Coronavirus: Already In a Neighborhood Near You

[Jim Cowan]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Washtenaw county does publish vaxxed vs unvaxxed status on hospitalizations but not by type and it does not breakdown vaxxed/unvaxxed deaths. 

Exactly the same here.  Maybe Omicron results directly in deaths, maybe not, but it looks like it is going to completely overwhelm the hospitals, and deaths will result at least indirectly from that.

[Kacie]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:59 PM, oblong said:

Strictly speaking just for covid on an individual level, there's no reason to be that worried about you or your family.  But collectively it looks like it's going to crash things in our hospitals which are already at a breaking point.   The people that work there have been at this for 2 years.  They really cannot take much more.  I wish there was a way to make that point known to everyone.  They can't have cameras in there to show what it looks like to see a lot of people on ventilators and ECMO machines.  This is where we are now prior to Omicron.  Yes the data suggests it might not be as bad as previous waves but it's not a sure thing as we don't know enough about who it has hit.   The speed of Omicron is the dangerous part.  Given where our systems are now an exponential growth of cases, even at a lower severity, could put us back to field hospitals and parking garages, etc.  The next 3-4 weeks could be disruptive.  I'm anticipating some virtual things as more people test positive and have to quarantine, or just simply have a cold(covid) but are not tested but staying away.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is because I don't see how it's avoided at this point. If you've had your booster then you'll pretty much be fine.  But a lot of people didn't and even a small % impact of severity will put a big stress on our hospitals.

I'd avoid things that can lead to injury more than I would crowds.  You might not have any place to go.

Prior infection as a defense against Omicron is looking to be useless, as could be the J&J vaccine.

 

 

Yup, this.  I'm cashing in my chips and leaving the table.   Politics and health care do not mix.  The same people who will call it a hoax, not wear a mask, not get vaccinated and call you names then want their life saved.  It's one thing too when it's the stupid patients, but the number of physicians, nurses and other health care professionals who have been brainwashed by all the right wing propaganda is sickening.  Having lockdowns and mandates at this point is useless.  If you can't get compliance, which we can't, it isn't going to do much.  All we can do at this point is get fully vaccinated and hope that we and our loved ones aren't one of the rare breakthrough cases.  

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Jim Cowan said:

I don't think that anyone can answer your Omicron questions yet, it is too new.  Where you and I differ is that I didn't get vaxxed so that I can stop wearing a mask, the vaccine was never advertised that way.  I might stop wearing a mask when the virus reaches some long term stability, with infection rates of less than 100 per day in a population of 14 million.  Or I might not.

I'll wear a mask when I'm required. I never did or will argue about that. But whenever I'm allowed to, I unmask. I feel safe enough to do it.

You'll like this: I have already been to two plays and one bar here in Chicago that require you to show proof of vaccination to enter, AND to stay masked inside at all times. Personally, I think that's overkill. After all, if everyone in the place is vaxxed, who are we protecting with masks? But hey, them's the times we're in. So in that specific situation, I comply because I have to, and cheat for air when I can.

[oblong]

I think this is a great summary. 
 

 

[pfife]

I'm sure in the right wing fact free zone no one will hold these fools accountable 

 

[pfife]

 

[pfife]

Ross while reaping..... Ross while sowing

 

[buddha]

On 12/17/2021 at 8:19 PM, gehringer_2 said:

so the 6th circuit appeals court ruled in favor of the OSHA vaccine mandate, contradicting the 5th circuit and more or less forcing   SCOTUS to take up the issue. However, I want to know how such morons get on the court as the Trump appointee (OK nevermind, just answered the question...) who dissented from the majority with the following logic:
 

“The virus that causes COVID-19 is not, of course, uniquely a workplace condition. Its potency lies in the fact that it exists everywhere an infected person may be — home, school, or grocery store, to name a few,” wrote Larsen, a nominee of President Donald Trump. “So how can OSHA regulate an employee’s exposure to it?”

OK - lets parse this out. Are ladders ubiquitous in peoples' non-workplace exposure to them? Power tools? Dust in the air? Electricity? Is there a single thing you can think of that OSHA regulates by virtue of workers only experiencing it in the workplace? His argument falls apart within 30 seconds of consideration of what OSHA actually does. OSHA's legal mandate is not to insure people's safety  everywhere, it is to insure it  in the workplace.

