Covid-19 News/Discussion

[GSUeagles14]

27 minutes ago, JonStark said:

In my comparison, there was only one guy with a broken leg. There was no scenario where I wouldn't help the guy with the broken leg. You turned that around into somehow not only me not help the guy with the broken leg, but not allowing anyone else to help him either. I'm not helping the guy who is intentionally refusing to take his own safety into his own hands. 

 We realize this is a comparison, right? So if/when you say we don’t provide care to the unvaccinated, the correct comparison is that you personally aren’t helping that person with the broken leg and you’re preventing others from doing so as well. Look at your last sentence, I’m not saying you have to help him, I’m saying don’t prevent others from doing so if they choose to.

[ET80]

14 hours ago, ET80 said:

- Unvaccinated people are detremental to society, and are an unnecessary strain on our already limited resources.

This is why others can't help the guy who doesn't want to run away from the bear. THIS is what @JonStark is alluding to. Resources to care for people are finite (another word for limited) and we just tasked ourselves beyond capacity to keep up with 2020. We're in 2021, we haven't had a chance to replinish our resources, but we DID create a new resource in abundance to take place of the resources we needed in 2020 - but people are saying "No, I don't want this new resource from 2021, just continue giving me these limited resources that are not replinished yet". Does this make sense? Does any of this register?

Do you think doctors, nurses and other medical staff grows on trees? How about basic medication such as Tylenol, Cough meds such as Mucinex, Vitamin C, D, Zinc? How about PPE such as masks, gloves for first responders? Hell man, we ran out of damn toilet paper in 2020, what do think happened to the ACTUAL stuff we needed to combat this pandemic? This stuff doesn't grow on trees, and for everyone who is unvaccinated and needs it? That's one person who took the necessary steps to avoid infection who might need it - but can't get it.

Hospital capacity is one thing, but resources allocation is something that has to be considered. Read one article on Supply Chain Management (retype it so you get the concept) and come back and tell us what you learned.

Or, continue being ignorant on how this actually works, and tell me when you plan on planting that Tylenol tree.

[GSUeagles14]

15 minutes ago, ET80 said:

 

...what exactly are you reading?

But wait...

So there are two instances where he flat out explains what he's saying.

Can you please re-write what he said before you continue? Type it out on your device, word-for-word, please. I've read that retyping words can help with absorption of concept, so we're going to try it here.

Tks.

That sounds like a great exercise! If you’re being truthful when you say you do it yourself, you should rewrite what I said and see if you can find where I’m getting that from.

[ET80]

13 minutes ago, GSUeagles14 said:

We realize this is a comparison, right? So if/when you say we don’t provide care to the unvaccinated, the correct comparison is that you personally aren’t helping that person with the broken leg

...the immunocompromised who can't get the vaccine (people with cancer, children under 12, the elderly, people with severe allergies to the components in the vaccine, etc) is the guy with a broken leg. 

...the unvaccination crowd (people who can get the vaccine but choose not to for non-legit reasons) is the healthy guy who makes the choice to not run from the bear and want others to carry him.

@Deadpulse - you're good with Sigs, can you draw us a very crude pic? Stick men and glitter, please?

[ET80]

2 minutes ago, GSUeagles14 said:

That sounds like a great exercise! If you’re being truthful when you say you do it yourself, you should rewrite what I said and see if you can find where I’m getting that from.

 

1 hour ago, GSUeagles14 said:

That’s not an apt comparison, is it? What you’re saying is if that person broke their leg, you wouldn’t help them and no one else can either. That’s what you’re saying. 

What... You're... Saying... Is... If... That... Person... Broke... Their... Leg... You... Wouldn't... Help... Them... And... No... One... Else... Can... Either.

- You

There. Done. And yep, you didn't get the analogy. There it goes, right over your head.

[JonStark]

9 minutes ago, GSUeagles14 said:

 We realize this is a comparison, right? So if/when you say we don’t provide care to the unvaccinated, the correct comparison is that you personally aren’t helping that person with the broken leg and you’re preventing others from doing so as well. Look at your last sentence, I’m not saying you have to help him, I’m saying don’t prevent others from doing so if they choose to.

No, you're STILL refusing to actually acknowledge the analogy. The person with the broken leg is the person with a medical reason for not getting the vaccine. That person is ALWAYS BEING HELPED. 

You are trying to say the person in my analogy is equivalent to someone choosing not to get the vaccine and getting Covid. They aren't. What you are doing is so disingenuous that I have to believe you're doing it on purpose at this point.

