Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

I dodged a bullet this weekend. I had a tattoo appt scheduled for Saturday (I know, I know) and my guy messaged me in the morning stating he wasn't feeling good. He tested positive yesterday & started monoclonal treatment today.

 

How selfish of you.

 

I agree about the desire for a viewable finish line. But 715's original argument was to criticize strategies that changed as time went on, basically relitigating what was wrong of complaints about social distancing efforts to stop the spread/flatten the curve.

I mean, what else were officials to do and should we not expect change in a pandemic when the situation changes?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/09/20/madi-wilson-olympics-covid/

Fully vaccinated Olympic swimmer hospitalized with covid. Yes, this is the exception and likely rare, but enough with the "if you are healthy you have nothing to worry about".

 

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funny how there seem to be more and more fully vaxed people contracting covid, alot more than it nothing to worry about.

 

Nobody ever said it was 100% effective. There are breakthrough serious cases. Nonetheless they are a fraction of unvaccinated serious cases.

 

You could die from the flu dude.

You can die from a shark attack when you go the beach.

Not even saying COVID is as non-threatening as these things. It doesn't have to be. The point is the same.

Odds matters. Frequency matters. In fact, it doesn't just matter... it means everything as far as policy goes.

 

so realistically, how many people do you think see the vaccine not effective in more and more cases daily and say screw it, why bother if i can still get covid?

 

When we succeed in accomplishing the goals we set out to achieve... Particularly regarding vaccines. You say mission accomplished, you don't move the goal posts onto something else to justify draconian policy.

The vaccine was the end of the pandemic, it's still the end of the pandemic. It's still seen as the end of the pandemic, even by Democrats. But now the issue isn't opportunity to vaccinate, it's actually that not enough people are choosing to vaccinate (though only I_boy seems to be willing to give me a number of what percentage vaccinated would mean the end), despite the highest risk factors (the elderly) having high rates of vaccination. Well... that's their choice. At the end of the day, the people who aren't protected at this point are the unvaccinated, who at this point chose their fate. Don't punish everyone else.

 

If they do they are either ignorant or willfully stupid.

 

The vaccine is the end of the pandemic if and only if we reach herd immunity. Until then, there are risks associated with COVID-19. These risks include full ICUs, breakthrough cases, and potential new variants. Nobody knows for sure, but best guess is with Delta, we need 90% vaccinated or with natural immunity to reach herd immunity status. It could be higher. Could be lower. We just don't know.

We'll likely reach 90% one way or another. The best, most effective way is through vaccinations. But those unvaxxed who get sick will add to the immune population. But with their method, they will also add to the hospital and morgue totals at high rates too. And this comes with costs, including high medical costs and the danger non COVID cases may not get required care due to full and overworked hospitals. Like someone said before, if the unvaxxed got sick and just went to die alone in the forest, or the middle of the ocean, things would be different. But they don't. They clog up the hospitals and cost us all money.

 

Yes, the open border, "universal healthcare" folks are suddenly penny pinchers as far as healthcare is concerned.

 

Immigration is usually a net positive on the economy. And places with universal healthcare often have lower costs than the US. That's because places with universal healthcare, people don't worry about having to pay for the ounce of prevention. Here in the US, we do, and too make people don't pay for the prevention, and end up paying for the pounds of cure.

Regardless, the system we have isn't going to change tomorrow. And I have to pay for health insurance for me and my family. And with the unvaxxed costing billions in hospital stays a month, we're going to have to pay. And it shouldn't matter how I feel about immigration or healthcare, because it doesn't change the facts.

Next time, try avoiding the ad hominem attacks, and try responding to the argument.

 

The vaccine in a sense is the "end of the pandemic" but we're still at the beginning phases of that end. It was never cold turkey but a prcoess that will continue to change as the situation continues to change. Things might have looked very different right now had those anti-vaxxers and vax hesitant and the more selfish among us gotten on board months ago. Their choosing not to hurts us all.

 

If we have immigrants crossing the border, for economic reasons (they're poor) filling our emergency rooms... does that cost more or less on the healthcare system? Who foots that bill?

There are a plethora of reasons other countries may spend less on healthcare than we do, despite having universal healthcare. But if you think just saying, "Universal healthcare," "healthcare is a human right," "the taxpayer foots the bill" will cost less total money than what we're spending now, you're fooling yourself. Yes, preventative care will cut costs to some degree, but we will end up spending more than we do now, much more.

You're right that these are separate issues. You're wrong in that your recklessness with regard to cost should be ignored when you're talking about saving money regarding our healthcare system with COVID, which as a pandemic will eventually go away whether it be through herd immunity, or mass vaccination, or both.

For God's sake, your proposals would cost a lot more on our healthcare system in perpetuity, whereas anti-vaxxers taking up hospital beds is a relative short-term problem. COVID as a life-threatening illness will eventually go away one way or another. As a mild illness, on the other hand, that's another story entirely.

 

I'm a single payer advocate, personally. I see it as more cost effective than our current system in every country that has this type of system. Just saying it would cost more here without any rhyme or reason isn't very convincing.

As for immigration, if COVID is a short term problem for citizens, it's a short term problem for immigrants too. Sure, we pay a little more in healthcare for immigrants. But in return, they provide cheap labor and help pump billions into our economy. Not the right thread to discuss this, and agreed all immigrants should be vaccinated.

As for our current healthcare system. I'd change it if I could tomorrow. But I can't. I'm stuck with what we got. And that means when I get paid this Friday, part of my pay goes to insurance for my family and me. With COVID costing over $1 billion a month for unvaxxed hospital stays, I expect to be paying significantly more next year. It's just reality. And even though I don't like our system, I still have to deal with it.

But costs aren't the only concern. Full ICUs are a concern too. If a loved one or I need non COVID hospital care, will there be a bed available? Will I receive quality care, or will the hospital be short staffed?

Then there's the inevitable new variant that will arise. With COVID-19 around the planet infecting millions, we can't stop a new variant from arising. But we can slow it down by getting everyone eligible vaccinated. If the next major variant has more vaccine resistance, and is born on our shores, we won't have time to react. But if it's first seen overseas, we might have weeks or months to adjust a new vaccine. And again, best weapon against new variants is the vaccine.

 

Bound to happen. The greater the percentage of vaxxed, the more vaxxed cases. Indeed, if we hit 80%/90% or more vaxxed, quite possible that new vaxxed infections will outnumber unvaxxed. At that point it's a statistical phenomenon.

In any case, vaccinations significantly decrease the risk of infection, hospitalization, and death. That far fewer vaxxed lead to hospitalization and/or death from covid compared to unvaxxed should temper some of the concern about possible waning effectiveness against infections.

 

Hospitals are not overrun with flu patients.

Hospitals are not overrun with shark attack victims.

COVID, as a disease brought about by a NOVEL corona virus is very much life threatening, quality of life threatening well beyond those other conditions and is, in fact, resulting in hospitals being overrun. Not everywhere, and not all at once, but it is happening over and over around the country.

It is unfortunate that people cannot understand, without have to be spoon fed, that until we can resume pre-pandemic life without causing the hospitals to get overwhelmed that there is no chance of returning to pre-pandemic life.

Yes, it sucks for those in many service industry jobs. It sucks for restaurants and hotels and airlines. It sucks for a lot of people. But you know who sucks for the most......doctors, nurses, aides and other hospital staff who are completely burned out with the non-stop hospital censuses at 110+% because people are too ignorant, too arrogant or just too self-centered to take the most basic actions to help prevent the spread of a disease that we cannot easily treat, but could have easily prevented from spreading through most of our population.

 

And it doesn't matter if you've been vaccinated either.