CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Pancho 44803]

 

[Anastasis 23469]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The FDA is now saying a decision should occur within 2 months. I'm guessing someone spoke to them or at least their PR team.

January 2022 is the statutory PDUFA deadline. The review can and will move more quickly. 

[Mole 4333]

On 7/14/2021 at 1:53 PM, Anastasis said:

In all seriousness though, do you actually know and interact with people that believe that Bill Gates is using the vaccines as a delivery mechanism for microchips?

I am not asking if you found something on twitter to get bunched up about.  I mean an actual real life acquaintance or colleague?

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I have yet to have someone evangelize to me about vaccine microchips. I kinda wish that it would happen though, cause it would be a really funny exchange in real life.  

I moved away from Texas shortly before the descent into madness, but most of my social circle from Texas has lost their minds. “Fauci belongs in prison” is common, as is some nefarious connection with Bill Gates, and of course vaccines/masks/human decency is the mark of the beast.

Q beliefs are common. The flat earth thing seems to be strangely coming up recently as well. 

I haven’t specifically heard the microchip stuff, but instead I hear dressed up pseudoscience versions of similar concepts. It’s not microchips, but the shot put something in me that’ll do the same thing. Also, apparently the shot was fake too? Probably 20% seem to believe that the vaccinated will die within months because reasons.

It’s been nuts. A white single mother with mixed race children started expressing support for Christian nationalism. One guy seems to believe that the sun is fake or something. I can’t figure it out.

These are all people I knew very well several years ago and were all normal, sane people. They were close friends. They’ve jettisoned from reality.

[Foosters 17856]

37 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Jacksonville and Panama City look like they're going to get hit hard.

[Queen Bitch 1692]

7 minutes ago, Mole said:

I moved away from Texas shortly before the descent into madness, but most of my social circle from Texas has lost their minds. “Fauci belongs in prison” is common, as is some nefarious connection with Bill Gates, and of course vaccines/masks/human decency is the mark of the beast.

Q beliefs are common. The flat earth thing seems to be strangely coming up recently as well. 

I haven’t specifically heard the microchip stuff, but instead I hear dressed up pseudoscience versions of similar concepts. It’s not microchips, but the shot put something in me that’ll do the same thing. Also, apparently the shot was fake too? Probably 20% seem to believe that the vaccinated will die within months because reasons.

It’s been nuts. A white single mother with mixed race children started expressing support for Christian nationalism. One guy seems to believe that the sun is fake or something. I can’t figure it out.

These are all people I knew very well several years ago and were all normal, sane people. They were close friends. They’ve jettisoned from reality.

It’s only going to get worse 🙃

[Biff Tannen 45685]

14 minutes ago, Mole said:

One guy seems to believe that the sun is fake or something. I can’t figure it out.

Yeah, fuck the sun, I fuckin hate it too.  Long live the fuckin beast.

[Anastasis 23469]

UK getting delta butt fucked.  But vaccines are working.  If you are not vaccinated there is still some time, but not much. 

 

 

 

[Biff Tannen 45685]

Are people dying more from delta or just more cases?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Are people dying more from delta or just more cases?

So far I don't believe that delta is deadlier than previous strains/variants. But hospitalizations and then deaths trail new cases by 1-2 weeks at least. 

[safe sex 11727]

We've got several delta cases in my hospital and a couple of them were vaccinated at that (prob J&J, which is what we offer to patients who want the vaccine lol).

[Don Johnson 4753]

3 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

So far I don't believe that delta is deadlier than previous strains/variants. But hospitalizations and then deaths trail new cases by 1-2 weeks at least. 

Got to be hard to compare apples to apples with so many at risk being vaccinated.

[Anastasis 23469]

1 minute ago, trauma babe said:

We've got several delta cases in my hospital and a couple of them were vaccinated at that (prob J&J, which is what we offer to patients who want the vaccine lol).

How would you describe the severity generally speaking?

[safe sex 11727]

12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How would you describe the severity generally speaking?

Not privy to that info, unfortunately. I don't even know if they're ICU status or not.

