To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[teletech]

I just cut and pasted from the paper. Interpret as you want.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I just cut and pasted from the paper. Interpret as you want.

I really appreciate the updates and opinions of ya'll on the front lines. Is this still basically a pandemic on the unvaxed around here? Assuming boosters are as popular as the OG Vax, do you think it will stay this way? Any value of on waiting on the booster until closer to the holidays is you are planning air travel, socializing, gondi's and other higher risker risk activities? Do you think we'll keep increasing our 5g reception until whatever heard immunity looks like is achieved?

[dunfree]

Something had to be done, so Polis made a decision that put in in the hands of the individual instead of issuing a new mask mandate, and yet here you are bitching about it.

it could lead one to suspect that mtu & the covid trolls are just bad faith performative grievance shit flinging chimps.

[teletech]

Get boosted, wait 3 weeks, go to a trump rally, breathe in deep. Take the next ten days off as u recover. Then ur ready to party

[summit]

It’s really bizarre, the general public not involved with healthcare doesn’t really get that the pandemic is in full swing and killing and disabling people every day. ICU is full, we’re on diversion and can’t do a lot of normal elective procedures and surgeries. You can’t schedule a screening colonoscopy right now at my hospital. It’s nuts, people think that it’s business as usual.

(response building on MU's post, not specifically to MU)

CO rural hospitals full of sick patients are transferring their additional ICU patients to even smaller rural hospitals sometimes at higher altitude because the tertiary care ICUs are full. And then when these transfers deteriorate they are crash intubating and cancelling the helicopter in flight because there is no destination bed for the helo to fly to. Tertiary hospitals are cancelling procedures and double bunking ICUs.

Let's talk about patient choice! If you are a patient in Denver, not even in the hospital for COVID, you could literally be sent across the state against your wishes to a small rural hospital so as to make room so that the rural hospital can trade their sicker patient to the city hospital. This patient swapping is happening in Colorado and is part of the governor's surge plan. It is burning out ambulance crews too.

Staff are so burned, there is so much fatigue, some patients will tell you between gasps that they are proud that they haven't been vaccinated while others express regret. We just do what we have to do for them but I see my colleagues worn out, lines on their faces, half the ICU patients COVID, stripping off their PPE after intubating yet another one wondering what about the other people who need these beds?

80% of the state COVID hospital patients are unvaccinated while only 21% of 12+ population are fully unvaccinated in CO. We are literally waiting for those 21% to get a vaccine or get infected, but they are getting infected too quickly. (And the 20% who are breakthroughs are far less sick and often their infections are incidental findings while they are in hospital for unrelated reasons like trauma).

Transmission rates and severe susceptibility rates have to drop! My thoughts:

We can mandate vaccines
OR
We can go back to mandating masks and social distancing and business restrictions and cancelling elective procedures and other highly economic detrimental measures
OR
We can let people die because we don't have a bed for the stroke patient and the ER is on divert so keep driving with that STEMI or have bad outcomes by rationing care

All choices suck. Mandating vaccines sucks the least. But the Governor appears to be thinking: "offer boosters, crisis standards of care, and try to expand hospital capacity." Well, there's a fucking bandaid on an arterial bleed. OK here comes the winter, holiday spreader events, and the tourists...

I know I know the other states have gone through this, and we went through this already, but it happening again! And it looks to be worse (except we have enough PPE) it still fucking sucks and many caregivers are fucking done.

It is the depletion of the soul, the continuous crisis staffing and no end in sight. "Attention ICU staff we need more of you to pick up extra so we don't have quadruple ICU assignments." This is an example of the daily messaging to ICU RNs in Denver, for those reading who don't know, a normal assignment is 1-2 patients, 4 patient is beyond unsafe and beyond stressful, you just can't give anything resembling good care.

Beyond depletion is the repeat traumas. I have friends who suffer anxiety from too many dead patients in too short a time, let to bag the bodies alone because everyone else was busy, and they have left their primary bedside role and even going through a PALS or ACLS recert triggers them. Fuck!

Fuck this!

