Covid II: Medical Info and Implications

[The Nehor]

An update on the situation in Florida and Texas.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/08/04/florida-texas-hospitals-covid-unvaxxed-patients/5452766001/

And a few days ago from Louisiana.

I cannot confirm it conclusively but there are reports she received death threats for making that speech.

[bsjkki]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

An update on the situation in Florida and Texas.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/08/04/florida-texas-hospitals-covid-unvaxxed-patients/5452766001/

And a few days ago from Louisiana.

I cannot confirm it conclusively but there are reports she received death threats for making that speech.

Why isn’t the Biden administration stepping up to help? We can blame people for not getting vaccinated but if things are so dire, shouldn’t we be coordinating on a national level? 
 

I mean, we need to deal with the situation we are in...even if it was avoidable. Nurses flew into New York to help. The Javitz center was converted. If this needs to happen in Louisiana, why isn’t it? Where are the hospital ships?

*it takes five weeks to hit full immunity. So, even if everyone runs out and gets the vaccine, it’s already too late. It’s not just covid patients that will die if we don’t get prepared with surge capacity.

Edited August 5, 2021 by bsjkki

[The Nehor]

12 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

Why isn’t the Biden administration stepping up to help? We can blame people for not getting vaccinated but if things are so dire, shouldn’t we be coordinating on a national level? 
 

I mean, we need to deal with the situation we are in...even if it was avoidable. Nurses flew into New York to help. The Javitz center was converted. If this needs to happen in Louisiana, why isn’t it? Where are the hospital ships?

*it takes five weeks to hit full immunity. So, even if everyone runs out and gets the vaccine, it’s already too late. It’s not just covid patients that will die if we don’t get prepared with surge capacity.

The federal government is in talks to assist Texas and Florida but the governors have political incentives to reject it so who knows what will happen? There won’t be a unified response at the state and federal levels in the crisis areas:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-donates-more-than-110-mln-covid-19-vaccine-doses-abroad-white-house-2021-08-03/

The problem isn’t equipment or space or ventilators anymore. It is doctors and nurses to man them. It is difficult to just move people to another state for an indefinite duration. The enthusiasm amongst doctors and nurses is down. They have been working long hours for over a year now fighting this thing and most aren’t going to jump to go off to another state where it is worse. Although it is not often openly said there is also an undercurrent of resentment towards unvaccinated areas for drawing this out. A sentiment of ‘They dug their own graves, let them lie in it’ and only semi-sarcastic jokes about implementing triage and hauling the willfully unvaccinated to the cemetery to free up ER room for everyone else.

Texas and Florida are also both dealing with a lot of health care workers quitting their jobs as well as the workers realize there isn’t an end in sight and they are having to monitor more patients with less workers. Some health care workers have also been fired for refusing to get vaccinated. They also expect no help or relief from the state government as those governments implement measures to make sure that no level of government can implement measures to slow the spread.

Can we stop the death culting? I would like to get off now.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Can we stop the death culting? I would like to get off now.

It certainly has been fascinating to watch ... from a distance. 

[Danzo]

21 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Evidence from the first study of long covid in children suggests that more than half of children aged between 6 and 16 years old who contract the virus have at least one symptom lasting more than 120 days, with 42.6 per cent impaired by these symptoms during daily activities. These interim results are based on periodic assessments of 129 children in Italy who were diagnosed with covid-19 between March and November 2020 at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome (medRxiv, doi.org/fv9t).

I spent a few minutes analyzing the Italian Study found here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.15870

A couple of thoughts.

1.  Extremely small sample size to extrapolate for general population There were only 33 non symptomac people represented in the study, 96 symptomatic people.  These people were not randomly selected. These were all the children that were diagnosed wtih covid at one hospital in Rome.  The sample would skew heavily towards those who were suffering symptoms (which it does). No indication on how sever the symptoms were other than that 6 of the sample were hospitalized.  No accounting for the demographic that would be served by the particular hospital.

2. No Control Group of children who were not diagnosed with COVID. This would be very important since all of the symtoms surveyed in study can (and often are) caused by events other than COVID.   

3.  "investigations were not performed at the moment of the assessment, in order to rule-out other causes, " In other words, there was no way to determine if the symptoms described were related to Covid or not.

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

25 minutes ago, Danzo said:

I spent a few minutes analyzing the Italian Study found here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.15870

Yes, it is common practice to include early studies as 'baselines' in the progressive attempt to understand, even when their limitations are known. (And of course, all studies have limitations.)

I suspect the 15 per cent figure, which is what you asked about and what I was specifically responding to, comes from the following:

Quote

The UK Office for National Statistics's latest report estimates that 12.9 per cent of UK children aged 2 to 11, and 14.5 per cent of children aged 12 to 16, still have symptoms five weeks after their first infection.