It's one thing to argue disingenuously to reach a desired political end, but one could at least have the competence to do it with with some skill.   It is both laughable and tragic that such a moron could achieve a seat on an appeals bench.

1) the opinion you cite is by Larsen and she is a woman.

2) the majority upholding the ruling was written by a republican judge.  darn crazy conservatives.

3) they ruled against holding an en banc hearing so its going up to the supremes on an emergency basis.  they upheld previous state laws on covid so we'll see if they do so again.

4) that wasnt really the focus of larsen's opinion.  that said, i didnt think it was a really well reasoned opinion.

[gehringer_2]

29 minutes ago, buddha said:

4) that wasnt really the focus of larsen's opinion.  that said, i didnt think it was a really well reasoned opinion.

the point was that it is another case of a high ranking judge with no seeming attachment to rational thinking. Male or female I find it frightening. Specialization is an inevitable consequence in a complex society, but the increasing intellectual isolation of the judiciary has much broader implications than that of say engineers or doctors. I would imagine that if M Larson had ever had an experience in an OSHA regulated environment that  context would have made HER less prone to such a logical non-sequitor and one that betrays such a fundamental misunderstanding of what she is ruling on.

Edited December 19, 2021 by gehringer_2

[buddha]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

the point was that it is another case of a high ranking judge with no seeming attachment to rational thinking. Male or female I find it frightening. Specialization is an inevitable consequence in a complex society, but the increasing intellectual isolation of the judiciary has much broader implications than that of say engineers or doctors. I would imagine that if M Larson had ever had an experience in an OSHA regulated environment that  context would have made HER less prone to such a logical non-sequitor and one that betrays such a fundamental misunderstanding of what she is ruling on.

she was one of trump's more controversial appointments, mostly because she's seen as a future supreme court nominee.  i say that just to make your day a little more gloomy.  🙂

 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

i didnt think it was a really well reasoned opinion.

it seemed to be like a combination of arguing the perfect as the enemy of the good and "well its not really serious anyway"

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Study: Association of Rates of Obesity with Voting Patterns in the 2016 Presidential Election

One of the hot topic items related to Covid is how people with higher rates of preexisting comorbidities die from Covid. In particular, those who are obese are more likely to suffer serious health effects from catching Covid. I was browsing through a study on obesity rates and the 2016 electorate. Unsurprisingly, there were higher rates of obesity among those who voted for Trump. So not only do Republicans have the problem of not getting vaccinated, they have the problem of having a higher percentage of their voting base suffer serious health problems and possibly event death from getting Covid-19.

[buddha]

people who vote like me are better looking, smarter, and skinnier!  the polls prove it.

[pfife]

I couldn't help but notice from reading the link that they didn't use polling data in the study

[Kacie]

The dumbasses are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.  This was posted on Reddit.  Speaks for so many.  Whether or not anyone will listen is something else.

 

My career of treating patients has ended

Heavy Content Warning

After more than three decades as a physician, the Q maniacs have succeeded in driving me out of providing care to patients. I, like many of my colleagues, am moving into medically-adjacent work, where we can continue to apply our training and decades off knowledge without ever having to come in contact with sick people.

I've been able to deal with the years of patients who attended Google Medical School, and the hours wasted explaining things such as why cinnamon cannot be used to treat diabetes, or that garlic and beetroot can't treat HIV. And Lord save me from essential oils.

COVID and Q finally proved to be the one of amateur "experts" that was too much for me. The horrific deaths are beyond what you might imagine. They emerge almost unrecognizable to their families. Since June, I have never seen a horrible case of someone who was vaccinated. I have seen people struggling to breathe through lungs that have hardened to near uselessness, begging us in their ignorance to give them the vaccine now. We can tell, almost without fail, which ones will die when they come through the door of the ICU, but we do everything in our power to keep them alive - BIPAP, ECMO, ventilator - knowing we are stretching out the inevitable. We use paralytics with ECMO and ventilators, then ease them off to see if they can function. And as the drugs wane, the look of terror emerges, the tears. We try to calm them, to swallow our desire to scream at them: This is your fault! This didn't have to happen! Often, their spouse or their uncle or neighbor is nearby, dying along with them. And we work hard for those rare cases where we can pull them back from the edge.

