Covid-19 miscellany

[DrZoidberg]

Sweden's Corona vaccine rollout is a complete shit show. They haven't done anything right so far. So why start now?

They're having trouble with informing people how and were they can get vaccinated. It's not centrally organized. Each region is handling it on their own, with wildly varying rules. Nobody knows what rules apply. A lot of people who are eligible now and want to get the vaccine aren't able to figure out the system. While not even 10% have been vaccinated in Sweden they're now forced to open it up to just anyone, simply to keep doses from going to waste. First thing that happens when they open it up is that the website for booking the vaccine goes down. Well done Sweden.

The system is a problem for me, since I'm Swedish and need to go to Sweden to get my vaccine. I live in Copenhagen. So it's just 15 minutes over a bridge to get there. The region I belong to is Stockholm. But I will get vaccinated in Malmö. Because I belong to Stockholm I'm not eligible at the moment. If I would belong to Malmö I would get vaccinated there now. But I don't. So I can't. When Stockholm allows me to get vaccinated I will get vaccinated in Malmö.

Who ever devised this system is a fucking idiot.

Can't you get your shot in Denmark? I'm pretty sure Austria and Germany vaccinate permanent residents regardless of citizenship, with the same criteria (I.e., I'll probably get my first shot in August or September if they don't pick up the pace). And you're not just any foreign national resident, you're an EU citizen, so denying you the shot when it would be your turn as a Dane is arguably in violation of EU regulations.

I can get vaccinated in Denmark according to their rules. It'll be some time in July earliest.

 

[Jokodo]

Sweden's Corona vaccine rollout is a complete shit show. They haven't done anything right so far. So why start now?

They're having trouble with informing people how and were they can get vaccinated. It's not centrally organized. Each region is handling it on their own, with wildly varying rules. Nobody knows what rules apply. A lot of people who are eligible now and want to get the vaccine aren't able to figure out the system. While not even 10% have been vaccinated in Sweden they're now forced to open it up to just anyone, simply to keep doses from going to waste. First thing that happens when they open it up is that the website for booking the vaccine goes down. Well done Sweden.

The system is a problem for me, since I'm Swedish and need to go to Sweden to get my vaccine. I live in Copenhagen. So it's just 15 minutes over a bridge to get there. The region I belong to is Stockholm. But I will get vaccinated in Malmö. Because I belong to Stockholm I'm not eligible at the moment. If I would belong to Malmö I would get vaccinated there now. But I don't. So I can't. When Stockholm allows me to get vaccinated I will get vaccinated in Malmö.

Who ever devised this system is a fucking idiot.

Can't you get your shot in Denmark? I'm pretty sure Austria and Germany vaccinate permanent residents regardless of citizenship, with the same criteria (I.e., I'll probably get my first shot in August or September if they don't pick up the pace). And you're not just any foreign national resident, you're an EU citizen, so denying you the shot when it would be your turn as a Dane is arguably in violation of EU regulations.

I can get vaccinated in Denmark according to their rules. It'll be some time in July earliest.

How come you'd get it so much earlier in Sweden? It doesn't look like they've overall managed to administer more doses per population. Did they switch to a first-come first-serve model right after vaccinating the 80+s while Denmark prioritizes 55 year olds over 45-year-olds?

 

[DrZoidberg]

I can get vaccinated in Denmark according to their rules. It'll be some time in July earliest.

How come you'd get it so much earlier in Sweden? It doesn't look like they've overall managed to administer more doses per population. Did they switch to a first-come first-serve model right after vaccinating the 80+s while Denmark prioritizes 55 year olds over 45-year-olds?

It's because they've absolutely bungled the rollout of it. They're failing to get the older and and at risks to get vaccinated. Due to shit communication. So they've opened up for the general population. Just to avoid slack at the vaccination centres. So far the Swedish vaccination centres have had zero queue. Way more staff than patients. Because the patience haven't managed to find their way to the centres, even when they're eligible.

