[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

Agreed, mainly because no one wants to be the one to finally pull the plug and deal with the contractual consequences.
I am curious what the vax rate is for everyone in attendance (athletes, coaches, support, etc.).

I think I saw a figure of 85% somewhere. Which isn't terrible but you'd like it to be 99% really. Nope, the games are happening, you better believe it.

garion333 wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Man, UK numbers keep skyrocketing, even at 54% fully vaccinated population. Can't wait for that to be the US in a month.

Will things be different in the US because our pop is largely innoculated with mRNA vaccines which have shown ridiculous effectiveness with Delta)? Thought the UK was rolling with AZ?

The UK is rolling with both - I think it's about a 50/50 split, although we have also approved the Moderna and J&J one shot vaccines as well. And the AZ vaccine is still effective against the Delta variant if you've had both doses.

It's also got nothing to do with the vaccines - about 50% of our population still isn't vaccinated. However this is mostly younger adults, teens and children - people less susceptible to hospitalization and death from contracting the virus.

So while the numbers who are testing positive are skyrocketing, the numbers being hospitalised isn't. It's currently about 500 a day. During the height of our second peak at the start of the year it was closer to 2000 a day - those numbers almost broke the NHS. Similarly our death rate is pretty static at about 20 a day at the moment - almost all people with underlying health conditions in older age groups - compared to nearly a 1000 a day during that second peak. I would say however those numbers are still high and a cause of considerable concern within the UK - as I have said before, most people in the UK think we're coming out of lockdown way too soon.

That means it's a calculated gamble that although infections right now are running at about 40,000 a day, it won't matter too much as those people will either be asymptomatic, or just have mild flu like symptoms.

Of course for those clinically vulnerable, or cannot take the vaccines for whatever reason, they are being left out to dry. We aren't going to vaccinate anyone under the age of 18 unless there is a specific need to do so - they are either clinically vulnerable, or they live with someone who is. Anyone under 12 won't get vaccinated regardless unless it's exceptional circumstances, mostly because testing in children is still being sorted out.

The hospitalizations are definitely going up at a fairly alarming rate to my eye. Sure, the ratio of sick to hospitalized appears to be better, but the hospitalization line is aggressively increasing.

Sure sounds like the UK is shooting for herd immunity without using those terms since its greatly fallen out of favor.

Never thought about it in this respect. Essentially there has been enough vaccine availability at this point that if you can and haven't been vaxed then you are going to get your immunity by just getting Covid. I think some people will clearly regret that decision.

Obvious problem is does this mean more variants and all the people who legitimately can't be vaccinated getting caught in the cross fire.

jowner wrote:

Never thought about it in this respect. Essentially there has been enough vaccine availability at this point that if you can and haven't been vaxed then you are going to get your immunity by just getting Covid. I think some people will clearly regret that decision.

Obvious problem is does this mean more variants and all the people who legitimately can't be vaccinated getting caught in the cross fire.

Quite a few of the people in hospital right now are those from the older age groups that have received both doses of the vaccine too. 90% is pretty good, but it's not 100% protection. Worth keeping in mind.

Sorbicol wrote:
jowner wrote:

Never thought about it in this respect. Essentially there has been enough vaccine availability at this point that if you can and haven't been vaxed then you are going to get your immunity by just getting Covid. I think some people will clearly regret that decision.

Obvious problem is does this mean more variants and all the people who legitimately can't be vaccinated getting caught in the cross fire.

Quite a few of the people in hospital right now are those from the older age groups that have received both doses of the vaccine too. 90% is pretty good, but it's not 100% protection. Worth keeping in mind.

Of course, the flipside of that is that older people have weaker immune systems and likely produced a weaker immune response from the vaccine, so that's as expected.

It's one of the reasons nursing homes had such a bad time with Covid. Older folks would get it, never quite get better and continue to spread Covid with every breath.

We're all so lucky not to be elderly right now.

