Coronavirus / COVID-19

[SurfD]

You know shit has to be bad when even 20 to 50 dollar an hour raises ONTOP of their already existing pay isn't enough to make people who essentially want to help people continue to work simply because they are so freaking burnt out even insane pay raises like that aren't worth it.  Like, Jesus Christ.

[Sir T]

People can only go at 110% for so long. 

[Jeff Kelly]

Yeah but we applauded them from our windows and balconies, once, last year. That should have been more than enough.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, the sheer amount of disdain that's been shown at the POLICY level for healthcare workers is an absolute crime, and it will affect our healthcare system for years. Not to get too political outside of politics, but it's the same sort of horseshit that happened after 9/11 with first responders and military personnel. "Thank you for your service," quickly turned to "Why are you bitching about having 4 consecutive tours in a war torn hellhole where the citizens are actively trying to kill you?" and "Pay raise? I'm not paying more in taxes!"

[Jeff Kelly]

We lose about 7000 healthcare workers per month currently to burn out and a general „nothing materially has changed so you can all fuck off“ sense of being utterly done with this shit.

[Khaldun]

Suicide rates for doctors and other medical professionals in the US have been steadily climbing for years.

I think on one end that's the relentless intensification of the work hours and pressures and on the other end the loss of professional autonomy--doctors have quietly been almost 100% turned into employees of big hospitals and insurance firms and rarely get either first or final say on treatment. Same thing has happened to a lot of lawyers and professors; in general we've eliminated the entire idea of professionals having controlling authority over the work they've been trained to do. But I think it's hit hardest on doctors because the stakes are so high and because they're so often told what to do by people who don't know a fucking thing about medicine except how to read actuarial data.

[Sky]

(oops meant this for the crankypants thread in the basement!)

[Hammond]

Got my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine Saturday. Day of it wasn't to bad other than a sore arm. Sunday was a bit more fun with quite a bit of exhaustion.

In positive news if things continue as is by the end of this week 50% of the US population should have at least one shot with 30% being fully vaccinated.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-04-12-21/h_83beb1b429c300f4e881be0e515e23c1

[01101010]

My wife went to the clinic pharmacy Friday late in the day and got offered a vaccine. She and I were scheduled for Saturday so she declined at first. Waited in line to get her prescription, and then while walking out was approached again. So she decided to get it Friday night as long as they handled cancelling the Saturday appointment. She got Moderna - which is the one she really hoped for, so quite happy for her. She had a sore arm, but that was about it. Was gone by Sunday. I got my first shot Saturday and got Pfizer - a day later - which is the one I preferred. Sore arm later in the day and into Sunday - about 24h after the shot I suddenly felt completely exhausted and slightly aches - mostly joints felt achy like I if I had a cold. Gone today and the soreness is fading.

Funny part is my wife got her's a day later and has to wait 28 days till her 2nd Moderna. I went the day after, and my wait is 21 days so I'll get my 2nd before her and be cleared a week after she gets her 2nd. That said, for the first time in a year, I see a slight glimmer at a summer of caution rather than isolation.

[Khaldun]

I got Moderna #2. Felt lightly bleah for the weekend but no biggie.

[Sir T]

So hard to know if this goes in Politics corona or normal people corona.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-hospitals-idUSKBN2BZ205?taid=6074b8564ab4da0001c19d91&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter

Ontario hospitals may have to withhold care as COVID-19 fills ICUs

By Allison Martell, Anna Mehler Paperny

3 Min Read

TORONTO (Reuters) - Doctors in the Canadian province of Ontario may soon have to decide who can and cannot receive treatment in intensive care as the number of coronavirus infections sets records and patients are packed into hospitals still stretched from a December wave.

Canada’s most populous province is canceling elective surgeries, admitting adults to a major children’s hospital and preparing field hospitals after the number of COVID-19 patients in ICUs jumped 31% to 612 in the week leading up to Sunday, according to data from the Ontario Hospital Association.

The sharp increase in Ontario hospital admissions is also straining supplies of tocilizumab, a drug often given to people seriously ill with COVID-19.

Hospital care is publicly funded in Canada, generally free at the point of care for residents. But new hospital beds have not kept pace with population growth, and shortages of staff and space often emerge during bad flu seasons.

Ontario’s hospitals fared relatively well during the first wave of the pandemic last year, in part because the province quickly canceled elective surgeries.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario told doctors last Thursday that the province was considering “enacting the critical care triage protocol,” something that was not done during earlier waves of the virus. Triage protocols help doctors decide who to treat in a crisis.

“Everybody’s under extreme stress,” said Eddy Fan, an ICU doctor at Toronto’s University Health Network. He said no doctor wants to contemplate a triage protocol but there are only so many staff.

