US hospital workers mock resurgent Covid-19 scaremongering as ‘media hype’

In an eye-opening press conference Thursday (14), the chief medical officer of Los Angeles County, Brad Spellberg, along with epidemiologist Paul Holtom, threw a bucket of cold water on government and media efforts to whip the public into a state of panic and fear over the latest Covid-19 uptick.

“It’s just the same. It’s not changed. It’s been the same. It’s like…two months of the same,” Spellberg said to kick it off, backing up his characterization with charts depicting Covid-19 cases and his hospital’s own admission data.

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“Only 10% of our Covid-positive admissions are admitted due to Covid. Virtually none of them go to the ICU, and when they do go to the ICU, it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated.”

As for a severe COVID-19 case in the ICU, Spellberg said, “We haven’t seen one of those since February. It’s been months.”

While politicians and the media are ringing alarm bells about the “rising numbers” of positive Covid tests in the United States, people at hospitals there are taking it very calmly.

According to the county’s health director, there are increased cases and transmission of Covid-19 in Los Angeles County. As a result, they say, it will likely be necessary to reinstate the indoor mask mandate, which affects the roughly ten million people who live there.

Apparently, that’s why the health department wanted to continue to stir up panic at a press conference attended by Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center (LAC + USC) chief medical officer Brad Spellberg and epidemiologist Paul Holtom. But that plan backfired.

As for the worst kind of covid ICU cases, Spellberg said, “We haven’t seen those since February. That was months ago.” He said today’s covid patients in the ICU are typically associated with conditions such as electrolyte abnormalities or autoimmune attacks on the nerves, which may or may not be related to covid.

“It’s just not the same pandemic it used to be, despite all the media hype to the contrary… I mean, we’re seeing a lot of people having a severe cold,” Spellberg concluded.

LAC+USC full July 14 vid:

"Only 10% of our COVID positive admissions are admitted due to COVID. Virtually none of them go to the ICU, and when they do go to the ICU it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated… we have not seen one of those since February."

HT @Campbels12. pic.twitter.com/AThaOxHGn3

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) July 16, 2022

Epidemiologist Paul Holtom said, “If our hospital’s experience is representative of the entire county, which I believe it is, then we have not one patient with severe covid disease. As of this morning, we don’t have anyone in the hospital with lung disease from Covid. No one in the hospital…NO ONE. Nobody has had Covid 19 disease as we’ve seen in the past.”