[The AD]

It's probably also worth noting that, despite Vermont's surge in new cases, the state's hospitalization rate is currently the same as Florida's (8 per 100,000) and death rate is actually lower (0.25 to 0.50). I expect this to change, but those are the current numbers.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

CO rural hospitals full of sick patients are transferring their additional ICU patients to even smaller rural hospitals sometimes at higher altitude because the tertiary care ICUs are full. And then when these transfers deteriorate they are crash intubating and cancelling the helicopter in flight because there is no destination bed for the helo to fly to. Tertiary hospitals are cancelling procedures and double bunking ICUs.

Staff are so burned, there is so much fatigue, some patients will tell you between gasps that they are proud that they haven't been vaccinated while others express regret. We just do what we have to do for them but I see my colleagues worn out, lines on their faces, half the ICU patients COVID, stripping off their PPE after intubating yet another one wondering what about the other people who need these beds?

80% of the state COVID hospital patients are unvaccinated while only 21% of 12+ population are fully unvaccinated in CO. We are literally waiting for those 21% to get a vaccine or get infected, but they are getting infected too quickly. (And the 20% who are breakthroughs are far less sick and often their infections are incidental findings while they are in hospital for unrelated reasons like trauma).

Transmission rates and severe susceptibility rates have to drop! My thoughts:

We can mandate vaccines
OR
We can go back to mandating masks and social distancing and business restrictions and cancelling elective procedures and other highly economic detrimental measures
OR
We can let people die because we don't have a bed for the stroke patient and the ER is on divert so keep driving with that STEMI or have bad outcomes by rationing care

All choices suck. Mandating vaccines sucks the least. But the Governor appears to be thinking: "offer boosters, crisis standards of care, and try to expand hospital capacity."

Well, there's a fucking bandaid on an arterial bleed.

I know I know the other states have gone through this, and we went through this, but it fucking sucks and the caregivers are fucking done. I have friends who suffer anxiety from too many dead patients in too short a time and they have left the primary bedside role and even going through a PALS or ACLS recert triggers them. Fuck!

Fuck this!

/rant

Sounds like my hospital. It’s pretty grim and nobody but healthcare workers seem to care or know. Hang in there, I think winter will be bad here.


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[ex-powderbroker]

It's probably also worth noting that, despite Vermont's surge in new cases, the state's hospitalization rate is currently the same as Florida's (8 per 100,000) and death rate is actually lower (0.25 to 0.50). I expect this to change, but those are the current numbers.

Not bad considering that Vermont is even older than Florida.

[riser4]

It's probably also worth noting that, despite Vermont's surge in new cases, the state's hospitalization rate is currently the same as Florida's (8 per 100,000) and death rate is actually lower (0.25 to 0.50). I expect this to change, but those are the current numbers.

My FIL (94 yo) with multiple non-covid health issues needs to go to urgent care today at the hospital today here in VT. He's triple vaxxed so hopefully that helps him. Unfortunately a hospital full of covid patients won't help him get the care he needs. Fucking covid. Fucking unvaxxed.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I do wish more people would think about the Riser's FIL & Summit's of the world but, even for the vax'd, that doesn't seem like how it goes these days.

[funkendrenchman]

Sounds like my hospital. It’s pretty grim and nobody but healthcare workers seem to care or know. Hang in there, I think winter will be bad here.


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Thank you for getting the word out. We appreciate everything you’re doing and hope that some day soon you guys and girls will get a rest. And the true recognition you deserve.

[uglymoney]

I follow a bunch of the healthcare twitterverse. They've been screaming into the wind for a while now.

You'd never know it on the ground here.

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[Buster Highmen]

My FIL (94 yo) with multiple non-covid health issues needs to go to urgent care today at the hospital today here in VT. He's triple vaxxed so hopefully that helps him. Unfortunately a hospital full of covid patients won't help him get the care he needs. Fucking covid. Fucking unvaxxed.

3 weeks in and we're still dealing with MILs (91) and FILs (93) covid complications from having to go to the hospital a month ago. My wife is tough and managing both virtually all day and all night.

One thing that gets exposed in all this is how many people view the world in black and white instead of probabilities. The vax reaction is another symptom. Of course it isn't 100% effective, but if vaxxed, the likelihood of symptoms and transmission goes down.