Many reports are now coming out saying that more young people are being hospitalized then older. The news tends to represent this as the virus not being a virus that targets primarily the elderly, but I think it is more that the elderly are way more vaccinated. It would be interesting to see the vaccine rates by age along side of hospitalization by age.

kazar wrote:

Many reports are now coming out saying that more young people are being hospitalized then older. The news tends to represent this as the virus not being a virus that targets primarily the elderly, but I think it is more that the elderly are way more vaccinated. It would be interesting to see the vaccine rates by age along side of hospitalization by age.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavir... has vaccination rates by age, including a per-state breakdown. Can't find an easy source for hospitalizations by age. That data is a lot more volatile.

peanut3141 wrote:
kazar wrote:

Many reports are now coming out saying that more young people are being hospitalized then older. The news tends to represent this as the virus not being a virus that targets primarily the elderly, but I think it is more that the elderly are way more vaccinated. It would be interesting to see the vaccine rates by age along side of hospitalization by age.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavir... has vaccination rates by age, including a per-state breakdown. Can't find an easy source for hospitalizations by age. That data is a lot more volatile.

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/C...

peanut3141 wrote:
kazar wrote:

Many reports are now coming out saying that more young people are being hospitalized then older. The news tends to represent this as the virus not being a virus that targets primarily the elderly, but I think it is more that the elderly are way more vaccinated. It would be interesting to see the vaccine rates by age along side of hospitalization by age.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavir... has vaccination rates by age, including a per-state breakdown. Can't find an easy source for hospitalizations by age. That data is a lot more volatile.

The thing about that data is it doesn't vaguely match Minnesota's actual number; per Mayo's dashboard, 58% of the state has had at least one dose of the vaccine. The Minnesota Department of Health's dashboard (which is very good) shows 67.8% with at least one dose, so it looks like Mayo is lagging WAY behind here and it's not even close. MDH has been very good about being open so those are numbers I'm going to trust, so Mayo at least in the case of MN is highly, highly pessimistic.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The thing about that data is it doesn't vaguely match Minnesota's actual number; per Mayo's dashboard, 58% of the state has had at least one dose of the vaccine. The Minnesota Department of Health's dashboard (which is very good) shows 67.8% with at least one dose, so it looks like Mayo is lagging WAY behind here and it's not even close. MDH has been very good about being open so those are numbers I'm going to trust, so Mayo at least in the case of MN is highly, highly pessimistic.

Pretty sure we've had this exact conversation already in this thread, but Mayo's dashboard is a percentage of total population, whereas Minnesota is showing percentage of 16+. The latter is more useful to gauge how well you're reaching those eligible for vaccination; but when you're talking about controlling transmission, the prior is more useful. Kids may not get super sick, but they sure as hell excel as disease vectors.

Over the weekend Trump put out a statement saying that Biden's doing a terrible job with COVID vaccinations because "they don't trust his Administration, they don't trust the Election results, and they certainly don't trust the Fake News, which is refusing to tell the Truth." This is the most overt statement Trump's made politicizing the response to COVID and pushing anti-vax nonsense.

On Monday Fox News' Steve Doocy (co-host of Fox & Friends) and Sean Hannity broke with the channel's long standing downplaying of COVID and expressly told viewers that COVID was no joke and that they should get vaccinated.

Then Republican Congressional leaders, including Mitch McConnel, pleaded for people to get vaccinated.

I'm honestly wondering if Republicans finally looked at the Delta infection numbers and realized that COVID is going to kill a lot of people who would have otherwise voted for them in 2022 and 2024. With multiple states during the past two elections hinging on a few thousand votes it really doesn't make sense for Republicans to continue to embrace COVID anti-vax as an expression of political loyalty and purity.

OG_slinger wrote:

Over the weekend Trump put out a statement saying that Biden's doing a terrible job with COVID vaccinations because "they don't trust his Administration, they don't trust the Election results, and they certainly don't trust the Fake News, which is refusing to tell the Truth." This is the most overt statement Trump's made politicizing the response to COVID and pushing anti-vax nonsense.

On Monday Fox News' Steve Doocy (co-host of Fox & Friends) and Sean Hannity broke with the channel's long standing downplaying of COVID and expressly told viewers that COVID was no joke and that they should get vaccinated.

Then Republican Congressional leaders, including Mitch McConnel, pleaded for people to get vaccinated.

I'm honestly wondering if Republicans finally looked at the Delta infection numbers and realized that COVID is going to kill a lot of people who would have otherwise voted for them in 2022 and 2024. With multiple states during the past two elections hinging on a few thousand votes it really doesn't make sense for Republicans to continue to embrace COVID anti-vax as an expression of political loyalty and purity.

More likely their donors saw the drop in the stock market and started making some complaining noises

I agree with it being the money as it is too late to get these people to treat the pandemic seriously and get vaccinated or wear a mask.

