The reason those governors ignored the additional resources, other than TDS, is still a mystery to me. I know the rule of “Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence” but this is ridiculous.

  2. Political allocation of resources is always wasteful, and usually at a devastating level. Enough of this and you get breadlines and famines. Literally. Yet, the kids want socialism and the politicians are eager to tell us all what to do. A match made in Hell.

  3. The first book that was written was “by” Andy Cuomo (or whoever his ghostwriter was, of course), who should be begging for forgiveness from the entire country for his disastrous actions, but is instead universally lauded by the media. Obviously someone told him to get his story written down first.

  4. My first thought was that: “I hope he’s talking about an e-book.” I then realized you probably have access to better material handling equipment and a bigger truck than I do. Why you would want to relive the memories escapes me.

    Lex’s remark about political allocation of resources is bang on. Wars and the military in general being prime examples.

    Even more dangerous to the rest of us innocent bystanders; is there any doubt that the thought going through the minds of all the politicians above and many more was: “This is my chance to become a Presidential contender.”?

    I might be reluctant about equating lack of prescience with lack of judgement but none of these clowns deserve any sort of forbearance, having shown more than adequate evidence of the latter.

  5. “The cost to keep the beds available at the Colorado Convention Center under the current lease is $60,000 a day. That’s roughly $1.8 million a month for empty beds.”

    That’s a helluvan (helluv an?) expensive “insurance policy.”

    https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/360/colorados-makeshift-covid-19-hospital-still-sits-empty-to-the-tune-of-60-000-a-day

    and what with reduced sales & other tax revenue, the treasury is hurtin’. I wonder which “Peters” they’re going to take from to pay all the “Pauls” with their hands out?

  6. @ColoComment – Zero patients – that’s amazing. At least the other ones put some people in there for show.

  7. ColoComment,
    Are you sure that’s not per bed. At best, it’s just the cost of the facility, not including equipment and especially staff. I’m reading that traveling nurses are pulling down better than 10K per week.

  8. @Dan
    They even had a chance to let it go, but in September they renewed the lease through the end of the year.

    In truth, I’m not sure what the actual effect is on the bottom line — it may be just a transfer of revenue/expense from one accounting column to another: the City and County of Denver itself owns the convention center (although it’s privately managed.) I suppose there’s no opportunity or real cost to Denver to leaving it as is, inasmuch as there are no conventions to rent it?

    I don’t really know enough about the particulars….

    https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/09/10/colorado-convention-center-covid-care-lease-extended/

  9. @MCS
    If we had real journalism being committed in the country/state/city, some reporter somewhere might ask that question about total cost. As it is, what you read at the links is what you get.

  10. The media coverage from Italy and China was a big contributor. With the Chinese building huge new hospitals with hundreds of beds and ventilators, that is what the US public was conditioned to believe. The same from the Italians as well as our crisis mongering public health experts made it into either an opportunity for politicians like Cuomo, or an issue to deal with carefully for others.

    After the first wave in NYC and elsewhere proved this wrong, some flexibility was permissible but the Media would still exaggerate the numbers

  11. I can forgive some of the early miscalculations. There was a lot of uncertainty. I can’t forgive sending sick patients into nursing homes. We already knew that the elderly were far more vulnerable than the rest of the population. Yet Cuomo is hailed as a hero. Truly bizarre times we live in. Maybe it was always so.

  12. “We already knew that the elderly were far more vulnerable than the rest of the population”
    Yup. It tore through that nursing home in Seattle in February. Andy didn’t force NY homes to accept covid patients until late March. He also threatened to sue any state that restricted entry of NYers, and told NYers they had no need to quarantine when they went to other states, and he’s lied about what he did ever since. He is a deeply evil man, an undeniable psychopath, and the fact that he is hailed as a hero by the media and the establishment is a clear sign that we are a deeply decadent and corrupt society.

  13. the fact that he is hailed as a hero by the media and the establishment is a clear sign that we are a deeply decadent and corrupt society.

    As if the election was not enough. If they will leave me alone, I will just hibernate but if they come to the door, it will be a different matter.

  14. We poor Badgers are stuck with an idiot for a Governor, in Tony Evers. He seems to take his marching orders from other Democrat Governors, rather than thinking on his own. But what else could be expected from someone who, while Director of Public Instruction, forced Whole Language, and Common Core Math on Wisconsin’s students.

  15. FWIW: I posted the following on several websites in July, including this one, I thought. Slovakia followed this protocol with considerable success.
    On Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:57 AM Exasperated wrote:
    Dr Sheult (Medcram is a channel on YouTube offering continuing ed and refresher courses to medical professionals) has an update exploring the idea put forth by a Dr. Mina of Harvard. As you know, effective testing has been an obstacle in establishing protocols for public safety. The CDC is hung up on having a 99.999% accurate test.
    What Dr Mina has proposed is using the less sensitive, but extremely cheap, self administered antigen test, based on a drop of saliva wiped across a small square of test paper. This test measures for general infectivity over a certain threshold. If the test is positive the student or worker, and their family members, just stays home. Even if it missed an infection the first day, so what, it can be picked up a day or two later, the point is you have many potential carriers self isolating greatly reducing the public viral load and exposure. Again the point is, don’t let the perfect by the enemy of the good or the good enough. These tests are already available.
    You wouldn’t even have to take it day in and day out for weeks and months at a time, just when the level of active cases is accelerating in your local area. Maybe the city or the school district could track local infectious activity and be the communication hub like they are for storms or when school is cancelled.

    At the time my sister, from Illinois, replied:
    It eliminates test reading companies like the Pritzker crowd are invested in – what a surprise the readings are so high in false positives.
    Where’s the opportunity for graft? It would have to offer some form of graft or it won’t be used around here.

  16. Not only the governor’s, but medical staff. Knowing that in first world countries 50% or 1 in 2 do not survive the ventilation process, and in China with Vivid at Wuhan this reduced to 1 in 20. Why did they use this technique – they sent people home until choking, to late for any intervention and sedating and ventilation was thought to reduce the spread of the disease. (Utter lie, but that’s a different discussion).

  17. When the books are written about Covid and 2020, I hope to buy the one that lists everything that was dumb and wrong.

    It’s going to be a multi-volume set.

    Yup. It tore through that nursing home in Seattle in February. Andy didn’t force NY homes to accept covid patients until late March.

    Governor Hair Gel of California initially gave the same order, but then quickly rescinded it. Why anyone would adopt that policy surpasseth all understanding, but at least Hair Gel for once exercised a scintilla of common sense. Blind groundhogs, and all that.

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