Denmark on the other hand are vaccinating people with the efficiency of a McDonalds slaughterhouse. Everybody knows where to be and when. Queues are kept constant and short. It's a beauty to behold.

It's interesting to contrast these two systems. Two radically different ways of doing it. Denmark is centrally planned in a way that would make Mao proud. Sweden has no central planning in a way that would make Johnny Rotten proud.

I'm a systems theorist. It's my university degree. Generally non-centrally planned methods of distribution tends to be better. Because each node in the distribution network can adapt to local needs. But you need to think it through first, so that the incentives encourage the wanted behaviour. If you mix central planning and free distribution in a haphazard manner with shit communication and unclear rules your system will break down. Which is what has happened in Sweden.

Denmark is planned fully top down. Which is extremely hard to get right. But they did it.

The moral of the story is that sometimes communism works. Who knew?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Good news! The company I work for has decided that in addition to giving half a day pay for just getting an injection, they are now going to pay $250 per employee that gets the vaccination (no, you can't get vaccinated 8 times to get $2,000... already tried ).

The bad news! The company needs to bribe people with cash to get vaccinated from a disease that really fucked things up globally. The vaccination numbers were plateau'ing and they decided it was necessary, I think in part because people that were vaccinated also wanted to get on with life, while dragging the unvaccinated like a ball and chain behind them to get there.

Personally, I think the company could have saved money by getting nasal swabs and forcing unvaccinated people to get swabbed every morning, by the crankiest and most unpleasant nurse they could find. After a few days of that, they'd get the vaccine.

 

[southernhybrid]

Good news! The company I work for has decided that in addition to giving half a day pay for just getting an injection, they are now going to pay $250 per employee that gets the vaccination (no, you can't get vaccinated 8 times to get $2,000... already tried ).

The bad news! The company needs to bribe people with cash to get vaccinated from a disease that really fucked things up globally. The vaccination numbers were plateau'ing and they decided it was necessary, I think in part because people that were vaccinated want to get on with life, while the unvaccinated are being dragged like a ball and chain behind them to get there.

Personally, I think the company could have saved money by getting nasal swabs and forcing unvaccinated people to get swabbed every morning, by the crankiest and most unpleasant nurse they could find. After a few days of that, they'd get the vaccine.

Nurse Ratchett was a fictional character. I've known some bitchy nurses but they were usually nice to their patients, just not to their fellow nurse colleagues.

It is crazy that we have to pay people to get the vaccine. Those of us who received it early this year were so thrilled to be able to get it, and now that it's easy to get, we have morons who refuse to be vaccinated.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Denmark is planned fully top down. Which is extremely hard to get right. But they did it.

The moral of the story is that sometimes communism works. Who knew?

That isn't communism, that is government fulfilling a role that really only it is big enough to address efficiently.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Good news! The company I work for has decided that in addition to giving half a day pay for just getting an injection, they are now going to pay $250 per employee that gets the vaccination (no, you can't get vaccinated 8 times to get $2,000... already tried ).

The bad news! The company needs to bribe people with cash to get vaccinated from a disease that really fucked things up globally. The vaccination numbers were plateau'ing and they decided it was necessary, I think in part because people that were vaccinated want to get on with life, while the unvaccinated are being dragged like a ball and chain behind them to get there.

Personally, I think the company could have saved money by getting nasal swabs and forcing unvaccinated people to get swabbed every morning, by the crankiest and most unpleasant nurse they could find. After a few days of that, they'd get the vaccine.

Nurse Ratchett was a fictional character. I've known some bitchy nurses but they were usually nice to their patients, just not to their fellow nurse colleagues.

My Dad's first nurse when he was in the final spiral was an awful communicator and appeared to have zero bedside manner. Very competent, but she said a couple things that made my jaw drop. I had to talk to her outside the room to reaffirm I'm not being an ass and making certain she understands my Dad's status as a short-term patient. The funny thing was I was talking to my Father-in-Law's wife about the nurse (she herself worked in the hospital system), and she knew exactly who I was talking about.

