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An ICU nurse, a doctor and a respiratory therapist work on a COVID patient being intubated and placed on a ventilator in the ICU at Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles. Photo by Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

It Looks Heroic, But You Broke Us

Grisly. The U.S. has hit 40 million COVID cases; over a quarter of new cases are kids; this Labor Day saw almost 300% more COVID-hospitalized patients than last year's; 1,500 people a day are dying, almost a 9/11 every day; there's a free, effective vaccine; all of those dying or hospitalized are unvaccinated; doctors and nurses are livid, gutted, spent. "We wanted to help people," writes one in a searing poem. "We were smart and driven/So we made a commitment/We signed up/It was an honor." Now, after the death, gaslighting, "astounding" selfishness, "You broke us/There is no more honor."

Grisly milestones, one after the other. On Tuesday, the U.S. hit 40 million COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, with four million in the last four Delta-inundated weeks, over a quarter of them kids. This Labor Day weekend, the number of hospitalized COVID patients was nearly 300% higher than the same time last year, and the number of deaths was over 86% higher. Today, some 100,000 Americans are hospitalized, almost as many as during January's COVID peak; we are at over 1,500 deaths per day - almost a 9/11 a day - and climbing. Surges are still spreading across GOP states, many of them southern, where vaccination rates are about 40% lower than in the Northeast and malignant "stooge hack dickdrip" idiots like Gym Jordan are still saying things like, "Vaccine mandates are un-American," never mind George Washington ordering smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army. With Delta now spreading into western and Midwestern states, COVID-swamped Idaho officials on Tuesday announced they'll start rationing health care - aka GOP death camps - by activating protocols for "crisis standards of care." Meanwhile, the usual GOP suspects continue to infect and kill their constituents at unfathomable rates.
Texas, despite being so busy suppressing voting, banning abortion and magically "eliminating" rape, has seen over 3.7 million COVID cases and this weekend hit an all-time high in pediatric hospitalizations. Florida, thanks to its death-dealing, anti-mask-and-vaccine-mandate governor, now represents almost 25% of U.S. deaths; in Miami-Dade County alone, 15 teachers died in the last 10 days, including a longtime, much-loved mentor who "leaves behind a wife, son and countless men he inspired," after which The Miami Heraldeviscerated DeSantis as an inept "portrait in selfishness." In Mississippi, there were 900 deaths in August that included multiple pregnant women; doctors in the ICU were performing emergency C-sections on women hooked up to ventilators to "get the baby out before the mom dies." "This never happens," said one doctor. "Never." Given all these horrors are both unprecedented and largely preventable - virtually all COVID hospitalizations and deaths are people who inconceivably declined to take a free, safe, readily available vaccine because goddamn the stupid is killing us - PTSD is soaring among doctors and nurses, and many are leaving the field. Mississippi now has at least 2,000 fewer nurses than at the beginning of the pandemic, a growing trend that only adds more strain to already maxed-out health care systems. "It looks heroic, (but) it's sweaty and hard and chaotic and bloody," said one Mississippi ICU nurse who recently resigned. "And it's hard to live in this every day and then go home and live a normal life." Asked if the system is reaching a breaking point, one nursing manager said, "I think we already broke."
It's a common, woeful, searing refrain among those doing the unimaginable "heavy lifting." From one anonymous doctor:
      "We wanted to help people
      We were smart and driven
      We loved science and physiology, humans and disease
      So we made a commitment
      We signed up
      It was an honor

      We read thousands of pages
      Attended hundreds of lectures
      Pulled all-nighters
      Took more exams than we thought possible
      Finals week felt insurmountable
      But it didn't break us
      It made us stronger

      We learned statistics and biochemistry
      Immunology and pathophysiology
      We mastered genetics, virology and pharmacology
      We read scientific papers and learned how to dissect them
      Papers, not videos
      It was an honor

      We came running when you needed us
      Literally, running down the hallway
      To the ICU, the trauma bay, labor and delivery
      I need help, you said
      We can help, we said
      It was an honor

      There were moments that we thought would break us
      Moments that drove us to journaling, to therapy, to nightmares
      Broken babies.
      Paralyzed children.
      Dead pregnant mothers with three kids at home.
      The wail of a mother whose son just died.
      We bent but we did not break
      We returned because you needed us
      And we could help
      It was an honor

      Then there was fear
      Fear of walking into our place of work
      Fear that we'd be killed by going to work
      Fear that we'd kill a loved one because of our work
      There were tears and sleepless nights and anti-anxiety medications
      But you banged your pots and pans
      You sent us pizzas and called us heroes
      You needed us
      We could help
      So we wore our masks, and our gowns, and our gloves, and our goggles
      We decontaminated ourselves before going home and isolated ourselves from our families
      We almost broke
      It was an honor

