Covid-19 miscellany

[repoman]

Is King County doing this on purpose?

 

[TomC]

Plenty vaccinated people are still getting infected, getting sick and heading into the hospital. And this statement about the healthcare system being overwhelmed is just fearmongering BS.

This isn't just a little wrong, or a matter of opinion. It's immorally destructive.

The information is available from a wide array of sources. C19 is still a huge problem. And while the vaccines aren't perfect, they're extremely safe and effective. The current mess is a social wound inflicted upon society by the antivaxxers and their enablers.
Tom

 

[Toni]

Is King County doing this on purpose?


View attachment 36334

I don’t know where this was posted or when so I can’t comment for certain but I know that for many testing cites there was a backlog of testing because of huge demand —and a very significant shortage of supplies necessary to perform the testing.

This affected testing of all kinds. In my firmer lab, many of my coworkers have been re-deployed to perform COVID testing, and are being given significant bonuses and bumps in pay to do so. For some months, earlier in the pandemic, there was a decrease in demand fir other tests as people postponed appointments or simply could not get scheduled for non-Covid care. That’s how huge this pandemic is. Healthcare workers have been working overtime for the past year and a half. They are exhausted. Some are leaving because they need a break. We hear more about doctors and nurses and their work but there are also lab technologists, phlebotomists, and many other layers of health care workers who have been working very long hours with very little time off. It’s exhausting people, who, at the same time, must worry about being infected themselves and potentially bringing home the infection to their families. A significant number of these have young children and must struggle to find daycare or try to find ways to get appropriate care/supervision for their school age kids who may or may not be in person schools. The stress is enormous.

 

[Toni]

I'd take a booster every month if it would keep me from getting sick.

It sounds like you will forever need a booster to boost the third/fourth vaccine. A never ending cycle of boosters to boost the booster. No guarantee that you will not get sick of course.

I was thinking of getting the booster this year but I've decided I will not get it. I'm out

Fine, but I will never understand the hesitancy or refusal to take a vaccine which is safe and effective,

Safe, probably. The need for constant boosters makes its effectiveness questionable. I'll bide my time.

and which in the vast majority of cases will prevent a disease that could be deadly or make you so sick that you could be putting your local healthcare system at risk of being so overwhelmed that the providers keep leaving due to burnout and extreme stress.

Plenty vaccinated people are still getting infected, getting sick and heading into the hospital. And this statement about the healthcare system being overwhelmed is just fearmongering BS.

I guess those who refuse to take the recommended vaccines and boosters like playing Russian roulette.

It's nothing, absolutely nothing like "playing Russian" roulette. What nonsense you come out with.

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

I don’t understand what you think you are waiting for. COVID-19 doesn’ t give a rat’s ass about your politics.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Plenty vaccinated people are still getting infected, getting sick and heading into the hospital. And this statement about the healthcare system being overwhelmed is just fearmongering BS.

This isn't just a little wrong, or a matter of opinion. It's immorally destructive.

The information is available from a wide array of sources. C19 is still a huge problem. And while the vaccines aren't perfect, they're extremely safe and effective. The current mess is a social wound inflicted upon society by the antivaxxers and their enablers.
Tom

In Akron, the ER in at least one hospital is packed with Covid-19 patients. No. Everyone isn't dying, but it is putting a serious strain on the medical industry and the people working in it. And anyone that needs ER service that doesn't have Covid! TSwizzle needs to spend a few days in the ER because of shortages to understand... "Oh... there is a problem." Until they personally go through it, they are blind and think they see everything.

So many right-wingers can't actually show empathy until they themselves have suffered.

 

[TSwizzle]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

I don’t understand what you think you are waiting for. COVID-19 dies t give a rat’s ass about your politics.

My decision is not based on politics so you can stick that up your rat's ass.

 

[TomC]

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

I don't doubt that's true. But it's still pretty weasely.
Due to enormous numbers of people choosing to remain unvaccinated, new variants are emerging which the vaccines aren't as effective against.
It's called "evolution", and viruses can do it really fast due to the staggering numbers of individuals.
The problem remains the antivaxxers.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

Anti-vaxx Chronicles: We finally see a COVID-related hospital bill. It's for over $1.1 million

This series documents stories from the Herman Cain Awards subreddit, tracking the COVID-19 mis- and disinformation on Facebook that is leading to so many deaths. Today’s cautionary tale left his family an unwelcome parting gift.

www.dailykos.com

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

Claim uncited for obvious reasons.

I don’t understand what you think you are waiting for. COVID-19 dies t give a rat’s ass about your politics.

My decision is not based on politics so you can stick that up your rat's ass.

It is exclusively driven by politics. All you do is whine about left-wing responses to Covid-19.

 

[blastula]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

Get a clue.