 

[GSUeagles14]

Well I have smelly stuff on my face and I apologize to @JonStark and acknowledge to @ET80that I’m wrong.

 

i read it as both guys have broken legs, one was trying to help himself and the other was just sitting there. My apology yet again.

[ET80]

Just now, GSUeagles14 said:

Well I have smelly stuff on my face and I apologize to @JonStark and acknowledge to @ET80that I’m wrong.

I sincerely appreciate this, friend. Really - I know we get heated, but I appreciate your acknowledgement.

I sincerely think we can reach a consensus here. We're both people looking to get out of this, and much can be learned between us.

[GSUeagles14]

Just now, GSUeagles14 said:

Well I have smelly stuff on my face and I apologize to @JonStark and acknowledge to @ET80that I’m wrong.

 

i read it as both guys have broken legs, one was trying to help himself and the other was just sitting there. My apology yet again.

I wanted to get that out ASAP as like I said, I was repeatedly read wrong and it needed to be acknowledged.

 

however, I still not an apt comparison. We’d be refusing care to sick people. Regardless of how he got there, he’s sick.  So say that guy in the woods went to play with the bear, incredibly stupid but it’s what he did. You don’t have to help him, but if there’s someone standing there with a rifle, don’t stop him from shooting.

[JonStark]

3 minutes ago, GSUeagles14 said:

Well I have smelly stuff on my face and I apologize to @JonStark and acknowledge to @ET80that I’m wrong.

 

i read it as both guys have broken legs, one was trying to help himself and the other was just sitting there. My apology yet again.

Phew, that does make me feel better. I didn't take you for the kind to completely manipulate what someone was saying but was starting to get scared. Glad to see it was just misread. 

[GSUeagles14]

Just now, JonStark said:

Phew, that does make me feel better. I didn't take you for the kind to completely manipulate what someone was saying but was starting to get scared. Glad to see it was just misread. 

I’ll include @ET80… we can still disagree but certainly never meant to manipulate arguments. I clearly got too worked up and didn’t take the time to read closely, which is what you correctly accused me of like 5 posts ago. I can laugh now at how right I thought I was and you guys were just being jerks.

 

 

[pwny]

1 hour ago, ET80 said:

can you draw us a very crude pic? Stick men and glitter, please?

[ET80]

3 hours ago, GSUeagles14 said:

We’d be refusing care to sick people. Regardless of how he got there, he’s sick.

I'm going to try a different approach on this, and hopefully a constructive conversation can take place:

My take is not one of "good guy" or "bad guy" despite what it sounds like. Right now, we're in the middle of what I've heard referred to as "brutal calculus". It's a war of attrition on so many fronts, one of the biggest being Supply Chain and Logistics.

A little background on me: I work in Software Management for Financial Institutions, but my college focus was Supply Chain Management/MIS. So, I have a cursory knowledge on how these things work from development to creation in production down to delivery and consumption. It's been a while since I exercised these muscles, but I'll share what know:

So, I want to focus on resources constraint: The original complaint was beds and availability of these for people. While this is true, it's underselling the resources necessary to keep Covid patients from getting better. If the issue is *just* beds, we could repurpose old hotels, old apartment complexes and have beds for days. But... There are more resources that need to be factored into it (both human resources and physical resources) and these resources aren't exactly simple to mass produce at the levels necessary to manage everything.

- First up: Doctors. They are a critical resource, they are the ones managing the caseload and direction for patients in hospital. They write prescriptions, they monitor progress, they intervene where needed - they save lives. This can't be "one size fits all" either, it has to be unique to each and every patient. Doctors are naturally limited, not everyone can do the job.

- Next: Nurses. They're the players on the field, they're doing the operational efforts to keep a patient going. Administering meds, monitoring vitals, escalating to other specialists, doctors, etc - they also save lives. True frontline people and their staffing is at an all time low right now, and this has been an issue since 2018, when Covid wasn't even a thing anyone knew about (personal experience: my mom is a retired nurse, 79 years old, been retired for a good 15 years. She got a call in 2020 to see if she'd come back to work in a limited capacity - she quickly rejected it, but they were offering her more money than what I make, and I make pretty good money).

- Mentioned above: Specialists. Surgeons, Anesthesiologists, Nephrologists, Pulmonologists, etc. Pulmonologists are probably tasked beyond capacity right now, but each of these experts are needed at a moments' notice. These aren't positions that can be filled quickly, either - daisy fresh doctors aren't going to have the needed knowledge to make the needed impact.

