This is the latest round of fake news concerning COVID, huh? I’ve been told our hospitals are about to collapse. It hasn’t happened. In fact, this piece of fear porn has been manufactured before. It centers on Intensive care units, which are almost always near capacity, even prior to the pandemic. If they’re not, the hospital loses money.
Enter National Public Radio that peddled a story that wasn’t true at face value. The narrative was that the ICUs are so packed with COVID patients that it resulted in his death. He reportedly visited 43 and was turned away. It wasn’t COVID that killed him; it was a heart ailment. Yet, midway through the story, you can see where things go off the hinges. It’s classic misinformation (via NPR) [emphasis mine]:
Ray DeMonia, 73, was born and raised in Cullman, Ala., but he died on Sept. 1, some 200 miles away in an intensive care unit in Meridian, Miss.
Last month, DeMonia, who spent 40 years in the antiques and auctions business, suffered a cardiac emergency. But it was because hospitals are full due to the coronavirus — and not his heart — that he was forced to spend his last days so far from home, according to his family.
“Due to COVID 19, CRMC emergency staff contacted 43 hospitals in 3 states in search of a Cardiac ICU bed and finally located one in Meridian, MS.,” the last paragraph of DeMonia’s obituary reads, referring to the Cullman Regional Medical Center.
“In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non COVID related emergencies … ,” the obituary reads. “He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”
NPR was unable to reach the DeMonia family. A spokesperson for Cullman Regional Medical Center, who declined to give specifics of Ray DeMonia’s case, citing privacy concerns, confirmed to NPR that he was transferred from the hospital but said the reason was that he required “a higher level of specialized care not available” there.
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