c933103 wrote:

flyguy89 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

South Africa locked down to mitigate the peak. We are taking all the risk.

Where are you getting your info exactly?

From Dec. 16:

South Africa's National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) has retained its lockdown at 'adjusted level 1', or the lowest of a five-tier system of restrictions, in the battle on the Omicron variant, health authorities said on Thursday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/so ... 021-12-16/

South Africa has been at this level since Oct. 1. Level 1 is simply a curfew. No adjustments were made when Omicron arrived.

"Simply a curfew" is above and beyond the highest level of restriction in many countries along Western Pacific

A curfew is very effective. Ok, I shouldn't have said lockdown. Did everyone see how packed the bars were this holiday? Hospitalizations lag infections by multiple weeks. We're already in the USA about to pass the Delta peak and as we are behind the UK, we won't see the New Year's party infections in the ER until 1/14 or a week later.

Curfews cut cases. India just set one.

The USA just passed a million verified cases and does everyone know how impossible it is to get rapid tests or a PCR (which aren't always free anymore, so people are only getting them when really sick:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavi ... uxbndlbing

Both South Africa and the United States have pitiful testing. To the point in South Africa, we must question how much of the drop is due to the decline in testing. For the USA, we just don't know how bad the hospitals will be; recall, a Covid19 +ve person is not allowed in a regular ward due to the risk for other vulnerable patients.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covi ... AR~VCT~LAO

The wheels have loose lugnuts. I really hope our hospital system doesn't have the wheels fall off, but it looks likely in Illinois and Texas per prior links I posted.

Lightsaber

To add, Omicron patients in hospital significantly younger than prior patients:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/h ... 747178.php
Good news:
Patients admitted to the hospital required less intense respiratory support and had a shorter length of stay.


Bad news:
it's raising Houston hospitalizations to ‘staggering’ levels


Everyone with coronavirus hospitalized must be in a coronavirus ward so they don't kill pregnant ladies, or cancer and kidney patients. You cannot place such patients in the same ward. So the quantity really matters.

We must question how bad this will get as we haven't yet seen anyone infected on New Year's eve (way too early, no symptoms yet), much less this week's back to school and back to work.

Another neighboring school district mandated testing and it is shocking how many of my friends' kids have Omicron. Most is minor, but not for a few. No hospitalizations. None of the parents are allowed to work either. Rhoo Rhoo...

Winter is here.

Lightsaber

One Million. Let that sink in. One million Covid -19 cases diagnosed in the US on Monday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/04/us-coun ... cord-.html

A total of 1,082,549 new coronavirus cases were reported Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, as the highly infectious omicron variant continues to spread throughout the country and beyond.
The U.S. also has the highest seven-day average of daily new cases in any country tracked by Johns Hopkins.

We are in for a rough ride.

acavpics wrote:

casinterest wrote:

I think we will have at least 6 weeks, just because of the propagation to rural areas, but the cities may go quickly. Especially the ones that sent kids back to school this week.

So is it safe to say that states such as Massachusetts and NY, which encountered the surge early on (November-ish) can expect to peak by mid-Jan?

I'm sure Texas, Florida, and other southern and central states still have a long way to go and may peak as late as next month.

We haven't seen the peak yet. And as I said, we still have rural areas which spread a bit slower. I think we are in for a good 6-8 weeks of pain.

77Phoebe wrote:

I would like to see some member of a health service, somewhere, come up with the number of deaths that lockdown causes, two years on I simply don't believe they do any good at all.

Sorry, I'm wrong, they do do good, they benefit politicians, sparing them bad headlines. Covid deaths are measurable the deaths caused by lockdowns re: suicides, child abuse, drug and alcohol deaths, missed heart disease and cancer diagnosis, ongoing child development issues not so much.

I believe none of these measures (bar the vaccines - and they aren't that good.) have done any good whatsoever, apart from moving deaths from the ancient, unhealthy and chronically sick to the younger members of society.

Here is your 2019 leading causes of death.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr ... 09-508.pdf

You can then cross compare with the below for 2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm

The below site has a neat breakdown of 2015-2020
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2778234




2021 is still preliminary, but you can start here.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/125 ... ber-daily/

I think you will find that Covid was and still is the most preventable cause of death that we can control in that list.

casinterest wrote:

I think you will find that Covid was and still is the most preventable cause of death that we can control in that list.

Preventable? Do you mean from vaccination?
Apart from vaccines, no one has found an acceptable way to prevent spread on the long term, only ways to slow it down, at great cost to society.
I'd say that all preventable deaths are from those who died because they refused to vaccinate. The other preventable ones would be those who died from being denied healthcare due to lack of hospital capacity, but I don't think it's happened since 2020 in most places.

Everyone will most likely get Covid eventually, no matter what we do about it.

Francoflier wrote:

casinterest wrote:

I think you will find that Covid was and still is the most preventable cause of death that we can control in that list.

Preventable? Do you mean from vaccination?
Apart from vaccines, no one has found an acceptable way to prevent spread on the long term, only ways to slow it down, at great cost to society.
I'd say that all preventable deaths are from those who died because they refused to vaccinate. The other preventable ones would be those who died from being denied healthcare due to lack of hospital capacity, but I don't think it's happened since 2020 in most places.

Everyone will most likely get Covid eventually, no matter what we do about it.

Not sure if you read my statement or are just not understanding what the other poster was postulating. There is this group of crazy folks that are so anti vax, that they claim that the waiting for vaccines cost more lives than covid did. This isn't true at all.

casinterest wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

casinterest wrote:

I think you will find that Covid was and still is the most preventable cause of death that we can control in that list.

Preventable? Do you mean from vaccination?
Apart from vaccines, no one has found an acceptable way to prevent spread on the long term, only ways to slow it down, at great cost to society.
I'd say that all preventable deaths are from those who died because they refused to vaccinate. The other preventable ones would be those who died from being denied healthcare due to lack of hospital capacity, but I don't think it's happened since 2020 in most places.

Everyone will most likely get Covid eventually, no matter what we do about it.

Not sure if you read my statement or are just not understanding what the other poster was postulating. There is this group of crazy folks that are so anti vax, that they claim that the waiting for vaccines cost more lives than covid did. This isn't true at all.

I absolutely agree that the anti-vax are a disgrace to humankind as a whole. I have unashamedly stopped caring about any news relating to an unvaccinated (by choice) passing from Covid. I may even have pushed the cynicism and sociopathy to believing that the World is a better place without them.

