Coronavirus 2019

@irwin posted:

Travel to Florida...... We're supposed to visit on Father's Day weekend.  About 83% of Marylanders 65 and over have had at least one shot.  Slightly over 2/3 of all adult Marylanders have had at least one shot.  We heard that in Florida, next to no one wears a mask, vaccination rates are low, and people are oblivious to social distancing.  Not crazy about this upcoming trip.

Relax and have a nice trip to the Sunshine State.  I was there two weeks ago.  It was the same as everywhere else:  masks required in airports, hotel lobbies and in restaurants from the entrance to your table.

I'm ready.  Got my masks.  Will be nice to get away from the darn cicadas for a few days.  Apparently the percentage of vaccinated people in Broward and Palm Beach counties is pretty comparable to Maryland.

@irwin posted:

I'm ready.  Got my masks.  Will be nice to get away from the darn cicadas for a few days.  Apparently the percentage of vaccinated people in Broward and Palm Beach counties is pretty comparable to Maryland.

We head to Destin, Florida tomorrow for a week, interesting to see how that part of the state is.  My wife and I and our 13 year old son are all vaccinated, but our 10 year old is not.  Obviously taking all of the precautions coming and going and while down there. 

@irwin posted:

I'm ready.  Got my masks.  Will be nice to get away from the darn cicadas for a few days.  Apparently the percentage of vaccinated people in Broward and Palm Beach counties is pretty comparable to Maryland.

We are banging along at 39% vaccinated, one of the worst in the USA.  I know some folks that refuse to get the shots, and run around maskless, even in close indoor quarters.   Se FL has more idiots per square mile than Texas

Sadly Bill Maher continued his pro-disease nonsense with a anti-mask screed. "This mask bullshit..." and off he went. Yes it's time to loosen up but as a courtesy, in certain situations, such as around the currently unvaccinatedable, ie children including infants, would it kill you to put on a mask? We are still averaging a "9/11" every week. If I'm doing my math right, this is about twice the yearly flu death rate.

If you take the annual death rate from the worst flu season in the last decade (2017-2018 = 61,000 deaths), that's about 167 people per day.  If the Covid death rate drops to that level (the current 7 day average, per the CDC, is 347), then I can envision people arguing that since Covid is no longer any worse than the flu (death-wise) that we should handle it the way we do the flu - which means basically just go live your lives and not worry anymore.

And I'm guessing the vast majority of them will be people who refused to get vaccinated. And a number of them who cannot get vaccinated, for example too young, will also die because of those not getting vaccinated to help create herd immunity. Oh well, such is life in these United States.

Having my first post pandemic arbitration in my office today.  All participants vaccinated, and I required them to send me a copy by email or otherwise a copy of their CDC cards. No one minded.

There will be 4 or 5 people in my conference room today for the first time in 16 or so months.

"the state can't force people to show if they're vaccinated against a deadly disease"

also same state legislalture

"the state must force people to show some id when they go vote"

1905 S. Ct case says that a state can make it a criminal offense to fail to get an injection against a communicable disease.  We require injections of various sorts for kids who go to public school.

You know, if I wasn't vaccinated, I'd be a bit concerned about this "Delta" variant that is quickly spreading around. 

@Rothko posted:

You know, if I wasn't vaccinated, I'd be a bit concerned about this "Delta" variant that is quickly spreading around.

Might be a good idea to be concerned anyways.  Israel and the Seychelles are into another wave of infections due to Delta even though most of the population is fully vaccinated.  We were happy to get Moderna for our second shot after a first shot of AstraZeneca as current data seems to say that mixing two different styles of vaccine offers the greatest protection against all the variants.  Though that said given how the science continues to evolve, who knows what the data will reveal down the road?

From what I've read, the Seychelles problem is that they were all given one of the Chinese vaccines, and there are considerable doubts about its efficacy.  So even though they were heavily "vaccinated", the vaccine isn't very good.  Lots of breakthrough cases.

In Israel, it seems to mostly be the unvaccinated folks: children, people who refused to get the shots, people who only have gotten one shot.  But there are some people who are fully vaccinated who are coming up positive as well.  What the article said is that the Pfizer vaccine, which was like 95 % effective against the original strains, is only around 85 % effective against the Delta variant, so there are going to be more vaccinated people who may come down with it as well.

If you are fully vaccinated, but fall into one of the high-risk groups, you might want to be very careful.

I wonder if more people would get vaccinated if their health insurance refuses to cover Covid illness IF you did not get vaccinated.

@irwin posted:

1905 S. Ct case says that a state can make it a criminal offense to fail to get an injection against a communicable disease.  We require injections of various sorts for kids who go to public school.

That's true. And I've got the weird, round, 60's airgun scar to prove it.

@mountainman posted:

I wonder if more people would get vaccinated if their health insurance refuses to cover Covid illness IF you did not get vaccinated.

