The Vaccine Thread

[beeatnik]

There are an infinite number of ways to misrepresent and misinterpret data. Please get vaccinated and encourage others to do likewise.

My brother in law owns a hospital staffing agency here in LA. You want his professional interpretation? Also, please stop with the condescension.

The binary thinking by highly intelligent people throughout the pandemic is astonishing.

[bigbill]

Here is the link discussing breakthrough cases. The numbers are exponentially low compared to the total vaccinated.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-1...ugh-cases.html

We know that vaccinated people who still contract Covid are going to fair better and likely avoid hospitalization, but even the ones who end up hospitalized represent about .0001% of those vaccinated. It seems silly and a waste of time to argue about vaccinations or to cherry pick data.

[zetroc]

My brother in law owns a hospital staffing agency here in LA. You want his professional interpretation? Also, please stop with the condescension.

The binary thinking by highly intelligent people throughout the pandemic is astonishing.

I must wholeheartedly apologize for any inference of condescension. I am not trying to condescend to anyone - rather, I'm trying to project empathy, which I admit is difficult on the internet. I want this to be a wholly empathic interaction. Please get vaccinated and encourage others to do likewise.

[spopepro]

My brother in law owns a hospital staffing agency here in LA. You want his professional interpretation? Also, please stop with the condescension.

The binary thinking by highly intelligent people throughout the pandemic is astonishing.

Granted... I haven't had the stomach to make it through all the pages of this, but beeatnik--do you have a point other than trying to establish yourself as the smartest guy in the room? You're every 3rd message in this thread and it's just... arguments for the sake of arguments. I can't even tell what you're trying to do here.


For on topic: Schools in CA are really struggling with what to do. Typically we wait for the CDC to update guidance, then the CDPH updates their stuff, then the county health supervisor in collaboration with the county superintendent's office (that's me fwiw) updates the framework for schools to follow. But this is all changing much faster than that guidance chain can process. It feels like the virus is outrunning our data, which makes it really hard to make decisions based on solid facts. We are opening campuses none the less... hopefully our near zero cases traced back to school transmission hold.

[Clean39T]

That's your interpretation. No one is hiding any data. There are more hospitalizations here per capita than where you are. Is it a crisis or not?

I must be extra dense this Monday - I was trying to figure out what you were saying - and I'm still coming up empty..

If LA County has more hospitalizations per capita and is still able to meet the ER needs of non-Covid patients, then their system is more robust than the systems in OR/WA/TX/FL/MS/AL/AZ, etc. where Covid patient care is preventing non-Covid patients from getting the care they need. And from everything I've seen/read, it is the unvaccinated that make up the vast majority (like 10:1) of the Covid ER cases clogging the system. When wait times for emergency care are through the roof (regardless the cause) and elective but life-saving/extending surgeries are being cancelled because there isn't enough staff or room to perform them, yeah, that meets my definition of a crisis.

[beeatnik]

JimCav, my fully vaccinated wife is showing early signs of Long Covid. Any resources you can share?

If LA County has more hospitalizations per capita and is still able to meet the ER needs of non-Covid patients, then their system is more robust than the systems in OR/WA/TX/FL/MS/AL/AZ, etc. where Covid patient care is preventing non-Covid patients from getting the care they need. And from everything I've seen/read, it is the unvaccinated that make up the vast majority (like 10:1) of the Covid ER cases clogging the system. When wait times for emergency care are through the roof (regardless the cause) and elective but life-saving/extending surgeries are being cancelled because there isn't enough staff or room to perform them, yeah, that meets my definition of a crisis.

Half of LA County has a "robust" hospital system and it's not where thousands of people were dying Dec 2020 - March 2021.

[EDS]

This pandemic sucks but if getting vaccinated, social distancing and masking for a few more months can help with reducing transmission, illness and disease - particularly as it relates to people who can't take those measures (do to illness, age, etc.) - why wouldn't you do it?

[j44ke]

JimCav, my fully vaccinated wife is showing early signs of Long Covid. Any resources you can share?



Half of LA County has a "robust" hospital system and it's not where thousands of people were dying Dec 2020 - March 2021.

UNC has a clinic specifically focused on long covid. There must be more? But you could start there and see what information they can provide.

https://www.med.unc.edu/phyrehab/pat...covery-clinic/

[thollandpe]

This pandemic sucks but if getting vaccinated, social distancing and masking for a few more months can help with reducing transmission, illness and disease - particularly as it relates to people who can't take those measures (do to illness, age, etc.) - why wouldn't you do it?

I added that emphasis because the rise of the delta variant and the ongoing rage of the pandemic isn't just because of unvaccinated folks. It's also due to vaccinated folks acting like they had a free pass and as if things were back to normal. Looking at you, Cape Cod.

WARNING, SPORTS METAPHOR: Don't throw your hands in the air until after you cross the line. And you're sure it's actually the finish.





