COVID-19 thread

[Linguoboy]

I just told my aunt I won't be attending her son's wedding later in the month because the COVID numbers around here are too high. I didn't tell her that part of the reason is that, based on what I've been hearing about other recent family gatherings, nobody masks up and unvaccinated adults are allowed to attend. That's fucking irresponsible at this point and I won't be party to that kind of nonsense.

Work is being predictably ridiculous. One of my colleagues described their policy as "performative presence". We've gone to all-remote teaching until at least the 18th but me and all other library staff are still expected to work in the building regardless. Oh, and they haven't bothered to update their COVID dashboard since December 13th when it showed a positivity rate of 13%. I'm sure they'd argue that, with the undergraduates away, tests results for this past week would give a skewed picture, but isn't the whole point to provide a snapshot of the population that's actually on campus? That's what will determine my actual exposure risks, not whatever happens in the population at large.

And let's not get into the whole mishegoss which is the Chicago Public Schools. Last year, the City and the Teachers' Union agreed on the criteria for determining whether classes should be held remotely or not. Well, thanks to Omicron, we're too high on all measures but the City is still demanding teachers teach in person. The Union voted not to go into work under these conditions and to teach remotely instead but the City has locked them out of the computer systems they need access to to do that. Why? You got me. I guess our fake-progressive mayor thinks it's better to look tough in a crisis than to actually solve any pressing problems? Certainly the way to bet given her behaviour so far.

[doctor shark]

So, made it back to Tulipland without issue, but it's still a striking contrast both the difference in levels of restrictions and how well said restrictions are adhered to in the Netherlands compared to in the US: for example, in grocery stores, 85-90% of people follow the mask regulations here in the Netherlands, while it's probably more like 50-60% in NC, if you're lucky! And the flights also were crazy: the UK-NL flight was quite empty, which allowed for optimal social distancing, but that was not the case for the outbound flights (and the American Airlines flights in general; that, plus the not-enforcing rules and some exceptionally unpleasant ground and in-flight staff, is why I'll be mailing them a nice complaint letter).

The Netherlands also actually ended the hard lockdown on Saturday (to my pleasant surprise), so now we're largely back to the situation we were (coincidentally) a month ago: non-essential stores and contact professions closed by 17:00, essential stores by 20:00, with masks as well as emotional and social distancing required. Hospitality is still only take-away.

Will be booking my booster jab for this upcoming week; it seems like there's not a horrible wait to do so, but it's just getting it booked at a humane time (no, I don't want to get stabbed at 7 in the morning!).

[Vardelm]

Welcome home! Glad it worked out.

[doctor shark]

Welcome home! :D Glad it worked out.

Thanks! And, coincidentally, the hard lockdown ended this past Saturday, so possibly good timing on that. :P

Got booster stab yesterday, and right now my left arm is extremely sore, but I'm not feeling anything like I felt with the second dose back in August. (Feels more like dose #1 did, overall...)

[Vardelm]

Got booster stab yesterday, and right now my left arm is extremely sore, but I'm not feeling anything like I felt with the second dose back in August. (Feels more like dose #1 did, overall...)

It's interesting how different people have different reacions (although yeah, there's different vaccines). I felt awful for a few weeks after my first, but I also woke up with vertigo the morning I had the shot (induced by allergies), so it might have been that instead of the shot. For the 2nd & booster, I had only very, very mild local soreness.

[MacAnDàil]

Here it's gotten so bad that about 5% of the population got Covid last week and the hospital needs to convert operating blocks into intensive care units, but the préfet is still not putting in stricter measures.

[Vardelm]

Here it's gotten so bad that about 5% of the population got Covid last week and the hospital needs to convert operating blocks into intensive care units, but the préfet is still not putting in stricter measures.

How much of that is unvaxxed? I'm of the mind that hospitals should start to deny care to unvaxxed people, unless they have a medically diagnosed condition that prevents vaxxing or are minors.

[alynnidalar]

That's quite a horrifying suggestion. If someone is in need of hospitalization for covid, then they are at pretty high risk of dying without medical care. "If you aren't vaccinated, then you should just die" is... rather extreme.