[washparkhorn 9939]

Deaths ticking up. Remains low, but a bad trend with delta.

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by washparkhorn

[Orale 1087]

Deaths ticking up. Remains low, but a bad trend with delta.

 

Not to be callous, but these are likely to be anti-vaxxers right? Is it so bad that they die? Obviously not applicable to children, those for medical reasons that can't get vaccinated, etc....

[Biff Tannen 45685]

1 hour ago, Orale said:

Not to be callous, but these are likely to be anti-vaxxers right? Is it so bad that they die? Obviously not applicable to children, those for medical reasons that can't get vaccinated, etc....

This is kinda where I'm at.  I think we are basically at the point where if you wanted a vaccine, you have one.  I understand the risks of continuing to allow the virus to mutate and get around vaccines, etc, but I don't think there is any other option here.  Let it take out as many dumbasses as possible.  There will be collateral damage too, but I think this is our path.

[washparkhorn 9939]

Bloomberg News sums up the current situation:

[Bookman 4639]

I assume some of those voluntarily dying from Covid will have houses. This might make it easier for people to get a home.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33870]

6 minutes ago, Bookman said:

I assume some of those voluntarily dying from Covid will have houses. This might make it easier for people to get a home.

[Don Johnson 4753]

 

[HenryJames 66052]

[HenryJames 66052]

 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19101]

 

[Francisco 2.0 32393]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/delta-missouri-pandemic-surge/619456/

 

Quote

The summer wasn’t meant to be like this. By April, Greene County, in southwestern Missouri, seemed to be past the worst of the pandemic. Intensive-care units that once overflowed had emptied. Vaccinations were rising. Health-care workers who had been fighting the coronavirus for months felt relieved—perhaps even hopeful. Then, in late May, cases started ticking up again. By July, the surge was so pronounced that “it took the wind out of everyone,” Erik Frederick, the chief administrative officer of Mercy Hospital Springfield, told me. “How did we end up back here again?”

 

Quote

The hospital is now busier than at any previous point during the pandemic. In just five weeks, it took in as many COVID-19 patients as it did over five months last year. Ten minutes away, another big hospital, Cox Medical Center South, has been inundated just as quickly. “We only get beds available when someone dies, which happens several times a day,” Terrence Coulter, the critical-care medical director at CoxHealth, told me.

 

Quote

Last week, Katie Towns, the acting director of the Springfield–Greene County Health Department, was concerned that the county’s daily cases were topping 250. On Wednesday, the daily count hit 405. This dramatic surge is the work of the super-contagious Delta variant, which now accounts for 95 percent of Greene County’s new cases, according to Towns. It is spreading easily because people have ditched their masks, crowded into indoor spaces, resumed travel, and resisted vaccinations. Just 40 percent of people in Greene County are fully vaccinated. In some nearby counties, less than 20 percent of people are.

 

Spoiler

Many experts have argued that, even with Delta, the United States is unlikely to revisit the horrors of last winter. Even now, the country’s hospitalizations are one-seventh as high as they were in mid-January. But national optimism glosses over local reality. For many communities, this year will be worse than last. Springfield’s health-care workers and public-health specialists are experiencing the same ordeals they thought they had left behind. “But it feels worse this time because we’ve seen it before,” Amelia Montgomery, a nurse at CoxHealth, told me. “Walking back into the COVID ICU was demoralizing.”

Those ICUs are also filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, including many with no underlying health problems. In part, that’s because elderly people have been more likely to get vaccinated, leaving Delta with a younger pool of vulnerable hosts. While experts are still uncertain if Delta is deadlier than the original coronavirus, every physician and nurse in Missouri whom I spoke with told me that the 30- and 40-something COVID-19 patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year. “That age group did get COVID before, but they didn’t usually end up in the ICU like they are now,” Jonathan Brown, a respiratory therapist at Mercy, told me. Nurses are watching families navigate end-of-life decisions for young people who have no advance directives or other legal documents in place.