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[strappinglad]

Perhaps pogi  or someone can explain why there are  health care people who don't want to be vaccinated and why only about a third of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics are vaccinated when overall numbers are over 60%? They can't all be raving right wing lugnuts. 

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Perhaps pogi  or someone can explain why there are  health care people who don't want to be vaccinated and why only about a third of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics are vaccinated when overall numbers are over 60%? They can't all be raving right wing lugnuts. 

Is this a serious question about why minorities are not getting vaccinated or are you making a rhetorical point?  Just asking as I don’t want to do unnecessary research and referencing, though happy to find you articles on why vaccinations are low among minorities if you have missed those discussions. 

[strappinglad]

25 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is this a serious question

The first part was serious, the second part was rhetorical because we would likely be back to " battling studies " .

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

Perhaps pogi  or someone can explain why there are  health care people who don't want to be vaccinated ... 

Have you ever seen a doctor or nurse smoking?

Quote

... why only about a third of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics are vaccinated when overall numbers are over 60%?

We generally have lower uptakes of all vaccines in migrant and minority communities here too, probably for similar reasons: low education levels and language barriers leading to poor access to communications. This is generally exacerbated in refugee communities by the distrust of authority that generally accompanies the experience of fleeing conflict, with parallels in Indigenous communities related to the experience of dispossession and displacement.

Quote

They can't all be raving right wing lugnuts. 

Anti-vaccination as a political stance is not inherent to either side of the political divide and is determined in large part by local contexts. Here, it would overwhelmingly be a position found amongst 'left-wing lug nuts'. It actually makes me laugh a bit that a certain subsection of American conservatives has been lured into adopting a position that in many nations belongs naturally to pot-smoking, clothes-hating, free-loving 'hippies'.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

Has this been discussed in this thread yet?

Delphine Planas et al., 'Reduced Sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 Variant Delta to Antibody Neutralization', Nature, 8 July 2021.

It's all lab based, but the outcomes are significant:

• Antibodies sourced from people previously infected with a non-Delta variant but unvaccinated have almost no effect against Delta.
• Antibodies sourced from people who haven't been infected and who have had just one jab of a two-jab vaccine have little effect against Delta.
• Giving previously infected people a single jab of a two-jab vaccine significantly improves the effect of their antibodies against Delta in vitro.
• The best antibodies (again, in vitro) come from those who have received both jabs of a two-jab vaccine.

If this translates at all to the real world, it basically guts the concept of 'natural immunity' from other variants providing protection against Delta.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Here, it would overwhelmingly be a position found amongst 'left-wing lug nuts'.

In my youth in San Fran area, it was all the hippies at the store my mom would go to in order to get fresh ground whole wheat flour, unsweetened coconut, brewer’s yeast, no salt seasonings, and other back to basics, alternative living supplies.  She made all her food from scratch and as nutritious as Dad would tolerate (never converted to molasses).  She started adding high quality vitamin supplements as she got older and less satisfied with medication.  My grandparents thought it a waste of money, but no one ever argued about the taste.  Best cook I know.  My daughter in law is a fantastic cook, but not particularly healthy.  Her meals are indulgence for me.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

In my youth in San Fran area, it was all the hippies at the store my mom would go to ...

We have a region in our neighbouring jurisdiction filled with towns that have made alternative 'medicine' a flourishing tourism industry. Imagine all the weirdness of San Francisco on a village scale. Anti-vaccination is so strong there that they regularly have outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, etc., and both the overall mortality rate and infant morality rate sit well below the national average. (The cancer rate is also well above national average.)

So far, Covid hasn't arrived there yet, and it wouldn't matter at this point anyway since we simply don't have enough vaccines for people who want them, but it'll be interesting to see what the future holds as that changes.

[Ipod Touch]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

Perhaps pogi  or someone can explain why there are  health care people who don't want to be vaccinated and why only about a third of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics are vaccinated when overall numbers are over 60%? They can't all be raving right wing lugnuts. 

This is my biggest concern with the current vaccine push and messaging.  

Sure, a significant portion of very far right-leaning people are vaccine hesitant.  But the problem is much more complex than that.  

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Ipod Touch said:

This is my biggest concern with the current vaccine push and messaging.  

Because you think it is targeting the wrong people?

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

We generally have lower uptakes of all vaccines in migrant and minority communities here too, probably for similar reasons: low education levels and language barriers leading to poor access to communications. This is generally exacerbated in refugee communities by the distrust of authority that generally accompanies the experience of fleeing conflict, with parallels in Indigenous communities related to the experience of dispossession and displacement.