- Equipment: This is a big one. When you're in a hospital, you're hooked up to a number of things - IVs, Heart Monitors, Oxygenation Saturation monitors, etc. With respect to Covid, you need breathing machines, which actually were in short supply when we started this pandemic, remember? We tried to repurpose factories to make more, but these are precision instruments, you can't expect a factory pushing out Toyota Camry's to pivot to making this. Another equipment that needs to be factored in is ancillary equipment - tubes/needles to connect patient to equipment. Unlike the electronics, the ancillary equipment is single use; Once a patient uses it, it's done, you can't re-use it again, and it has to be replaced frequently to avoid mold and infection. So, this supply has to be constantly replinished to EXACT specifications, you can't pivot one factory to make more. Much like nurses, these items have been in short supply for a while. We have enough to withstand a year of a pandemic, but two years is pushing it.

- Medication: Tylenol, Mucinex, Vitamin C, D, Zinc. It SEEMS like it's readily available, and for the most part, that stuff is. However, the big guns for Covid? Convalescent Plasma, Remdesivir, Monoclonal Antibody Therapy? That's in shorter supply, and it requires a level of precision to recreate; The stakes are too high to eyeball the production of these actual life saving medications, they need to be made at a pace where you get it right, not necessarily get it fast - a bad batch of any of these items would do *exponential* damage to an already weak patient. Right now we're not at critical mass, but it doesn't take much to upset the balance of these important items.

- PPE: I kept this separate from equipment for a reason, because we need to identify how consumers (such as us) use it vs how medical professionals use it. Me? I'm still rocking some of the same masks I had when this started - I wash em, I disenfect em, I change out filters, but it's the same Dave Chappelle 2020 tour mask I got back in June, or my Avengers Assemble mask I bought on the BookFace. Much like ancillary equipment, hospital PPE is one time use; Medical professional uses it for Patient A, then disposes of it, grabs new PPE and visits Patient B. Rinse and repeat. So, it's another item that's in constant demand, with very specific specs that have to be followed to produce. They don't grow on trees, sadly enough.

I hope this outlines what I mean when I say "resource allocation". It's not just beds - it's the people, equipment and medication that is adversely impacted when a rush of unvaccinated come in, and the items that can be used for others is now put to use for somebody who COULD have avoided this - but willingly chose not to.

One last note: I never said to not help them (and if I what I said came off that way, I sincerely apologize). My intention is to compartmentalize what help looks like for those who vaccinate and those who don't vaccinate:

- If you're vaccinated, the full force of our medical system is at your disposal, for now and when other variants start to potentially gain an advantage. If you vaccinate (as well as get any boosters down the line) you're good, our system will care for you whenever something comes up.

- If you're unvaccinated, you're more than welcome to come in to an urgent care center, get a diagnosis, run the full force of tests available to determine the issue. From there, you can be given advice on how to self medicate with OTC products (Tylenol, Mucinex, Vitamin C, D, and Zinc). You can get steroidal shots to help open up airways to help with breathing. You can get prescriptions to mitigate against symptoms. But - simply because we don't have unlimited resources - I need to hold my key resources for those who did take the proper steps to avoid the pandemic, but still find themselves in a bad situation. So, I can't admit you - even if I WANT to admit you, even if I have supplies and staff right now - because this thing is moving fast, and I have to be faster if we stand a chance.

It's brutal calculus, as I said. The needs of those who took this seriously outweigh the needs of those who didn't take this seriously. It sounds callous, I know. But when you're dealing with limited resources and a growing caseload, you have to let data driven decisions take precedence over emotional responses and a misguided effort to save everyone.

This is - at its core - a war of attrition. And in any war of attrition ...people die. That's reality, I don't take any pleasure whatsoever in even saying that, but it's grounded in the reality we live in. Only in movies or TV do you save everyone.

Hopefully, we can continue down a path of reasonable discussion. If not, I think I'm done - I've expended as much logic and compassion as I can on this subject, and I don't want to come off as snarky anymore (which admittedly, I was).

[ramssuperbowl99]

@beekay414, wanna take bets on how long it's going to take this thread to learn the lesson of the baseball subforum and start whipping out that ignore button? 

O/U Page 172.5

[beekay414]

1 minute ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

@beekay414, wanna take bets on how long it's going to take this thread to learn the lesson of the baseball subforum and start whipping out that ignore button? 

O/U Page 172.5