[BostonCard]

Another dispatch from the warzone.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/john_wice/status/1328358245086486531?s=20[/tweet]

Some skepticism is always warranted on anecdotal claims like this, but still.

BC

It turns out maybe a lot of skepticism is warranted:

https://www.wired.com/story/are-covid-pa...-they-die/

I called a number of hospitals in the same part of South Dakota to ask emergency room nurses if they’d noticed the same, disturbing phenomenon. At Avera Weskota Memorial Hospital, about 20 minutes from Doering’s hometown of Woonsocket, an ER nurse told me, “I have not had that experience here.” At my request, Kim Rieger, the VP for communications and marketing at Huron Regional Medical Center, one of the four medical facilities where Doering works, spoke with several nurses at Huron to get their reactions to the CNN interview. None said they’d interacted with Covid patients who denied having the disease. “Most patients are grateful, and thankful for our help,” one told her. “I have not experienced this, nor have I been told of this experience, ever,” another said.

This in no way means that Doering’s account is untrue. But it provides, at minimum, some important context that was completely absent from the CNN interview and from all the media amplification that followed. Little or no effort was made to assess the scope of the problem that Doering so memorably described. How many Covid-19 patients in South Dakota are really so blinkered by disinformation that they're enraged at their caregivers and, in their final moments on earth, still dispute what’s happening? No one bothered to find out.

I regret posting the tweet.  Stopping to think about this, and based on my own experience, I think it is likely that the majority of patients (generally, haven't treated COVID-19 patients in South Dakota) are, as Huron notes "Most patients are grateful, and thankful for our help." That's not to say that Doering's experience couldn't have happened; there are always exceptions, but that it likely isn't representative.

BC

[BostonCard]

Another dispatch from the warzone.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/john_wice/status/1328358245086486531?s=20[/tweet]

Some skepticism is always warranted on anecdotal claims like this, but still.

BC

It turns out maybe a lot of skepticism is warranted:

https://www.wired.com/story/are-covid-pa...-they-die/

I called a number of hospitals in the same part of South Dakota to ask emergency room nurses if they’d noticed the same, disturbing phenomenon. At Avera Weskota Memorial Hospital, about 20 minutes from Doering’s hometown of Woonsocket, an ER nurse told me, “I have not had that experience here.” At my request, Kim Rieger, the VP for communications and marketing at Huron Regional Medical Center, one of the four medical facilities where Doering works, spoke with several nurses at Huron to get their reactions to the CNN interview. None said they’d interacted with Covid patients who denied having the disease. “Most patients are grateful, and thankful for our help,” one told her. “I have not experienced this, nor have I been told of this experience, ever,” another said.

This in no way means that Doering’s account is untrue. But it provides, at minimum, some important context that was completely absent from the CNN interview and from all the media amplification that followed. Little or no effort was made to assess the scope of the problem that Doering so memorably described. How many Covid-19 patients in South Dakota are really so blinkered by disinformation that they're enraged at their caregivers and, in their final moments on earth, still dispute what’s happening? No one bothered to find out.

I regret posting the tweet.  Stopping to think about this, and based on my own experience, I think it is likely that the majority of patients (generally, haven't treated COVID-19 patients in South Dakota) are, as Huron notes "Most patients are grateful, and thankful for our help." That's not to say that Doering's experience couldn't have happened; there are always exceptions, but that it likely isn't representative.

BC