I could deal with all of that. What I can no longer handle is the screaming, not from the patients, but from the families. They are not screaming in anguish, or in recognition of how their foolishness has led them to this point. No, they are screaming at me. Because, you see, I am part of the global conspiracy to commit genocide. If only I would give 10,000 mg of Vitamin C - even though the body can only absorb a maximum of 100 mg a day, with the rest creating the world's most expensive urine - they would be saved. Or hydroxychloroquine. Or ivermectin. Those have never been studied, they assure me, and when I tell them they have been, they snap that I don't know what I'm talking about. I want, oh god I want, to tell them that if we are the ones responsible for killing their loved ones, then why the hell have they brought them to the hospital? Why throw them into our clutches? I know the answer: They know it is all lies. But their egos are so huge they cant bring themselves to admit it.

My breaking point came three weeks ago. I dealt with a particularly horrible case. This was a husband and father, 38 years old. A wife, two daughters, one son. All of age to get vaccinated, none vaccinated. If you could have seen his face, and the ravages left by both COVID and the time he spent prone on his stomach. An enormous clot kept reforming in his leg, and we had been forced to amputate his foot in hopes of keeping him alive. When he was awake, the look of terror in his eyes, the crying, the pain. It was nothing new. But the begging, over and over, "Don't let me die." And "Give me the vaccine." All I could tell him is "We won't let you" - although I never said we might not have any choice in the matter. And I told him, repeatedly, it was too late for the vaccine.

He begged me to bring in his family. A nurse called them, because they had never come to the hospital. They refused to wear masks, and so would not be admitted. The nurse told the wife that her husband was likely dying, and was begging to see them. All she cared about was masks. She would only come if she and her daughters didn't have to wear any.

The nurse came to me and told me the wife wanted to speak to me. I got on the phone and she ordered me to cure him with ivermectin and vitamin C & D. I explained to her, those do not work, they have been extensively studied and the amount of ivermectin needed to treat even mild COVID would kill a human being. Once again, I was told I was ignorant. I asked her to come down to the hospital, to bring her children, to at least wait outside. Somehow, she agreed.

The nurses were all busy, and I took over the role they usually perform, comforting the dying. I sat beside the man's bed. Through tears, he rasped out sounds I could vaguely understand as a question. I guessed at what he was asking, and assured him that yes, his family was coming. He was so frightened, and I could tell he knew death was unavoidable. I'm not religious, but I knew he was, and I talked about the comfort of Jesus as I held his hand. About a minute later, he coded. We tried to save him, but there was nothing to be done. He died.

Twenty minutes later, I heard from a nurse that the family was here, that they had made a ruckus down in the lobby demanding to be let upstairs without masks, and had been thrown out of the hospital. I consulted with a few colleagues who agreed to cover me so that i could speak to them in the parking lot. I took the elevator down, and asked security to point out the family that refused to wear masks. Fortunately, they had not left.

I stepped outside, went to the wife, and identified myself. I told her that I was sorry, that we had done everything we could, but her husband had passed a few minutes earlier. I did not manage to get the words of the sentence fully out of my mouth when I felt the fist strike my face and heard the screamed words "You murderer!" I fell backwards, tripped, and plopped onto the pavement, the back off my head striking asphalt. I vaguely heard the words being screamed about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and god knows what else. I heard "you could have saved him if you listened!" I tasted blood from the top of my lip. It took a moment to know it was seeping from my nose, which she had broken. My mask was getting wet, and thus useless. Security grabbed her. They were getting ready to call the police, but I knew if they did, I would become the next national target for the Q maniacs. I told them to just put her in her car. I wasn't going to press charges. I went back to the hospital.

I started looking for a new job the next day. I will never treat a patient again.

Thank God.

[pfife]

I read that this morning too.   It's sad that it's come to that for that doctor.  Hopefully he can catch on somewhere- I work for a medically adjacent company like he mentioned and we hire clinicians all the time.