That would require some measure of rational thought - which if they possessed, they would not need additional incentive to be vaccinated so I highly doubt it

Same folks who vote Republican even though it is not in their economic interest to do so

About 153 employees at Houston Methodist hospital were fired or resigned after refusing to take the Covid vaccine.  That's out of 25,000 who did take it.  More hospitals have implemented the "take it or get fired" policy, which has been upheld in court so far.  Most hospitals have mandated flu vaccines, etc. in the past as well.

@Rothko posted:

About 153 employees at Houston Methodist hospital were fired or resigned after refusing to take the Covid vaccine.  That's out of 25,000 who did take it.  More hospitals have implemented the "take it or get fired" policy, which has been upheld in court so far.  Most hospitals have mandated flu vaccines, etc. in the past as well.

I hope ALL medical facilities from hospitals to doctors offices nationwide mandate it and you're fired if you don't take it.  Next up I'm hoping some major large private employers with public facing employees like UPS and Amazon mandate it next.  Let the employees sue ala Houston Methodist.  Let's get this show on the road.

You may or may not have heard about the Covid outbreak at the IT department of a county building in Manatee County, Florida.  Six people got infected all at the same time; 4 were hospitalized and 2 died (both were under 60 years of age).  None of the 6 who got infected were vaccinated.  The only person in the IT department who wasn't affected was vaccinated.

Haven't posted much over 20 years here, but:

Let's celebrate the genius of Charles Darwin!!

Darwin's Law  of natural selection: The failure to vaccinate enough % gives the virus time to mutate into more virulent and infective forms, more and more resistant to vaccines or meds, and which over time will dominate. This is the societal risk to us all created by antivaxxers. The time needed to reach herd immunity naturally [ years] means essentially the same thing. Expect the 600k toll to continue to rise again with the delta and other variants not yet existant.  It is possible by the fall we face a virus with a different form of the spike protein eg different antigenicity resistant to antibodies, which means a new vaccine [as w flu] is required for us all.

Darwin's Awards: The antivaxxers are now the ones sickened and dying at highest rates, especially in mentally deficient 20-40 yo " I'm invincible " group; live in mostly noncoastal Red/Red Neck states and rural areas, are also people less educated and more prone to conspiracy theories, and triple whammy, also suffer with less access to hospitals and medical care; are spending $$$ on ineffective "treatments" eschewing effective and free vaccines; the burden on health providers progresses and some will quit/retire as a result, and others lose jobs [eg Texas] leading to understaffing where most needed [of course, why would anyone who works in COVID Central ie hospitals not want vaccination is beyond me ]. The Darwin Award for 2021 goes to them all; as preventable individual risk leads to continued personal and local financial toll on them most of all, as perpetual risk will affect preferentially these areas' businesses and tourism.

Go Mets

Good to hear from you Dr T.

Nice to see you back, dr t.

@drtannin 2 posted:

Haven't posted much over 20 years here, but:

Let's celebrate the genius of Charles Darwin!!

Darwin's Awards: The antivaxxers are now the ones sickened and dying at highest rates, especially in mentally deficient 20-40 yo " I'm invincible " group; live in mostly noncoastal Red/Red Neck states and rural areas, are also people less educated and more prone to conspiracy theories, and triple whammy, also suffer with less access to hospitals and medical care; are spending $$$ on ineffective "treatments" eschewing effective and free vaccines; the burden on health providers progresses and some will quit/retire as a result, and others lose jobs [eg Texas] leading to understaffing where most needed [of course, why would anyone who works in COVID Central ie hospitals not want vaccination is beyond me ]. The Darwin Award for 2021 goes to them all; as preventable individual risk leads to continued personal and local financial toll on them most of all, as perpetual risk will affect preferentially these areas' businesses and tourism.

Go Mets

I'd like to have a corner on the bleach and flashlight markets down there.

Just heard a good quote on the radio, "This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated."

@The Old Man posted:

Just heard a good quote on the radio, "This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated."

It always has been.  Think about it.  Before we had immunizations, all who died were unvaccinated.  

@Rothko posted:

About 153 employees at Houston Methodist hospital were fired or resigned after refusing to take the Covid vaccine.  That's out of 25,000 who did take it.

One hospital in Houston has 25,000 employees?  The old saying must be true, everything's bigger in Texas. 

javachip, the article is unclear as to whether that hospital had 25,000 employees or the "Houston health care chain" has 25,000 or even beyond that.  Methodist is huge here in Texas.  We have several Methodist facilities here in North Texas including what I believe to be the original location "Central Methodist" on the edge of downtown Dallas in Oak Cliff.

@The Old Man posted:

Just heard a good quote on the radio, "This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated."

That's truth.  If you are unvaccinated, it will find you. 

