Medical Discussion of Coronavirus

[AR]

it would be nice to see some non political pro vaccine messaging

No longer possible, I'm afraid. At this point, any "neutral' pro-vaccine messaging will be deemed to be political and come from the left.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

I think 777,000 deaths, millions of hospitalizations and millions of people sick and unable to work (many for months at a time) is pretty ************************ damaging.

We are seeing that COVID has peaks and troughs corresponding to when people are most likely to gather and stay indoors. In the South, that started in July and petered out by October. The upper Midwest had dramatically lower rates in the summer and started spiking around Halloween. I expect much of the country to have a very bad winter (again). A politician patting themselves on the back because cases are going downhill due to seasonal change is like congratulating themselves for sunlight.

Hmmmm…. Funny that you never mentioned this when people were railing against Florida and Texas in August though. Also if you look at the peaks, it’s not true. It could become true in the future. We shall see. For now, it’s just a political rebuttal that now conveniently comes up.

In the end, the end of days, never came as predicted over and over. The “unable to work” cost falls apart pretty quick in the setting of lockdowns. There are a lot of deaths from Covid, but the unfortunate truth is that the country wasn’t going to get an easy way out of this. It’s just a question of how you would like to bear the unavoidable costs, which are heavy and many, and not limited to direct medical considerations.

Everyone has had an easy opportunity to get vaccinated. Everyone can wear a mask and stay home if they choose. But people are getting tired of being forcibly saved and protected, and I don’t blame them.

I still believe that Covid policy has done more damage to the overall state of the country than actual Covid, and that’s saying something…. because Covid was no cakewalk.

[Zaphod]

I predict less people will now be getting the flu shot as well.

Got boosted right before thanksgiving and feel the same, it wrecks me. Really rough.

This news is simultaneously entirely predictable and crushing. We dont know any details, hopefully turns out nothing but its concerning and annoying.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

Who's still taking about eradication, or been talking about it in the last eighteen months?

Florida has had an overall death rate 250% of my state. Why are you happy about that?

Literally everyone is still talking about it. Turn on the TV/news and you’ll hear about how we still must win the war on Covid.

I’m not happy about deaths, but pretending that there aren’t going to be any if we burn everything to the ground was a child’s fantasy. It is very palatable messaging for Americans… that you can get out of a serious situation with no pain and no cost… but it was never realistic.

Like many situations in life, you sometimes have to choose between two bad choices, and must therefore hold your nose and make the better of the two.

[FIREshrink]

Literally everyone is still talking about it. Turn on the TV/news and you’ll hear about how we still must win the war on Covid.

I’m not happy about deaths, but pretending that there aren’t going to be any if we burn everything to the ground was a child’s fantasy. It is very palatable messaging for Americans… that you can get out of a serious situation with no pain and no cost… but it was never realistic.

Like many situations in life, you sometimes have to choose between two bad choices, and must therefore hold your nose and make the better of the two.

Will you please post a link or source to any reputable authority talking about eradication in the last twelve months? Eighteen months?

[Zaphod]

Yeah. It’s interesting how all this plays out over time. In Florida, we went from the highest covid rates around in the summer, to the lowest rates in the country relatively quickly. I haven’t actually seen a single Covid case in many weeks now, and before that it was a rare case here and there spread out over days and weeks. Down from 20+ cases per provider per shift during the peaks.

I’m not really a political person, but I’m actually quite happy with how the “no closures /open door”approach to Covid works here. Get crushed for 6 weeks… then it’s over.

The approach should probably shift strongly to how we can live with Covid from here on out, and away from eradication. It will be 2 years of this soon, with no end in sight. I’m happy I’m here rather than other states that handle things differently.

Its kind of an insane approach in terms of human costs otoh, and was entirely avoidable.

[AR]

Literally everyone is still talking about it. Turn on the TV/news and you’ll hear about how we still must win the war on Covid.

I don't think "win the war on COVID" = eradication. Although I guess I can understand how you might interpret it that way. I don't think that most people who say that mean that the only way to win is eradication.

[CordMcNally]

Will you please post a link or source to any reputable authority talking about eradication in the last twelve months? Eighteen months?