However I am not of the opinion that many Covid deaths are preventable anymore, other than if we count the unvaxxed. But given the assertiveness of their beliefs and their imperviousness to facts and reason, I wouldn't even call those 'preventable' either. That's just natural selection doing its job.

Francoflier wrote:

casinterest wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Preventable? Do you mean from vaccination?
Apart from vaccines, no one has found an acceptable way to prevent spread on the long term, only ways to slow it down, at great cost to society.
I'd say that all preventable deaths are from those who died because they refused to vaccinate. The other preventable ones would be those who died from being denied healthcare due to lack of hospital capacity, but I don't think it's happened since 2020 in most places.

Everyone will most likely get Covid eventually, no matter what we do about it.

Not sure if you read my statement or are just not understanding what the other poster was postulating. There is this group of crazy folks that are so anti vax, that they claim that the waiting for vaccines cost more lives than covid did. This isn't true at all.

I absolutely agree that the anti-vax are a disgrace to humankind as a whole. I have unashamedly stopped caring about any news relating to an unvaccinated (by choice) passing from Covid. I may even have pushed the cynicism and sociopathy to believing that the World is a better place without them.

However I am not of the opinion that many Covid deaths are preventable anymore, other than if we count the unvaxxed. But given the assertiveness of their beliefs and their imperviousness to facts and reason, I wouldn't even call those 'preventable' either. That's just natural selection doing its job.

That is the cynical take. The optimistic take is that there is still a chance to convince people that there is a valuable choice that can help them. Yes, smoker's want to smoke, drinker's want to drink, drugs for those that need it, but the basic issue here is that many have staked out a political point on vaccines, and that can be helped with information. Especially to the original poster that may not be getting the best information available.

casinterest wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

casinterest wrote:

Not sure if you read my statement or are just not understanding what the other poster was postulating. There is this group of crazy folks that are so anti vax, that they claim that the waiting for vaccines cost more lives than covid did. This isn't true at all.

I absolutely agree that the anti-vax are a disgrace to humankind as a whole. I have unashamedly stopped caring about any news relating to an unvaccinated (by choice) passing from Covid. I may even have pushed the cynicism and sociopathy to believing that the World is a better place without them.

However I am not of the opinion that many Covid deaths are preventable anymore, other than if we count the unvaxxed. But given the assertiveness of their beliefs and their imperviousness to facts and reason, I wouldn't even call those 'preventable' either. That's just natural selection doing its job.

That is the cynical take. The optimistic take is that there is still a chance to convince people that there is a valuable choice that can help them. Yes, smoker's want to smoke, drinker's want to drink, drugs for those that need it, but the basic issue here is that many have staked out a political point on vaccines, and that can be helped with information. Especially to the original poster that may not be getting the best information available.

I think very few of those still unvaccinated are going to get it. They are entrenched and dug in for the long haul (or short haul if they're unlucky; many are).
A high school friend of mine recently moved to a red state; stated that she wouldn't put that vaccine in her body because she was being cautious(!). Six months later she was dead of COVID, 65 years old.

Well, US hospitalizations blew by the Delta peak in a day. 107k in the hospital.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

This has gotten absurd:
Last week, an average of 574 children with Covid-19 were admitted to hospitals every day -- a pandemic record, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/from- ... NewsSearch

Regions that didn't lockdown are in big trouble
Heart attack patients calling 999 in parts of northern England are being asked to get a lift instead of waiting for an ambulance as hospitals in the region experience more than double the growth rate in numbers of Covid patients compared with London.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... ble-london

We're at the point decisions made six weeks ago are what matters.

Chemist wrote:

I think very few of those still unvaccinated are going to get it. They are entrenched and dug in for the long haul (or short haul if they're unlucky; many are).
A high school friend of mine recently moved to a red state; stated that she wouldn't put that vaccine in her body because she was being cautious(!). Six months later she was dead of COVID, 65 years old.

The unvaccinated are dug in. Free pay to get vaccinated? Nope. Free time off from work to recover from impact of the vaccine? Nope, that wouldn't convince them. Twice a month free clinics at work? Didn't move the needle. The hospitals are hitting the wall. I hope people don't need care. While vaccines aren't perfect, 91%+ unvac hospitalized in the dashboard I use in a county hard hit by Delta:
https://health.mesacounty.us/covid19/datadashboard/

ER's are now publicly begging patients not to go unless symptoms are severe.
https://www.fox43.com/article/news/heal ... ca4eb7aa83

Omicron seems harmless... until the hospitals cannot keep up.

I want everyone to look at the first link. We are on track to break the prior hospitalization peak in a week. Since the USA is about 2 weeks behind the UK, we're going to pay for our lower vaccination rate. I already posted links noting they are over 50% boosted. The USA is only 61.5 % fully vaccinated (vs. UK's 69.5%) and only 20.69% boosted. Scooby says Rhoo Rhoo.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Lightsaber

Late edit:, I find it interesting the UK is going to test 100,000 people every day to avoid a lockdown...
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/u ... NewsSearch

In a meeting with the most senior engineers today, 30 minutes was eaten up by people needing to discuss how they could get tested because it is one step away from impossible locally. One coworker had his wife and daughter wait in line, for a mandatory test required by the schools, for 6 hours. Unfortunately, the daughter popped +ve, so the whole family was prohibited from school and work. Interesting times...

Ohh, found a link that I didn't know about on how full the hospitals are in the USA. Look at how many are "extreme"
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... l-is-yours

To think, this isn't the peak...

Lightsaber
Late add:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html
About one in 4 U.S. hospitals with intensive care units, or 713 total hospitals, recently reported that at least 95 percent of their I.C.U. beds were full. In the week ending Dec. 30, an average of 77 percent of intensive care hospital beds were occupied nationwide, according to a dataset released weekly by the Department of Health and Human Services.
...

Because days pass between when a person becomes infected and requires hospitalization, and because lags in reporting may have been exacerbated by the holidays, the picture may become clearer with the dataset that the Health Department is expected to release Jan. 10.


