Covid-19, Part XIV

[M2]

Idaho's rationing healthcare - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...rge-continues/.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare made the announcement after St. Luke’s Health System, Idaho’s largest hospital network, on Wednesday asked state health leaders to allow “crisis standards of care” because the increase in COVID-19 patients has exhausted the state’s medical resources.

Idaho is one of the least vaccinated U.S. states, with only about 40% of its residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only Wyoming and West Virginia have lower vaccination rates.

Crisis care standards mean that scarce resources such as ICU beds will be allotted to the patients most likely to survive. Other patients will be treated with less effective methods or, in dire cases, given pain relief and other palliative care.

[kaldaniels]

It makes me feel a little icky that some of the main proponents of booster vaccines are spokespersons for Pfizer and Moderna.

[Bob Sheed]

It makes me feel a little icky that some of the main proponents of booster vaccines are spokespersons for Pfizer and Moderna.

It should.

[bucksfan2]

Interesting comment I heard on NPR this morning. The gist of the comment was that antibody levels should decrease after time and if they didn't your blood would turn to sludge due to all the antibodies in there over the course of your life. What the body does do is create "memory cells" that can identify the virus and then fight if off.

[Boston Red]

An FDA panel says no to recommending widespread boosters....for now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-pan...871003?mod=mhp

[Strikes Out Looking]

An FDA panel says no to recommending widespread boosters....for now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-pan...871003?mod=mhp

But they said yes to 65+

[Boston Red]

But they said yes to 65+

And others who are more susceptible to severe illness.

[Sea Ray]

This is good news, particularly since the vote was overwhelming, 16-2. It must not be the slam dunk that some reports have been making that it loses effectiveness after 8 mos. In the meantime, I hope they're busy adjusting a future booster to be more effective vs variants, kinda like they do with flu shots. Giving us a third dose of the same shot seems suboptimal to me

[Sea Ray]

Many, many studies say that masking is ineffective

https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-cont...VENESS-PDF.pdf

Masking is not the answer to C19

[RedTeamGo!]

Many, many studies say that masking is ineffective

https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-cont...VENESS-PDF.pdf

Masking is not the answer to C19

You like making absolute statements.

This pandemic has been over for like 6 months, right? Why are we still talking about it?

[Sea Ray]

Here's a study that shows half of the hospitalized C19 patients have very mild or no symptoms

https://dailycaller.com/2021/09/14/c...QmYM47U6TLJhXU

I gotta ask, why would someone with no symptoms be admitted to the hospital?

I know many of you will look for something to complain about or accuse me of not reading it so as to nip that in the bud:

The population of patients at VA hospitals is not representative of the U.S. populace as a whole, but prior pediatric studies support the findings as well. The researchers behind the new paper defined mild cases as those that did not require oxygen supplementation or reach a blood oxygen level below 94%.

[Sea Ray]

You like making absolute statements.

This pandemic has been over for like 6 months, right? Why are we still talking about it?

48 studies support my absolute statement

As to the pandemic, what is your definition of when it ends?

[RedTeamGo!]

48 studies support my absolute statement

As to the pandemic, what is your definition of when it ends?

Well, our hospitals being full of COVID patients for more than a couple months during the summer would be a start.

[BernieCarbo]

I gotta ask, why would someone with no symptoms be admitted to the hospital?

Well, this is what the study says:

"With widespread vaccination, the current definition of COVID-19 hospitalizations includes progressively more mild or incidental diagnoses, for example, cases identified prior to surgery or prior to discharge, rather than hospitalizations due to severe COVID-19.7 Other recent studies similarly found that current definitions of “COVID-19 hospitalizations” combined with routine, and often mandatory, screening testing of all admissions may substantially overestimate the number of hospitalizations caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection."

[Sea Ray]

Well, our hospitals being full of COVID patients for more than a couple months during the summer would be a start.

OK. Our hospitasls were 1% filled here in Ohio when I made that statement. If hospitalizations are your standard then it was over