Almost every COVID-19 patient in Springfield’s hospitals is unvaccinated, and the dozen or so exceptions are all either elderly or immunocompromised people. The vaccines are working as intended, but the number of people who have refused to get their shots is crushing morale. Vaccines were meant to be the end of the pandemic. If people don’t get them, the actual end will look more like Springfield’s present: a succession of COVID-19 waves that will break unevenly across the country until everyone has either been vaccinated or infected. “You hear post-pandemic a lot,” Frederick said. “We’re clearly not post-pandemic. New York threw a ticker-tape parade for its health-care heroes, and ours are knee-deep in COVID.”

That they are in this position despite the wide availability of vaccines turns difficult days into unbearable ones. As bad as the winter surge was, Springfield’s health-care workers shared a common purpose of serving their community, Steve Edwards, the president and CEO of CoxHealth, told me. But now they’re “putting themselves in harm’s way for people who’ve chosen not to protect themselves,” he said. While there were always ways of preventing COVID-19 infections, Missourians could have almost entirely prevented this surge through vaccination—but didn’t. “My sense of hope is dwindling,” Tracy Hill, a nurse at Mercy, told me. “I’m losing a little bit of faith in mankind. But you can’t just not go to work.”

When Springfield’s hospitals saw the first pandemic wave hitting the coasts, they could steel themselves. This time, with Delta thrashing Missouri fast and first, they haven’t had time to summon sufficient reinforcements. Between them, Mercy and Cox South have recruited about 300 traveling nurses, respiratory therapists, and other specialists, which is still less than they need. The hospitals’ health-care workers have adequate PPE and most are vaccinated. But in the ICUs and in COVID-19 wards, respiratory therapists still must constantly adjust ventilators, entire teams must regularly flip patients onto their belly and back again, and nurses spend long shifts drenched in sweat as they repeatedly don and doff protective gear. In previous phases of the pandemic, both hospitals took in patients from other counties and states. “Now we’re blasting outward,” Coulter said. “We’re already saturating the surrounding hospitals.”

Meanwhile, the hospitals’ own staff members are exhausted beyond telling. After the winter surge, they spent months catching up on record numbers of postponed surgeries and other procedures. Now they’re facing their sharpest COVID-19 surge yet on top of those backlogged patients, many of whom are sicker than usual because their health care had to be deferred. Even with hundreds of new patients with lung cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases waiting for care in outpatient settings, Coulter still has to cancel his clinics because “I have to be in the hospital all the time,” he said.

 

Many health-care workers have had enough. Some who took on extra shifts during past surges can’t bring themselves to do so again. Some have moved to less stressful positions that don’t involve treating COVID-19. Others are holding the line, but only just. “You can’t pour from an empty cup, but with every shift it feels like my co-workers and I are empty,” Montgomery said. “We are still trying to fill each other up and keep going.”

The grueling slog is harder now because it feels so needless, and because many patients don’t realize their mistake until it’s too late. On Tuesday, Hill spoke with an elderly man who had just been admitted and was very sick. “He said, ‘I’m embarrassed that I’m here,’” she told me. “He wanted to talk about the vaccine, and in the back of my mind I’m thinking, You have a very high likelihood of not leaving the hospital.” Other patients remain defiant. “We had someone spit in a nurse’s eye because she told him he had COVID and he didn’t believe her,” Edwards said.

Some health-care workers are starting to resent their patients—an emotion that feels taboo. “You’re just angry,” Coulter said, “and you feel guilty for getting angry, because they’re sick and dying.” Others are indignant on behalf of loved ones who don’t already have access to the vaccines. “I’m a mom of a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old, and the daughter of family members in Zimbabwe and South Africa who can’t get vaccinated yet,” says Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, who works at a Veterans Affairs hospital in St. Louis. “I’m frustrated, angry, and sad.”

 

“I don’t think people get that once you become sick enough to be hospitalized with COVID, the medications and treatments that we have are, quite frankly, not very good,” says Howard Jarvis, the medical director of Cox South’s emergency department. Drugs such as dexamethasone offer only incremental benefits. Monoclonal antibodies are effective only during the disease’s earliest stages. Doctors can give every recommended medication, and patients still have a high chance of dying. The goal should be to stop people from getting sick in the first place.

