All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (22 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[MT15]

I was surprised to read that Newsmax also suspended her after Twitter did. IDK if they already took her back or what, but that's kind of surprising coming from them in the first place.

Maybe it was their vaccine mandate? Oh, who am I kidding, she will secretly take the vaccine and then just continue her pandering to the anti-vax crowd.

 

[MT15]

This is encouraging:

 

[bird]

This is encouraging:

Yes, it is. And it still ain’t good enough. The politization of vaccines is, well, psychotic.

 

[MT15]

I’m coming around to realize we aren’t getting rid of Covid. It will become endemic, and we will have to live with it. There are far too many animal hosts, and we lost our chance to vaccinate our way to eradicating it.

Once the vaccines are approved for all ages, I will feel better (3 grandkids under age of 5). And once the oral treatments get approved, we will probably be able to control it between vaccination and treatment. It will still claim far too many lives (elderly and immune compromised). But we have no other choice now.

I just hope we don’t see any more deadly variants. Delta is scary enough.

 

[MT15]

Coincidentally, my daily email from NYT is on this exact topic. Since I can‘t link it, I‘m going to post more than the usual amount. The vaccination rate still needs to be higher in most of the country. But places with high vaccination rates are essentially already back to normal.

Among the Covid experts I regularly talk with, Dr. Robert Wachter is one of the more cautious. He worries about “long Covid,” and he believes that many people should receive booster shots. He says that he may wear a mask in supermarkets and on airplanes for the rest of his life.​

Yet Wachter — the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco — also worries about the downsides of organizing our lives around Covid. In recent weeks, he has begun to think about when most of life’s rhythms should start returning to normal. Increasingly, he believes the answer is: Now.​

This belief stems from the fact that the virus is unlikely to go away, ever. Like most viruses, it will probably keep circulating, with cases rising sometimes and falling other times. But we have the tools — vaccines, along with an emerging group of treatments — to turn it into a manageable virus, similar to the seasonal flu.​

Given this reality, Wachter, who’s 64, has decided to resume more of his old activities and accept the additional risk that comes with them, much as we accept the risk of crashes when riding in vehicles.​

He has begun eating in indoor restaurants again and playing poker, unmasked, with vaccinated friends. He has taken airplanes to visit relatives. He hosted a medical conference in downtown San Francisco with a few hundred masked and vaccinated attendees.​

“I’m still going to be thoughtful and careful,” Wachter told The San Francisco Chronicle. But “if I’m not going to do it now, I’m probably saying that I’m not going to do it for the next couple of years, and I might be saying I’m not doing it forever.”​

The hospitalization statistics in highly vaccinated communities help explain Wachter’s attitude. In Seattle (which publishes detailed data), the daily Covid hospitalization rate for vaccinated people has been slightly above one in one million. By comparison, the flu hospitalization rate in a typical year in the U.S. is more than twice as high. For most vaccinated people in a place like Seattle or San Francisco, Covid already resembles just another virus.​

​

The lower the rate of Covid spread in a community, the less risk to everyone. The C.D.C. defines a low rate of transmission as, among other things, fewer than 10 new daily cases per 100,000 people. Most of the country is well above that threshold, but parts of the San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington areas are below it. (You can look up your county here.)​

Nevada has taken an approach that experts like Julia Raifman of Boston University have praised: The state will remove mask mandates after cases have fallen below a certain level. Joseph Allen of Harvard, criticizing the different approach in many other places, has said, “We’re sleepwalking into policy because we’re not setting goals.”​

One complication: Nationally, new cases have risen modestly in recent weeks, though they are still far below the levels of late summer. If new cases accelerate as the weather gets colder and more activity moves indoors, it may call for caution.​

 

[MT15]

This is actually funny:

 

[MT15]

 

[Optimus Prime]

We’ll see what happens with this
==============
The Oklahoma National Guard has rejected the Defense Department’s requirement for all service members to receive the coronavirus vaccine and will allow personnel to sidestep the policy with no repercussions, a potential blueprint for Republican governors who have challenged Biden administration mandates.


Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, appointed this week by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) as adjutant of the state’s 10,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen, on Thursday notified those under his command that they are not required to receive the vaccine and won’t be punished if they decline it.

It’s an extraordinary refusal of Pentagon policy and follows Stitt’s written request to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin seeking suspension of the requirement for Guard personnel in the state.
“We will respond appropriately,” John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson, said of Stitt’s letter.

“That said, Secretary Austin believes that a vaccinated force is a more ready force. That is why he has ordered mandatory vaccines for the total force, and that includes our National Guard, who contribute significantly to national missions at home and abroad.”…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/11/13/oklahoma-national-guard-vaccine-mandate/

 

[MT15]

I’m not sure that the National Guard can refuse an order like this, can they?

