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

theatlantic.com

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

#811
post #572

I, personally, find it amazing that so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life to fight a virus that wouldn't hurt most of them. I know everyone is doom and gloom about covid, but I'm actually pretty impressed with how much the typical person (outside of political manipulation and coercion) was willing to sacrifice for others. If you had asked me in early 2020 how long it was p…

> so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life This always smacks of hyperbole. How much quality of life was sacrificed, really? It's not like we had to all go dig trenches or something. We just had to stop going to brunch.

Man the privilege required to say what you just wrote is amazing. Not everybody works some cushy work from home tech job. Many people had their life’s work destroyed, their career ripped from them, they got to watch the education system fuck over their kids.

Maybe all you lost was brunch, but these last years cost many people a lot.

It’s almost insulting to just brush off what we did the last two year as something minor.

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

#812

I don't want to talk about vaccines anymore. Whatever study people have to cherry pick or whatever beliefs you may hold, whatever your stance is, most people have made the decision on whether or not to be vaccinated. What I wish we focused on instead, is the medical system as a whole. We've been hearing stories everyday about how hospitals are on the brink of collapse. Why, in 2 years of this pandemic, have we not de…

We aren't short on 'resources', we are short on doctors and nurses. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at things, the number of doctors isn't going to change drastically. You can pay them 10x and the number won't change. We only have so many medical schools, and so many people willing to throw themselves on the sword to get through them. Nurses are a little more flexible in that more money might mean more nur…

> We aren't short on 'resources', we are short on doctors and nurses.

When I say "resources", people are included in that. Human resources one might call it.

> Nurses are a little more flexible in that more money might mean more nurses, but only up to a point. In either case, throwing a ton more people into a long term career to deal with a short term problem (I don't see hospitals needing the same capacity in 3 years that they do for the next wave) will cause other problems down the road.

I understand what you mean but I think you greatly underestimate how many nurses work contract and are not employed by hospitals. Almost all nurses I know, and I know quite a few, are all working as contractors for agencies. The hospital assignments are just almost never worth it.

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

#813
post #197
post #14

I'm double vaxxed and boosted and just spent 4 days in the hospital with Covid. I actually entered the hospital without Covid and got it while I was in there. They had the entire place divided into separate wings and I had to be transferred between them. 103 degree fever, pulse 130, was pretty awful but came out of it fine. I, too, am done with all of it. Let the chips fall where they may now.

Let the chips fall where they may == “I survived with no consequences so I don’t care what happens to anyone else”

That’s the most American-possible sentiment, so what’s wrong with it?

In this country we typically don’t care how our actions and policies affect broader society, from NIMBYism to faux-meritocracies to non-universal healthcare.

I really can’t fault anyone for not caring how their actions affect others, it’s been engrained in our culture/laws/policies as long as I’ve been alive.

Let the strongest survive. We do it in every other facet of our lives (well it’s more let the strongest take all and let the weakest suffer for decades).

I’m vaccinated, boosted, and wear masks when needed. I do that for me, not for society. Personally, I’d love 20-40M Americans to kick the bucket with this pandemic, free up housing, decrease the labor supply, lower carbon emissions. Sounds wonderful.

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

#814
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…

"220,000 deaths. If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain President of the United States." Joe Biden https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1319446692236791814 And his predecessor did not have the vaccines available to combat deaths. So they are in a tough spot to be sure. The only thing they can do now is to downplay and reframe: "The overwhelmi…

It’s amazing how much of what is being said was something that got you banned, ridiculed and yelled at by people… almost like the skeptics were right all along…

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

#815

Between the 2nd dose putting me in the ER with myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of, and a $3500 medical bill due, being told I could be maskless and free if I got the "vaccine"[1], getting covid anyways and it being nbd, and then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done. I'm not risking an…

Anyone got a conversion of $3500 to Euro?

Google does

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

#816

Between the 2nd dose putting me in the ER with myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of, and a $3500 medical bill due, being told I could be maskless and free if I got the "vaccine"[1], getting covid anyways and it being nbd, and then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done. I'm not risking an…

Anyone got a conversion of $3500 to Euro?

https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=3500&Fr... :)

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

#817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the virus is endemic, what even is the point of all this testing? What does is accomplish besides telling you “yup, this test says you have a virus”? I never got tested for respiratory viruses before when I got sick. Why this one? We cannot move on until we eliminate all this mass testing. Yes test for confirmation before administering something specific to Covid but testing somebody whose only medical issue is so…

Testing is so you know if you have COVID and you don't go and spread it. And the reason you don't go and spread it is because hospitals have limited capacity - and healthcare workers haver limited energy - so we want to avoid people dying due to lack of proper medical care. This has been the entire point of mitigation efforts from day one.

So why aren’t we testing for the cold and the flu? Those are just as endemic as Covid and they mutate every year too. Why test specifically for Covid?

What useful information does knowing you have Covid instead of the myriad of other respiratory viruses actually provide? The treatment for all of them is gonna be basically the same for like 99% of all cases.

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

#818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I kind of regret even mentioning the effects of COVID in my original comment as I figured there would be a reply like yours and you're not wrong! But it wasn't the main point I was trying to make. My main point is that everyone just seems to have moved on from under 5s. We've adopted a stance of "vaxxed and done" for adults and older children and paid no attention to the vax trials for under 5s taking forever. It's b…

It boils down to risk v benefits. The under 5s have been relatively very low risk. If a jab can't out do that then there's no room to move forward with that idea. Omincron appears to be even less powerful, less of a threat. Those odds make the current jabs even less likely to be approved.

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

#819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

45 years old and I've had Omicron since Christmas, still sick, still tired. I miss the flu.

The flu can also make you miserable for weeks. Not sure why you'd miss it.

While it 'can', it never has for me.

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

#820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bigger problem is that their initial selling point for the vaccine was "get your 2 shots and everything goes back to normal". Many people grudgingly got it despite some hesitancy and now have even less trust of the government now that the goal posts are shifting yet again

It COULD have been "get your 2 shots and everything goes back to normal", but vaccine adoption stalled at about 60%. That's not nearly high enough. The virus stuck around and we got Delta, and now Omicron. And we're STILL at less than 70% vaccinated. I don't know what's required for herd immunity, but it doesn't take a Ph.D in virology to know that 70% isn't it.

In the U.S. it's mostly kids that aren't vaccinated at this point. Among people over 18 years of age, 73.3% have at least 2 doses and 86.4% have at least 1 according to the CDC. Two shots and a booster is obviously better, but the number of adults that haven't been vaccinated at all and haven't gotten Covid at least once is dwindling.

Covid seemed to be on track to have be almost entirely wiped out in the U.S. until Delta and Omicron came along, and now it's not clear that even 100% vaccination rates would be enough.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-...

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