 

But Missouri Governor Mike Parson never issued a statewide mask mandate, and the state’s biggest cities—Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, and Columbia—ended their local orders in May, after the CDC said that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks indoors. In June, Parson signed a law that limits local governments’ ability to enact public-health restrictions. And even before the pandemic, Missouri ranked 41st out of all the states in terms of public-health funding. “We started in a hole and we’re trying to catch up,” Towns, the director of the Springfield–Greene County Health Department, told me.

Her team flattened last year’s curve through testing, contact tracing, and quarantining, but “Delta has just decimated our ability to respond,” Kendra Findley, the department’s administrator for community health and epidemiology, told me. The variant is spreading too quickly for the department to keep up with every new case, and more people are refusing to cooperate with contact tracers than at this time last year. The CDC has sent a “surge team” to help, but it’s just two people: an epidemiologist, who is helping analyze data on Delta’s spread, and a communications person. And like Springfield’s hospitals, the health department was already overwhelmed with work that had been put off for a year. “Suddenly, I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day,” Findley said.

Early last year, Findley stuck a note on her whiteboard with the number of people who died in the 1918 flu pandemic: 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S. “It was for perspective: We will not get here. You can manage this,” she told me. “I looked at it the other day and I think we’re going to get there. And I feel like a large segment of the population doesn’t care.”

The 1918 flu pandemic took Missouri by surprise too, says Carolyn Orbann, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri who studies that disaster. While much of the world felt the brunt of the pandemic in October 1918, Missouri had irregular waves with a bigger peak in February 1920. So when COVID-19 hit, Orbann predicted that the state might have a similarly drawn-out experience. Missouri has a widely dispersed population, divided starkly between urban and rural places, and few highways—a recipe for distinct and geographically disparate microcultures. That perhaps explains why new pathogens move erratically through the state, creating unpredictable surges and, in some pockets, a false sense of security. Last year, “many communities may have gone through their lockdown period without registering a single case and wondered, What did we do that for?” Orbann told me.

She also suspects that Missourians in 1918 might have had a “better overhead view of the course of the pandemic in their communities than the average citizen has now.” Back then, the state’s local papers published lists of people who were sick, so even those who didn’t know anyone with the flu could see that folks around them were dying. “It made the pandemic seem more local,” Orbann said. “Now, with fewer hometown newspapers and restrictions on sharing patient information, that kind of knowledge is restricted to people working in health care.”

Montgomery, the CoxHealth nurse, feels that disparity whenever she leaves the hospital. “I work in the ICU, where it’s like a war zone, and I go out in public and everything’s normal,” she said. “You see death and suffering, and then you walk into the grocery store and get resistance. It feels like we’re being ostracized by our community.”

If anything, people in the state have become more entrenched in their beliefs and disbeliefs than they were last year, Davis, the St. Louis–based doctor, told me. They might believe that COVID-19 has been overblown, that young people won’t be harmed, or that the vaccines were developed too quickly to be safe. But above all else, “what I predominantly get is, ‘I don’t want to talk to you about that; let’s move on,’” Davis said.

 

People take the pandemic seriously when they can see it around them. During past surges in other parts of the U.S., curves flattened once people saw their loved ones falling ill, or once their community became the unwanted focus of national media coverage. The same feedback loop might be starting to occur in Missouri. The major Route 66 Festival has been canceled. More people are making vaccine appointments at both Cox South and Mercy.

In Springfield, the public-health professionals I talked with felt that they had made successful efforts to address barriers to vaccine access, and that vaccine hesitancy was the driving force of low vaccination rates. Improving those rates is now a matter of engendering trust as quickly as possible. Springfield’s firefighters are highly trusted, so the city set up vaccine clinics in local fire stations. Community-health advocates are going door-to-door to talk with their neighbors about vaccines. The Springfield News-Leader is set to publish a full page of photos of well-known Springfieldians who are advocating for vaccination. Several local pastors have agreed to preach about vaccines from their pulpits and set up vaccination events in their churches. One such event, held at James River Church on Monday, vaccinated 156 people. “Once we got down to the group of hesitant people, we’d be happy if we had 20 people show up to a clinic,” says Cora Scott, Springfield’s director of public information and civic engagement. “To have 156 people show up in one church in one day is phenomenal.”