In other words, it is bad, but because of the holidays, we don't know how bad at hospitals.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-omic ... ent-cases/
95.4% new infection in the US last week are Omicron.

https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-1449324.html
Japan: Okinawa: As of December 30, 97% infected are Omicron, a big increase from December 26's figure of 15%, in the span of 5 days.
Okinawa had 21 cases of coronavirus as of December 26, 5 cases as of December 27, 50 cases as of December 30, 51 cases as of January 2, but January 3's figure increased to 130, January 4 increased to 225, and despite the forecast from this yesterday report that the figure will reach 500-1000 in a week, (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/202201 ... 91000.html) today they have already recorded 623 new cases, and (https://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/889536) half of the hospital beds are already occupied, although the report from yesterday mentioned there are still no severe case yet, and most infected people are still people age ~20s for now.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/202201 ... ust-in_002
Japan: Tokyo: Infection count quadrupled from 103 to 390, in just two days.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/202201 ... social_001
~70% Omicron infected in Tokyo are at least 2-dose vaccinated, roughly in line with the population vaccination rate. 2% Omicron infected are boosted (1 out of 55 given genome sequencing)

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/202201 ... social_005
Japan: Prime Minister to accelerate booster schedule with vaccines at hand, to stop hospitalizing all positives and allow quarantine at home or dedicated hotel in area where the virus spread rapidly, to approve Pfizer pill early next month and will give these pill to anyone infected and quarantine at home starting from the day or the day following when they tested positive. Decision on international travel suspension will come next week and he incline not to restart domestic travel promotion campaign amid the spread.

Melbourne & Sydney are getting smashed with Omricon. 35,000 cases today in NSW (Most in Sydney), and 17,000 cases here in Victoria, again most are in Melbourne. The PCR testing system has basically collapsed, people are waiting 5-6 days for a result (and you must isolate while waiting...). The Federal government has now stated that rapid tests can now be used instead of PCR for most instances, problem is that rapid tests are almost impossible to purchase. Most pharmacies & Supermarkets have resorted to placing signs in their windows stating no rapid tests available. Though we have been told more are on their way.

Because of the numbers who are now positive (they & their household members must isolate for 7 days, and you must isolate while waiting on PCR test results), Supermarkets are very short staffed, and it's also affecting freight & manufacturing, etc. The big supermarket chains have asked people to only buy what they need, similar to 2 years ago.....

https://www.theage.com.au/national/aust ... 59lxw.html

France has shown a dramatic increase in daily infection rate from around 10K 2 months ago to 250K+ yesterday. With 90% of adults reportedly double dosed, I wonder how many of these infections are in the unvaccinated - more likely to be affected to the extent that hospital treatment will be required.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/france/

Response from President Macron:

President Emmanuel Macron is facing anger from opponents and chaos in parliament after issuing a provocative warning to people in France not yet vaccinated against Covid-19 that he would pressure them as much as possible by limiting access to key aspects of life...

"As for the non-vaccinated, I really want to hassle them," he told the Le Parisien newspaper in an interview...

"And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy," he said. He added this would mean "limiting as much as possible their access to activities in social life".

Mr Macron's comments came as the government seeks to push through parliament legislation that will make vaccination compulsory to enjoy cultural activities, use inter-city train travel or visit a café from 15 January.

No longer will it be possible to have a recent test or a recovery from the coronavirus to qualify for the country's Covid pass.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/202 ... id-france/

Will excluding people from much of public life persuade them to get vaccinated? Even if they are not persuaded, I see this as a good move since the people most likely to be infected and most likely to transmit the virus will be prevented from infecting as many others as they would otherwise infect.

US hospitalizations at 107k
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

There is no pretending anymore. The hospital system is, locally, not going to keep up. I posted enough links on individual hospitals in multiple prior posts...

art wrote:

France has shown a dramatic increase in daily infection rate from around 10K 2 months ago to 250K+ yesterday. With 90% of adults reportedly double dosed, I wonder how many of these infections are in the unvaccinated - more likely to be affected to the extent that hospital treatment will be required.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/france/

Response from President Macron:

President Emmanuel Macron is facing anger from opponents and chaos in parliament after issuing a provocative warning to people in France not yet vaccinated against Covid-19 that he would pressure them as much as possible by limiting access to key aspects of life...

"As for the non-vaccinated, I really want to hassle them," he told the Le Parisien newspaper in an interview...

"And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy," he said. He added this would mean "limiting as much as possible their access to activities in social life".

Mr Macron's comments came as the government seeks to push through parliament legislation that will make vaccination compulsory to enjoy cultural activities, use inter-city train travel or visit a café from 15 January.

No longer will it be possible to have a recent test or a recovery from the coronavirus to qualify for the country's Covid pass.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/202 ... id-france/

Will excluding people from much of public life persuade them to get vaccinated? Even if they are not persuaded, I see this as a good move since the people most likely to be infected and most likely to transmit the virus will be prevented from infecting as many others as they would otherwise infect.

Excluding people from public life is also slowing hospital entry by slowing the infections. Something had to be done. If you look compare the slopes of the USA vs. France in the above link, it is plausible that France will maintain enough hospital capacity.

Lightsaber

art wrote:

Will excluding people from much of public life persuade them to get vaccinated? Even if they are not persuaded, I see this as a good move since the people most likely to be infected and most likely to transmit the virus will be prevented from infecting as many others as they would otherwise infect.

The vaccine does not prevent infection and transmission in any significant capacity, it might have with previous variants but not with Omicron. We have had vaccine passports in Ontario since September and just locked down non-essential businesses and schools for 2-3 weeks for the 4th freaking time. Vaccination rates are nearing 90% and our government still locked down many non-essential things.

From yesterday's covid numbers in Ontario.

https://www.cp24.com/news/nearly-1-300- ... -1.5726982

Over 9,000 of the 11,000 positive tests are among people that have had 2 doses. That is over 80% of the people testing positive are the vaccinated.

All the vaccine does it protect the person who got it. The vaccinated have a essentially 0% chance of severe illness and death however this current vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission. Not even close to it.

The only benefit to a passport is to ensure that the ones spreading the virus are the ones with some degree of immunity to it.

StarAC17 wrote:

art wrote:

Will excluding people from much of public life persuade them to get vaccinated? Even if they are not persuaded, I see this as a good move since the people most likely to be infected and most likely to transmit the virus will be prevented from infecting as many others as they would otherwise infect.

The vaccine does not prevent infection and transmission in any significant capacity, it might have with previous variants but not with Omicron.

OK, my bad. I read (before omicron) that vaccinated people suffering from COVID-19 would infect about a third less people than unvaccinated people suffering from COVID-19. Nevertheless I will be surprised if it turns out that vaccinated people suffering from COVID-19 do not infect less people than unvaccinated people suffering from COVID-19.

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals, despite the fact that Omicron (and the new variant from Cameroon discovered in France) can infect fully vaccinated people and infect far more people (thereby making a smaller percentage of serious illnesses a larger number of serious illnesses). In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals, despite the fact that Omicron (and the new variant from Cameroon discovered in France) can infect fully vaccinated people and infect far more people (thereby making a smaller percentage of serious illnesses a larger number of serious illnesses). In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

Blaming left wing/ right wing is just stating that you have a political view of this virus instead of a scientific view.