[Vardelm]

That's quite a horrifying suggestion. If someone is in need of hospitalization for covid, then they are at pretty high risk of dying without medical care. "If you aren't vaccinated, then you should just die" is... rather extreme.

Yes, I know. Allowing the hospital system to collapse is rather extreme, too. We're not quite there yet, but I think we're headed in that direction with the shortage of medical staff. If you are eligible for the medical treatment than massively helps keep you from getting COVID or a serious form of it, and also helps you to not pass COVID on to others, which is causing the crisis, and you ELECT to NOT get it, that's on you. I see this as not much different from battlefield triage, except the patient is the nation as a whole and the medical care system itself. Yes, it's horrifying, but the system is being stretched thin by stupidity. I don't have much patience for that any more.

[hwhatting]

Yes, I know. Allowing the hospital system to collapse is rather extreme, too. We're not quite there yet, but I think we're headed in that direction with the shortage of medical staff. If you are eligible for the medical treatment than massively helps keep you from getting COVID or a serious form of it, and also helps you to not pass COVID on to others, which is causing the crisis, and you ELECT to NOT get it, that's on you. I see this as not much different from battlefield triage, except the patient is the nation as a whole and the medical care system itself. Yes, it's horrifying, but the system is being stretched thin by stupidity. I don't have much patience for that any more.

So, if someone goes paragliding in this situation right now, has an accident, and need intensive care in order not to die, should they also not be operated because they took that risk? What about people falling down ladders? What about people crossing a street and getting hit by a car (they should have looked out for cars more carefully)?

[Vardelm]

So, if someone goes paragliding in this situation right now, has an accident, and need intensive care in order not to die, should they also not be operated because they took that risk? What about people falling down ladders? What about people crossing a street and getting hit by a car (they should have looked out for cars more carefully)?

The medical system hasn't been overwhelmed by those incidents, has it? The rest of society doesn't stand a risk of getting hit by a car just because someone else didn't look both ways, do they?

[doctor shark]

Got booster stab yesterday, and right now my left arm is extremely sore, but I'm not feeling anything like I felt with the second dose back in August. (Feels more like dose #1 did, overall...)

It's interesting how different people have different reacions (although yeah, there's different vaccines). I felt awful for a few weeks after my first, but I also woke up with vertigo the morning I had the shot (induced by allergies), so it might have been that instead of the shot. For the 2nd & booster, I had only very, very mild local soreness.

More interesting to me is how different my reactions are/were to my brother, despite us being identical twins. (Yay for inadvertent twin studies.)

[Vardelm]

More interesting to me is how different my reactions are/were to my brother, despite us being identical twins. (Yay for inadvertent twin studies.)

I look forward to reading the paper on this.

[hwhatting]

The medical system hasn't been overwhelmed by those incidents, has it? The rest of society doesn't stand a risk of getting hit by a car just because someone else didn't look both ways, do they?

By doing these things now in the current situation, they contribute to overwhelming the system exactly like someone who doesn't get vaccinated.

[Ares Land]

I don't know about the US or other countries really.
But in France the situation is fucked up for reasons that are only indirectly related to COVID.

The health system is collapsing as a direct result of political decisions. COVID was kind of the last straw, but even without it the system was in a pretty sorry state. Hospitals are underfunded, nurses and doctors are overworked and underpaid, so they quit. You can't handle any kind of health crisis if you don't have doctors, and as it happens, we don't have doctors because of political decisions that long predate COVID.

In mainland France (as opposed to overseas territories like la Réunion where the situation is different) about 90% of the population is vaccinated -- that's as good as it's ever going to get -- intensive care units are still overwhelmed.

In the overseas départements and territories, the problem is twofold. First, hospitals are even more underfunded that in metropolitan France. Second, people living there don't trust the government at all, for complex reasons that mostly revolve around being treated like colonial subjects. And since they don't trust the governments on anything, they don't trust it on vaccine either... So you get a lot of anti-vaxxers. That's both really really stupid and completely understandable.

[alynnidalar]

The medical system hasn't been overwhelmed by those incidents, has it? The rest of society doesn't stand a risk of getting hit by a car just because someone else didn't look both ways, do they?

By doing these things now in the current situation, they contribute to overwhelming the system exactly like someone who doesn't get vaccinated.

