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More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

theatlantic.com

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#241
post #103

Ahh. it begins. - US midterm is coming up in november. - One of Biden's major election point was combating Covid and curbing infections. - This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters) So, the left media will now begin a year long campaign down playing domestic covid severity, and make sure that Covid will NOT be a major talking po…

> a catastrophic failure

Using what criteria? We have no way of knowing what infection rates would be like today had Biden not been elected.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#242
post #98

I don't get it. It takes 10 minutes to get a booster. It's such a non-event.

Bullshit, I spent hours trying to get an appointment for a booster, just like I spent hours last spring trying to find a vaccination appointment (which was 90 minutes away). And I lost a day to the 2nd shot, and another day to the booster, as both wiped me out for 24 hours.

You might have a point if I could have walked in to any pharmacy, knowing that I could get a walk-in vaccination. But that hasn't been the case in Redmond, WA. So while you say "non-event", I say "what a pain in the ass (and arm) that was".

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#243

I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. CDC statement appears to indicate that the primary reason for people dying is poor physical health prior to infection. Wit…

The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too. Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. And yes, lockdown measures a…

Perhaps we should incentivize recruitment of, and reduce restrictions for, medical professionals. Things like residency availability, overhead from various requirements and restrictions, and a ton of upfront investment followed up with long hours and potentially decades to pay of debt.

Something has to be done around capacity issues, or we'll be in the same situation indefinitely. Or even worse when the next pandemic hits.

Probably not realistic, but I would love to see more personal involvement in care. One level could be prevention, and not just the vaccine. Lose weight, exercise, eat right. It's hard to change people though.

Another is care after the fact. Short staffed? Give me a procedure card and let me do the less skilled stuff. Most of nursing is really basic and many things are handled by machines (when's the last time a nurse took your BP with a manual sphig?). Maybe that's beyond many people's abilities, but there are some who are used to wearing respirators, practicing aseptic techniques, and following procedures. The artificial constraints of regulation and law prohibit it. So I guess that's another way society might be making the choice to sacrifice people.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#244
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start I think it's worth considering a different framing: > "There would have been so much less confusion if COVID variants and transmission/hospitalization/death rates remained consistent from the start" It's easy to call out the communication, and don't get me wrong, it surely could have been better. But I often…

It's also true that most governments have not been very clear about what they actually wanted to achieve or perhaps more accurately have changed the goals over time. There's a big difference between eliminating COVID vs coping, for example.

To be fair Delta is a very different beast from Omikron.

The virus is mutating so the government strategy has to adapt too. Elimination was an option for a while.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#245

I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards. It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away. That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a forese…

I think the marshmallow test is pretty flawed itself. But maybe the marshmallow test is actually a good analogy. I suspect many of the test "failures" were caused because the test subject (kid) didn't trust the authority figure (test administrator). When you can see a marshmallow with your own eyes, it's more believable. I think it's quite reasonable to factor in some probability that an untrusted stranger would "alt…

"Just two weeks to flatten the curve!"

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#246

I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated. As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going t…

You've got your anecdotes, and I've got mine. My 3 young kids all caught omicron last week. Each were lethargic for a day, had a minor sore throat, and were back to normal in a day or two. The flu last month was way scarier with high fevers.

There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#247
I know everyone is tired of this shit but I just want to remind everyone of one thing:

This is the FIRST time humanity has come together and actually come up with a way to beat a virus WHILE a global pandemic is still ongoing. At no other time in history have we even had the option of a solid way to protect ourselves like we do now. I think instead of focusing on how awful the past few years have been this is an important thing to remember - it is truly a turning point in human history and I think we are going to look back at the centuries beforehand and appreciate how far we have come.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#248

I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated. As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going t…

Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools? Parent of 2 very young kids here btw - it's been brutal, I feel your pain. Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying.

The challenge is the lack of data on long-term effects of COVID. Preliminary studies have linked it to cognitive declines [1], diabetes [2], and chronic fatigue [3]. And while death from COVID in a preschooler is about a 1-in-100,000 occurrence, long COVID and other chronic outcomes seem to be much more common. I've heard figures of about 5% or 1 in 20.

Few parents would willingly sign their preschooler (or themselves) up for intellectual disabilities, type-1 diabetes, or chronic fatigue syndrome.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm

[3] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2022/01/08/lo...

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too. Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. And yes, lockdown measures a…

> As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre. > Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we…

> It's an exchange everyone makes every single day in order for society to function.

Not at this rate though. In my country covid deaths are easily 20x that of traffic fatalities and the latter is seen as a serious social issue.

Also my friends in the medical profession are simply tired of doing 300h months.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#250

I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. CDC statement appears to indicate that the primary reason for people dying is poor physical health prior to infection. Wit…

If we want to get rid of vaccine mandates I think the give and take has to go both ways. For instance: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/sta... : "Unvaccinated individuals at the highest risk of severe disease (anyone aged ≥75 years or anyone aged ≥65 years with additional risk factors)." in Tier 1 for priority usage of new, hard-to-get treatment. Those who don't want to get vaccinated should t…

This sounds like a wonderful idea. Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated. If people don't want treatments that work, they should be free to explore the full space of treatments that don't.

If you have ethical qualms about this, I'd like to point out that ethics go both ways. It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.

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