Fauci's information has been good. It has changed as the science and virus have changed and as peoples lack of taking actionable precautions. It only appears mixed to people that are misinformed to not understand what science is. We can't get to herd immunity due to the attention span of people that want to continue to be misinformed and then avoid vaccines for all the wrong reasons.

casinterest wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals, despite the fact that Omicron (and the new variant from Cameroon discovered in France) can infect fully vaccinated people and infect far more people (thereby making a smaller percentage of serious illnesses a larger number of serious illnesses). In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

Blaming left wing/ right wing is just stating that you have a political view of this virus instead of a scientific view.

Fauci's information has been good. It has changed as the science and virus have changed and as peoples lack of taking actionable precautions. It only appears mixed to people that are misinformed to not understand what science is. We can't get to herd immunity due to the attention span of people that want to continue to be misinformed and then avoid vaccines for all the wrong reasons.

Most mass media, and some public health officials, are bad at convincing changes. They tell people updated information, but didn't sufficiently explain to their audience how and why are those information being updated. As I mentioned before they need to get some PR experts to do such explanation to make people accept such kind of changes as conveying these changes that are not easy to understood by regular people require expertise.

c933103 wrote:

casinterest wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals, despite the fact that Omicron (and the new variant from Cameroon discovered in France) can infect fully vaccinated people and infect far more people (thereby making a smaller percentage of serious illnesses a larger number of serious illnesses). In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

Blaming left wing/ right wing is just stating that you have a political view of this virus instead of a scientific view.

Fauci's information has been good. It has changed as the science and virus have changed and as peoples lack of taking actionable precautions. It only appears mixed to people that are misinformed to not understand what science is. We can't get to herd immunity due to the attention span of people that want to continue to be misinformed and then avoid vaccines for all the wrong reasons.

Most mass media, and some public health officials, are bad at convincing changes. They tell people updated information, but didn't sufficiently explain to their audience how and why are those information being updated. As I mentioned before they need to get some PR experts to do such explanation to make people accept such kind of changes as conveying these changes that are not easy to understood by regular people require expertise.

In the US, it is called news organizations. Unfortunately we have a serious issue with very horrible news organizations that are driven by profit rather than information.

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals...

Mmmm... it was noted in England a few months ago that 2% of the pregnant women in hospital with COVID-19 were vaccinated whereas 98% were unvaccinated.

In England currently 71% are fully vaccinated (so 29% are not) yet rather than 29% of hospitalised people being unvaccinated I think it is 80%+. In other words you are much, much, much more likely to be in hospital with COVID-19 if you are not vaccinated.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/s ... cinations/

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

In my view while COVID-19 may be viewed from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint by the medical specialists involved, they focus purely on disease control. That is their narrow brief. IMO it is not reasonable for politicians to ignore the effects of severe disruption to people's lives caused by following the COVID-19 restrictions recommended by those medical specialists.

According to BBC TV news Novak Djokovic arrived in Australia 5 hours ago but has still not got through immigration control. I hope he is refused entry because he is not vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-59884038

art wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

I think that a lot of people on the left wing need to be blamed for the mess surrounding coronavirus, along with a lot of those on the right wing, but the media does not seem to hold people like Fauci to the same scrutiny. They are currently still pushing the unproven idea that unvaccinated people are filling hospitals...

Mmmm... it was noted in England a few months ago that 2% of the pregnant women in hospital with COVID-19 were vaccinated whereas 98% were unvaccinated.

In England currently 71% are fully vaccinated (so 29% are not) yet rather than 29% of hospitalised people being unvaccinated I think it is 80%+. In other words you are much, much, much more likely to be in hospital with COVID-19 if you are not vaccinated.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/s ... cinations/

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

In reality, even if a small percentage of people did not get vaccinated, it would not lead to a pandemic situation because of herd immunity among the rest - all vaccine programs usually take this into account. All this party politics will just make the pandemic worse and worse, because no one is looking at the pandemic from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint.

In my view while COVID-19 may be viewed from a purely neutral, scientific and reasonable viewpoint by the medical specialists involved, they focus purely on disease control. That is their narrow brief. IMO it is not reasonable for politicians to ignore the effects of severe disruption to people's lives caused by following the COVID-19 restrictions recommended by those medical specialists.

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

And just to clear something up, I am saying that the US CDC (Fauci) has handled this badly considering the resources at its hand and the better handling by European/Asian CDCs, and also that the party politics engaged by the media (including the left) is fueling this pandemic and blaming Trump does not excuse poor decisions by the CDC.

Omicron seems to be yet another misstep by the Fauci. Europe has mostly been imposing restrictions whereas even the UK has been instilling fear into its population before Christmas.

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

Society cannot keep spending so much on people who made a choice. In the USA, 85%+ (links I posted before) are unvacs. ICU's aren't meant to be fully staffed year round. The labor required is very high.

A choice was made. Soon people will be denied care Vaccination status needs to be part of the triage decision like age, cancer, heart issues, and obesity. It isn't so much blame as calling out selfishness.

It is endemic now. This won't be the last wave. Europe and the USA (among others) need to vaccinate the kids.

Everyone is so tired of this, there is no longer pity. If people want to reject medicine it shouldn't be society's problem. The hospitals are fine between waves.

This wave has weeks to go. What decisions individuals made on vaccination 6+ weeks ago is all that matters really. Nothing to do now.

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

Society cannot keep spending so much on people who made a choice. In the USA, 85%+ (links I posted before) are unvacs. ICU's aren't meant to be fully staffed year round. The labor required is very high.

A choice was made. Soon people will be denied care Vaccination status needs to be part of the triage decision like age, cancer, heart issues, and obesity. It isn't so much blame as calling out selfishness.

It is endemic now. This won't be the last wave. Europe and the USA (among others) need to vaccinate the kids.

Everyone is so tired of this, there is no longer pity. If people want to reject medicine it shouldn't be society's problem. The hospitals are fine between waves.

This wave has weeks to go. What decisions individuals made on vaccination 6+ weeks ago is all that matters really. Nothing to do now.