Did Jaqen Haghar MD say eradicate?

Edit: @AR beat me to it. FIREshrink has been misreading several posts today.

[Zaphod]

Hmmmm…. Funny that you never mentioned this when people were railing against Florida and Texas in August though. Also if you look at the peaks, it’s not true. It could become true in the future. We shall see. For now, it’s just a political rebuttal that now conveniently comes up.

In the end, the end of days, never came as predicted over and over. The “unable to work” cost falls apart pretty quick in the setting of lockdowns. There are a lot of deaths from Covid, but the unfortunate truth is that the country wasn’t going to get an easy way out of this. It’s just a question of how you would like to bear the unavoidable costs, which are heavy and many, and not limited to direct medical considerations.

Everyone has had an easy opportunity to get vaccinated. Everyone can wear a mask and stay home if they choose. But people are getting tired of being forcibly saved and protected, and I don’t blame them.

I still believe that Covid policy has done more damage to the overall state of the country than actual Covid, and that’s saying something…. because Covid was no cakewalk.

This is kind of crazy, it keeps happening exactly as predicted?

Even this new variant came from the exact population you would predict, low vax, highly immunocompromised, and rampant covid running free.

[Zaphod]

I don't think "win the war on COVID" = eradication. Although I guess I can understand how you might interpret it that way. I don't think that most people who say that mean that the only way to win is eradication.

Dont watch tv/news type stuffs, but that sounds crazy. Its obviously impossible.

"winning the war" doesnt make sense, but living with it and controlling outbreaks, limiting morbidity/mortality, and living normally is the goal

[AR]

Did Jaqen Haghar MD say eradicate?

Edit: @AR beat me to it. FIREshrink has been misreading several posts today.

Haghar did say something like the approach to the problem needs to move away from eradication. Then Fireshrink said that no one is actually been talking about eradication, implying that Haghar's premise was false. So, I think that Fireshrink read these posts correcly.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

I knew I was going to take some heat for this round, and that’s OK. But someone has to offer the counter-point these days, even if it is against the narrative.

Our overall muddled Covid response, massive internal political division, and constant negative self-messaging that the the US is the worst country to ever exist, is going to have some unintended consequences going forward. We appear quite divided, soft, and internally weak at this point.

We are re-entering a historical period where there are going to be multiple world superpowers again, after a relatively lengthy period of world peace (yes, relatively speaking for humans).

It will be interesting to see what happens after the spring thaw or before, if all those amassed Russian troops on Ukraine’s move to blitzkrieg their neighbor. There’s your next black swan and long awaited major market crash. I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen, and it’s just a bluff.

Covid has revealed a weaknesses in our overall healthcare system and it’s inability to manage crisis surges. It turns out, if you are normally at capacity and can’t handle a typical busy Monday, you really can’t handle a sudden tidal wave of unexpected critical patients, so we have to shut down the entire country and blow up the economy, and in turn our overall security.

[AR]

Dont watch tv/news type stuffs, but that sounds crazy. Its obviously impossible.

"winning the war" doesnt make sense, but living with it and controlling outbreaks, limiting morbidity/mortality, and living normally is the goal

Yeah, I agree that is a weird term to use. But in the rare instances I have heard it, I think what people mean is bolded and not complete eradication.

[CordMcNally]

Haghar did say something like the approach to the problem needs to move away from eradication. Then Fireshrink said that no one is actually been talking about eradication, implying that Haghar's premise was false. So, I think that Fireshrink read these posts correcly.

You're right. My apologies to FIREshrink , I just looked at the post FIREshrink quoted.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

Will you please post a link or source to any reputable authority talking about eradication in the last twelve months? Eighteen months?

Yeah, right away doctor. I’ll get right on it…. Let me just pour through the back issues of NEJM/JAMA and get you some peer reviewed sources.

To be fair, I did say “eradicate” after listening to some of the popular news earlier today.

I guess I “kicked over a hornet’s nest” on here today, but to be fair, I was in a “hornet’s nest kicking’ mood” this morning after the night shift, so it wasn’t an accident.