But building trust is slow, and Delta is moving fast. Even if the still-unvaccinated 55 percent of Missourians all got their first shots tomorrow, it would still take a month to administer the second ones, and two weeks more for full immunity to develop. As current trends show, Delta can do a lot in six weeks. Still, “if we can get our vaccination levels to where some of the East Coast states have got to, I’ll feel a lot better going into the fall,” Frederick, Mercy’s chief administrative officer, said. “If we plateau again, my fear is that we will see the twindemic of flu and COVID.”

In the meantime, southwest Missouri is now a cautionary tale of what Delta can do to a largely unvaccinated community that has lowered its guard. None of Missouri’s 114 counties has vaccinated more than 50 percent of its population, and 75 haven’t yet managed more than 30 percent. Many such communities exist around the U.S. “There’s very few secrets about this disease, because the answer is always somewhere else,” Edwards said. “I think we’re a harbinger of what other states can expect.”

 

 

[Satchel 6938]

Gawd, we’ll be back where we were last summer if the unvaccinated don’t come to their senses.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5112]

1 hour ago, Satchel said:

Gawd, we’ll be back where we were last summer if the unvaccinated don’t come to their senses.

Be prepared to go back, because I’m pretty convinced at this point that those people don’t have any sense to come back to.  Jesus could come back and tell them they are morons for skipping and they’d call him a libtard Fuck and keep on trucking down this idiotic path. the only hope is that this round kills enough of them that the rest of them finally see the need. It makes me fucking sad and furious to come to that conclusion, because my sister, who is one of my best friends, is currently in the no vaccine for her, her husband or her children camp. I’m already expecting at least one of them will die this year. 

[Bookman 4639]

14 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Be prepared to go back, because I’m pretty convinced at this point that those people don’t have any sense to come back to.  Jesus could come back and tell them they are morons for skipping and they’d call him a libtard Fuck and keep on trucking down this idiotic path. the only hope is that this round kills enough of them that the rest of them finally see the need. It makes me fucking sad and furious to come to that conclusion, because my sister, who is one of my best friends, is currently in the no vaccine for her, her husband or her children camp. I’m already expecting at least one of them will die this year. 

Sorry to hear about your sister dude.

[Chuckie Finster 22694]

There’s going to be a point in the near future when it becomes undeniable that pretty much only Republicans are dying from this thing. Just watch: certain politicians will use this as proof that the Democrats played a role in the formation/spread of COVID.

[washparkhorn 9939]

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Every physician and nurse in Missouri whom I spoke with told me that the 30- and 40-something COVID-19 patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year.

“That age group did get COVID last year, but they didn’t end up in the ICU like they are now.”

Nurses are watching families navigate end-of-life decisions for young people who have no advance directives or other legal documents in place.

Unnecessary pain, damage, despair and death. 

Homo economicus says: deflationary headwind for the economy. Highly inefficient. Damage to US soft-power. Damage to hard power if it spreads through unvaccinated in the ranks.

 

 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6559]

So I am out in Vegas and just had dinner with a couple of big clients of mine and their wives.  Somehow the topic came up about masks and Covid.  One of the guys wife goes off on how wearing a mask is ridiculous and doesn’t do anything.  She then goes on and on about the Delta variant and how it was really caused by all the people that got vaccinated and the vaccinated people somehow shed this new variant and it is hurting all the unvaccinated people.  She kept going on that if nobody got vaccinated then we wouldn’t have these variants and the world would be a better place.  Her husband is a big client of mine so I have to just sit there and smile but I can’t begin to tell you how badly I wanted to scream at her “You Fucking Idiot”.  

[Walser 1109]

I can't even imagine.

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

2 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

There’s going to be a point in the near future when it becomes undeniable that pretty much only Republicans are dying from this thing. Just watch: certain politicians will use this as proof that the Democrats played a role in the formation/spread of COVID.