“There’s going to be a breaking point, a point at which we can’t fill those gaps any longer.”

In a statement, the health ministry said Ontario has not activated the protocol. A September draft suggested doctors could withhold life-sustaining care from patients with a less than 20% chance of surviving 12 months. A final version has not been made public.

Ontario’s Science Advisory Table had been forecasting the surge for months, said member and critical care physician Laveena Munshi. During a recent shift she wanted to call the son of a patient only to discover he was in an ICU across the street.

“The horror stories that we’re seeing in the hospital are like ones out of apocalyptic movies,” she said. “They’re not supposed to be the reality we’re seeing one year into a pandemic.”

[Mandella]

Damn if the second Moderna injection hasn't kicked my butt harder than the first one did, contrary to expectations. But I'm already feeling better -- it's not really that bad.

I got the shots from a health department about an hour north of here in a *very* rural county. They are justifiably proud of the effectiveness of their local outreach, and a bit disgruntled about the State stepping in and screwing with their hands on approach to replace it with the state-wide online sign up. They feel that system is too easily gamed, and is messing up the ability to track shots.

Personal anecdote: I chatted with one of my neighbors yesterday while we were both stopped to move a small tree that had fallen across the road, and he proceeded to tell me about how reluctant he was to get the vaccine. Here we go, I thought, since I know him to be a touch right of center in his politics. He then proceeded to confide in me that he's always had a severe phobia of needles and he hasn't had a shot since he was a kid in the seventies, but this was just too important and he wanted to be safe for his grandchildren. He had already gotten the J&J shot.

That's really been my experience around here. For all the attention on anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, people just want to get the damn vaccine and get on with their lives.

[Khaldun]

I think yeah, that's it. Plus I think some people are getting comfortable with it now who weren't before just because so many people they know have gotten the shot.

[Chimpy]

There was a lot of hesitancy early on from people that didn’t trust the process of “warp speed”.

That group has mostly decided things are ok now that adults are in charge of health policy and millions of shots have been administered.

Now a lot of the hesitancy is from the red hat wearing crowd because if they get a vaccine then they would have to admit it isn’t a hoax.

[Jeff Kelly]

I learned that my mother could have already gotten a vaccine appointment but since it would have been with Astra Zeneca she refused.

Im ambivalent about this. I’d be much happier if she was vaccinated and I also believe that AZ would have been a safe choice and she also belongs to an at risk group for Covid due to several health issues.. On the other hand she has so many pre existing conditions and health issues and takes so many different medications for it that she might also be at a higher risk from complications.

I’d still probably be happier if she hadn’t refused.

[eldaec]

Now a lot of the hesitancy is from the red hat wearing crowd because if they get a vaccine then they would have to admit it isn’t a hoax.

Around me it isn't this.

I'm seeing that crowd mouthing off but quietly getting the jab.

What I am seeing is more vulnerable people, often those who need the job more urgently, become more hesitant because of the idiots.

[slog]

Now a lot of the hesitancy is from the red hat wearing crowd because if they get a vaccine then they would have to admit it isn’t a hoax.

Around me it isn't this.

I'm seeing that crowd mouthing off but quietly getting the jab.

What I am seeing is more vulnerable people, often those who need the job more urgently, become more hesitant because of the idiots.

Now that you mention it, I'm seeing something similar.  All the Trumpy relatives I have all got vaccinated and the friends I have that didn't tend to be the crunchy hippy/liberal types who don't like the idea of being injected with anything.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Husband got his second Pfizer stick today, so now we just wait the 2 weeks until he's safe and then.... nothing's going to change for us.  It's not worth taking risks even if we are both vaccinated now just to sit inside a restaurant to eat. 

[01101010]

I dunno. After our second round of shots, wife and I are planning to ease up on the isolation effects. Still going to wear masks in public spaces but at least we will know we are unlikely to have to be hospitalized if we do get it.

[HaemishM]

My wife and I got to visit my parents last night for the first time since Christmas 2019 because they are both vaxxed as well as us. No masks and I got to hug my parents which is amazingly something I missed a lot more than I would have thought.

Then I learned my dumbass sister and her dumbass godbothering husband aren't going to get vaxxed because "it's just a flu."

Fuck these idiots who pushed this idea so much.

[Tale]

I learned that my mother could have already gotten a vaccine appointment but since it would have been with Astra Zeneca she refused.

Both my parents - who are about 80 - got the AstraZeneca vaccine last week.

My father is in the earlyish stages of dementia and says he didn't have much of a reaction, but my mother was very sick for 24 hours. She got so sick she rang the doctor (probably because of the fears about AstraZeneca). The doctor said he had exactly the same symptoms for 24 hours after his first AstraZeneca dose.