I read some comments on a youtube question about if the delta strain will change your plans and oh my god. The amount of I will not let the government make me live in fear, contradicting information on the delta strain and other calls for freedumb just about removed any faith I have left that we will climb out of this any time soon.

Covid numbers spiking is fine as long as the stocks go up and the rich get richer. Once that is no longer true then we will head the pleas to do the right thing.

COVID patient in Louisiana says he'd opt for hospitalization again over vaccine

CBS News wrote:

...

Louisiana's largest private hospital, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge, has more COVID patients right now than any other hospital in the state. They admitted 23 patients in 24 hours over the weekend and filled up an entire floor of the hospital with just those patients.
...

Roughly one in three Louisianans are fully vaccinated. This week, the state's health department reported the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations since late February. Scott Roe is one of them.

"Here I am recovering, getting out of here finally tomorrow. Am I going to get a vaccine? No," Roe said. "Because there's too many issues with these vaccines."

This father, former baseball coach, small business owner and hunter caught COVID and then developed pneumonia.

"Before you got sick," [CBS News' lead national correspondent David] Begnaud asked Roe, "if you would have had a chance to get the vaccine and prevent this, would you have taken the vaccine?"

"No," Roe said. "I would have gone through this, yes sir… Don't shove it down my throat. That's what local, state, federal administration is trying to do - shove it down your throat."

"What are they shoving," Begnaud asked, "the science?"

"No they're shoving the fact that that's their agenda," Roe said, "their agenda is to get you vaccinated."

"You know who Mr. Scalise is?" Begnaud asked Roe.

"I know who Steve Scalise is very well," Roe said.

Roe, who is a Republican, had not heard that Congressman Scalise had stepped into the forefront Tuesday as a vaccine proponent. Begnaud asked him to read the congressman's statement.

"He thinks it's safe and effective," Roe said.

"And what's your reaction?" Begnaud asked.

"Not proven," Roe said.

"But does his opinion change yours?" Begnaud asked.

"No, it does not," Roe said.

Dr. Catherine O'Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, did not mince words.

"We are either going to get vaccinated and end the pandemic. Or we are going to accept death," O'Neal said.

Given that the US health care system is insurance based, once the vaccines start getting full approval I suspect insurance companies will start creating policies to not pay for hospitalization for people refusing to get the vaccine and still contracting COVID-19.

kazar wrote:

Given that the US health care system is insurance based, once the vaccines start getting full approval I suspect insurance companies will start creating policies to not pay for hospitalization for people refusing to get the vaccine and still contracting COVID-19.

... and people rationalizing lying about their vaccinations to insurance companies like they do now about smoking.

JLS wrote:

... and people rationalizing lying about their vaccinations to insurance companies like they do now about smoking.

97% of people who end up in the hospital because of COVID are unvaccinated and those stays cost between $50k (for the under-40 crowd) and $78k (for the over 40 crowd).

I have to imagine companies that crunch numbers all day every day are going to look at how badly those 97% of people are hammering their bottom lines and decide there's a bit of legalese buried in their T's and C's that gets them out of paying for dumbf*cks.

JLS wrote:
kazar wrote:

Given that the US health care system is insurance based, once the vaccines start getting full approval I suspect insurance companies will start creating policies to not pay for hospitalization for people refusing to get the vaccine and still contracting COVID-19.

... and people rationalizing lying about their vaccinations to insurance companies like they do now about smoking.

I don't know how much HIPAA applies, but I expect that vaccination information would be available to insurance companies. They pretty much know everything else about your health.

That

This dimwit and the story in the AP about unvaccinated staff at nursing homes is infuriating.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lagging vaccination rates among nursing home staff are being linked to a national increase in COVID-19 infections and deaths at senior facilities, and are at the center of a federal investigation in a hard-hit Colorado location where disease detectives found many workers were not inoculated.

Where's the vaccine for stupid?

It would be great if not getting vaccinated just killed the idiots. But sadly there's an entire population out there under age 12 and others that are immunocompromised they are putting at risk too. If someone infected one of my daughters...

Hey, I just found out that 40% of Los Angeles is not vaccinated.
I also have been seeing lots of stories of folks who are in the hospital for COVID begging for the vaccine only to be told its too late...

Where's the vaccine for stupid?

I believe it is called "reading". Especially those "banned" ones ;P

OG_slinger wrote:

On Monday Fox News' Steve Doocy (co-host of Fox & Friends) and Sean Hannity broke with the channel's long standing downplaying of COVID and expressly told viewers that COVID was no joke and that they should get vaccinated.