Lightsaber

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage? If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status. This is getting crazy, you are saying that the decision on weather or not you should be given potentially life saving treatments is if you are forced to put a foreign substance in your body. This is scary shit. You have consequences if you don't get vaccinated, as in your are much more likely to get seriously ill or die, but you should never ever start to deny treatment to unvaccinated. People with this mentality start to look at the unvaccinated as not being people, rather looking at them with hatred and thinking they need to be exterminated from this planet, and we know where that can lead. I am honestly flabbergasted that this is even a thought for anyone. As a disclaimer, I am pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The ironic part is that when the lockdowns and mandates rolled out, this is exactly what people were afraid would happen, disgusting.

bpatus297 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

Society cannot keep spending so much on people who made a choice. In the USA, 85%+ (links I posted before) are unvacs. ICU's aren't meant to be fully staffed year round. The labor required is very high.

A choice was made. Soon people will be denied care Vaccination status needs to be part of the triage decision like age, cancer, heart issues, and obesity. It isn't so much blame as calling out selfishness.

It is endemic now. This won't be the last wave. Europe and the USA (among others) need to vaccinate the kids.

Everyone is so tired of this, there is no longer pity. If people want to reject medicine it shouldn't be society's problem. The hospitals are fine between waves.

This wave has weeks to go. What decisions individuals made on vaccination 6+ weeks ago is all that matters really. Nothing to do now.

Lightsaber

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage? If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status. This is getting crazy, you are saying that the decision on weather or not you should be given potentially life saving treatments is if you are forced to put a foreign substance in your body. This is scary shit. You have consequences if you don't get vaccinated, as in your are much more likely to get seriously ill or die, but you should never ever start to deny treatment to unvaccinated. People with this mentality start to look at the unvaccinated as not being people, rather looking at them with hatred and thinking they need to be exterminated from this planet, and we know where that can lead. I am honestly flabbergasted that this is even a thought for anyone. As a disclaimer, I am pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The ironic part is that when the lockdowns and mandates rolled out, this is exactly what people were afraid would happen, disgusting.

It stops when the hospitals are overflowing. People with more strikes against them will be denied coverage in favor of those with less strikes against them
People that refuse Tetanus shots run the risk of getting Tetanus. Treatments for such are expensive.
People that can't help themselves don't help other can and will be denied service when there are insufficient resources to save them. You can be anti mandate all you want, but prove it by paying for the unvaccinated' s medical costs.

bpatus297 wrote:

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage?

How about if there are rusty nails all over the place, you are urged to get a tetanus jab, loads of unvaccinated people are getting tetanus and you say you don't want to be vaccinated but you do want health care if you tread on a rusty nail and catch tetanus? Is that in any way a responsible attitude to take?

bpatus297 wrote:

If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status.

If you don't like wearing a car seat belt and you are involved in an accident in which you are hit by another car and badly injured, should you receive more damages if you sue the other driver than someone who went to the inconvenience of buckling up and was less seriously injured? If you increase the risk of being badly injured by COVID through not buckling up with vaccination, are you entitled to more health coverage than someone who reduced the risk of being badly injured by buckling up?

casinterest wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Society cannot keep spending so much on people who made a choice. In the USA, 85%+ (links I posted before) are unvacs. ICU's aren't meant to be fully staffed year round. The labor required is very high.

A choice was made. Soon people will be denied care Vaccination status needs to be part of the triage decision like age, cancer, heart issues, and obesity. It isn't so much blame as calling out selfishness.

It is endemic now. This won't be the last wave. Europe and the USA (among others) need to vaccinate the kids.

Everyone is so tired of this, there is no longer pity. If people want to reject medicine it shouldn't be society's problem. The hospitals are fine between waves.

This wave has weeks to go. What decisions individuals made on vaccination 6+ weeks ago is all that matters really. Nothing to do now.

Lightsaber

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage? If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status. This is getting crazy, you are saying that the decision on weather or not you should be given potentially life saving treatments is if you are forced to put a foreign substance in your body. This is scary shit. You have consequences if you don't get vaccinated, as in your are much more likely to get seriously ill or die, but you should never ever start to deny treatment to unvaccinated. People with this mentality start to look at the unvaccinated as not being people, rather looking at them with hatred and thinking they need to be exterminated from this planet, and we know where that can lead. I am honestly flabbergasted that this is even a thought for anyone. As a disclaimer, I am pro-vaccine, but anti-mandate. The ironic part is that when the lockdowns and mandates rolled out, this is exactly what people were afraid would happen, disgusting.

It stops when the hospitals are overflowing. People with more strikes against them will be denied coverage in favor of those with less strikes against them
People that refuse Tetanus shots run the risk of getting Tetanus. Treatments for such are expensive.
People that can't help themselves don't help other can and will be denied service when there are insufficient resources to save them. You can be anti mandate all you want, but prove it by paying for the unvaccinated' s medical costs.

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

art wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage?

How about if there are rusty nails all over the place, you are urged to get a tetanus jab, loads of unvaccinated people are getting tetanus and you say you don't want to be vaccinated but you do want health care if you tread on a rusty nail and catch tetanus? Is that in any way a responsible attitude to take?

bpatus297 wrote:

If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status.

If you don't like wearing a car seat belt and you are involved in an accident in which you are hit by another car and badly injured, should you receive the same damages if you sue the other driver as someone who went to the inconvenience of buckling up? If you increase the risk of being badly injured by COVID through not buckling up with vaccination, are you entitled to the same health coverage as someone who reduced the risk of being badly injured by buckling up?

There is a huge difference between urged and forced. I would say losing your job if you don't get vaccinated is basically in the forced category for most. Not many can afford to be with out their job for long. You whataboutism with seatbelts is irrelevant. If the other person is at fault for the accident, yes I get the same damages and the same heath treatments. If they get seriously injured, that is a consequence of their decision, just like their decision to get vaccinated or not. That shouldn't change the treatment they get in either case. Again, beng anti-mandate does not make someone anti-vaccine. Weather or not I am vaccinated is none of your or anyone else's (except my Doctor's) freaking business.

casinterest wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

casinterest wrote:

It stops when the hospitals are overflowing. People with more strikes against them will be denied coverage in favor of those with less strikes against them
People that refuse Tetanus shots run the risk of getting Tetanus. Treatments for such are expensive.
People that can't help themselves don't help other can and will be denied service when there are insufficient resources to save them. You can be anti mandate all you want, but prove it by paying for the unvaccinated' s medical costs.

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

The unvaccinated deserve sympathy for their stupidity, not special treatment.

Quit putting words in my mouth, I never said special treatment, I said the same treatment.

bpatus297 wrote:

casinterest wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

The unvaccinated deserve sympathy for their stupidity, not special treatment.