Add in the justified fear of the medical establishment. The pre-civil war “experiments” done on slaves to further medical research were very unethical. Most people know about the Tuskegee study where “test subjects” were allowed to suffer syphilis for decades in order to study the long term effects. Syphilis was treatable but those men were allowed to suffer slow and painful deaths.

The medical establishment also has a well-established bias with minorities (and women) and tend to treat the concerns of these groups more skeptically and are less likely to take reports of pain and symptoms seriously.

And in what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one minority areas have far fewer vaccination sites per capita and minorities tend to have less access to the time and transportation needed to get to one.

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Anti-vaccination as a political stance is not inherent to either side of the political divide and is determined in large part by local contexts. Here, it would overwhelmingly be a position found amongst 'left-wing lug nuts'. It actually makes me laugh a bit that a certain subsection of American conservatives has been lured into adopting a position that in many nations belongs naturally to pot-smoking, clothes-hating, free-loving 'hippies'.

Modern anti-vaccination concerns were originally a fringe Leftist theory with the autism thing. That movement comes from one fundamentally flawed and fraudulent study conducted by a con man looking to make money by discrediting a vaccine (originally he planned to create a replacement). It is still the best evidence the anti-vaxx movement has for vaccines causing autism. Then it spread in social media and was picked up by both the fringe left and fringe right and a bunch of fools who believe people on Facebook know what they are talking about. It branched out into other pseudoscientific theories about having to space out vaccines and other unproven nonsense.

Those people are still around but when Covid hit a new sub-group popped up. This was also primarily on the Left who were concerned that the administration would strong-arm approval of an unsafe vaccine over the objections of experts and put it in circulation to score political points with insufficient testing. This did not happen and virtually all of these people were mollified by trusted officials saying it was safe and the emerging general international consensus on these vaccines.

Another group popped up as the vaccine was released. People who already thought Covid was a lie or was just the flu cooked up insane theories sowing doubt on vaccines. These poisoned many minds on social media and right and far-right media sources started running pieces questioning vaccines and insisting there are all kinds of unanswered questions and reasons for concern. Of course virtually everyone feigning concern over those questions had already received the vaccination and the hesitancy they propagated was disingenuous at best. A whole machine of doubters comb through every study and news report and trumpet any perceived problem with the vaccines to the heavens. The counter-arguments are harder to propagate as the lie is already widespread and the “where there is smoke there is fire” reasoning hits. People tend to assume if there are a lot of reports about something some of them must be true. Some just want the lie to be true. This is also tied in with anti-mask hysteria and the fear that wearing a mask will damage the wearer somehow. Then loons start screaming about the constitution and rights like they always do and make up rights to back them when the Constitution and law doesn’t say any of the things they are going on about.

Previous anti-vaccination groups were usually relatively small and seemed to exist primarily to convince the parents of autistic children that they are victims of someone and to try to get on morning daytime talk shows. This new brand went mainstream and, for reasons too stupid to go into, became a political identifier. Now we have a death cult threatening the careers of politicians if they don’t go along with pretending Covid is largely defeated and that normalcy must be maintained at all cost. I have little sympathy for these politicians. They fed and fattened up the media machine that turned on them even knowing how insane the rantings of these demagogues were. It was fine when they aimed their barbs at the enemy. Now it has turned on them. There is a comic element to the whole thing as just under half the nation and its leaders seem dedicated to making the worst choice in every situation regarding the pandemic.

There have been previous resurgence of diseases in a lot of nations where people got lax on vaccination. These surges led to a huge upswing in vaccinations and problem solved. This is the first time I am aware of that the deaths themselves are often loudly denied or explained away as something else. Social media is full of people who said Covid was a hoax or that vaccines were dangerous who end up going to the hospital and dying. Many of them send out requests for prayers and admit their mistake and urge everyone to get vaccinated. In what should be shocking but isn’t is that often their former allies in denialism turn on them for denying the tenets of the cult. This does match what I have read about the Black Death where survivors would try to rationalize how evil the dead are to reassure themselves their virtue would make them immune to harm.

I am not sure if there is anything that will break this denialism en masse. There is a story that was recently confirmed  that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting’s dad was radicalized by the insane ravings of a member of Congress and now insists that the shooting was faked, the shooter was a false flag, and that the victims and survivors were crisis actors. That his own child was one of those survivors and literally texted him while it was going on doesn’t seem to phase the delusion and he has accused his child of being in on it. I am worried we will see the same thing here on a larger scale and parents and children and siblings will turn on each other to maintain the death cult’s narrative. It is probably already happening.

How do you mass deprogram a cult that makes up a sizeable minority of the entire population? I have no idea.

