I don’t obsess, but do assess - am I going to visit my sister in FL? No. Am I going to take my 80 year old parents out to dinner outside where the tables are well spaced (in my highly vaxxed area)? Yes. Am I going to fly anywhere? No. If it were an emergency? Yes.
Would my pendulum swing more towards “obsess” if I had young children? Probably. I can’t even imagine have young kids during this.
Yes, this is the frustration the doctors in Florida were feeling. They can’t get a patient admitted to a hospital just a mile down the road because there are no beds. They spend a lot of time calling multiple hospitals trying to find just a regular bed. And then for an ECMO bed? They’ve reached out to hospitals in multiple adjacent states. Nothing available. So you do your best and try to give supportive care and wait, hoping something will open up. And then a well-known local person’s family lights up social media, calling for action to help find a bed, calling to get the insurance authorization and then the images of the plane taking off for CT. No one wants to deny this patient the treatment he needs but it also violates one of the pillars of medical ethics: social justice, where persons of different racial, religious, socioeconomic status receive unequal care. And then to see their social media posts before all this happened, compared to, say, the woman who died in the other article (was it in Oregon?) who did everything she could to protect herself and others, well, it’s hard to go back to your patients and look them in the face. It’s just so sad all around, and so easy to mitigate if people would just get the vaccine.
The data publicized about Israel is misleading.
"But Israel has a young population, with many under the eligible age for vaccination, and about 1.1 million eligible Israelis, largely between the ages of 12 and 20, have declined to take even one dose of the vaccine.
That means only 58% of Israel’s total citizenry is fully vaccinated. Experts say that’s not nearly high enough."
Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing A Dramatic Surge In New Cases : Goats and Soda : NPR
58% of the total population is not all that high. Not answered is who is getting sick? The young unvaccinated?
Do you feel the same way about someone being overweight? Or would you just draw the line at being classified as obese -should they go to the “back of the line”? This leads to significant overuse of medical resources - not just related to covid but to basically every area of medicine. They are much more likely to require orthopedic/cardiac care. They have higher rates of cancer etc etc. While you are being judge and jury over who deserves medical care - are you willing to go to there, or would that not be politically correct/hit too close to home for some?
In my view the entire pandemic has brought to the surface (frighteningly) how easily people jump to the “us vs them” mentality /absolute level of thinking . Have people not cracked a history book? The creeping in of this type of thinking is what balloons into the things you have read about - yet assure yourself you would never succumb to.
Rationing of medical care is already happening in many ways. Ironically, the best care -(almost no cost, most medications free to low cost as well) includes those on Medicaid. The “rich” and especially the middle class are paying dearly for health care with high deductible, high premiums, & out of control medication costs. These are the people who tend to seek care later in today’s health care system. They will put things off as they don’t want to pay their co-pay. The “front of the line” , at least where I work is not by any means being overutilized by the “rich”. It is far and away full of those who are are on government insurance who don’t have the worries about paying a 12k deductible so seek care immediately.
I understand your point. The difference in my mind is: poor diet, smoking, lack of exercise, these are lifestyle choices that people are allowed to make (I myself may be guilty of one or more of these!) that do use hospital resources like you say. When we are not in a pandemic, the healthcare system can absorb this caseload. This is not true in a pandemic, however. The healthcare system is now overwhelmed because people are making a lifestyle choice to not take the vaccine. This one lifestyle choice is now negatively effecting the health of others, which is one reason why vaccinated people are losing patience with the unvaccinated.
The “us vs them” mentality did not need to be brought to the surface in this country. It has always been on the surface. Of course, now we have to hear about how getting upset with those who won’t get vaccinated or even wear a mask for the good of the community makes us the bad guys.
I’m pretty sure I already said I feel the same way about anything that was clogging the health care system causing rationing - where some end up getting care and others do not, by the definition of rationing.
Perhaps you missed it, so I’m adding this post.
Well, the woman I know who thought vaccines were the evil plot of big Pharma and who thought masks were useless, who thought her vegetarian, non GMO diet and her crystals would protect her now has COVID. I’m sure that just like when she had cancer she will use all that modern medicine will provide.
“Them” seems to be an odd mix of evangelicals and new agers in my experience and reading.
H showed me a cute one on FB this morning. My memory is off, so the numbers I’m printing are made up, but the gist is still there.
USA stats
62.3% fully vaccinated
28.1% fully dewormed
I am not fully against using animal medicines. They are probably less tested for safety but otherwise they are probably not all that different from human drugs. In a way, all the drugs we use are actually animal drugs. They are tested first on animals. I would think if I live somewhere isolated and the only available drug is for animals, I wouldn’t hesitate.
Well sure, there are definitely animal meds that humans use (or vice versa). But the point is, some people are wanting untested, no recommended animal medicine to treat a condition which there is a good vaccine for and human therapies for. That makes no sense IMHO.
Do you mean around mosquito’s neck? So they can’t bite you? Good idea!
@surfcity Of course. The way I look at it, it is a symptom of the confusion surrounding the virus more than anything. All kinds of drugs were recommended at the beginning. Groping in the dark. The confusion is understandable. We need answers fast but the disease is new. Science is good but we all know research takes time.
I was always more of a bite response versus hand scratcher… this eliminates scarring.
It also serves as a nacho plate in close proximity to my mouth when carrying two beers and my hands are full.
But we digress, back to you taking puppy pills.
just be careful it doesn’t interfere with your flea collar.
a song for every occasion . . . Horse Doctor, Come Quick - YouTube
I don’t get the reasoning of the deworming drugs. Covid isn’t a worm or critter that you need to get out of your system.
I really don’t understand the reasoning behind it.
Saw a joke today:
USA— 63% vaccinated, 28% de-wormed.
This is not necessarily true. There are definitely substances - foods, plants, medicines - that are metabolized differently between people and various animals. There are others that can be used in both humans and animals, but at very different dosages (not necessarily tied to the size/weight difference, but to differences in how it is metabolized). That said, ivermectin is occasionally used in humans (for river blindness primarily I believe, which is caused by parasitic worms); however, it is an anti-parasitic drug, not an anti-viral. COVID is a virus. Therefore, ivermectin is not going to be helpful in this case, unless you also have parasites/worms.
Idaho, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, has begun rationing healthcare after activating “crisis standards of care.” Refusing to be vaccinated isn’t like smoking or being overweight. It is creating a situation where fellow citizens will die because of selfish and exceedingly stupid choices.
The state health agency cited “a severe shortage of staffing and available beds in the northern area of the state caused by a massive increase in patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization.”
. . .
The move allows hospitals to allot scarce resources like intensive care unit rooms to patients most likely to survive and make other dramatic changes to the way they treat patients. Other patients will still receive care, but they may be placed in hospital classrooms or conference rooms rather than traditional hospital rooms or go without some life-saving medical equipment.