Don't pull a Zabel. SARS-CoV-2 is even more tenacious than Freire.

Video: Premature exultation as Spanish rider Eloy Teruel celebrates California win a lap early

[j44ke]

I must be extra dense this Monday - I was trying to figure out what you were saying - and I'm still coming up empty..

If LA County has more hospitalizations per capita and is still able to meet the ER needs of non-Covid patients, then their system is more robust than the systems in OR/WA/TX/FL/MS/AL/AZ, etc. where Covid patient care is preventing non-Covid patients from getting the care they need. And from everything I've seen/read, it is the unvaccinated that make up the vast majority (like 10:1) of the Covid ER cases clogging the system. When wait times for emergency care are through the roof (regardless the cause) and elective but life-saving/extending surgeries are being cancelled because there isn't enough staff or room to perform them, yeah, that meets my definition of a crisis.

Flip it around. What is the demographic composition of vectors for infection - not to make anyone into a pariah, but if non-vaccinated are getting infected, what are the origins of those infections?

Turning on the un-vaccinated as being rewarded with with a helping of their just desserts leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I understand the anger. It just doesn't seem charitable.

Hard for me to follow encouraging people to get vaccinated for the good of the community, then wondering out loud why they won't get vaccinated for the good of the community and then when they get infected, pointing them towards the gates leading out of the city.

Perhaps they don't feel part of the community in the first place. How does that get repaired in any meaningful way or does one group just steamroll the other group as a matter of epidemiological expediency?

Ironically (? right word ?) being un-vaccinated creates a community of its own. A void filled perhaps. In a time of upheaval and ambiguous outcomes no less.

As much as this world drives me absolutely bat-shit crazy, I think when someone turns to you and says I am sick, you help.

[Clean39T]

I understand the anger. It just doesn't seem charitable.

Let's say you are in London during WWII and your neighbor refuses to turn off their lights during an air-raid because "it's their right to do what they want"..... do you buy them pizza? Or do you cut off their electricity if they won't do what's needed for the good of society? And when? Do you give them a free pass for a night? A week? Six-months? What about after your extended family gets bombed because the neighbor's friends made the same choice?

The FDA approval today is a save-face olive-branch to anyone still ideologically opposed to the vaccine. If they don't take it...... well, I'm sorry - but my empathy and compassion is going to go out to those they are screwing over, including their kids, not to them.

And just so I'm clear, I never stopped masking up or social distancing - and have been fully vaxxed since it was available. It's been often unpleasant, at times isolating, and overall incredibly frustrating - but it's my civic and moral duty, so that's what I've been doing. I've encouraged others who are vaxxed to do the same - alas, mostly to no avail.. even after Delta arrived. Regardless, I do not think the data shows that vaccinated individuals are the primary vector for the explosion in severe cases and hospitalizations - here in Oregon, the majority of cases are coming out of the areas with the lowest rates of vaccination. And even if vaccinated individuals are a vector for the unvaccinated contracting it, the unvaccinated are still making things worse by having more severe symptoms and likely supporting further mutation.

Also, I think it is a travesty that companies aren't required to provide 1-3 days of paid sick-time for employees to "recover" from their vaccine shots and required to give paid time off for employees to get them in the first place. I'd also be all for providing ongoing increased unemployment and/or supplemental income to the vaccinated (and those with medical exemptions) who need it, and expanding programs to help keep kids from going hungry or being harmed in this whole fiasco.

[beeatnik]

Let's say you are in London during WWII and your neighbor refuses to turn off their lights during an air-raid because "it's their right to do what they want"..... do you buy them pizza? Or do you cut off their electricity if they won't do what's needed for the good of society? And when? Do you give them a free pass for a night? A week? Six-months? What about after your extended family gets bombed because the neighbor's friends made the same choice?

The FDA approval today is a save-face olive-branch to anyone still ideologically opposed to the vaccine. If they don't take it...... well, I'm sorry - but my empathy and compassion is going to go out to those they are screwing over, including their kids, not to them.

What about those London air raid neighbors who are addicted to opioids and meth. The ones breaking into my car while the city is being bombed. Or my morbidly obese 450 pound riding buddy whose heart issues have put him in the ICU 3x in the last year at East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital where there are 2 or 3 ICU beds. I'm sure that ambulance he regularly utilizes is visible from above. Fuck them as well, right?

[j44ke]

Let's say you are in London during WWII ...

Well, historically people were arrested for leaving their lights on in London during The Blitz.

But if you found this hypothetical neighbor lying on the ground wounded after a bombing, you would help them. That's what I mean by charitable. Not helping brings judgment upon you.

My grandfather was a minister and a missionary. He and his family (my grandmother, aunt and mother) spent most of WWII interned in a civilian POW camp in the Philippines, first Camp Holmes and then later Camp Santo Tomas. I have his WWII memoirs and a box of his sermons written post-war. Lots of Romans:14 in those sermons. My paternal grandfather was a surgeon who served on a hospital ship in the Pacific off Iwo Jima and other islands during WWII. Back at home, he used to say I can only fix people I can't save them. I doubt either would say being charitable is easy.

