Southern Illinois hospitals filling their ICUs, asking the state for help. But in Chicago

[mucifer]

This didn’t have to happen’: Southern Illinois hospitals filling their ICUs, asking the state for help. But, in Chicago where people are better vaccinated and wearing masks more the hospitals are doing better.

The latest surge in COVID-19 cases has hit many parts of the state hard, but perhaps no region has felt it more than southern Illinois, where hospitals say they’re filling their ICU beds, postponing surgeries and even turning away some patients.

In southern Illinois, just 7% of ICU beds were available as of Tuesday night, and the weekly average was even less: 6%. At one point last week, only one ICU bed was available across all 22 hospitals in southern Illinois — a region with more than 400,000 residents, according to the 2020 U.S. census.

A Tribune analysis of state data shows that southern Illinois’ rate of hospitalizations is nearly as high as it was at its peak last fall: a rate of nearly 41 per 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 43 just after Thanksgiving.Its hospitalization rate is by far the highest in Illinois, and more than triple the rate in the city of Chicago.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-southern-illinois-hospitals-beds-capacity-20210901-vm4jnhmqevbmnhlyoxcyqjhqki-story.html

[Sherman A1]

1. No surprise

Downstate Illinois is pretty conservative and likely not too much into vaccines and masks.

[luv2fly]

2. "Pritzker Sucks"

Driving around southern Illinois you'll see many of those signs, often right next to the tattered Trump sign.

But despite the popular saying, you actually can fix stupid. It's called Covid.

[Eyeball_Kid]

3. A look around the cemeteries in southern Illinois...

will yield the sight of gravestones belonging to Confederate soldiers.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

6. You

You see those signs even here in the northern suburbs.

[roamer65]

4. Let them die.

[Freethinker65]

5. No medical reason for not being vaccinated? we are free to deny you hospital care..

Problem solved.

Once I was eligible, it took me weeks of scrambling to get vaccinated in the Chicago area. Plenty of appointments available in Southern and Western Illinois if I could make the 3+ hour one way drive with a promise to return to same location for my second dose. No sympathy at all for those deciding to go against science.

[Midnight Writer]

7. I'm in Central Illinois. Around 36% vax rate, nary a mask to be seen anywhere.

I did drive by the local High School yesterday and noticed most students are masked.

[CanonRay]

8. Southern Illinois is more like Kentucky

than Illinois.

[dalton99a]

9. Southern Illinois is Trump country

In 1995, the year after Gage Peach was born, his hometown of Benton was the site of a KKK rally on the square in front of the historical Franklin County Courthouse. Peach said it’s shocking that happened in his lifetime. ...

Though named for the town’s founder, a century or so ago, Anna became ANNA — an unofficial acronym for Ain’t No N------ Allowed, a clear message to African Americans that they weren’t welcome. In 1925, a funeral held for a Williamson County KKK leader and federal prohibition agent drew 15,000 people to Herrin, most dressed in full Klan regalia. For a period of time during this era, Carterville excluded black people from its city limits entirely — day or night. The KKK had a significant presence in Benton into at least the 1950s, according to Loewen’s research.

Benton’s protest ended without incident, but was filled with tense moments. As a stream of cars made their way around the square, some people honked. A few stuck their arms out of their windows — some with their hands in fists, a black power fist salute acknowledging solidarity, and others with their middle fingers raised high. As the demonstrators yelled “Black lives matter,” one guy walking down the street yelled back, “White lives matter, too, dumba--.” As they yelled, “I can’t breathe” — the words Floyd uttered on tape while pinned to the ground — the man yelled back, “If I can hear you, you can breathe.” “This ain’t got nothing to do with black and white,” he said as he walked off.

Two other guys on motorcycles — who were not part of the group on guard — rolled through blaring a racist David Allen Coe song about his disgust toward a white woman who sleeps with a black man. It includes the “n-word” and the two men sang that verse — loudly. Another guy driving by rolled down his window and told the group that they needed to look up what Black Lives Matter stands for — “it’s a terrorist organization,” he said. The Southern asked for his name and he declined, saying the paper is “very liberal,” “anti-American” and “anti-white.”

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/southern-illinois-towns-are-dealing-with-racist-past/2290453/

[FakeNoose]

10. Do they REALLY not get it?

[dalton99a]

11. +1. They are not worth anyone's time or energy

Put them in a tent and let nature take its course