 

[Jokodo]

I can get vaccinated in Denmark according to their rules. It'll be some time in July earliest.

How come you'd get it so much earlier in Sweden? It doesn't look like they've overall managed to administer more doses per population. Did they switch to a first-come first-serve model right after vaccinating the 80+s while Denmark prioritizes 55 year olds over 45-year-olds?

It's because they've absolutely bungled the rollout of it. They're failing to get the older and and at risks to get vaccinated. Due to shit communication. So they've opened up for the general population. Just to avoid slack at the vaccination centres. So far the Swedish vaccination centres have had zero queue. Way more staff than patients. Because the patience haven't managed to find their way to the centres, even when they're eligible.

Denmark on the other hand are vaccinating people with the efficiency of a McDonalds slaughterhouse. Everybody knows where to be and when. Queues are kept constant and short. It's a beauty to behold.

It's interesting to contrast these two systems. Two radically different ways of doing it. Denmark is centrally planned in a way that would make Mao proud. Sweden has no central planning in a way that would make Johnny Rotten proud.

I'm a systems theorist. It's my university degree. Generally non-centrally planned methods of distribution tends to be better. Because each node in the distribution network can adapt to local needs. But you need to think it through first, so that the incentives encourage the wanted behaviour. If you mix central planning and free distribution in a haphazard manner with shit communication and unclear rules your system will break down. Which is what has happened in Sweden.

Denmark is planned fully top down. Which is extremely hard to get right. But they did it.

The moral of the story is that sometimes communism works. Who knew?

So you're trying to benefit from Sweden's failure to devise and implement sensible rules who gets vaccinated when, by getting a jab now even though by any sensible priority there should be 4 more million people ahead of you in the queue - but can't do so because they fail even at failing?

 

[southernhybrid]

Good news! The company I work for has decided that in addition to giving half a day pay for just getting an injection, they are now going to pay $250 per employee that gets the vaccination (no, you can't get vaccinated 8 times to get $2,000... already tried ).

The bad news! The company needs to bribe people with cash to get vaccinated from a disease that really fucked things up globally. The vaccination numbers were plateau'ing and they decided it was necessary, I think in part because people that were vaccinated want to get on with life, while the unvaccinated are being dragged like a ball and chain behind them to get there.

Personally, I think the company could have saved money by getting nasal swabs and forcing unvaccinated people to get swabbed every morning, by the crankiest and most unpleasant nurse they could find. After a few days of that, they'd get the vaccine.

Nurse Ratchett was a fictional character. I've known some bitchy nurses but they were usually nice to their patients, just not to their fellow nurse colleagues.

My Dad's first nurse when he was in the final spiral was an awful communicator and appeared to have zero bedside manner. Very competent, but she said a couple things that made my jaw drop. I had to talk to her outside the room to reaffirm I'm not being an ass and making certain she understands my Dad's status as a short-term patient. The funny thing was I was talking to my Father-in-Law's wife about the nurse (she herself worked in the hospital system), and she knew exactly who I was talking about.

My last comment was mostly meant as humor, as I took your previous comment to be mostly humorous.

I've known some bitchy nurses but as I said earlier, nurses tend to abuse each other far more than they abuse or mistreat their patients. It's so complicated that at least two books were written on the subject, including one called, "Nurse Abuse", and another one, "Hospitals, Paternalism and the Role of the Nurse". It's usually the system that turns some nurses into unpleasant people. I've been the victim of a few when I was a patient during my younger days. But, I digress and we are going off topic so I'll end it here.

Like you, I hope that something will motivate people to become vaccinated.

 

[TSwizzle]

The thing is, the lock down could have been SO SHORT. That was my point. But the people bad at math who thought they knew better have dragged this out far beyond what was needed because they couldn’t be bothered to stop the spread.

The only people with bad math were the likes of Neil Ferguson at SAGE (UK) and his very wrong models.

If we actually _were_ zealots about a lockdown, and contact tracing, and vaccines, it would only take - as proven - about 10 weeks. We could have been done by now. If we could be zealots about vaccines, we could be pretty much done, except for the risk of mutations from other places that are not vaccinated.