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

There is a story that was recently confirmed  that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting’s dad was radicalized by the insane ravings of a member of Congress and now insists that the shooting was faked, the shooter was a false flag, and that the victims and survivors were crisis actors.

They confirmed the identity of the victim who claims this. Have they confirmed it from the dad?

[The Nehor]

Just now, Calm said:

They confirmed the identity of the victim who claims this. Have they confirmed it from the dad?

No, Vice got in contact with the person who made the Reddit post and confirmed it was an authentic survivor. The person who wrote the Reddit post understandably asked to continue to remain anonymous.

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

No, Vice got in contact with the person who made the Reddit post and confirmed it was an authentic survivor. The person who wrote the Reddit post understandably asked to continue to remain anonymous.

Definitely understandable if true. But it is more rational to me that a survivor is attempting to persuade people of the idiocy of thinking it was a hoax by offering up this story than a parent actually being in that deep. So while I am not in no way claiming he is lying, I am reluctant to pass it in as a proven fact. 
 

But this is a crazy world that I even have to consider either possiblity as real. And there is something wrong that this happens in this day and age…but maybe technology has backfired because while recordings offer documentation, we have all seen how real Hollywood can make some fantasies look, so why trust one’s own eyes any more?

Edited August 6, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

The anecdotal reports continue to suggest that Delta is more dangerous to children and teenagers. The numbers were so low before it is not hard to see an increase. Click through to that guy’s thread if you want to read about more children getting sick and some dying.

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

Definitely understandable if true. But it is more rational to me that a survivor is attempting to persuade people of the idiocy of thinking it was a hoax by offering up this story than a parent actually being in that deep. So while I am not in no way claiming he is lying, I am reluctant to pass it in as a proven fact. 
 

But this is a crazy world that I even have to consider either possiblity as real. And there is something wrong that this happens in this day and age…but maybe technology has backfired because while recordings offer documentation, we have all seen how real Hollywood can make some fantasies look, so why trust one’s own eyes any more?

If it is a fake story this kid is very good at keeping it consistent and conveying emotion. It is not impossible it is fake but I find it unlikely.

[Hamba Tuhan]

52 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Modern anti-vaccination concerns were originally a fringe Leftist theory with the autism thing.

I don't know if this is an accurate statement regarding the American situation, but where I live, the anti-vaccination movement preceded the autism article by at least three decades. It really grew up with/out of the leftist anti-authoritarianism of the late 1960s and early 1970s and, when expressed in political terms, has overwhelmingly stayed there.

Over the past six months, our media have certainly helped the phenomenon go a bit more mainstream, sadly. Left-leaning outlets (which are the vast majority) have heavily reported on every adverse vaccine reaction in order to paint our centre-right government in a bad light. Our handful of right-leaning outlets seem to have just been repeating much of the BS you Americans have been dealing with.

Thankfully, as Delta has started to bite (and bite hard!), both sides seem to have cleaned up their acts. It appears few wish to come out of this latest wave with blood on their hands.

[The Nehor]

12 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I don't know if this is an accurate statement regarding the American situation, but where I live, the anti-vaccination movement preceded the autism article by at least three decades. It really grew up with/out of the leftist anti-authoritarianism of the late 1960s and early 1970s and, when expressed in political terms, has overwhelmingly stayed there.

Over the past six months, our media have certainly helped the phenomenon go a bit more mainstream, sadly. Left-leaning outlets (which are the vast majority) have heavily reported on every adverse vaccine reaction in order to paint our centre-right government in a bad light. Our handful of right-leaning outlets seem to have just been repeating much of the BS you Americans have been dealing with.

Thankfully, as Delta has started to bite (and bite hard!), both sides seem to have cleaned up their acts. It appears few wish to come out of this latest wave with blood on their hands.

You’re right, I shouldn’t have used the term modern.

[bsjkki]

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-delta-infections-produce-similar-levels-of-virus-regardless-of-vaccination-status-suggests-early-analysis-12374244

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, strappinglad said:

Perhaps pogi  or someone can explain why there are  health care people who don't want to be vaccinated and why only about a third of Blacks and 42% of Hispanics are vaccinated when overall numbers are over 60%? They can't all be raving right wing lugnuts. 

I have one child that is on the right track and got his vaccine and believes that covid is real, and one doesn't believe in it and leans right. The other three aren't at all into the political nature but believe the things they hear about covid being just like the flu and don't believe in the vaccine. 

Now pretty worried about them and their spouses. One of the spouses is Hispanic and already isn't in the best of health. Super worried that they are not taking this serious. Along with most of my siblings and a few of my nephews. And some of them, might be considered right wing lugnuts.