Quit putting words in my mouth, I never said special treatment, I said the same treatment.

Why give the "same" treatment to those that failed to take preventative measures?

Should we forgive taxes to those that "forgot" to pay them ?

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

No sensible country on earth will have enough medical resource always idling at hospital for 10-20% of their population suddenly becoming very ill.
To put thing into perspective, a train crash involving a few hundred passengers in a city with a few million population is already enough to strain the city's medical system and require medical resource help from outside the city.
And a few hundred people is just 0.01% number of people of a city with a few million residents.

c933103 wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

No sensible country on earth will have enough medical resource always idling at hospital for 10-20% of their population suddenly becoming very ill.
To put thing into perspective, a train crash involving a few hundred passengers in a city with a few million population is already enough to strain the city's medical system and require medical resource help from outside the city.
And a few hundred people is just 0.01% number of people of a city with a few million residents.

That's the question we all need to ask ourselves. Do we put that capacity into the system knowing full well that much of the time its not going to be used and that is inefficient most of the time. You can't simply move health care workers from one discipline to another on a whim either.

If you have ever worked in a business that can't meet demand you know that can be bad news but its rare that excess demand lasts forever.

Also I think the jury is very much out on the fact that vaccines are actually getting us out of this because its not stopping spread and I am not taking a booster every 6 months. I got my 3rd dose on Sunday and was bedridden with a 101 degree fever for the entire day on Monday and I haven't felt that sick in nearly 20 years. I really think me contracting this virus (heck I might have already) would have been milder that the mRNA side effects.

Say what you want about Dr. Malone or Peter Mccullough I listened to both of their discussions with Joe Rogan and what they are saying which has been essentially ignored by the media is where are the early treatments? Those should have been the focus along with the vaccines. If you get this how can we keep you out of the hospital because by the time its bad enough for you to go to the hospital the therapeutics aren't going to work. Anti-virals and other therapeutics have to be used in early in the infection as that is when the viral replication in the highest. Once someone is sick enough to be hospitalized the virus is largely cleared and its the damage from the virus and/or your own immune system that is what causes death or the long haul symptoms and the deaths.

https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2021/08/r ... ients.html

Where I live its almost 90% double vaxxed with vaccine passports and we still shut down most non-essential businesses. What hope does the 60% vaccinated US have besides you fortunately have a much higher level of ICU beds per capita.

The high risk groups are essentially 100% vaccinated and we still can't have an open society. Thankfully most hospitalizations seem to be non ICU and I think this actually might be short term because it buys time for those who had the virus in healthcare and other fields to do their isolation and return to work. They say this will last for 3 weeks but we will see as we are vaccinating quickly but there is acceptance that the spread cannot be stopped.

bpatus297 wrote:

casinterest wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

That's a whataboutism and you know it. Keep to the topic at hand.

The topic at hand? That a bunch of misinformed and abusive liars want to get special treatment at hospitals when they all crash from the virus at the same time? It is the same problem phone and internet users have when everyone tries to use it at once in an emergency,. There is not enough capacity for everyone when things go wrong, because the same misinformed keep screwing up health care coverage.

Very humane of you to label every unvaccinated person as misinformed and abusive liars who want special treatment. Again, what special treatment, they just want treated if they get sick. The consequence being that they are much more likely to get seriously ill or die. You still haven't answered where does it stop.

They don't want the vaccine, they can stay home and sniff glue or horse pills. That is where it stops. They are abusive frauds that are a weight on the system. If they don't trust the vaccines, then they shouldn't trust the doctors. They want to trust in god, horse pills or stupidity, then that is their choice. Quit wasting everyone else's time with their lack of action. That right there is why there is a mandate. Because these special snowflakes never think their full plan through until they do get sick and do want real doctors to fix the problem.

It's clear that humanity has lost the battle to contain and eradicate covid in a timely manner and this disease will be endemic. That said, when will it be treated as such and we can stop having lockdowns and new restrictions everytime a new variant appears? I would definitely love to get back to normal, with out masks and with the ability to return to the US without a covid test.

I say that as a mask-complying, vaccinated, democrat voting person.

bpatus297 wrote:

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

The shortage mostly is ICU capacity. "Hospital staff" comes in all colors and shapes. At least in my country, a much higher percentage of hospital staff with a medical background are vaccinated than those in other roles (guess why...) and I would put my money on a bet that an even higher percentage of ICU staff is vaccinated. Most unvaccinated "hospital staff" can be found lower qualified jobs, they do not run ICU units - tthey are still necessary, but easier to replace. That's obviously the reason why the decision to lay off unvaccinated "hospital staff" has been made - nobody would have risked mass lay-offs if it meant losing large numbers of doctors or ICU-nurses.

TWA772LR wrote:

It's clear that humanity has lost the battle to contain and eradicate covid in a timely manner and this disease will be endemic. That said, when will it be treated as such and we can stop having lockdowns and new restrictions everytime a new variant appears? I would definitely love to get back to normal, with out masks and with the ability to return to the US without a covid test.

I say that as a mask-complying, vaccinated, democrat voting person.

When there is little danger of the hospitals being overwhelmed and they can continue with all normal procedures with only a few ICU beds occupied by coronavirus.

I too want back to normal. Dancing with a mask and hand sanitizer sucks!

Lightsaber

vfw614 wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

The shortage mostly is ICU capacity. "Hospital staff" comes in all colors and shapes. At least in my country, a much higher percentage of hospital staff with a medical background are vaccinated than those in other roles (guess why...) and I would put my money on a bet that an even higher percentage of ICU staff is vaccinated. Most unvaccinated "hospital staff" can be found lower qualified jobs, they do not run ICU units - tthey are still necessary, but easier to replace. That's obviously the reason why the decision to lay off unvaccinated "hospital staff" has been made - nobody would have risked mass lay-offs if it meant losing large numbers of doctors or ICU-nurses.

My friends and relatives working the coronavirus wards only know, amoung all of them, one doctor who refused.

They know more skilled nurses that refused, but many took the vaccine later; most likely they were burned out and were looking for an excuse to quit.

The low skilled nurses/nurse assistants seem to be in short supply. The more the degree, the more likely to vaccinate.

Lightsaber

If there were a tetanus epidemic filling the hospital dolts that refused to get the vaccine against tetanus would be blameworthy, and someone with a heart attack and cancer should well have priority.

TWA772LR wrote:

It's clear that humanity has lost the battle to contain and eradicate covid in a timely manner and this disease will be endemic. That said, when will it be treated as such and we can stop having lockdowns and new restrictions everytime a new variant appears? I would definitely love to get back to normal, with out masks and with the ability to return to the US without a covid test.

