Dr. Abhishek Patel, who works in the hospital’s pediatric I.C.U., walked in and out of a room where a 6-month-old and a 2-month-old were battling severe Covid-19 infections and were breathing with the aid of supplemental oxygen. This week alone, he said, two teenagers, who had other underlying health problems, succumbed to the virus.
In a room nearby, Cerena Gonzales, 14, moaned in pain. Last week, she was an excited teenager looking forward to starting her freshman year in high school. On Tuesday, she was surrounded by hospital equipment. She and her younger sister got sick after their parents, Carlos Gonzales, 47, and his wife Elizabeth, 42, began developing Covid symptoms and were taken to the hospital. None of them had been vaccinated, Ms. Gonzales said.
“We hesitated,” Ms. Gonzales said. “We were all a healthy family.”
As soon as she was discharged, Ms. Gonzales, still breathing with the aid of two portable oxygen tanks, rushed to her daughter’s side. She caressed her daughter’s forehead and tried to keep her upbeat. She recalled in tears the harrowing scene days earlier when doctors put her on a speakerphone so that she could hear as her daughter was intubated. “I thought I was going to lose my mind,” Ms. Gonzales said. “I could not be there with her.”
By Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Gonzales said she believed the worst of the crisis was over. She untangled her daughter’s thick black hair from IV tubes and gently encouraged her to drink orange juice.
Several members of her family had been ravaged by the virus, she said, and so she now plans to organize a family excursion to get vaccinated. “There is no reason any parent should go through this,” she said.
So there you have it, rationality fans, lots of irrationality sometimes sprinkled with hints of rational hindsight. The family was healthy so therefore, don't get vaccinated. No reason any parent should go through what they set the family up to go through? Hardly. There was a darned good reason. A knowing choice to not get the family vaccinated.
Texas governor Greg Abbott continues to stick with his opposition to telling people to get vaccinated. For him, it's a matter of personal freedom, not public health. He also continues to oppose mask mandates and has made it illegal to do so in the state. But also at the same time, he is looking for outside help. As the NYT puts it: "To help manage the surge, Mr. Abbott appealed this week to health care workers outside the state to travel to Texas and help the overloaded hospitals."
Why on Earth would anyone want to go to Texas to help? Texas can fend for itself and is proud of that tradition of independence and rigid fealty to unfettered freedom, as enshrined in the state meme we all know and love,
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!
The people of the state of Texas voted for Abbott and the fascist Republican Party. They deserve what they asked for, namely incompetent fascist Abbott and the rest of the incompetent, corrupt fascist Texas GOP. Personally, I would not want to mess with Texas. It's doing just fine on its own. Sort of.
Questions: Is it fair to lay most of the blame on Texas voters for the mess, or do elected leaders share some of the responsibility for the suffering, deaths and economic damage the new surge is going to inflict on the state? Whatabout Texans who get infected and leave the state, e.g., and go to Sturgis South Dakota, and spread their germs around in other states and other people? Is it needlessly or morally unacceptably cruel to not much care about the disaster that Texas is going to experience and knowingly asked to experience?
Cleaning the room after a teenager just died from COVID
Children's Hospital of San Antonio, Texas
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