Covid-19 News/Discussion

[JonStark]

3 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Unrelated to right wing Twitter-world failing to read what was said, this statistic doesn't carry much meaning. Counting co-morbidities gives them all equal weighting and neglects the inter-dependence that many will have (e.g. obesity, high blood pressure). 

I get that if death percentage is on the y-axis, it's tough to find one good overall measurement of body health on the x-axis for regression, but they need to find the most impactful covariates and break it down individually. 

That's fair, but that statistic at least means something (even if that doesn't tell the whole story) and that thing is not that 75% of every covid single death had 4+ comorbidities. 

People who only read headlines are one of my biggest pet peeves, but that comes from a guy who does animal rescue and see a lot of pitbulls get the raw end of the deal because of the same media tactic. 

[BayRaider]

3 hours ago, Xenos said:

Boosters did work well against Delta. While not as effective against preventing infections from Omicron, still pretty effective at preventing hospitalization and deaths.

Have you ever thought that maybe the reasons things keep changing is because the virus keeps changing, and we have to adapt accordingly?

Constantly chasing a virus with new vaccines is kind of redundant. These vaccines have never really prevented virus no where close to 100% such as all the vaccines we are used to. They are more comparable to a Flu Shot... and most people don't get flu shots either. You're eventually going to get the flu, regardless of how much you chase the shots. Same with covid. Everyone will get it. Regardless of how much they chase the constantly changing shots. Just seems redundant. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

49 minutes ago, JonStark said:

That's fair, but that statistic at least means something (even if that doesn't tell the whole story) and that thing is not that 75% of every covid single death had 4+ comorbidities. 

True, I don't really know how much it means, but it's consistent with the general idea of preventing serious disease (or at least not inconsistent).

And yeah, to your point, it's obvious the CDC director used the phrasing of the question as context for her answer, so twitter deliberately took it out of context and now people are repeating it because they just want it to be true. No one buys that in good faith.

[Xenos]

57 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

Constantly chasing a virus with new vaccines is kind of redundant. These vaccines have never really prevented virus no where close to 100% such as all the vaccines we are used to. They are more comparable to a Flu Shot... and most people don't get flu shots either. You're eventually going to get the flu, regardless of how much you chase the shots. Same with covid. Everyone will get it. Regardless of how much they chase the constantly changing shots. Just seems redundant. 

The bolded is a little misleading to say the least. The Covid vaccine was 90% effective against the original strain. Which is more than some other vaccines. Additionally, other vaccines like measles and polio also had large percentage of the US population lining up to take it. You can also make the argument that if the rest of the world was also highly vaccinated, we wouldn’t have to worry about a variant arising that could evade a prior infection or a vaccine.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Xenos

[Johnny Nix]

1 hour ago, JonStark said:

It is. These vaccines are just as effective as any other vaccines you've experienced in your lifetime (the fact that we're still having this discussion is insane to me). 

The bolded just shows me you don't actually read full articles and is frankly embarrassing. 75% of VACCINATED deaths are people with 4 or more comorbidities. That right there pretty much shuts down your entire "vaccines don't work" side. Yes it was a poorly worded headline, but that doesn't excuse you from taking in the full context.

I'm sorry three people you know died of it, but you cannot take 3 people as a sample size when looking at an entire country. I know 3 people who have covid right now. Two vaxxed (one 63 years old and the other pregnant) and one unvaxxed (a 31 year old healthy male). Guess who's having a really rough time right now? 

I honestly don’t have a problem if someone chooses to get the vaccine. Hell I did (because I had a honeymoon booked during the “are they going to mandate the vaccine for travel phase”) My point in all of this is, as the virus changes, our approach has to as well. I’ve treated many patients both vaccinated and unvaccinated, lately there hasn’t been much difference, as the virus gets weaker. At this point the vaccine is pointless if you are a younger individual. I recommend it for the elderly and those with health issues until something else comes out. It truly seems like this is just something we are living with from here on out, and will become another “flu” for us to deal with each year. 

[Glen]

5 hours ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Just curious, what do you do for a living?

Stay at home Facebook moderator 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

2 minutes ago, Glen said:

Stay at home Facebook moderator 

 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

27 minutes ago, Johnny Nix said:

I honestly don’t have a problem if someone chooses to get the vaccine. Hell I did (because I had a honeymoon booked during the “are they going to mandate the vaccine for travel phase”) My point in all of this is, as the virus changes, our approach has to as well. I’ve treated many patients both vaccinated and unvaccinated, lately there hasn’t been much difference, as the virus gets weaker. At this point the vaccine is pointless if you are a younger individual. I recommend it for the elderly and those with health issues until something else comes out. It truly seems like this is just something we are living with from here on out, and will become another “flu” for us to deal with each year. 

Ok.

But there’s a difference between your anecdotes from short term treatment of a limited number of patients in a squad (oxygen, fluids, maybe some ACLS meds, I don’t know the full scope of what EMS can hang and push) and having a complete picture of the scope of the impact on healthcare and individuals.

To match your anecdotes with one of my own, a couple weeks ago I triaged a 32 yo male with a confirmed covid dx (invaded) and and no other medical hx.  Dude has a slight fever that responded well to Tylenol and complained of getting SOB with exertion.  I had no real concerns until he said he bought a pulse ox the day before and I asked him to put it on just to be thorough and he was sitting in the high 80’s at rest.  Dude was going about out his day to day more or less fine until then and had originally called about his 5 yo kid.  I sent him to the ER.  
 

Overkill right?
 

Not at all.  This was on a Friday and when I checked back on Monday for follow up he had been admitted and was still inpatient.