I say that as a mask-complying, vaccinated, democrat voting person.

The battle was over before it started, this virus might have been identified in Wuhan but there is plenty of evidence that is was spreading months before it was identified. Respiratory viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract will not be able to be eradicated because they can spread there easily with a very slow immune response from the body as the upper respiratory tract has a lower level of blood flow and also not critical in keeping you alive.

There are too many anecdotal stories of people having symptoms in line with Covid long before it was a known virus. One person you can dismiss but hundreds it harder to ignore. It probably spent that time adapting to our bodies and mutating to become adept and infecting humans to the point of where we are at today where with Omicron its a largely upper respiratory infection compared to the previous variants. We see with each successive wave the deaths are down while the cases are skyrocketing, much of that is because of vaccination but a virus does not want to kill its host so its following what evolution suggests it should. Vaccination likely accelerated what would have been natural selection. Not all viruses mutate to become less deadly but this variant seems to do just that. Its entirely possible that it could but with a level of partial immunity in the population it makes it less likely, not impossible but less likely.

https://www.salon.com/2021/11/09/why-th ... -deadlier/

I think my friends had Covid after we did a trip to Nassau in December 2019 they lost their sense of taste, smell and had rigors. I could have been spared but I had a cold earlier in that month and perhaps I had fresh immunity from a cold that was an endemic Coronavirus and that gave me some protection as I did get a secondary cold at the same time. My sister in law had something like Covid also in January 2020.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... ent-notion

TWA772LR wrote:

It's clear that humanity has lost the battle to contain and eradicate covid in a timely manner and this disease will be endemic.

To my mind the prospect of containing this and eradicating it disappeared very soon after its initial revelation.

TWA772LR wrote:

That said, when will it be treated as such and we can stop having lockdowns and new restrictions everytime a new variant appears?

I look forward to almost everyone in England having developed some immunity through vaccination or past infection. When? No real idea but I'm hoping that nearly everyone in England will be somewhat immune in 6-12 weeks. Ideally I would like most of the unvaccinated to become infected but not seriously ill (avoiding soaking up hospital resources) so that England can reach herd immunity and we can go back to living freely again.

Just a dreamy optimist perhaps.

vfw614 wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

Again, its ironic how you are screaming about the hospitals being full, yet hospitals are laying off people for not getting vaccinated. Kind of seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I wonder how much the "hospitals are full" really means understaffed. If they are understaffed, that's not really a Covid issue, they would still be understaffed if we weren't in a pandemic, Covid just exacerbates the situation.

The shortage mostly is ICU capacity. "Hospital staff" comes in all colors and shapes. At least in my country, a much higher percentage of hospital staff with a medical background are vaccinated than those in other roles (guess why...) and I would put my money on a bet that an even higher percentage of ICU staff is vaccinated. Most unvaccinated "hospital staff" can be found lower qualified jobs, they do not run ICU units - tthey are still necessary, but easier to replace. That's obviously the reason why the decision to lay off unvaccinated "hospital staff" has been made - nobody would have risked mass lay-offs if it meant losing large numbers of doctors or ICU-nurses.

But a lot are nurses and it still takes all of the administrators to run the hospital.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -travelers
Vaccinated travellers will no longer need coronavirus test before entering the United Kingdom.
------

StarAC17 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

The problem is with blaming said medical collapse on unvaccinated people. Even if unvaccinated people are the majority of people in ICUs, it should not cause a medical collapse if only 10% or 20% of the population has refused the vaccine, yet this is what is happening in places like Europe and South Korea. The problem should be blamed on other factors such as the state of the healthcare system.

No sensible country on earth will have enough medical resource always idling at hospital for 10-20% of their population suddenly becoming very ill.
To put thing into perspective, a train crash involving a few hundred passengers in a city with a few million population is already enough to strain the city's medical system and require medical resource help from outside the city.
And a few hundred people is just 0.01% number of people of a city with a few million residents.

That's the question we all need to ask ourselves. Do we put that capacity into the system knowing full well that much of the time its not going to be used and that is inefficient most of the time. You can't simply move health care workers from one discipline to another on a whim either.

If you have ever worked in a business that can't meet demand you know that can be bad news but its rare that excess demand lasts forever.

Also I think the jury is very much out on the fact that vaccines are actually getting us out of this because its not stopping spread and I am not taking a booster every 6 months. I got my 3rd dose on Sunday and was bedridden with a 101 degree fever for the entire day on Monday and I haven't felt that sick in nearly 20 years. I really think me contracting this virus (heck I might have already) would have been milder that the mRNA side effects.

Say what you want about Dr. Malone or Peter Mccullough I listened to both of their discussions with Joe Rogan and what they are saying which has been essentially ignored by the media is where are the early treatments? Those should have been the focus along with the vaccines. If you get this how can we keep you out of the hospital because by the time its bad enough for you to go to the hospital the therapeutics aren't going to work. Anti-virals and other therapeutics have to be used in early in the infection as that is when the viral replication in the highest. Once someone is sick enough to be hospitalized the virus is largely cleared and its the damage from the virus and/or your own immune system that is what causes death or the long haul symptoms and the deaths.

https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2021/08/r ... ients.html

Where I live its almost 90% double vaxxed with vaccine passports and we still shut down most non-essential businesses. What hope does the 60% vaccinated US have besides you fortunately have a much higher level of ICU beds per capita.

The high risk groups are essentially 100% vaccinated and we still can't have an open society. Thankfully most hospitalizations seem to be non ICU and I think this actually might be short term because it buys time for those who had the virus in healthcare and other fields to do their isolation and return to work. They say this will last for 3 weeks but we will see as we are vaccinating quickly but there is acceptance that the spread cannot be stopped.

Early treatment - I have mentioned Japan using early treatment a number of times, but that is with them having a stock of some hundred thousand patient worth pills while cases nationwide there is now a few thousand cases each days only. US have a million case a day now aka a similarly sized stock would exhaust in less than a day..

As for ICU beds level, this is not just resources problem but also economy problem. As like Japan have shown, you don't only need beds and facilities, but also need the accompanying medical staffs to cater patients on them, which is the hardest part. How will you keep millions of people employed to provide sufficient medical capacity for a pandemic that will only come like once in a century?