[The AD]

I find it amusing and baffling at the same time that 20 months into this COVID thing that the anti-vaccine people crowing about how the vaccinated still get sick and can transmit the disease haven’t figured out that the top priority of the national strategy (said or unsaid, it’s pretty obvious) is to manage hospital capacity, not keep everyone from getting COVID.

Heck, they still haven't figured out that them getting Covid and not getting very sick doesn't mean they might spread it to others who will get really sick. Or they know this but don't care. Either way it's pretty gross.

[RootSkier]

Fuck this!

Dude. Sorry you are continuing to have to deal with this shit. Not what anyone signed up for.

[Jax]

Thanks for the detailed info as always Summit. I and many others do appreciate what you do even though it may not always seem like it. Please continue to take care of yourself.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Thank you for getting the word out. We appreciate everything you’re doing and hope that some day soon you guys and girls will get a rest. And the true recognition you deserve.

I’m fine, mostly isolated from the worst of it in the OR. A lot of coworkers on the floor and ED are taking a beating. People like Summit. I’m just trying to let people know how bad it is.

To reiterate, it’s the unvaccinated that are stressing our system. I don’t care what the covidiots argue and present for data/studies. Get vaccinated everyone.


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[uglymoney]

My wife got the email from HR requesting covid vax information on a 'voluntary basis' in anticipation of the possibility of the OSHA vax/test rules going into effect.

I've heard nothing from my Corp. Really only minimal communications about covid since this thing began so not surprised. Wondering if/when the shoe will drop and they request the info or if they drag their feet as long as possible in the name of employee retention.

Edit to add after reading Summits update...

I totally get that vax mandates trigger part of our population and I think some people make solid arguments as to why we shouldn't have them but I guess I don't give a fuck. If it gets more people vaccinated we need more mandates.

[Danno]

Thanks for the detailed info as always Summit. I and many others do appreciate what you do even though it may not always seem like it. Please continue to take care of yourself.

X2

[CarlMega]

X2

X3 and many more.

Then there's this (don't read the comments, you'll cry):


Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/co...A7b?li=BBorjTa

The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies.

Then, she recommends adding in one cup of borax, a cleaning agent that’s been banned as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration, to “take nanotechnologies out of you.”

In reality, in addition to being potentially harmful as a skin and eye irritant, a borax “detox bath” will not remove the effects of the Covid vaccine from your body.

The video is one of several methods anti-vaccine influencers and communities on social media have in recent weeks suggested to their many followers who have capitulated and received the Covid shot. Anti-vaccine message boards are now littered with users caving to societal pressure or work mandates and receiving a coronavirus vaccination.

“Once you’re injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun. You can’t unring a bell. It’s just not physically possible,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Detox remedies and regimens have been staples of the anti-vaccine movement for years. Long before Covid, anti-vaccine influencers and alternative health entrepreneurs promoted unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments they claimed would rid children of the alleged toxins that lingered after routine childhood immunizations.

Children, many with autism, have been subjected to these disproven cures by way of parents convinced that they are alleviating suffering caused by heavy metal poisoning from vaccines. The often-costly remedies have included restrictive diets, supplements, chelation and hyperbaric chambers, as well as more dangerous home remedies.

With Covid came a new group of believers.

Now, some anti-vaccine groups are recommending that people who have been vaccinated should immediately self-administer cupping therapy (an ancient form of alternative medicine that involves creating suction on the skin) to speed up the “removal of the vax content” including first making small incisions on the injection site with a razor. Other memes give instructions on how to “un-inject” shots using syringes.

Both methods are potentially dangerous and would not remove the vaccine once it is administered, Rasmussen said.

“The transaction process for the mRNA vaccine is fairly quick. Basically, by the time you get out to your car, sorry, the magic has already started,” she said.

The newfound virality of “vaccine detoxes” is also a strategy by anti-vaccine influencers and groups to steel themselves for a reality in which 70 percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — even though their dire warnings of mass death and infertility never came to fruition.