We pretty much were done some time ago. But in any event, I am informed that LA County is now in tier yellow.

But we have thoughtless people who think being a “zealot” about disease control is somehow a bad thing, and here we are with 600,000 people dead and a year of this problem.

Disease control is all well and good but lockdown doesn't really achieve that.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's because they've absolutely bungled the rollout of it. They're failing to get the older and and at risks to get vaccinated. Due to shit communication. So they've opened up for the general population. Just to avoid slack at the vaccination centres. So far the Swedish vaccination centres have had zero queue. Way more staff than patients. Because the patience haven't managed to find their way to the centres, even when they're eligible.

Denmark on the other hand are vaccinating people with the efficiency of a McDonalds slaughterhouse. Everybody knows where to be and when. Queues are kept constant and short. It's a beauty to behold.

It's interesting to contrast these two systems. Two radically different ways of doing it. Denmark is centrally planned in a way that would make Mao proud. Sweden has no central planning in a way that would make Johnny Rotten proud.

I'm a systems theorist. It's my university degree. Generally non-centrally planned methods of distribution tends to be better. Because each node in the distribution network can adapt to local needs. But you need to think it through first, so that the incentives encourage the wanted behaviour. If you mix central planning and free distribution in a haphazard manner with shit communication and unclear rules your system will break down. Which is what has happened in Sweden.

Denmark is planned fully top down. Which is extremely hard to get right. But they did it.

The moral of the story is that sometimes communism works. Who knew?

So you're trying to benefit from Sweden's failure to devise and implement sensible rules who gets vaccinated when, by getting a jab now even though by any sensible priority there should be 4 more million people ahead of you in the queue - but can't do so because they fail even at failing?

I'm trying to be a good citizen and get my jab when it's my alloted turn. I'd never skip ahead in the line.

 

[Jokodo]

It's because they've absolutely bungled the rollout of it. They're failing to get the older and and at risks to get vaccinated. Due to shit communication. So they've opened up for the general population. Just to avoid slack at the vaccination centres. So far the Swedish vaccination centres have had zero queue. Way more staff than patients. Because the patience haven't managed to find their way to the centres, even when they're eligible.

Denmark on the other hand are vaccinating people with the efficiency of a McDonalds slaughterhouse. Everybody knows where to be and when. Queues are kept constant and short. It's a beauty to behold.

It's interesting to contrast these two systems. Two radically different ways of doing it. Denmark is centrally planned in a way that would make Mao proud. Sweden has no central planning in a way that would make Johnny Rotten proud.

I'm a systems theorist. It's my university degree. Generally non-centrally planned methods of distribution tends to be better. Because each node in the distribution network can adapt to local needs. But you need to think it through first, so that the incentives encourage the wanted behaviour. If you mix central planning and free distribution in a haphazard manner with shit communication and unclear rules your system will break down. Which is what has happened in Sweden.

Denmark is planned fully top down. Which is extremely hard to get right. But they did it.

The moral of the story is that sometimes communism works. Who knew?

So you're trying to benefit from Sweden's failure to devise and implement sensible rules who gets vaccinated when, by getting a jab now even though by any sensible priority there should be 4 more million people ahead of you in the queue - but can't do so because they fail even at failing?

I'm trying to be a good citizen and get my jab when it's my alloted turn. I'd never skip ahead in the line.

I was joking!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've known some bitchy nurses but as I said earlier, nurses tend to abuse each other far more than they abuse or mistreat their patients.

I've seen too many that won't go get somebody better when my wife warns them she's a very hard stick. (She doesn't have any bleeding disorders but the average nurse is likely to bruise her on a blood draw.)

 

[crazyfingers]

A co-worker in Germany sent me this chart today. I don't know the source but she uses only reputable sources. Nor do I know when the chart was created. This is related to our work as we research and consult on the demand for office technology products and clearly getting covid under control impacts the demand for office technology products. Lots of uncertainty remains on when, how many and how people with return to working in potentially changed office environment.

