A 'horror movie that never ends': Nurse says she's had patients dying of COVID-19 who think it's a hoax

One of the greatest— and arguably the most criminal—aspects of Trump and his political party's stance on the global pandemic has been the anti-science baseline of misinformation. A pandemic is like math. It honestly doesn't care about your political beliefs or your feelings. Viruses do what they do and the only way to protect oneself and one's community is to try and practice the best scientifically supported public health practices until vaccines and control over the spread of the virus takes place. That's it. You don't have to agree with a virus about tax breaks and you don't even have to care if a virus has a position on a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. In fact, if a virus secretly tells you that it believes in an evangelical Christian god, that doesn't change anything about how to best protect yourself.

On Saturday, South Dakota nurse Jodi Doering had a night off and decided to tweet about what she was seeing as her state. Doering's tweets were about COVID-19 patients who are literally dying from contracting the virus but still do not believe that the virus is real, or that they have it. She explained how sad and frustrating it was to watch people in such angry denial, furious that this hoax was being perpetrated on them, only to "stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It's like a fucking horror movie that never ends." On Monday, Doering was on CNN to talk about her experience. It was tragic and eye-opening.

In the interview, Doering explained that she really hadn't expected her tweets to go viral like this and was not blaming the victims of this virus or making a political statement. She was just reporting on some of what she was seeing. She explained she just became so sad thinking about the many patients she has seen who are in such denial and so angry that they are missing out on what is in many cases their final chances to speak with their families before passing away. And because Doering is an adult and a professional, she held CNN's Alisyn Camerota's hand to explain to her that she didn't take the anger of her patients personally. "I think it's just a belief that it's not real and nursing happens to be on the receiving end of that. And that's okay. That's where we're there for. It's just, in the bigger picture, when you try to reason with people, can I call your family, your kids, your wife, your friend, your brother? And they say, no, because I'm going to be fine," it really hits hard.

She said that since they first started seeing cases of COVID-19 in March, while they have gotten better at treating and alleviating some of the cases, they cannot defeat the surges in the virus and the political bullshit that comes with fighting against basic public health protections like social distancing and wearing masks. Asked about Gov. Kristi Noem's insistence in pretending that people should not wear masks if it makes them happier to do so, Doering explained that this wasn't political: "I think it's frustrating as a health care provider, because the last thing that we ask anyone when they seek care is how they voted or if they're a Democrat or a Republican. The last thing we ever think about is that. What we think about is how can I help you?"

South Dakota is under one of the most worthless governors in the history of the planet. Republican Noem's inability to show real leadership and mitigate the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in her state—which may arguably end up having been the largest superspreader event for the COVID-19 virus in the entire world—has led to thousands upon thousands of more deaths and illnesses, as well and billions in healthcare costs. Noem seems mostly interested in fundraising for her reelection campaign and thinking about ways to make money for her campaign, while her state and the country suffer from her terrible decisions and cowardly, ignorant abuses of power.

South Dakota nurse talks about dying COVID-19 patients who still believe the virus is a hoaxwww.youtube.com