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... e-pancreas

Repoet: Novel Coronavirus could attack and damage pancrea, possibly induce diabetes and pancrea's inflammation and even cancer

US hospitalizations up to 113k
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

I cannot help but notice every day the prior day's data is revised up (expected, hospitals #1 issue is patients and staff, then to have the numbers right).

c933103 wrote:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-many-ways-covid-19-seems-to-be-harming-the-pancreas

Repoet: Novel Coronavirus could attack and damage pancrea, possibly induce diabetes and pancrea's inflammation and even cancer

Everything I'm reading on Omicron says it does less lung damage, but otherwise is just as nasty.

But the lung damage is much less per animal studies:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/heal ... cells.html

Apparently Omicron is of concern to negatively effect men's sexual performance.
https://doctorsstudio.com/could-omicron ... erections/

Errr... Is this time for the Naked gun's full body condom?

Lightsaber

It amazes me how well Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands did (prior tense) with their lockdowns. What happened with Denmark?

The countries without lockdowns are going up really high in cases, it looks like they gave enough time for boosters:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... UT~DNK~NLD

I wish Germany would publish hospitalizations like others. The lockdowns definitely are seen in the hospitalization data available:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/curr ... RA~NLD~DNK

Lightsaber

bpatus297 wrote:

art wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

Where does it stop? I mean if you step on a rusty nail and didn't have a tetanus shot should you be denied coverage?

How about if there are rusty nails all over the place, you are urged to get a tetanus jab, loads of unvaccinated people are getting tetanus and you say you don't want to be vaccinated but you do want health care if you tread on a rusty nail and catch tetanus? Is that in any way a responsible attitude to take?

bpatus297 wrote:

If you have heath coverage, you have heath coverage. It should be paid the same regardless of you vax status.

If you don't like wearing a car seat belt and you are involved in an accident in which you are hit by another car and badly injured, should you receive the same damages if you sue the other driver as someone who went to the inconvenience of buckling up? If you increase the risk of being badly injured by COVID through not buckling up with vaccination, are you entitled to the same health coverage as someone who reduced the risk of being badly injured by buckling up?

There is a huge difference between urged and forced. I would say losing your job if you don't get vaccinated is basically in the forced category for most. Not many can afford to be with out their job for long. You whataboutism with seatbelts is irrelevant. If the other person is at fault for the accident, yes I get the same damages and the same heath treatments. If they get seriously injured, that is a consequence of their decision, just like their decision to get vaccinated or not. That shouldn't change the treatment they get in either case. Again, beng anti-mandate does not make someone anti-vaccine. Weather or not I am vaccinated is none of your or anyone else's (except my Doctor's) freaking business.

I had to show proof of influenza and Hep B vaccinations in order to gain employment in the healthcare industry long before COVID existed. Vaccine mandates are nothing new for healthcare and for a number of other industries.

TriJets wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

art wrote:

How about if there are rusty nails all over the place, you are urged to get a tetanus jab, loads of unvaccinated people are getting tetanus and you say you don't want to be vaccinated but you do want health care if you tread on a rusty nail and catch tetanus? Is that in any way a responsible attitude to take?



If you don't like wearing a car seat belt and you are involved in an accident in which you are hit by another car and badly injured, should you receive the same damages if you sue the other driver as someone who went to the inconvenience of buckling up? If you increase the risk of being badly injured by COVID through not buckling up with vaccination, are you entitled to the same health coverage as someone who reduced the risk of being badly injured by buckling up?

There is a huge difference between urged and forced. I would say losing your job if you don't get vaccinated is basically in the forced category for most. Not many can afford to be with out their job for long. You whataboutism with seatbelts is irrelevant. If the other person is at fault for the accident, yes I get the same damages and the same heath treatments. If they get seriously injured, that is a consequence of their decision, just like their decision to get vaccinated or not. That shouldn't change the treatment they get in either case. Again, beng anti-mandate does not make someone anti-vaccine. Weather or not I am vaccinated is none of your or anyone else's (except my Doctor's) freaking business.

I had to show proof of influenza and Hep B vaccinations in order to gain employment in the healthcare industry long before COVID existed. Vaccine mandates are nothing new for healthcare and for a number of other industries.

I can sort of understand that, don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand the logic. But specific requirements determined on a one-by-one basis is vastly different from a sweeping over reaching mandate. Why does a trash collector, truck driver, plumber, etc. need to be vaccinated? Especially since the vaccine doesn't stop the spread.

bpatus297 wrote:

TriJets wrote:

bpatus297 wrote:

There is a huge difference between urged and forced. I would say losing your job if you don't get vaccinated is basically in the forced category for most. Not many can afford to be with out their job for long. You whataboutism with seatbelts is irrelevant. If the other person is at fault for the accident, yes I get the same damages and the same heath treatments. If they get seriously injured, that is a consequence of their decision, just like their decision to get vaccinated or not. That shouldn't change the treatment they get in either case. Again, beng anti-mandate does not make someone anti-vaccine. Weather or not I am vaccinated is none of your or anyone else's (except my Doctor's) freaking business.

I had to show proof of influenza and Hep B vaccinations in order to gain employment in the healthcare industry long before COVID existed. Vaccine mandates are nothing new for healthcare and for a number of other industries.

I can sort of understand that, don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand the logic. But specific requirements determined on a one-by-one basis is vastly different from a sweeping over reaching mandate. Why does a trash collector, truck driver, plumber, etc. need to be vaccinated? Especially since the vaccine doesn't stop the spread.

We need mandates at our site because too many won't get vaccinated and losing 17+ member teams is too costly when the whole production process must stop.

It is also because hospitals are again overloaded. This time more because you just cannot allow sick staff around patients. For many, that is a death sentence.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/poli ... 08076/amp/

We need to add vaccination status to triage. Triage is the system for fair prioritization of care (e.g., heart attack over a child's ear ache). It is also the fair denial of care. Is it fair cancer and heart patients are denied elective surgeries to get at cancer early or to get a stint? Those are both elective surgeries.

There is no pretending we can staff for this level of surge.

Lightsaber

late edit: Some professions need vaccination. e.g., when asking for a furnace inspection (annual), I insisted only vaccinated people be sent out as they are sick less time which I feel protects my family by reducing the chances of transmission. My opinion is about a factor of 3 difference in safety.

One of my niece's school had a 50% positivity rate (Portland Oregon). OMG are they scrambling. She feels very sick despite being fully vaccinated (became ill before she was allowed a booster). Not fun for that family.

Testing is now basically impossible to get locally unless you wait hours in line and pay double. I am so glad I ordered a bunch of kits on a whim as kits are sold out everywhere.