But that's where I come from. And I know I am wired differently than a lot of people.

[Clean39T]

What about those London air raid neighbors who are addicted to opioids and meth. The ones breaking into my car while the city is being bombed. Or my morbidly obese 450 pound riding buddy whose heart issues have put him in the ICU 3x in the last year at East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital where there are 2 or 3 ICU beds. I'm sure that ambulance he regularly utilizes is visible from above. Fuck them as well, right?

Still not sure what your point is - don't you want your riding buddy to have access to the ICU when needed? What in everything I said would make you think I wouldn't?

There's no immediate salve for the chronic health and addiction (and addiction-related crime) issues in our country - but there is a near immediate action that can be taken to lessen the personal and societal impact of Covid - and I think we should do everything we can to cajole, coerce, entice, or force that to happen for everyone well enough to take it. And then we can get back to working on all the other problems where a the path to progress is much, much less straightforward.

[beeatnik]

The Pandemic is going to end. Obesity, poverty and addiction will only get worse.

So weird that progressives are so myopic to the nature of this plague. It impacts the poor in different ways. Full stop. Show me high SES unvaccinated young or old clogging up the hospital system and we'll have a different conversation. Or maybe I'm being dense.

The disproportionally unaffected:

pelosi2.jpg

Still not sure what your point is - don't you want your riding buddy to have access to the ICU when needed? What in everything I said would make you think I wouldn't?

There's no immediate salve for the chronic health and addiction (and addiction-related crime) issues in our country - but there is a near immediate action that can be taken to lessen the personal and societal impact of Covid - and I think we should do everything we can to cajole, coerce, entice, or force that to happen for everyone well enough to take it. And then we can get back to working on all the other problems where a the path to progress is much, much less straightforward.

[zetroc]

The Pandemic is going to end. Obesity, poverty and addiction will only get worse.

So weird that progressives are so myopic to the nature of this plague. It impacts the poor in different ways. Full stop. Show me high SES unvaccinated young or old clogging up the hospital system and we'll have a different conversation. Or maybe I'm being dense.

I almost replied with "Wow, talk about condescension" but thought better of it. Please get vaccinated and encourage others to do likewise.

[beeatnik]

Please get vaccinated and encourage others to do likewise.

Bro, whom are you imploring? The one unvaccinated cat following this thread? You want me to vaccinate my 5 year old, tomorrow?

[Clean39T]

Well, historically people were arrested for leaving their lights on in London during The Blitz.

But if you found this hypothetical neighbor lying on the ground wounded after a bombing, you would help them. That's what I mean by charitable. Not helping brings judgment upon you.

My grandfather was a minister and a missionary. He and his family (my grandmother, aunt and mother) spent most of WWII interned in a civilian POW camp in the Philippines, first Camp Holmes and then later Camp Santo Tomas. I have his WWII memoirs and a box of his sermons written post-war. Lots of Romans:14 in those sermons. My paternal grandfather was a surgeon who served on a hospital ship in the Pacific off Iwo Jima and other islands during WWII. Back at home, he used to say I can only fix people I can't save them. I doubt either would say being charitable is easy.

But that's where I come from. And I know I am wired differently than a lot of people.

I have always been wired that way too. This situation is testing my resolve and pushing into an edge case that doesn't have a clean answer. It's a trolley problem of the highest order. Given unlimited resources, I'd say help everyone - of course - regardless their choices prior to needing help. But that isn't the case here. No amount of money is going to magically produce enough resources to prevent anyone from being harmed here - long term, maybe, but not this wave and probably not the next. So how do you allocate those resources here and now in a just way? Track A or Track B? Who lives?

[zetroc]

Bro, whom are you imploring? The one unvaccinated cat following this thread? You want me to vaccinate my 5 year old, tomorrow?

I'm imploring everyone who is reading this thread to get vaccinated and encourage others to do likewise.

[j44ke]

I have always been wired that way too. This situation is testing my resolve and pushing into an edge case that doesn't have a clean answer. It's a trolley problem of the highest order. Given unlimited resources, I'd say help everyone - of course - regardless their choices prior to needing help. But that isn't the case here. No amount of money is going to magically produce enough resources to prevent anyone from being harmed here - long term, maybe, but not this wave and probably not the next. So how do you allocate those resources here and now in a just way? Track A or Track B? Who lives?

I think these choices - A or B - are made daily with or without covid. Covid just underlines the inhumanity of those decisions while unfortunately reducing the compassion in A for B and vice versa.

All this preaching just to say I get pissed at people too, but I try really hard not to be vindictive. And I am definitely a work in progress. But I agree with beeatnik here - I think inequity is the more persistent virus.