Or to put it another way:  "The increasingly Republican pandemic"

https://theweek.com/politics/1...-republican-pandemic

@drtannin 2 posted:

Haven't posted much over 20 years here, but:

Let's celebrate the genius of Charles Darwin!!

The Darwin Award for 2021 goes to them all; as preventable individual risk leads to continued personal and local financial toll on them most of all, as perpetual risk will affect preferentially these areas' businesses and tourism.

Go Mets

Studies show roughly 20-30% of hospital workers remain unvaccinated. That includes people who don't actively care for patients, but the divide between those that got vaccinated and those that didn't, is along similar socioeconomic and education lines as in the country as a whole.  I suspect, as with the flu, hospitals will mandate vaccines, or, if refused, mandate masking and gloving within the grounds proper. And other staff, will know who they are...the masks telltale of the unstuck.

This is actually already legally upheld based on prior casework; mandated vaccination for the flu has successfully been challenged by few, mostly on religious grounds, but the far greater impact/ severity of COVID disease to the medical-hospital system will likely give any challenges to mandates little leeway and less viability.  Stay tuned.

In vino veritas

A 30 person birthday party in Australia turned into a superspreader event when 24 of the guests came down with Delta-variant Covid after attending.  The remaining 6 did not - they were the only ones at the party who were vaccinated.

lots of bad news coming out about the Delta variant.

No comment needed.

"GOP governors implored their residents on Sunday to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, as polling shows that vaccine hesitancy has been driven by Republicans and as the virus's new, more contagious delta variant has caused recent upticks in covid-19 cases in areas with low vaccination rates."

When you're the party of non-science and lies is this really any surprise?

@The Old Man posted:

No comment needed.

"GOP governors implored their residents on Sunday to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, as polling shows that vaccine hesitancy has been driven by Republicans and as the virus's new, more contagious delta variant has caused recent upticks in covid-19 cases in areas with low vaccination rates."

When you're the party of non-science and lies is this really any surprise?

Natural Selection at work

It's interesting to see what the Delta variant is doing in the UK.  The UK has a vaccination rate similar to the US and their cases had gone way down.  The Delta variant got into the UK sooner than in the US, and it has become the dominant strain.  Now the case loads are going up again in the UK significantly.

I think we are looking at a similar uptick soon.  The one difference is that, from what I read, in the UK they were pushing lots of people to get a single dose of vaccine and then waiting to give the second dose for much longer  - in the US, we pushed people to get their second dose either 3 weeks (Pfizer) or 4 weeks (Moderna), so we have fewer people wandering around with only one dose in their bodies.  The Delta variant seems to be able to overcome single-dose immune systems pretty easily.

@Rothko posted:

It's interesting to see what the Delta variant is doing in the UK.  The UK has a vaccination rate similar to the US and their cases had gone way down.  The Delta variant got into the UK sooner than in the US, and it has become the dominant strain.  Now the case loads are going up again in the UK significantly.

I think we are looking at a similar uptick soon.  The one difference is that, from what I read, in the UK they were pushing lots of people to get a single dose of vaccine and then waiting to give the second dose for much longer  - in the US, we pushed people to get their second dose either 3 weeks (Pfizer) or 4 weeks (Moderna), so we have fewer people wandering around with only one dose in their bodies.  The Delta variant seems to be able to overcome single-dose immune systems pretty easily.

I should be able to let you know soon how well the J&J does against the variant.

You think what's going on in the UK is interesting?  Just check out the Springfield MO area right here in the good 'ol USA.

@Rothko posted:

I think we are looking at a similar uptick soon.  The one difference is that, from what I read, in the UK they were pushing lots of people to get a single dose of vaccine and then waiting to give the second dose for much longer  - in the US, we pushed people to get their second dose either 3 weeks (Pfizer) or 4 weeks (Moderna), so we have fewer people wandering around with only one dose in their bodies.  The Delta variant seems to be able to overcome single-dose immune systems pretty easily.

Agree but there was no push. the recommended time came from the data both vaccine companies collected.

Any fully-vaccinated Canadians looking at taking advantage of the quarantine "exemption", prepare for at least a 4-5 day quarantine while waiting for tests to be completed.  My wife returned from the US Monday night, presented her PCR test taken the same day, took her test at the border, and will not have the results back from the test that was taken at the border until Friday at the earliest.  The lab is able to return results within 24 hours (we know because we've been tested there 8 times between the two of us) when one pays for the test.  The government of course didn't even deliver the sample to the lab for 2 days, and is asking for a 48 hour turnaround on the tests even though they could be done in 24 hours per the guy at the lab.  No quarantine equals 5 day unnecessary quarantine in Canada.

@wineismylife posted:

You think what's going on in the UK is interesting?  Just check out the Springfield MO area right here in the good 'ol USA.

Missouri and a good part of the Southeast.  The correlation between spikes in Covid with states that rank low in education, health, etc.  is clear.