Australia's shitty federal government committed us almost entirely to AstraZeneca from the beginning (with a little bit of Pfizer), not wanting to cope with the deep freeze needs of the other vaccines. We're even locally manufacturing AstraZeneca as well as importing it. They've now recommended that nobody under 50 get the AstraZeneca vaccine, and a 48-year-old just died of blood clots after receiving it.

My sister is considered at-risk, so she signed up for the AstraZeneca despite being in her late 40s. She has now cancelled her appointment after all this, and it looks like she'll have to wait until October for Pfizer in Australia.

[slog]

I received the 2nd Dose of the Pfizer yesterday.  Today, I will entertain you all with details of my suffering. My employer gives us a full week of "Covid Relief Time Off" to use for stuff like getting vaccinated so used today because why not?

[Khaldun]

Now that we're all vaccinated, I feel basically safe for myself about being out in public but it seems to me that sticking with distancing and masking for a while longer is important both because the vaccinated might still be carriers and because there's enough Americans who are avoiding vaccination that if the vaccinated start up "normal life" again it will give them protective cover to do as they please, which will in turn lead to another spike in cases.

[Samwise]

Now that we're all vaccinated, I feel basically safe for myself about being out in public but it seems to me that sticking with distancing and masking for a while longer is important both because the vaccinated might still be carriers and because there's enough Americans who are avoiding vaccination that if the vaccinated start up "normal life" again it will give them protective cover to do as they please, which will in turn lead to another spike in cases.

This, plus the general public doesn't know that I'm vaccinated, so I figure it's easier to just keep masking up in public to avoid stressing other people out.

[Khaldun]

That definitely also.

I don't know that I'll be comfortable dining inside a restaurant until the restaurant ownership assures me that everybody working there is vaccinated so I know that customers are not putting the staff at risk. I'm ok being in an interior space if there's some other dumbfuck customer there who isn't vaccinated and doesn't care about their own risk, but not about putting people at risk who have to be there to keep their jobs (though past May 30 or so, if they also aren't vaccinated, they're being stupid).

[slog]

Now that we're all vaccinated, I feel basically safe for myself about being out in public but it seems to me that sticking with distancing and masking for a while longer is important both because the vaccinated might still be carriers and because there's enough Americans who are avoiding vaccination that if the vaccinated start up "normal life" again it will give them protective cover to do as they please, which will in turn lead to another spike in cases.

This is an area where I feel like the CDC is holding back a bit for the same reason you are.  Their website says "We are still learning how well vaccines prevent you from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 to others, even if you do not have symptoms." Yet there are many studies (including their own https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm  that show it reduces transmission by 90%) that show you should feel safe about it.

So in the meantime, I wear my mask in the same way I did before getting vaccinated.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're exaggerating how unsure they are about whether the vaccinated can spread covid-19 in order to encourage the vaccinated to remain masked and distanced as part of an effort to get the unvaccinated to comply. I think that's repeating the same mistake they made with discouraging masking in the first month of the pandemic because they were afraid of hoarding.

[Samwise]

Even at 90% efficacy, if you're constantly surrounded by unvaccinated mouthbreathers, you're at pretty good odds of picking it up and being able to transmit it to other unvaccinated mouthbreathers.  So every little bit helps.  If we were ever to hit 90% vaccination rates I don't think it'd matter but I also doubt we're getting there any time soon.

[Chimpy]

The rule of thumb for vaccines always is "you are safer as an unvaccinated person in a community that is fully vaccinated than a vaccinated person in a community that is mostly unvaccinated" .

Everyone needs to continue to practice masking/distancing/etc as much as possible until both the community spread is low and the percentage of vaccinated people is very high (like 75-80% minimum) or we will never get out of this loop. Community spread being stamped out is critical to stop variants from breeding like mad.

[Sky]

Saw an article, 'If US vaccinations are up to 25%, why are cases spiking/'

 

We're still fucked and that's the new normal. Sense has left the building.

[Trippy]

Community spread being stamped out is critical to stop variants from breeding like mad.

And to follow up on that we don't know how effective the current vaccines are against most of the variants that are going around right now (with more appearing seemingly every week).

[Trippy]

Saw an article, 'If US vaccinations are up to 25%, why are cases spiking/'

 

We're still fucked and that's the new normal. Sense has left the building.

In the US, yearly COVID-19 vaccine shots will likely be the norm for the foreseeable future given the amount of international travel the US receives and the level of vaccine hesitancy in this country.

[eldaec]

Rest of world could easily take 5 years before credible levels of vaccination happen. So not sure international travel is going to be a thing for a long time.

[Khaldun]

If that. There are going to be reservoirs of endemic covid-19 where variants are happily mutating away for at least that long.

[Sir T]

And yet international travel IS a thing and varients are spreading around.