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

covid.cdc.gov

 

[southernhybrid]

Didn't somebody say that the claim that our hospitals and healthcare workers were overwhelmed and stressed out to the max was simply fear mongering? Read the link below and get back to me.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...xodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/

The senselessness of the death, and her guilt over her own resentment, messed her up. Weeks later, when the same family called to ask if the staff had really done everything they could, “it was like being punched in the gut,” she told me. She had given everything—to that patient, and to the stream of others who had died in the same room. She felt like a stranger to herself, a commodity to her hospital, and an outsider to her own relatives, who downplayed the pandemic despite everything she told them. In April, she texted her friends: “Nothing like feeling strongly suicidal at a job where you’re supposed to be keeping people alive.” Shortly after, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and she left her job.

Since COVID-19 first pummeled the U.S., Americans have been told to flatten the curve lest hospitals be overwhelmed. But hospitals have been overwhelmed. The nation has avoided the most apocalyptic scenarios, such as ventilators running out by the thousands, but it’s still sleepwalked into repeated surges that have overrun the capacity of many hospitals, killed more than 762,000 people, and traumatized countless health-care workers. “It’s like it takes a piece of you every time you walk in,” says Ashley Harlow, a Virginia-based nurse practitioner who left her ICU after watching her grandmother Nellie die there in December. She and others have gotten through the surges on adrenaline and camaraderie, only to realize, once the ICUs are empty, that so too are they.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

Get a clue.

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

covid.cdc.gov

View attachment 36337

FAKE NEWS! Wow, that's quite a stunning graph. Think of the cost that all those unvaccinated people are causing in the country.

 

[jab]

I am at a point where I will no longer work for a company/employer that I cannot trust, as I am past minimum retirement age too. So I understand perfectly your reasoning.

I can’t help but wonder how much of the employee shortfall is due to good workers refusing to work for an employer they don’t trust, or employers who don’t care how much their employees are endangered by working in unsafe conditions. I suspect this might be more the cause than the popular notions that vaccine mandates and stimulus money are the cause of not enough workers being available.

Ruth

I have questioned that too for quite a while now. Some industry claims that requiring vaccination will make it harder to fill open positions. I wonder if the lack of an employee vaccine requirement may be keeping even more people away. Even health care. If I was a health care worker i would NOT take a job where vaccination was not required

It's important to remember that vaccination isn't the primary issue with antivaxxers. They've all been vaccinated for other things. They all use seat belts and obey traffic signals, even drive on the right side of the road. Imagine that! Amazing! Their inability to recognize their antivaxxer idiocy is a symptom, the causes of which could fill every library on the planet. Having a rational, dispassionate discussion with one reveals that they lack the ability to recognize their inconsistent behavior. Maybe Dunning Kruger is the real reason. That's where I'd put my money.

No, no, earlier in the thread, several posters, (including one who otherwise insists on rigorous scientific evidence for claims about Covid, about masking, about vaccines, and about the flu) have), have used anecdotal evidence and perhaps some reading of news reports, and have demonstrated that many anti-vaxxers are intelligent folks. This same poster roundly ignored an apparently rigorous study, posted on this forum, that showed anti-vaxxers tend towards sociopathy. So maybe with the intelligent ones it's not so much Dunning-Kruger, as a sociopathic fuck-it mindset: a scintillating lack of empathy and recklessness.

Actually, what you call "anecdotal evidence" is in this case decisive, as one is to assess whether all anti-vaccers are stupid/not intelligent people. Certainly, that is not so, regardless of whether anti-vaccers are more likely to be less intelligent, all other things equal. As to whether they are more likely to be psychopaths all other things equal, that is not relevant with respect to how intelligent or unintelligent they are. By the way, also it is not true that all anti-vaccers have been vaccinated against other things. Some have, and some have not. Most have, but they are only anti-Covid-vaccers. The (intelligent) Greek guy I mentioned before has not, as far as I can tell, gotten any vaccines (as an adult, anyway), though he also does not eat processed foods, avoids other medicines, etc., so more than an anti-vaccer he seems like an anti-modern-tech-in-the-body kind of guy.

intelligent people can be sociopaths.

 

[jab]

1. Suppose I say "COVID usually only kills those fully vaccinated people who are already severely weakened.". Do you have evidence that the 'usually' is more so for the flu, and by a significant margin?
To put it in other words, do you have good evidence that the flu is less dangerous than COVID is to fully vaccinated people, and also by a margin that would justify radically different treatments.

Further, suppose you add face masks - good and properly used. Do you think COVID poses overall a significantly greater risk to fully vaccinated people when unvaccinated people are wearing good masks, than the flu?

2. Even if they are severely weakened, it does not mean something else will get them - especially not if respiratory illnesses are not around.