Yeah, that’ll happen right after Republican voters come to the undeniable conclusion that human use of fossil fuels is driving global warming. Don’t hold your breath. 

[scottsins 1966]

I think that there is a very wide gulf between the continuing to hold the wrong-headed notion that HCQ is effective to treat COVID and the lunacy that Bill Gate is using vaccines as a microchip delivery mechanism.  Early on many people were hopeful that we might find a silver bullet and HCQ (and any number of other existing therapeutics) were worth exploring (myself included). That belief became irrationally fixed for some folks and they were unable to integrate the data demonstrating it's lack of efficacy.  But that is quite different than the idea the vaccines are the product of a global conspiracy to implement microchips in every one. Do you know anyone IRL that actually believes the latter?

I do. My FIL actually told my wife that he tried to stick a magnet to his arm, but it didn’t work (no shit?), but that was probably was because it was too long after his injection.

[scottsins 1966]

I’m actually annoyed that I have this card burning a hole in my wallet and not one damn place has asked to see it. 

I’ve been asked ONE time to show my vax card in order to forego wearing a mask.

Interestingly, it was at a nicer dispensary in Las Vegas.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19101]

I've started wearing my mask indoors again. A lot of folks have. Also, a lot of places in NYC didn't stop requiring it.

[Sawbonz 27561]

 

https://www.fox4news.com/news/north-texas-among-areas-seeing-increase-in-covid-19-cases-as-it-becomes-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated

 

We’re going to have a new round of needless deaths

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

8 hours ago, Satchel said:

Gawd, we’ll be back where we were last summer if the unvaccinated don’t come to their senses.

Duval county FL (Jacksonville) reported 4,000 new cases yesterday. County of 960,000 people. Previous daily high was 2,000 from a few days previously. When they previously peaked in January, they never saw more than 1,500 in a day.

One caveat is that their reporting looks to only occur every few days. Still 0.4% of their population tested positive over the last few days. And that county is only a couple of percentage points behind Texas in adult vaccination rates.

[DigglerontheHoof 21199]

So unvaccinated trumpkins dying of the covid...

Thoughts and prayers; thoughts and prayers. 

[GRHorn 105]

5 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

So I am out in Vegas and just had dinner with a couple of big clients of mine and their wives.  Somehow the topic came up about masks and Covid.  One of the guys wife goes off on how wearing a mask is ridiculous and doesn’t do anything.  She then goes on and on about the Delta variant and how it was really caused by all the people that got vaccinated and the vaccinated people somehow shed this new variant and it is hurting all the unvaccinated people.  She kept going on that if nobody got vaccinated then we wouldn’t have these variants and the world would be a better place.  Her husband is a big client of mine so I have to just sit there and smile but I can’t begin to tell you how badly I wanted to scream at her “You Fucking Idiot”.  

Sorry to see you bend the knee. 

[Anastasis 23469]

3 hours ago, scottsins said:

I do. My FIL actually told my wife that he tried to stick a magnet to his arm, but it didn’t work (no shit?), but that was probably was because it was too long after his injection.

How did she respond? Dropped some knowledge on him?

[safe sex 11727]

Back into double digit admits here in one central Austin hospital. Unsure how many would be ICU-level, but it's more than two for sure. And it's not like the ones who are on the floor are breathing without oxygen, ya know? I imagine those that are critical weren't vaccinated, but I also don't know that for sure. I don't have any information on age ranges. It was a busy Friday night and I didn't get around to visit my sisters in the MICU. 

If you haven't been vaccinated for any other reason than you are immuno-compromised or a pre-teen, I am begging you: please get vaccinated as soon as possible. Austin was spared the worst when we didn't have a proven method to prevent and minimize the virus, and what we dealt with was still really fucking shitty. To add to that, nurse/staff morale is lower now than probably at any point prior during the pandemic. Yes, we've gotten protecting ourselves down pat. Yes, there is less of a supply PPE problem. Yes, we know what treatments help with COVID and when to utilize them. We know how to maximize your chances at coming off of the ventilator. I hope you know that that probably means you end up with a tracheostomy and without the ability to speak. But there's a really easy, safe, and effective way to almost certainly prevent this from happening:

GET VACCINATED

We are running out of energy to care. You have the ability to stop this from happening. Please do the right thing.

