Scott Quiner, 56, was not vaccinated against COVID. Last October, he caught the disease and was hospitalized for dangerously low oxygen levels. In November, the damage to his lungs was so severe he was transferred to the ICU, where he was intubated and ventilated. His condition didn't get better. And the hospital informed his wife Anne that, under his medical care plan, they would take him off the ventilator and move him to palliative care on January 13. She went to court and won an injunction against Mercy Hospital, Coon Rapids. Then she had Quiner transferred to a hospital in Houston. On January 21, he died.
It is not the first time an unvaccinated American has died from COVID - in all likelihood unnecessarily — and it will not be the last. But there are details in the story of Quiner’s demise that make it an interesting case study of the cost to others of a pointless COVID death.
News reports do not say whether or not the unvaccinated victim was an anti-vaxxer. But as his wife described him as a ‘strong Christian,’ and because she chose to give interviews with Glenn Beck and with conservative podcaster Stew Peters on Red Voice Media, it is safe to assume he was. She used these interviews to express disgust with her husband’s treatment at the Minnesota hospital. She claimed he had lost 30 pounds — and that, after he was transferred to Houston, a doctor there said he had never seen a worse case of malnutrition in a ventilated patient. But we only have her word for it, as there is no record of the Houston hospital offering an opinion.
Bearing all of this in mind, let’s ask, what were the costs of Quiner’s decision not to get vaccinated? Who else did his decision hurt?He paid the ultimate price. And the emotional and financial cost to his family will be high. At the very least they have lost his income. If insurance covered his hospital stay, rates will go up for their other subscribers. If the hospital has to eat the cost, future patients will bear the burden. The family has set up a ‘Go fund me’ account — and that will siphon off money from other charity appeals - leaving people whose sickness was not a choice with less.
He tied up a hospital bed for three months. And he did so at a time when the number of staffed beds in American hospitals is declining as healthcare workers burn out and leave the profession. And by occupying a bed, he denied the space and medical services to others who, while they may not have been as critically ill as Quiner, were not sick by choice.
His decision wasted the time and resources of the court at a time when the legal system is grinding ever slower because of the pandemic. Transferring an ICU patient from Coon Rapids to Houston (1,194 miles) cannot have been cheap. And now they will have to get his corpse back to Minnesota.
As someone who chose not to vaccinate, it is unlikely he followed masking and distancing protocols. Who knows who he may have infected?This tragic tale is a story of delusion from the get-go. First is the belief that Republican politicians, conservative pundits, and the denizens of internet conspiracy sites and paranoid chat rooms know more about medicine than doctors do. And then the conviction a hospital was lying about the prognosis of a terminally ill patient. And finally that another hospital could miraculously cure him.
As late as two days before Quiner died, the family lawyer, Marjorie Holsten, was being interviewed by Glenn Beck. This ambulance-chaser was obviously laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against the hospital. She told Beck, “What we are showing the world is that Scott was near death because of the protocols used in that hospital. But now he is recovering. He is getting better. We’re not planning a funeral. We’re planning for his release at some point.”
And Quiner’s wife, although she was less optimistic, was still hoping. She told Stew Peters“He still is very critically ill, but they are saying they’re going to try everything they can do to save his life. Scott is fighting. They said he’s absolutely fighting.”
At this point, it is undeniable that somewhere between 20 and 25% of Americans will not get vaccinated against COVID, no matter how many stories like this they hear. Red-state governments and the Supreme Court have solidified thIS denial with laws and decisions gutting anti-pandemic measures. It is terminal stupidity. And it is very expensive.
“Terminal stupidity “ indeed Pitt, thank you