Relevance to your argument?

It is relevant to challenge Loren's argument, by making a parallel with COVID, and also by challenging one of the claims. You seem to not be aware of my exchange with Loren.

I'm not convinced

 

[jab]

Anti lockdown protests occurring in Europe. 40,000+ take to the streets in Vienna

More than 40,000 people marched through Vienna on Saturday to protest against a lockdown and plans to make vaccinations compulsory to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

News

Stupid, selfish people protesting their right to spread sickness and death to others.

What utter claptrap. You have zero evidence that any participant at this event has any sickness of any kind. You have no clue.

Distorting the post--it actually says these participants want the right to get infected and spread the infection.

 

[bilby]

/

I'd take a booster every month if it would keep me from getting sick.

It sounds like you will forever need a booster to boost the third/fourth vaccine. A never ending cycle of boosters to boost the booster. No guarantee that you will not get sick of course.

I was thinking of getting the booster this year but I've decided I will not get it. I'm out

Fine, but I will never understand the hesitancy or refusal to take a vaccine which is safe and effective, and which in the vast majority of cases will prevent a disease that could be deadly or make you so sick that you could be putting your local healthcare system at risk of being so overwhelmed that the providers keep leaving due to burnout and extreme stress. If I'm told by those who have studied and helped develop life saving vaccines that I should get another one, it's only a minor inconvenience for me to take it. I guess those who refuse to take the recommended vaccines and boosters like playing Russian roulette.

It's bizarre. I'm actually pretty conservative regarding business and taxes and other such issues. But I'm done being a republican as their party has turned away from science (and of course the whole 2020 election thingy!). But I'd be curious if republicans were similarly against the vaccines from the 1920's that cured polio, scarlet fever and other such diseases.

The Republicans weren't psychopaths in the 1920s

The entire reason why the GOP has found itself in the position of encouraging the spread of a deadly disease today comes down to two factors - firstly, their base is mostly tribalists, who stick with an idea regardless of any evidence that it is wrong - once a political position is adopted, it is very difficult for them to change it.

Secondly (and this is where the psychopathy comes in), Covid first established itself in the US in the big cities, particularly NYC, which are Democrat strongholds. The policy makers of the GOP deliberately chose to oppose any effective measures to limit its spread, because they believed that it would kill more of their opponent's voters than it did their own voters.

This backfired because of my first point (above) which made it impossible for them to stamp out the fire they deliberately started once it became clear that it was killing their supporters even more effectively than it was killing their opponents; And because they had only a simpleton's grasp of epidemiology, and falsely believed that rural transmission would be negligible, and that it would continue its initial course of killing mostly urban dwellers who tend strongly Democrat at the ballot box.

This psychopatic and deliberate encouragement of the spread of a deadly contagion may constitute one of the worst premeditated crimes in history; It has even killed millions outside the US, due to the global nature of modern misinformation and propaganda systems.

 

[jab]

About this omicron variant. Is there omicron infection rate data for vaccinated and/or previous Delta infection?

I read some doctors saying it could be that having Delta or vaccination could make you more susceptible to omicron.

I think the WHO is a reliable source of information: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron

Unfortunately, they have become sufficiently politicized that they're not too reliable anymore.

agreed

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

Get a clue.

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

covid.cdc.gov

View attachment 36337

And that Blue Line is inflating the green one. If we were all green, there would likely be few green cases.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The number of those who are getting sick despite being fully vaccinated is quite small—virtually all who are hospitalized have NOT been vaccinated or have not received boosters.

BS, the number of fully vaccinated getting sick and in hospital is significant and has been going up.

Get a clue.

COVID Data Tracker

CDC’s home for COVID-19 data. Visualizations, graphs, and data in one easy-to-use website.

covid.cdc.gov

View attachment 36337

FAKE NEWS! Wow, that's quite a stunning graph. Think of the cost that all those unvaccinated people are causing in the country.

The company I work at put it straight up like this, 'Even ignoring the moral aspect of a pandemic, Covid-19 cost us $1 million in health care costs.' The incentives they provided were a quarter of that!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Safe, probably. The need for constant boosters makes its effectiveness questionable. I'll bide my time.

The problem is we need higher antibody levels to combat the variants.

Plenty vaccinated people are still getting infected, getting sick and heading into the hospital. And this statement about the healthcare system being overwhelmed is just fearmongering BS.

The vaccines are still more than 90% likely to save your life. And the systems are overloaded, it's just that isn't news anymore.

I guess those who refuse to take the recommended vaccines and boosters like playing Russian roulette.

It's nothing, absolutely nothing like "playing Russian" roulette. What nonsense you come out with.

You haven't heard that from the right?? They think the vaccine is playing Russian Roulette.