Why not just get a vaccine? Surely you believe it protects you. ;)
Printable View
Serious question: my chances of being seriously injured or killed by Covid are several levels of magnitude higher than my chances of being killed by some stranger with a gun. Considering that you think I should be able to do pretty much anything to prevent the latter scenario, why shouldn't the same logic hold for the former one?
I have often wondered if stand-your-ground laws would make it legal for me to shoot someone who approached me without a mask.
The number of people killed by strangers in a given year, especially if we exclude gang on gang violence, is in the very low thousands. Meanwhile, about 6% of Covid deaths had no comorbidities, which works out to 5k per year. Of course that's a dumb measure because a huge portion of Americans do have them and can't just stop having them. Unlike me having the ability to avoid drug dens and other places where I'm likely to get shot. The number of people killed by strangers inside their own homes is in the dozens, for example.
Naturally, the Florida Health Director was placed on administrative leave for saying something so outrageous in an e-mail.Quote:
Originally Posted by Florida Health Director
Twitter Link
Why do all these dumbasses look like this?
Huh, I always thought you were in the North East part of the country
Haven't lived in the northeast since Bush was president.
Perhaps your attitude explains the political divisions about vaccines, even among the vaccinated, and Public Health in general?
It's not "hysterics" to care about the vulnerable people who will still get severely ill and need hospitalization...or the medical professionals staffing those hospitals and providing that care...in an effort to save lives. It's not rational, reasonable, or prudent to ignore the destructive powers of a virus, or let its mutations run wild. It's particularly stupid when our healthcare industry is based on private insurance and profits for shareholders. :donkey:
On that note -- the box of N95 masks I ordered almost 2 weeks ago just arrived. It's a much better mask than the KN95 I'd been wearing. Even tho I'm fully vaccinated (with booster), and live in a "red" part of PA where almost no one wears masks, and I get plenty of dirty looks and comments about being a lib'rul democrat :rolleyes: I will still wear a mask in large group settings to reduce my risks of getting infected, or let the virus mutate.
I wish this hadn't become so politicized, or turned into arguments about Individual Freeeedom vs Government interference, but then again it's high time we evaluated what it means to be part of a community, state, or nation in a globally connected world.
PS the next global pandemic from a novel infectious/contagious virus *will* arrive, and it could be much worse than SARS-CoV-2. This was an opportunity to plan for that eventuality, but we don't seem able to plan for potential risks very well. Instead, we have folks calling that "hysterics". :bulb:
In other news, even my county has been hit hard by omicron. Half the clinic is home sick or caring for their kids, with daycare all over town operating at half capacity. Vaccinated people aren't ending up in the ICU in the same way, but people who haven't yet gotten their booster are still getting very ill, and the ER constantly has a few unvaccinated young kids with covid, throughout the day. Our authorities are obstructing vaccination in children 5-11, testing basically isn't working (guessing most people with covid aren't bothering to test), and we're back to seeing doctors and nurses in other parts of Sweden saying just the dumbest things about covid policy on social media, continuing to undermine public health measures intended to rein in transmission. At least we now have to get tested before signing on—it only took two years :)
Sweden has national policies mandating paid sick time and Child Care/Day Care, right?
Or paid Family Leave. My point is that the US not only has a crappy safety net, but a crappy model for "healthcare". So many people are screwed. Our model is based on an Insurance industry that profits shareholders, so even gov't subsidies for Insurance falls short on the Public Health delivery spectrum.
Just look at the debacle of "free" at-home covid tests available to the Insured, but only if you use an "approved" pharmacy/provider. Otherwise, you have to buy the test kits at full price, including cost mark-ups, then hope to get re-imbursed by your insurer, knowing that only a portion will qualify, because you didn't go thru the 'proper' hoops. It's a craptastic policy that is only defended because we don't have a coordinated National Healthcare System.
https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/b...death-tracker/
"CNN will likely stop counting, so the Free Beacon is picking up the slack.
469,974 Americans have died from COVID-19 since President Joe Biden took office. He promised the American people he would "shut down the virus." (Fact check: He has not.)"
At least we know that stupidity isn't limited to any nation or class now. Especially when people live in a country with crappy political leadership.
Lewk, I thought Covid was no big deal. Make up your mind.
P.S. It's hardly Biden's fault that people listening to Republican politicians and media personalities are refusing to get vaccinated and then dying to own the libs.
Its not a big deal if you are healthy and aren't old. The flu isn't a big deal if you are healthy and aren't old (though it does suck balls, and like for Covid I also get my flu vaccine each year cus fuck losing a week of productivity). Though my primary point here is the nature of media. Suddenly a death tracker isn't as important now that their boy is in office, how predictable.
A majority of adults in the US have an elevated risk of death or disability due to covid, notwithstanding vaccination status. Even those who don't have covid are endangered because medical resources that they need—urgently—have to be diverted to covid patients. I have previously healthy colleagues and patients struggling with long-term problems months or even a year after their initial infection. Meanwhile, the world's most influential newspaper updated this yesterday:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...vid-cases.html
More pregnant women and kids with covid in the ER these past couple of weeks. More GI symptoms than I remember, too. They're sorted to other services so I have no idea what the stats may be. As with previous waves, the high levels of community transmission is keeping many patients home, so my service is getting far fewer patients at the ER than usual—only people with undeniably serious acute issues are showing up to the ER. This is a blessing because, with a third of the nurses and physicians home sick, we desperately need to be able to focus on acute care for local patients, and maintaining the tertiary care services for the northern region. I think people are more prone to be cautious in my town and at my hospital—compared to the rest of Sweden—but, even here, there are easily hundreds of people milling around in the hospital without bothering to wear masks or take even basic common sense precautions. Seeing increasingly dumb and breathtakingly egocentric commentary from HCWs in response to schools and other workplaces trying to get a handle on things by being cautious. Yesterday, a patient on my ward tested positive two days after admission, after a bunch of nurses, nurses' assistants, physiotherapists, patients and docs had been exposed, so an outbreak on the ward might not be too far off, which would be kinda devastating. Knock on wood.
The Canadian border truck blockade is mystifying. They claim covid vaccine mandates are ruining their individual freeeedoms...but they're doing far more damage to their own self-interests (and economic freeeedoms) with their anti-gov't/anti-vax protests.
Cognitive Dissonance strikes again! :popcorn:
Every time I read something about these truckers I get an image in my head, of a man who has always just been such a goddamn chore for every single woman in his life. Obv not representative of Canadian truckers though
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FqU5cfAX...pg&name=medium
jesus fucking christ. even by tory standards, this is just so unbelievably bad. everyone knew at the time. everyone knew, as it was happening (well, everyone except illiterate cultists with their heads shoved up their own asses).