Covid patients who are only being kept alive through assisted oxygen are being called “talking dead” by doctors who are on the brink of being overwhelmed.
At a Florida hospital, which has seen an influx of patients, the desperate medics are calling the severe cases “talking dead” as they give a stark picture.
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital now has 135 Covid patients which is up from 41 last January and most are not vaccinated, reports CNN.
On the "talking dead" CNN's Polo Sandoval said: "Those are patients who are still awake right now, who are still conscious.
"So they are having these very difficult conversations with their doctors and their nurses, and facing that very tough reality that if that life-sustaining equipment that’s breathing for them is removed, as this hospital official described it for me, they could be dead in a matter of minutes."
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The situation was reinforced by the hospital’s top clinical officer Ryan Smith, who has also been working as a nurse to better understand the crisis.
"The first part of my shift, I had my first few patients look at me and say, ‘don’t let me die'," Smith reportedly said.
"As soon as you remove them from the devices they no longer made it.
"To watch how quickly they dwindle down is the hardest thing for me."
The problem for nurses is that when they ease back on the assisted oxygen, then the patients often deteriorate quickly.
Dr Smith said: "The ‘talking dead’ didn’t make sense to me until I saw it firsthand.
"It’s how quickly they decompensate when they don’t have that oxygen."
His message was that while the public can’t see what it is happening in the hospitals “it’s real” and it “impacts a lot more people than it should”.
It comes as governor Ron DeSantis’ ban on school districts having the power to enforce mask wearing, was overturned by a judge.
Florida has seen 150,000 new Covid infections over the past seven days which is the highest number during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, an anti-mask movement leader in Texas has died from Covid after battling the virus for three weeks in hospital, it is reported.
Caleb Wallace, from Texas, who organized a Freedom Rally against Covid restrictions in July had been on a ventilator at Shannon Medical Center, in San Angelo.
The 30-year-old went into hospital on July 30 and had been heavily sedated since August 8.
