Dear Editor,
All indications are that, with the new omicron variant, we are in for another surge in Covid hospitalizations. After more than a year and half into the pandemic, our health care workers are exhausted and our hospital facilities stretched.
At the same time, those who do not wish to take the vaccine and prefer alternative treatments are, in many instances, becoming even more entrenched in their beliefs. On Friday, the Valley Regional Hospital, just across the Connecticut River in Claremont, New Hampshire, had a lockdown after staff reported threatening phone calls regarding a man’s Covid-19 treatments.
According to the Valley News, “An online group started a social media campaign giving contact information for providers when the family of a Covid-19 patient called upon the hospital to respond to their demands for alternative treatment.”
One way to both ease the pressure on our health care workers and hospitals and provide an option for vaccine skeptics and those who believe in alternative cures would be to set up a high-quality field hospital for those who are unvaccinated who get Covid-19.
There, they could receive any treatment they wanted. Ideally it would be staffed by medical and support personnel who have refused to get vaccinated. If patients wanted treatments like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, let them have it. Unvaccinated patients could also choose more standard care or a combination of care options. Patient outcomes would be tracked and could provide a useful measure of the efficacy of different treatments.
Covid-19 funds could be used to cover the setup of the field hospital, with patient insurance covering costs of treatment.
Those who have profited mightily from pushing vaccine skepticism and alternative treatments, like Chelsea Green Press, might be willing to help fund such an effort as well.
A high-quality field hospital dedicated to the care of unvaccinated, where they could get the treatment they want, could lessen some of the tension now felt between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, while freeing up our hospital space for traditional care and lessening the burden on health care workers.
It is admittedly a bit of an audacious idea, but it may well fit the unusual times we are in.
John Freitag, South Strafford