“This illustrates how these anti-vaccine communities are shifting and pushing these claims toward vaccinated people,” said Ciaran O’Connor, a disinformation researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an anti-extremism nonprofit group based in London.

O’Connor recently released a report, titled “Jabbers’ Remorse,” about the virality of vaccine detoxes, specifically on TikTok, where Madej’s “detox” bath has made the leap to nonfringe parts of the social media platform.

Madej’s video was removed by TikTok last month, but the video’s duets — TikTok’s resharing feature, in which other users add reactions or context with the original video — have received hundreds of thousands of views. One duet lists a recipe of Madej’s bath next to her speech. Others show a TikTok user drawing a bath, or pouring out the ingredients into a container.

“TikTok is being used as designed here, but the way it’s been designed is allowing these misinformed claims to proliferate on the platform,” O’Connor said.

Madej did not respond to repeated requests for comment. She is an osteopathic internal medicine doctor who has propagated a variety of debunked theories about the Covid vaccines and posted to Twitter about a variety of other conspiracy theories, including QAnon. She describes herself as “practicing the truth in Jesus through medicine.”

It is unclear what Madej means by “nanotechnologies,” but on a podcast called “Reawaken America” she falsely claimed there is a “liquified computing system” inside coronavirus vaccines. She has also claimed the vaccines are a “gateway to transhumanism.” Her theories have been broadly fact-checked as false, including earning a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact.

While Rasmussen is worried about users experimenting with chemical baths, she said she believes it’s a sign that vaccine mandates are largely working, and anti-vaccine influencers are adapting to a new reality.

“I think it is actually a good sign that these ‘how to undo your vaccine’ videos are taking off,” she said. “It suggests that a lot of those people who previously were saying ‘vaccines are terrible and I will never do it’ are, actually, doing it.”

Without the borax, Rasmussen said the bath is not a harmful idea after receiving the vaccine, but it won’t do anything for the nonexistent “radiation” or “nanotechnologies.”

“Take the bath and kick back and relax with a glass of wine, knowing that I’m safe from a potentially lethal viral infection,” she said.

Still, not all anti-vaccine communities are giving in, even with the false promise of a detox. In anti-vaccine Facebook groups like “Educate Before You Vaccinate,” comments still largely and incorrectly tell users that the vaccine is an irreversible path to government tracking, infertility or death.

Some provided hope with false cures. One user, who told the group her boyfriend “HAD to get a covid shot” and wondered how to “detox his body” was told to follow Madej’s borax bath instructions. Another user told her to look into drinking “Miracle Mineral Solution,” which is bleach and can be fatal if ingested.

[riser4]

3 weeks in and we're still dealing with MILs (91) and FILs (93) covid complications from having to go to the hospital a month ago. My wife is tough and managing both virtually all day and all night.

One thing that gets exposed in all this is how many people view the world in black and white instead of probabilities. The vax reaction is another symptom. Of course it isn't 100% effective, but if vaxxed, the likelihood of symptoms and transmission goes down.

My FIL spent part of his teens with the Germans dropping bombs on his head nightly, literally. And then he spent a lifetime farming. He's tough. However it would be fucking cruel if in the end he's brought down by the fallout from conspiracy theories pedaled by a bunch of neo-nazis.

[funkendrenchman]

Austria set to place millions of unvaccinated people in lockdown, as chancellor slams 'shameful' shot uptake

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/12/europ...ntl/index.html

[mtuhockey33]

Austria set to place millions of unvaccinated people in lockdown, as chancellor slams 'shameful' shot uptake

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/12/europ...ntl/index.html

and so it begins. In Austria of all places. You’d really think they’d be the first, well maybe second after Germany, to realize another group that came from that area also started restricting movement of its citizens and allowing them to partake in daily life…. Weird how history seems to repeat itself…

[skaredshtles]

I follow a bunch of the healthcare twitterverse. They've been screaming into the wind for a while now.

[The AD]

The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies.

It's astonishing that people can be so convinced that vaccines with over seven billion doses administered throughout the world are dangerous, but ingesting and otherwise dousing themselves with a bunch of random stuff is perfectly safe. What kind of brain thinks this way?