So read the article, it was ordered to refuse by the Governor who relieved the prior commander from duty because he was advocating for the members to be vaccinated. The Army National Guard has lost the most members to Covid of any military unit. And it looks like it will continue in that vein because of this order.

They have already done many previous mandatory vaccinations. This looks like imbecilic partisanship.

Only 13% of the OK National Guard indicated they would refuse the vaccine, and we know from experience that when the deadline looms it will be more like 3-4%.

This Governor is an idiot.

 

[MT15]

So much BS being spewed by Rs, just incredible:

 

[insidejob]

This is a nifty little graphic. It breaks down the whole country by county and lets you know whether or not indoor masking is recommended based on the COVID data from each county.

Orleans and Jefferson Parish are both "Masks not Recommended" based on the current COVID data. I wasn't surprised this is the case for Orleans but am kind of surprised that Jefferson made the cut (simply because of how huge the parish is and how many different demographics are located in it). My totally non-scientific approach to guessing whether or not a parish is faring well with COVID cases is based on the frequency that you see masks being worn when there isn't a mandate forcing people to do it. It's night and day when you cross the 17th Street Canal from Orleans to Jefferson, in my experience. My office building is spitting distance from the parish line into Jefferson Parish and our building's owner told us that he couldn't take the "Masks Required" signs off the building fast enough when the statewide mandate ended. That sentiment seems to be prevalent in Jefferson while it seems like most businesses and places open to the public in Orleans still require masks to enter even though the mandate is gone.

Anyway, here is the link:

Covid hospitalizations: See the latest trend and current count

The weight of the pandemic can be measured in the count of hospital beds filled with Covid-positive patients.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

posted this in EE also
=================
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden announced Saturday that she will only accept new patients who are unvaccinated. The ENT doctor in Houston said she is taking a stand for people who can’t find treatment elsewhere.

Bowden, said her policy has resulted in being reported to the Texas Medical Board and negative attacks online by other doctors. But, she told me in an interview Monday, that she is not backing down.

“I didn’t realize the amount of despair unvaccinated people felt because no one is speaking for them,” Dr. Bowden told me. “No one is voicing what’s going on. Doctors for the most part are just going along because of what you saw happened to me — vicious backlash and trying to take my license away.”

Bowden emailed her current patients Saturday that her decision came after a combination of being told she can no longer operate on unvaccinated patients at a surgery center and having hospital privileges denied for trying to give Ivermectin to a dying COVID patient. She emailed her patients on Saturday:

I am not anti-vaccination, but all the data I have collected suggests that the vaccine is not working. 42% of the patients we treated last month with IV monoclonal antibodies for symptomatic COVID were fully vaccinated.
I believe vaccination is a personal choice and like everything else in medicine, should be protected by HIPAA. I understand if this alienates many of you, but all my opinions are based on my clinical experience and not the news.

Unvaccinated patients policy​

This is what Bowden emailed her current patients about her new policy:

Given the current climate and the writing on the wall, I am shifting my practice focus to treating the unvaccinated. In order to make room for the unvaccinated who cannot find care, I will not be accepting new patients with routine ENT problems who are vaccinated. I will continue to care for established patients, vaccinated or not, and would never turn anyone away with a life-threatening illness based on their vaccination status. But this is my way of taking a stand, and I hope other physicians will follow.

https://www.emilypostnews.com/p/texas-doctor-will-only-treat-unvaccinated

 

[zztop]

I don't have much sympathy for this.

of course the husband is blaming the hospital

but I wonder what else could have saved her besides something not approved as treatment by the fda.... hmm...

Florida woman who sued for ivermectin dies from COVID

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla (AP) — A Florida teacher hospitalized with COVID-19 has died after her husband unsuccessfully sued to force doctors to treat her with ivermectin, a drug popular among some skeptics of accepted coronavirus treatments despite a lack of studies proving its effectiveness.

apnews.com

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge James Nutt rejected Drock’s lawsuit last month, saying allowing judges to countermand doctor’s decisions could set a dangerous precedent.

He urged the Drocks and the hospital to try to reach agreement on their own. A deal fell apart after a doctor agreed to administer ivermectin at a dosage the family’s attorney said was too low, the newspaper reported.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Not surprising at all
=================
New documents and testimony released by a House committee examining the federal government’s early coronavirus response confirm much of what we already knew: There was a concerted effort by political officials to interfere with the independent advice of health officials — often reflecting President Donald Trump’s own efforts to downplay the virus.

And one particular episode we just learned more about drives that home as well as just about anything........

But one episode stands out in the new documents and testimony: The CDC’s August 2020 guidance scaling back its testing recommendations.