[CMRivdogs]

On 12/18/2021 at 6:39 PM, Kacie said:

Yup, this.  I'm cashing in my chips and leaving the table.   Politics and health care do not mix.  The same people who will call it a hoax, not wear a mask, not get vaccinated and call you names then want their life saved.  It's one thing too when it's the stupid patients, but the number of physicians, nurses and other health care professionals who have been brainwashed by all the right wing propaganda is sickening.  Having lockdowns and mandates at this point is useless.  If you can't get compliance, which we can't, it isn't going to do much.  All we can do at this point is get fully vaccinated and hope that we and our loved ones aren't one of the rare breakthrough cases.  

I read this and the piece you posted from the doctor. I have a niece who is a nurse. in January 2020 she took a supervisory role in a facility that specializes in high risk pregnancies. She spent the next 18 months basically fighting with fathers, family members, etc who demanded to be allowed into the facility with the mother. Often to the point of calling the police.

The stress finally got to her. She's now working for a pharmaceutical company specializing in patient education and training. Basically helping patients with their questions and concerns about their prescriptions an such. She gets to work from home most of the time and the pay and benefits are better. But it's not what she was originally trained to do.

I also have a couple of family members who are teachers, both of them at the elementary level (one teaches first grade, the other sixth) both in lower economic school districts. I hear about their frustrations (both parents and administrators) every time we visit. Part of my wife's current position involves working indirectly with education, including administrators and teachers as well as early childcare providers. It's all basically the same story.

It's no surprise these folks are leaving the professions they used to love. Also no surprise there are very few people wanting to enter these fields anymore. 

[Tigeraholic1]

A few sad stories from my wife over the weekend.

Mid sixties grandma (Non-Vax) gets moved into the unit Saturday morning. Was making grocerey list for Christmas dinner. Nose dives Saturday afternoon and dies Sunday morning still clutching the grocery list....

She was suppose to get a 18 yo special needs kid (Non-Vax) who turned 18 this week. She was being seen by Riley Childrens Hospital because she had a number of issues. Since she is 18 Riley will not see her anymore. She died being transported via Lifeline helicopter on the way to Fort Wayne.

Not sure how my wife is able to shrug off back to back 18 hour shift and go back to making Christmas cookies after seeing so much death but she has done it for 20 years....

[Tigerbomb13]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

A few sad stories from my wife over the weekend.

Mid sixties grandma (Non-Vax) gets moved into the unit Saturday morning. Was making grocerey list for Christmas dinner. Nose dives Saturday afternoon and dies Sunday morning still clutching the grocery list....

She was suppose to get a 18 yo special needs kid (Non-Vax) who turned 18 this week. She was being seen by Riley Childrens Hospital because she had a number of issues. Since she is 18 Riley will not see her anymore. She died being transported via Lifeline helicopter on the way to Fort Wayne.

Not sure how my wife is able to shrug off back to back 18 hour shift and go back to making Christmas cookies after seeing so much death but she has done it for 20 years....

Absolutely heartbreaking, and these things didn’t have to happen.  😔

[mtutiger]

 

[ewsieg]

On 12/19/2021 at 8:00 AM, pfife said:

 

Would a company that wants to make money, continued to produce and sell these, if let’s say government officials would have had the foresight that testing was still needed?  Biden has done many things right with Covid, testing is not one of them.  For the last few weeks I’ve been able to see rapid tests and get them easily now though.  Still PCR’s take forever to get responses.  

[Motown Bombers]

 

[Tigerbomb13]

2 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

The conservatives might lose the midterms just by losing so many of their constituents (and for JBK, this is not me cheering their deaths). 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

From the White House Press Briefing today, Jenn Psaki not playing around. This is what MAGA wants right? Someone who will tell it like it is?

 

 

[pfife]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Would a company that wants to make money, continued to produce and sell these, if let’s say government officials would have had the foresight that testing was still needed?  Biden has done many things right with Covid, testing is not one of them.  For the last few weeks I’ve been able to see rapid tests and get them easily now though.  Still PCR’s take forever to get responses.  

I'll take the W.  You agree with the tweet.   Capitalism was ill-equipped without government help.  You're arguing the same thing.