Medical Discussion of Coronavirus

[HikingDO]

I am simply unable to keep up with the ever changing CDC requirements.

There are many, many people I know who have had the boosters and still got a mild case of possibly Omicron. So what. They stayed at home, had symptoms for < 24 hours and became normal. But it put those media outlets into a tizzy.

People who are fully vaccinated are still going to social gatherings. Even places that require masks, relax that for food and drinks, which defeats the very purpose of masks. What is the point.

Instead of behaving reactively to this virus that is mutating all the time, can we not step back and take a proactive approach. My radical idea - stop testing anyone and everyone. Stop symptomatic close contact testing. Stop the mild cases of sore throat and back pain being tested and instead just ask them to stay home for a day or two. Treat this as mild flu. This will limit those explosion of cases to ER and the testing centers. And so what if you are COVID+ve. You are going to do the same thing anyway.

Get people to get their primary vaccines, boosters and repeat boosters in 6 months. Accept the fact that some of those people will still get mild COVID, with new mutants. Also accept that the defiant " I don't believe in vaccine" crowd will get severe case of COVID and can die. It is their choice even after all the messaging.about vaccination. I had sympathy for the people with COVID until March-May 2021 when we did not have vaccination for all. In 2022, let us just say my sympathy cup is nearly empty for such people.

I agree with all of this. However, what will the media report on if they can’t give us our daily ghastly covid numbers?🙄

[Tim]

For the teachers that want to go back to online classes.: let’s do it professionally.
Old job: show up in the classroom and teach 20-30 students.
New online job: Show up in the studio and be part of a production team. Every lesson is scripted and professionally produced to maximize the valuable time, educational goals and maintain student interest. No more of the teacher staying at home, they won’t like the commute.
Goal accomplished, no student interaction.
Just one third grade teacher needed. The others don’t get paid.
I would bet teachers would vote to get paid and go to work.

[Kamban]

I agree with all of this. However, what will the media report on if they can’t give us our daily ghastly covid numbers?🙄

Another radical idea

Go ahead and sensationalize the number of cases to increase the eyeball views to their website.

But government should mandate that every hospital that accepts Medicare/medicaid and is 501c should also publicly post their admission rate, ICU admission rate and death rate, separated as being vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

Maybe a bot can gather and aggregate that into a common COVID site. And let people see those numbers, especially death among the vaccinated vs unvaccinated and make their own minds. No judgements, just posting raw data for all to see

[Tim]

Another radical idea

Go ahead and sensationalize the number of cases to increase the eyeball views to their website.

But government should mandate that every hospital that accepts Medicare/medicaid and is 501c should also publicly post their admission rate, ICU admission rate and death rate, separated as being vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

Maybe a bot can gather and aggregate that into a common COVID site. And let people see those numbers, especially death among the vaccinated vs unvaccinated and make their own minds. No judgements, just posting raw data for all to see

The messaging is going to change:
*Covid: hospitalizations and deaths (declining) however the statistics can be cherry picked is success. They won’t touch vaccinated or unvaccinated.
*Vaccinated: forget the one shot, 2 shoot, booster or 2nd booster. The signal came out from the CDC Director.
“Up to Date”- This allows complete flexibility for changing the goals and guidelines. Politics leading science. The CDC will fund whatever r&d and studies needed to declare success for vaccines. Hey, political success requires achieving numbers. Whatever it takes. Set the goals that the vaccination messaging was successful. Up to date. Undefined.

[snowcanyon]

We still have unvaccinated, unmasked, untested visitors roaming the hospital in droves.

[StarTrekDoc]

Well, we've bumped to Contingency status guidelines for HCPs due to staffing.

[SLC OB]

We are in a surge, big time. We have tested more in this last week than 5x our typical average!
We have 5% of our total staff out positive with COVID today.
Our vaccination rate is super good, 96% with 4% exemptions and most also boosted.
COVID sucks and is literally sucking the life out of us. Ugh!
Our County Public Health thinks this is not the peak, expects that in 1-2 weeks but who knows.
Stay safe, stay masked, hang in there.

[Tim]

Sometimes I wonder if we are really struggling with “not knowing what we don’t know” regarding this new virus.
What should work doesn’t seem to produce the expected results. Tons of frustration. Don’t fight Mother Nature?

Headlines get attention.
Travel restrictions. Makes sense.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59903785
Australia has been very very aggressive in just about every way. Vaccinations, lockdowns, regulations galore. Did they work? Australia is getting crushed.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/31/10694...h-in-australia
Lowering the curve worked. Just not for very long. More battles to fight. Socially, we might be fighting the last battle simply because we didn’t know more.
This might be a real world example of evolution.
Messaged as a mutation, real time evolution of Mother Nature’s process accelerated.

[FIREshrink]

Another radical idea

Go ahead and sensationalize the number of cases to increase the eyeball views to their website.

But government should mandate that every hospital that accepts Medicare/medicaid and is 501c should also publicly post their admission rate, ICU admission rate and death rate, separated as being vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

Maybe a bot can gather and aggregate that into a common COVID site. And let people see those numbers, especially death among the vaccinated vs unvaccinated and make their own minds. No judgements, just posting raw data for all to see

NY Times has been posting hospitalization and death rates vaccinated vs unvaccinated for many months. I don't think it has made any difference because the people who need to get vaccinated aren't reading the NY Times.

[Tim]

NY Times has been posting hospitalization and death rates vaccinated vs unvaccinated for many months. I don't think it has made any difference because the people who need to get vaccinated aren't reading the NY Times.

Link?

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

Our biggest problem has been staffing. Tons of floor nurses and specialty nurses are out with COVID colds, crippling certain areas of the hospital. I still haven’t admitted anyone with respiratory failure from COVID this surge. Admitted a couple of people for other things that happened to test positive for COVID as a side note only. Most, by far, are still going home.

The past day, there has been the slightest let-up in volume, and swabs are coming back negative a bit more frequently. I wonder if we have peaked?

[FIREshrink]

Link?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage
scroll down
sorry, it is cases and deaths, not hospitalizations and deaths, vaccinated vs unvaccinated.

[Tim]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage
scroll down
sorry, it is cases and deaths, not hospitalizations and deaths, vaccinated vs unvaccinated.

I found that. Thank you.
Again, it’s interesting to parse the data. Particularly using the different criteria. Deaths by age groups are highly in the older categories, as expected. But, that segment is highly vaccinated.
Forgive my ignorance, but the only conclusion I can draw is older people are more likely to die from any illness. I am not qualified for judging the statistical significance. Yes, older people die more frequently than other age groups. Not sure if a third or forth booster would change that.
I would expect both higher deaths for both vaccinated and unvaccinated. Musings only, not knowledge. Immune systems get weaker as one ages.

[billy]

I'm very pro vaccine, but I question the utility of a 4th vaccine booster of the same shot... If it's to protect from variants, shouldn't we be "boosting" with more variant specific vaccines a la the flu shot? (this was in reference to moderna's ceo in the news).

[Kamban]

I'm very pro vaccine, but I question the utility of a 4th vaccine booster of the same shot... If it's to protect from variants, shouldn't we be "boosting" with more variant specific vaccines a la the flu shot? (this was in reference to moderna's ceo in the news).

I would also like a variant specific shot but by the time a variant specific vaccine is made, tested, approved and released and can be given, the time for it has passed.

So I do the next best thing - get a full dose vaccine as a booster than a reduced dose booster. I have also lost faith in Pfizer, due to its tendency to hype things and claim more efficacy that it really has. I might get a full dose Moderna as my 4th vaccine around 6 months from my 3rd vaccine and hope for the best.