You mean Sean Hannity snuck a "no guys really this is super serious" statement in-between all his ongoing nonsense, so that they can later pull that clip up to show the court how super serious their coverage totally was.

Too little too late.

"Here I am recovering, getting out of here finally tomorrow. Am I going to get a vaccine? No," Roe said. "Because there's too many issues with these vaccines."

This father, former baseball coach, small business owner and hunter caught COVID and then developed pneumonia.

"Before you got sick," Begnaud asked Roe, "if you would have had a chance to get the vaccine and prevent this, would you have taken the vaccine?"

"No," Roe said. "I would have gone through this, yes sir… Don't shove it down my throat. That's what local, state, federal administration is trying to do - shove it down your throat."

"What are they shoving," Begnaud asked, "the science?"

"No they're shoving the fact that that's their agenda," Roe said, "their agenda is to get you vaccinated."

I mean, this is the very epitome of willful ignorance. There's absolutely no reasoning with someone like this.

OG_slinger wrote:

COVID patient in Louisiana says he'd opt for hospitalization again over vaccine

CBS News wrote:

...

Louisiana's largest private hospital, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge, has more COVID patients right now than any other hospital in the state. They admitted 23 patients in 24 hours over the weekend and filled up an entire floor of the hospital with just those patients.
...

Roughly one in three Louisianans are fully vaccinated. This week, the state's health department reported the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations since late February. Scott Roe is one of them.

"Here I am recovering, getting out of here finally tomorrow. Am I going to get a vaccine? No," Roe said. "Because there's too many issues with these vaccines."

This father, former baseball coach, small business owner and hunter caught COVID and then developed pneumonia.

"Before you got sick," [CBS News' lead national correspondent David] Begnaud asked Roe, "if you would have had a chance to get the vaccine and prevent this, would you have taken the vaccine?"

"No," Roe said. "I would have gone through this, yes sir… Don't shove it down my throat. That's what local, state, federal administration is trying to do - shove it down your throat."

"What are they shoving," Begnaud asked, "the science?"

"No they're shoving the fact that that's their agenda," Roe said, "their agenda is to get you vaccinated."

"You know who Mr. Scalise is?" Begnaud asked Roe.

"I know who Steve Scalise is very well," Roe said.

Roe, who is a Republican, had not heard that Congressman Scalise had stepped into the forefront Tuesday as a vaccine proponent. Begnaud asked him to read the congressman's statement.

"He thinks it's safe and effective," Roe said.

"And what's your reaction?" Begnaud asked.

"Not proven," Roe said.

"But does his opinion change yours?" Begnaud asked.

"No, it does not," Roe said.

Dr. Catherine O'Neal, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, did not mince words.

"We are either going to get vaccinated and end the pandemic. Or we are going to accept death," O'Neal said.

"Stop shoving government down my throat!"

"Sir, this is a hospital and we need to intubate you."

OG_slinger wrote:

COVID patient in Louisiana says he'd opt for hospitalization again over vaccine

CBS News wrote:

...

This father, former baseball coach, small business owner and hunter caught COVID and then developed pneumonia

I bet you a million dollars that this dude took advantage of ALL the small business bailout/rescue options that were made available by the government. I also bet he had no problem taking the stimulus checks assuming he fell into the right earnings brackets.

It’s infuriating that people like this are happy to take things for themselves but can’t be bothered to do something for the common good of mankind.

That is..... is.....

....Man, anyone in healthcare who isn't (quite reasonably) quitting after all of this has my respect. Because this level of just brick wall willfull ignorance, based on literally nothing other than "Don't tell me what to do!" childishness must be insanely demoralizing as you're watching patients die preventable deaths.

EDIT: This also gets to how I really want to be positive about climate change, but......

EDIT v2: I also want to use words that rhyme with "Breath Insult"

I’m trying not to rage post about the willful stupidity of these unvaccinated people.

Here’s some video footage if you want to be enraged.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Phil_Lewi...

Noted health professional and freedom fighter Eric Clapton taking a strong stand to not hold concerts in areas where vax passports required.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Noted health professional and freedom fighter Eric Clapton taking a strong stand to not hold concerts in areas where vax passports required.

My crystal ball sees a Clapton/Nugent double feature being announced in the near future.