We have continued to hemorrhage staff throughout the hospital, but especially from our ICUs. I don't use that word lightly You can make >$60/hr in Houston as a critical care nurse—hell, you can make $60/hr as a "floor" nurse in Houston—but you're stuck at around $34/hr in Austin, and that includes weekend, night shift, and critical care differential pay. People can't afford to live and progress in their lives here, so they will only stay so long. Why deal with all of that plus COVID? I can't speak for any other unit in my hospital, but I can say with certainty that the average number of years worked per nurse in my ICU is the lowest it's ever been in my more than five years here. Your odds of having an overworked, underexperienced nurse as your caregiver during a critical illness is the highest it's ever been. 

Just get the shot and deal with potentially feeling like shit for a day or so. It's def a lot better than breathing through a hole in your neck, if you make it that far.

Edited July 17, 2021 by trauma babe
Extra points (and grammar)

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

7 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

So I am out in Vegas and just had dinner with a couple of big clients of mine and their wives.  Somehow the topic came up about masks and Covid.  One of the guys wife goes off on how wearing a mask is ridiculous and doesn’t do anything.  She then goes on and on about the Delta variant and how it was really caused by all the people that got vaccinated and the vaccinated people somehow shed this new variant and it is hurting all the unvaccinated people.  She kept going on that if nobody got vaccinated then we wouldn’t have these variants and the world would be a better place.  Her husband is a big client of mine so I have to just sit there and smile but I can’t begin to tell you how badly I wanted to scream at her “You Fucking Idiot”.  

Remember that dinner during the next negotiations. Make them pay a couple extra percent points because of her.

[safe sex 11727]

Everyone else: please strongly consider wearing masks indoors around others for a little while. We (Austin) can make it through Delta with relative ease if we go back to even 50% of our previous effort at infection prevention.

[Biff Tannen 45685]

2 hours ago, trauma babe said:

You can make >$60/hr in Houston as a critical care nurse—hell, you can make $60/hr as a "floor" nurse in Houston—but you're stuck at around $34/hr in Austin, and that includes weekend, night shift, and critical care differential pay.

Why the disparity in pay?

[Lurch 5930]

Duval county FL (Jacksonville) reported 4,000 new cases yesterday. County of 960,000 people. Previous daily high was 2,000 from a few days previously. When they previously peaked in January, they never saw more than 1,500 in a day.
One caveat is that their reporting looks to only occur every few days. Still 0.4% of their population tested positive over the last few days. And that county is only a couple of percentage points behind Texas in adult vaccination rates.

This is where I live. There’s almost no discussion of it. It’s going to need to somehow get much worse, it seems.

[JimmyJames 12271]

3 hours ago, GRHorn said:

Sorry to see you bend the knee. 

Negged. Every single time you post misinformation on this site and no doubt many others you are bending the knee to your employer. 
 

Oh and killing people too. Hope you’re proud of yourself. 

[Nivek 16930]

I had spotted something while reading around catching up on news that was in regard to how attacks on science were becoming more and more individual--Messonier and Fauci were early on and the attacks (differentiated from criticism as those are two different things) of Fauci that have continued unabated were part of the strategy to 'trickle down' to other people and other areas and/or disciplines. Peter Hotez had been in the hot seat for years with the anti-vaccine crowd, but the loss of dedicated public servants is going to take an enormous toll. It also makes it easier to embed fascist/loyalist sympathetic people in agencies.
Soooo, do you all like the drop into boiling water approach or the slow bring to a boil method?

This has been happening for a long time.

[cactusflinthead 27598]

 

[HenryJames 66052]

 

[Anastasis 23469]

1 minute ago, HenryJames said:

 

 

"Mark of the Beast" is in the twitter responses, isn't it?