This dude never sees you or your squad, but still required an inpatient stay at 32 with no comorbidities. 
 

Now I’m not saying I have the full picture and you don’t or anything like that, but the folks who do pretty much disagree with your stance entirely. The recommendations you just described are directly responsible an avoidable inpatient admission, and this is far from a unique story.

[Johnny Nix]

53 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Ok.

But there’s a difference between your anecdotes from short term treatment of a limited number of patients in a squad (oxygen, fluids, maybe some ACLS meds, I don’t know the full scope of what EMS can hang and push) and having a complete picture of the scope of the impact on healthcare and individuals.

To match your anecdotes with one of my own, a couple weeks ago I triaged a 32 yo male with a confirmed covid dx (invaded) and and no other medical hx.  Dude has a slight fever that responded well to Tylenol and complained of getting SOB with exertion.  I had no real concerns until he said he bought a pulse ox the day before and I asked him to put it on just to be thorough and he was sitting in the high 80’s at rest.  Dude was going about out his day to day more or less fine until then and had originally called about his 5 yo kid.  I sent him to the ER.  
 

Overkill right?
 

Not at all.  This was on a Friday and when I checked back on Monday for follow up he had been admitted and was still inpatient.

This dude never sees you or your squad, but still required an inpatient stay at 32 with no comorbidities. 
 

Now I’m not saying I have the full picture and you don’t or anything like that, but the folks who do pretty much disagree with your stance entirely. The recommendations you just described are directly responsible an avoidable inpatient admission, and this is far from a unique story.

I’m not gonna act like I’m a know it all, but from what I’ve seen the virus seems to be getting weaker. Obviously there’s still some outliers. Highly contagious but not as deadly. I truly feel like numbers reflect that we’ve killed off our highly vulnerable population and thinks are starting to plateau (death wise). I think you can agree that some of the treatments we did early on in the hospital setting contributed to a lot more deaths than there should have been. 

[JonStark]

1 hour ago, Johnny Nix said:

I honestly don’t have a problem if someone chooses to get the vaccine. Hell I did (because I had a honeymoon booked during the “are they going to mandate the vaccine for travel phase”) My point in all of this is, as the virus changes, our approach has to as well. I’ve treated many patients both vaccinated and unvaccinated, lately there hasn’t been much difference, as the virus gets weaker. At this point the vaccine is pointless if you are a younger individual. I recommend it for the elderly and those with health issues until something else comes out. It truly seems like this is just something we are living with from here on out, and will become another “flu” for us to deal with each year. 

I typed out a long response to this but I'm pretty sure your mind is made up at this point. If you are a younger, healthy individual, you can beat it (although the 31 year old healthy guy in my life is having a rough go while the 63 year old and pregnant woman beat it pretty easily). That doesn't mean that you can't pass it along to someone who may not be able to beat it. The numbers are out there. If you are vaxxed, you can still get it but the odds you are much less likely to just as you are much less likely to transmit it. If you chose not to believe that, that's on you.

Personally, I'd rather decrease my odds of getting it, decrease my odds of transmitting it, and decrease my odds of getting severely ill from it. Regardless of what you choose to do with your life, it is 100% false to say the vaccine doesn't work. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

19 minutes ago, Johnny Nix said:

I’m not gonna act like I’m a know it all, but from what I’ve seen the virus seems to be getting weaker. Obviously there’s still some outliers. Highly contagious but not as deadly.
 

Omicron, sure.  And the next variant?  

19 minutes ago, Johnny Nix said:

I truly feel like numbers reflect that we’ve killed off our highly vulnerable population and thinks are starting to plateau (death wise).

 

You do realize “most vulnerable” isn’t a static thing, right?  The people that are most vulnerable in 2 years may not have been such in 2020.

19 minutes ago, Johnny Nix said:

I think you can agree that some of the treatments we did early on in the hospital setting contributed to a lot more deaths than there should have been. 

What does this have to do with things now and moving forward?  Monday morning quarterbacking how things were handled with a novel virus over a year ago has nothing to do with addressing the situation now.

Being unvaccinated isn’t supported by science or anecdotes, hard stop.  Advising that only elderly or unwell receive them is harmful and erroneous.

[Neumatic]

2 hours ago, JonStark said:

(although the 31 year old healthy guy in my life is having a rough go while the 63 year old and pregnant woman beat it pretty easily).

Jesus I read this wrong at first. That's what I get for starting on the newest page. 

[JonStark]

7 hours ago, Neumatic said:

Jesus I read this wrong at first. That's what I get for starting on the newest page. 

I actually should've clarified it again to drive the point home anyway so that's my bad. The 31 year old guy is unvaxxed and hasn't been able to get out of bed or eat anything because of his throat in days while the pregnant lady and 63 year old are both fully vaxxed (not boosted yet though I don't think). Those two had very mild symptoms and tested negative a few days later. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

13 hours ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

To match your anecdotes with one of my own, a couple weeks ago I triaged a 32 yo male with a confirmed covid dx (invaded) and and no other medical hx.  Dude has a slight fever that responded well to Tylenol and complained of getting SOB with exertion.  I had no real concerns until he said he bought a pulse ox the day before and I asked him to put it on just to be thorough and he was sitting in the high 80’s at rest.

The shocking part of this to me is how overall healthy you have to be to not notice you're peaking at high 80's O2 saturation. That's like being at 8,000 or 10,000 foot elevation and not really noticing. This dude is in better shape than the overwhelming majority of people.

[TVScout]

Free:

CDC says N95 masks offer far better protection than cloth masks against omicron variant

But the updated guidance stops short of saying everyone should wear them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/14/cdc-masks-best-protection-guidance/