      How quickly the joy turned to defeat
      Elation to rage
      You've learned to do your own research now
      You know better than we do
      Gaslighting is your language
      Your selfishness is astounding
      You don't want our help when we ask you to stay healthy
      Yet you arrive at our doors begging for help at the end

      You stole our resources
      You hobbled our ability to help those who did what they were supposed to do
      You killed our patients by filling our beds and using up our ventilators
      We can't help any more
      You broke us
      There is no more honor"

      Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
      Further
      Grisly milestones, one after the other. On Tuesday, the U.S. hit 40 million COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, with four million in the last four Delta-inundated weeks, over a quarter of them kids. This Labor Day weekend, the number of hospitalized COVID patients was nearly 300% higher than the same time last year, and the number of deaths was over 86% higher. Today, some 100,000 Americans are hospitalized, almost as many as during January's COVID peak; we are at over 1,500 deaths per day - almost a 9/11 a day - and climbing. Surges are still spreading across GOP states, many of them southern, where vaccination rates are about 40% lower than in the Northeast and malignant "stooge hack dickdrip" idiots like Gym Jordan are still saying things like, "Vaccine mandates are un-American," never mind George Washington ordering smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army. With Delta now spreading into western and Midwestern states, COVID-swamped Idaho officials on Tuesday announced they'll start rationing health care - aka GOP death camps - by activating protocols for "crisis standards of care." Meanwhile, the usual GOP suspects continue to infect and kill their constituents at unfathomable rates.
      Texas, despite being so busy suppressing voting, banning abortion and magically "eliminating" rape, has seen over 3.7 million COVID cases and this weekend hit an all-time high in pediatric hospitalizations. Florida, thanks to its death-dealing, anti-mask-and-vaccine-mandate governor, now represents almost 25% of U.S. deaths; in Miami-Dade County alone, 15 teachers died in the last 10 days, including a longtime, much-loved mentor who "leaves behind a wife, son and countless men he inspired," after which The Miami Heraldeviscerated DeSantis as an inept "portrait in selfishness." In Mississippi, there were 900 deaths in August that included multiple pregnant women; doctors in the ICU were performing emergency C-sections on women hooked up to ventilators to "get the baby out before the mom dies." "This never happens," said one doctor. "Never." Given all these horrors are both unprecedented and largely preventable - virtually all COVID hospitalizations and deaths are people who inconceivably declined to take a free, safe, readily available vaccine because goddamn the stupid is killing us - PTSD is soaring among doctors and nurses, and many are leaving the field. Mississippi now has at least 2,000 fewer nurses than at the beginning of the pandemic, a growing trend that only adds more strain to already maxed-out health care systems. "It looks heroic, (but) it's sweaty and hard and chaotic and bloody," said one Mississippi ICU nurse who recently resigned. "And it's hard to live in this every day and then go home and live a normal life." Asked if the system is reaching a breaking point, one nursing manager said, "I think we already broke."
      It's a common, woeful, searing refrain among those doing the unimaginable "heavy lifting." From one anonymous doctor:
          "We wanted to help people
          We were smart and driven
          We loved science and physiology, humans and disease
          So we made a commitment
          We signed up
          It was an honor

          We read thousands of pages
          Attended hundreds of lectures
          Pulled all-nighters
          Took more exams than we thought possible
          Finals week felt insurmountable
          But it didn't break us
          It made us stronger

          We learned statistics and biochemistry
          Immunology and pathophysiology
          We mastered genetics, virology and pharmacology
          We read scientific papers and learned how to dissect them
          Papers, not videos
          It was an honor

          We came running when you needed us
          Literally, running down the hallway
          To the ICU, the trauma bay, labor and delivery
          I need help, you said
          We can help, we said
          It was an honor

          There were moments that we thought would break us
          Moments that drove us to journaling, to therapy, to nightmares
          Broken babies.
          Paralyzed children.
          Dead pregnant mothers with three kids at home.
          The wail of a mother whose son just died.
          We bent but we did not break
          We returned because you needed us
          And we could help
          It was an honor

          Then there was fear
          Fear of walking into our place of work
          Fear that we'd be killed by going to work
          Fear that we'd kill a loved one because of our work
          There were tears and sleepless nights and anti-anxiety medications
          But you banged your pots and pans
          You sent us pizzas and called us heroes
          You needed us
          We could help
          So we wore our masks, and our gowns, and our gloves, and our goggles
          We decontaminated ourselves before going home and isolated ourselves from our families
          We almost broke
          It was an honor

          How quickly the joy turned to defeat
          Elation to rage
          You've learned to do your own research now
          You know better than we do
          Gaslighting is your language
          Your selfishness is astounding
          You don't want our help when we ask you to stay healthy
          Yet you arrive at our doors begging for help at the end

