An ICU Doctor Speaks

‘80% of all patients are older than 50…of those younger than 50, 80% are morbidly obese', states Johannes Reisinger, MD, head of the Internal ICU at the Ordensklinikum Linz, Austria

Yesterday, I brought to you the hate-filled diatribe of the ‘reputable’ establishmentarian editor-in-chief of the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten. This editorial should have been roundly condemned by virtually anyone, especially those enumerated by its author but also—perhaps especially so—by anyone disposing of at least a figment of empathy.

One of those who felt offended is Johannes Reisinger, MD who is in charge of the Internal ICU at the Ordensklinikum Linz, the Linz-based hospital run by the Order of the Sisters of St Elisabeth. Linz, of course, is the state capital of Upper Austria, one of the current hotspot of the Austrian Covid-19 situation.

Here’s what Dr. Reisinger wrote in response to the diatribe by Gerald Mandlbauer, which was published as an op-ed in the same Oberösterreichische Nachrichten on 21 Nov. 2021 (my emphases).

Entitled, ‘On Denial and Other Shortcomings’, Dr. Reisinger brings up three main points, which all merit consideration:

‘At the moment, there seem to be only two sides left in the public sphere, both singing—either for or against—their respective Covid plague song with equally great fervour. Yet, there are also a more or less large blind spot in both fields of vision. I sit sadly in-between these, and I just can’t manage to even contemplate singing along with either group because there are disagreements and significant holes in the argumentation on both sides. This is a very regrettable dilemma.

On the one hand, there are those who, unimpressed by overcrowded IUCs and high death rates, try to suppress the sad reality and sometimes demonstratively play into the hands of the virus. They feel cheated and lied to at every turn, and one should seriously consider how this tremendous loss of confidence could have occurred among a substantial part of the population.

On the other hand, there is a pharmaceutical industry that has largely “forgotten” to include in the design of their large vaccination studies people 75 and older who are most at risk from Covid. Big Pharma has apparently acted less than optimally in the conduct of these trials, as well as proceeding with a lack of transparency and callousness in the sales contracts for the vaccines.’

This is all well-established and there should be no problems for Mandlbauer (or anyone else) to acknowledge this. Yet, if you’d revisit Mandlbauer’s diatribe, none of these considerations are mentioned.

Dr. Reisinger continues with the predicable consequences of these actions:

‘All of this does not exactly inspire great confidence in a product whose exact efficacy and duration of action must remain unclear to date and which, with regard to possible (hopefully not occurring) long-term consequences of a completely new vaccination principle, attempts to replace the usual length of observation with mass application.’

This is crucial, for none of it is mentioned by the politicians who pretend to be in charge. What the Covid-19 ‘vaccination’ campaign appears to be, among other things, is a massive bout of de-regulation. As an aside, I doubt this can appropriately be still called, as per Naomi Klein, ‘shock doctrine’, for this campaign is eminently up close and personal, not only in terms of its framing but in particular with respect to its consequences: you see, ‘vaccination’ is (still) ‘voluntary’, but if you’re injured, this is on the vaccinee, and not on the government that told you that the ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective’.

Reisinger continues:

‘However, this [regulatory] deficit, which is obviously due to the [alleged, I’d add] current emergency situation, is not even honestly communicated by our vaccination committees, so that one should not be surprised that, as a counter-reaction, outsized spectres of fear arise in the population.’

So much for the second part, let’s move on to Dr. Reisinger’s perhaps most incisive observations:

‘Caught between a rock and a hard place, there sits a somewhat confused Austrian public health policy, which does not even have its key figures exactly in mind (and that has been faking fake ICU capabilities on the online for months). Furthermore, the same public health authorities have for decades largely ignored the developing epidemic of obesity (with all its consequential diseases), which is driven by an advertising-psychologically manipulative food industry with vast amounts of sugar, fat, salt and far too much meat consumption.

This has thoughtlessly prepared the ground for this Covid crisis, and probably for other similar events in the future. Unfortunately, very few people are aware of this connection and, remarkably, it is not readily talked about in public.’

Spot on, Dr. Reisinger: the correlation between (severe and morbid) obesity and risk of Covid-19 has been known for quite some time, and it is widely ignored. Why talk to the electorate about life-style changes when one could ‘sell’ the snake oil of a ‘marvel drug’? In this regard, Austria is certainly no outlier, far from it.

Here’s the final paragraph, which spells this out in detail:

‘Of all Covid-19 patients in ICUs, about 80% are older than 50, and most have the known risk factors such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular complications, or diabetes. Of the patients younger than 50 who end up in ICUs with Covid-19, 80% are more or less overweight. These figures should be known to every Austrian and also to our decision-makers by now. Perhaps the envisaged compulsory vaccination should be limited to these groups of people and the cornucopia of vaccination should not be uniformly dispensed over the entire population (including healthy children and adolescents). Perhaps such a compromise would calm the socio-politically heated situation somewhat, which would certainly be urgently needed.’

I wonder about the basic literacy skills among politicians here, not just in Austria. The CDC was crystal clear that ‘obesity, diabetes with complication, and anxiety disorders were the strongest risk factors for severe Covid-19 illness’. Their recommendation was: ‘Careful evaluation and management of underlying conditions among patients with Covid-19 can help stratify risk for severe illness.’

There is no one size fits all approach that’s helpful, much like Dr. Reisinger outlined.

Why, then, won’t the (Austrian) politicians read, listen, and act accordingly?