We already knew these were contentious. The CDC at the time, for some reason, watered down its recommendation that asymptomatic people who came in contact with infected people should get tested. It said, “You do not necessarily need a test unless you are a vulnerable individual or your healthcare provider or state or local public health officials recommend you take one.”

This was one of the earliest instances in which the government’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, raised a red flag. Fauci said he had been in surgery when the recommendation was decided upon. He added, “I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern.”

The recommendation, though, did line up with the views of one very prominent official: Trump. For much of the summer, Trump had been questioning the need for doing as much testing as we were — often making clear he was worried about how the resulting case numbers made him look bad ahead of his reelection campaign.

“Don’t forget: We have more cases than anybody in the world,” Trump said on May 14, 2020. “But why? Because we do more testing.”

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” he added June 20. “So, I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’ ”

“With smaller testing we would show fewer cases,” he said June 23.

“You know, there are those that say you can test too much — you do know that,” he added Aug. 3.

And in an Aug. 19 meeting, the New York Times reported Trump told senior White House adviser Jared Kushner: “You’re killing me! This whole thing is! … I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting.”

The next week, the CDC issued the guidance downplaying the need to test asymptomatic people..........

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/15/politics-infected-trump-virus-response/

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

I saw a friend on Facebook the other day birching about how her doctor wouldn't just give her a steriod shot. She knew her body and she knows what is wrong with herself. I don't know why he insisted i take a covid test, I know its just a sinus infection!. She said she left, and then was asking for recommendations on a better doctor (she did not take a covid test) that would just give her a shot.
This is the world we live in. People think they should just go to the doctor and tell them whats wrong and tell the doctor what treatment they should receieve.. crazy times...

 

[wardorican]

Seems like it may be a legit expense, but that they didn't document it. We shall see.

Audit: Governor improperly used COVID funds for salaries

A state audit report on government spending released Monday accused Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds of using nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds to pay salaries for 21 staff members for three months last year and concealing the spending by passing it through the state Department of...

www.yahoo.com

Audit: Governor improperly used COVID funds for salaries​

DAVID PITT
Mon, November 15, 2021, 7:33 PM


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A state audit report on government spending released Monday accused Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds of using nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds to pay salaries for 21 staff members for three months last year and concealing the spending by passing it through the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
State Auditor Rob Sand said a review of the state's payroll system shows the money was used to pay the Republican governor's office staff, but it's unclear why she had to take federal money to pay the salaries.
“What is not clear, is why these salaries were not included in the governor’s budget set prior to the fiscal year and prior to the pandemic,” he said in the audit report. “Based on this information, we conclude that the budget shortfall was not a result of the pandemic.”
Sand said he had asked Reynolds' office twice for documentation to support the spending and was told the governor's staff members during March, April, May and June of 2020 were fully focused on responding to COVID-19 and protecting Iowa but never provided proof of the expenditure on the COVID response.
He wrote Reynolds' office in October, telling her that paying staff salaries without proper documentation likely wouldn't get federal approval but said they ignored his suggestion.

 

[wardorican]

This is a nifty little graphic. It breaks down the whole country by county and lets you know whether or not indoor masking is recommended based on the COVID data from each county.

Orleans and Jefferson Parish are both "Masks not Recommended" based on the current COVID data. I wasn't surprised this is the case for Orleans but am kind of surprised that Jefferson made the cut (simply because of how huge the parish is and how many different demographics are located in it). My totally non-scientific approach to guessing whether or not a parish is faring well with COVID cases is based on the frequency that you see masks being worn when there isn't a mandate forcing people to do it. It's night and day when you cross the 17th Street Canal from Orleans to Jefferson, in my experience. My office building is spitting distance from the parish line into Jefferson Parish and our building's owner told us that he couldn't take the "Masks Required" signs off the building fast enough when the statewide mandate ended. That sentiment seems to be prevalent in Jefferson while it seems like most businesses and places open to the public in Orleans still require masks to enter even though the mandate is gone.

Anyway, here is the link:

Covid hospitalizations: See the latest trend and current count

The weight of the pandemic can be measured in the count of hospital beds filled with Covid-positive patients.

www.nbcnews.com

Today's answer is mostly YES. With a hint of no around the gulf.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Same guy who said there’s no reason Trump couldn’t live to 200
================
A Republican lawmaker who previously served as White House doctor under former presidents Trump and Obama claims Democrats will use the new coronavirus variant of concern to cheat in the midterm elections….

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) spoke out on news of the variant of concern Saturday, saying the strain would serve as a pretext for absentee voting, which Democrats would use to somehow cheat in the 2022 midterm elections…..

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