          You stole our resources
          You hobbled our ability to help those who did what they were supposed to do
          You killed our patients by filling our beds and using up our ventilators
          We can't help any more
          You broke us
          There is no more honor"

          Grisly milestones, one after the other. On Tuesday, the U.S. hit 40 million COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, with four million in the last four Delta-inundated weeks, over a quarter of them kids. This Labor Day weekend, the number of hospitalized COVID patients was nearly 300% higher than the same time last year, and the number of deaths was over 86% higher. Today, some 100,000 Americans are hospitalized, almost as many as during January's COVID peak; we are at over 1,500 deaths per day - almost a 9/11 a day - and climbing. Surges are still spreading across GOP states, many of them southern, where vaccination rates are about 40% lower than in the Northeast and malignant "stooge hack dickdrip" idiots like Gym Jordan are still saying things like, "Vaccine mandates are un-American," never mind George Washington ordering smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army. With Delta now spreading into western and Midwestern states, COVID-swamped Idaho officials on Tuesday announced they'll start rationing health care - aka GOP death camps - by activating protocols for "crisis standards of care." Meanwhile, the usual GOP suspects continue to infect and kill their constituents at unfathomable rates.
          Texas, despite being so busy suppressing voting, banning abortion and magically "eliminating" rape, has seen over 3.7 million COVID cases and this weekend hit an all-time high in pediatric hospitalizations. Florida, thanks to its death-dealing, anti-mask-and-vaccine-mandate governor, now represents almost 25% of U.S. deaths; in Miami-Dade County alone, 15 teachers died in the last 10 days, including a longtime, much-loved mentor who "leaves behind a wife, son and countless men he inspired," after which The Miami Heraldeviscerated DeSantis as an inept "portrait in selfishness." In Mississippi, there were 900 deaths in August that included multiple pregnant women; doctors in the ICU were performing emergency C-sections on women hooked up to ventilators to "get the baby out before the mom dies." "This never happens," said one doctor. "Never." Given all these horrors are both unprecedented and largely preventable - virtually all COVID hospitalizations and deaths are people who inconceivably declined to take a free, safe, readily available vaccine because goddamn the stupid is killing us - PTSD is soaring among doctors and nurses, and many are leaving the field. Mississippi now has at least 2,000 fewer nurses than at the beginning of the pandemic, a growing trend that only adds more strain to already maxed-out health care systems. "It looks heroic, (but) it's sweaty and hard and chaotic and bloody," said one Mississippi ICU nurse who recently resigned. "And it's hard to live in this every day and then go home and live a normal life." Asked if the system is reaching a breaking point, one nursing manager said, "I think we already broke."
          It's a common, woeful, searing refrain among those doing the unimaginable "heavy lifting." From one anonymous doctor:
              "We wanted to help people
              We were smart and driven
              We loved science and physiology, humans and disease
              So we made a commitment
              We signed up
              It was an honor

              We read thousands of pages
              Attended hundreds of lectures
              Pulled all-nighters
              Took more exams than we thought possible
              Finals week felt insurmountable
              But it didn't break us
              It made us stronger

              We learned statistics and biochemistry
              Immunology and pathophysiology
              We mastered genetics, virology and pharmacology
              We read scientific papers and learned how to dissect them
              Papers, not videos
              It was an honor

              We came running when you needed us
              Literally, running down the hallway
              To the ICU, the trauma bay, labor and delivery
              I need help, you said
              We can help, we said
              It was an honor

              There were moments that we thought would break us
              Moments that drove us to journaling, to therapy, to nightmares
              Broken babies.
              Paralyzed children.
              Dead pregnant mothers with three kids at home.
              The wail of a mother whose son just died.
              We bent but we did not break
              We returned because you needed us
              And we could help
              It was an honor

              Then there was fear
              Fear of walking into our place of work
              Fear that we'd be killed by going to work
              Fear that we'd kill a loved one because of our work
              There were tears and sleepless nights and anti-anxiety medications
              But you banged your pots and pans
              You sent us pizzas and called us heroes
              You needed us
              We could help
              So we wore our masks, and our gowns, and our gloves, and our goggles
              We decontaminated ourselves before going home and isolated ourselves from our families
              We almost broke
              It was an honor

              How quickly the joy turned to defeat
              Elation to rage
              You've learned to do your own research now
              You know better than we do
              Gaslighting is your language
              Your selfishness is astounding
              You don't want our help when we ask you to stay healthy
              Yet you arrive at our doors begging for help at the end

              You stole our resources
              You hobbled our ability to help those who did what they were supposed to do
              You killed our patients by filling our beds and using up our ventilators
              We can't help any more
              You broke us
              There is no more honor"

              Further

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