US and European vaccine hesitancy/acceptance rates.

 

[repoman]

So what treatments for covid work that are NOT new, expensive and patentable?

 

[untermensche]

Dexamethasone

 

[none]

Dexamethasone

or swallow blue whale sperm.

 

[Jokodo]

A co-worker in Germany sent me this chart today. I don't know the source but she uses only reputable sources. Nor do I know when the chart was created. This is related to our work as we research and consult on the demand for office technology products and clearly getting covid under control impacts the demand for office technology products. Lots of uncertainty remains on when, how many and how people with return to working in potentially changed office environment.

US and European vaccine hesitancy/acceptance rates.

View attachment 33387

Well, some things never change...

About 300 years ago, Britain was the first Western European country to pick up variolation, a precursor to vaccination where they would infect a patient with small pox under controlled conditions, and preferably with a less vigorous strain, to give him immunity without a bad case. The practice wasn't invented in England, it had previously been used in a wide range of places outside Catholic/Protestant Europe, from the Caucasus via Greece, parts of Africa all the way to India, but the Brits became the first Westerners to pick it up after hearing about it from Constantinople/Istanbul. While of course not as safe as modern vaccines, the practice was amazingly effective when done right.

France became the last holdout of scepticism, intermittently even banning variolation, until some 50 years later.

Here's the first detailed English language account, an extract from a letter by a Greek-Italian physician who had encountered the practice in Constantinople to his English colleague, dated 1714: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1714.0010

 

[none]

A co-worker in Germany sent me this chart today. I don't know the source but she uses only reputable sources. Nor do I know when the chart was created. This is related to our work as we research and consult on the demand for office technology products and clearly getting covid under control impacts the demand for office technology products. Lots of uncertainty remains on when, how many and how people with return to working in potentially changed office environment.

US and European vaccine hesitancy/acceptance rates.

View attachment 33387

Well, some things never change...

About 300 years ago, Britain was the first Western European country to pick up variolation, a precursor to vaccination where they would infect a patient with small pox under controlled conditions, and preferably with a less vigorous strain, to give him immunity without a bad case. The practice wasn't invented in England, it had previously been used in a wide range of places outside Catholic/Protestant Europe, from the Caucasus via Greece, parts of Africa all the way to India, but the Brits became the first Westerners to pick it up after hearing about it from Constantinople/Istanbul. While of course not as safe as modern vaccines, the practice was amazingly effective when done right.

France became the last holdout of scepticism, intermittently even banning variolation, until some 50 years later.

Here's the first English language account, an extract from a letter by a Greek-Italian physician who had encountered the practice in Constantinople to his English colleague, dated 1714: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1714.0010

engrish?

 

[Jokodo]

A co-worker in Germany sent me this chart today. I don't know the source but she uses only reputable sources. Nor do I know when the chart was created. This is related to our work as we research and consult on the demand for office technology products and clearly getting covid under control impacts the demand for office technology products. Lots of uncertainty remains on when, how many and how people with return to working in potentially changed office environment.

US and European vaccine hesitancy/acceptance rates.

View attachment 33387

Well, some things never change...

About 300 years ago, Britain was the first Western European country to pick up variolation, a precursor to vaccination where they would infect a patient with small pox under controlled conditions, and preferably with a less vigorous strain, to give him immunity without a bad case. The practice wasn't invented in England, it had previously been used in a wide range of places outside Catholic/Protestant Europe, from the Caucasus via Greece, parts of Africa all the way to India, but the Brits became the first Westerners to pick it up after hearing about it from Constantinople/Istanbul. While of course not as safe as modern vaccines, the practice was amazingly effective when done right.

France became the last holdout of scepticism, intermittently even banning variolation, until some 50 years later.

Here's the first English language account, an extract from a letter by a Greek-Italian physician who had encountered the practice in Constantinople to his English colleague, dated 1714: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1714.0010

engrish?

Yes, they talked funny in 1714. What else is new?