Indeed. In fact, early in the pandemic, I recall specifically being advised to avoid long car travel and other types of “unnecessary” activities because if you were in an accident etc. and required medical care, you would be making the situation worse.

Regardless, it’s obvious that any solution like “just stop treating all unvaccinated people” is really about punishing the unvaccinated, not about improving the medical system. First, refusing to treat the unvaccinated would lead to a number of other medical problems: namely, more people getting covid. Someone still would be caring for these people, because most humans are not okay with just letting someone else die without any attempt to help them. That someone would probably be family members or close friends in their community—people who might also be unvaccinated, not believe in the effectiveness of masks and social distancing, and certainly wouldn’t have the experience and knowledge of how to appropriately protect themselves around a covid patient. Your “solution” very well could make the situation worse.

Second, if this was really about reducing an overwhelmed medical system, you’d be suggesting reducing the number of people admitted to the hospital, not cutting it off altogether. You mentioned triage. Triage doesn’t mean you randomly stop treating a large group of people because you decided they weren’t worthy of treatment anymore. It means you focus your efforts. It means you send home patients with somewhat less severe cases of covid so you can focus on the really severe cases—it doesn’t mean you stop treating all covid altogether. (this is, of course, what in the real world hospitals are already doing)

Of course people who are unvaccinated and get serious covid cases are, to a degree, reaping what they sowed. Perhaps they do “deserve” it for their foolish choices, although I would say that’s ignoring a lot of the social context for why certain groups are undervaccinated. But “just let all unvaccinated people die” is not the answer here.

[hwhatting]

The health system is collapsing as a direct result of political decisions. COVID was kind of the last straw, but even without it the system was in a pretty sorry state. Hospitals are underfunded, nurses and doctors are overworked and underpaid, so they quit. You can't handle any kind of health crisis if you don't have doctors, and as it happens, we don't have doctors because of political decisions that long predate COVID.

Basically the same in Germany. For years, hospitals have been commercialised, leading to downward pressure on salaries and staffing, with increasing Overtime and inhumane shifts as a consequence. COVID was a last straw that has led to many professionals leaving the health systems - AFAIK in Germany, more prominently among caregivers / nurses than among doctors. We currently have less intensive care capacity than at the beginning of the pandemic, because so many people have left.
So yes, the COVIDiots and the anti-vaxxers put a strain on the system, but it has been long coming due to political decisions in the past - mostly in an attempt to keep health costs low, in order not to raise health insurance contributions. And now it's difficult to repair, even if we'd throw more budget at the health system, because nurses / caregivers don't sit around on the street; they need years of training.

[Ares Land]

It's not reassuring to learn that things are about the same over at the neighbours'.

Health professionals have long been warning about the hospital system collapsing during flu seasons. You know, that seasonal epidemic we already have vaccines for...

[Ahzoh]

That's quite a horrifying suggestion. If someone is in need of hospitalization for covid, then they are at pretty high risk of dying without medical care. "If you aren't vaccinated, then you should just die" is... rather extreme.

People have a social responsibility to put in the bare minimum required to contribute to public health, if they have the ability to but refuse to do so, then it's quite unfair to drain the healthcare system because of their irresponsibility; It's perfectly fair that if they refuse (rather than lack the ability) to take the vaccine despite all reason to do so then they should be refused treatment of Covid. They made their bed, and now they must lie in it. I'm tired of caring about stupid stubborn people that are perfectly willing to kill us all for their own comfort.

[alynnidalar]

Where do you stop at? Should we not treat a drunk driver who gets in an accident? Or a lifelong smoker who exposed untold numbers of bystanders to secondhand smoke? How about someone who drove too fast on icy roads--do they get kicked to the curb because, well, they had the ability to choose safer behavior and refused to do so? Let's just start shooting all convicted murderers in the head. After all, they chose to kill somebody, so it's only right they be killed in return.

What a society you wish you lived in! I don't know how to explain that it is a good and moral thing to care about others, even if they don't care about you. I don't know how to explain that preserving life, even of people who have risked others' lives, is a noble goal. I don't know how to explain that some things are right, even if they are exhausting.

And one of those things is that every person deserves access to healthcare. Even if they brought their problems upon themselves. Even if they brought problems on others.