The difference in hospitalization rates for vaccinated versus unvaccinated by state is given here. This is shocking.
Any time I hear someone say that, my first assumption (and I’m not saying it’s correct) is that the person has never actually had the flu. They had a really nasty cold or some type of stomach bug and assumed it was the flu.
I don’t think it was in this thread but in one of the other threads I mentioned that I’m always amazed at the anti-vaxxers/covid deniers on facebook that use their job in the medical field to strengthen their point. That is, making a comment like “The vaccines don’t work/Fauci is a liar/covid hasn’t caused any deaths…and I should know, I’m a nurse at [local hospital]”. I mean, I understand why they’re saying that, but everytime I see it I think about how easy it would be to screenshot what they’re saying (and probably find them saying lots of other similar things) and send it to their employer. I’m guessing the office or medical group that employs them might not be thrilled having their name associated with anti-science rhetoric.
The influenza strains chosen for the flu shot are the ones that make people really sick.
When I was in medical school, there was a lady who worked there in the bog-standard cafeteria. Overhearing her bragging to a coworker, it seemed she had built up a successful home business selling alternative medicines based on her work and experience in the medical building and her long daily encounters with the doctors there. This is what she (told her friend that she) said to customers.
Striking indeed. Thanks for linking that.
If the nurse caring for me is anti-vaxx, I don’t trust them to follow standard protocol. An acquaintance is a former nurse-practitioner. She doesn’t believe in standard antiseptics, only silver nitrate, and that’s what she recommended to me when I badly scraped my knee. Would she have followed hospital protocol in treating a patient? Hard to say. She’s pretty passionate re: her Woo.
That’s my acquaintance to a T. She’s making a mint selling shungite to the gullible. (Magical anti-5G!)
I have mixed opinions on this. As you cited Houston Methodist, I wonder how short they are on nursing staff? It looks like they dropped 151 hospital workers, while giving some 600 employees exceptions (out of maybe 22,000 employees across eight hospitals).
On a purely utilitarian basis if the nursing shortage is too severe it may not be worth it to fire unvaccinated nurses; with proper PPE and regular testing the risk of an unvaccinated nurse spreading the disease may be less than the risk of a facility being unable to save a patient due to lack of staff. The fact that there are hundreds of staff exempt from the rule - more than those fired for noncompliance - indicates that the hospital is confident in their ability to provide care even when an employee is unvaccinated.
I will copy something from the breaking news thread,
~Max
For those who did not open my above link, in various states 0.2-3.5% of Covid deaths are in vaccinated people, and 96.5-99.8% of Covid deaths are in unvaccinated people.
I appreciate that, since I have used up my articles. Otherwise I’m just going off the numbers relayed to me at work about our local hospitals in Florida, which to my knowledge doesn’t report statewide breakthrough stats.
~Max
My school district just announced all employees are eligible for a $500 incentive for proof of vaccination (I already sent in a picture of my card!). We have 22,000+ employees, so it wasn’t cheap! It will be interesting to see how well the carrot works, here. $500 is enough for most people to notice!
If we’re going to allow unvaccinated healthcare workers, we may as well legalize drunk driving. Seriously, what’s the difference?
In the "About Freakin’ Time department:
BC has just announced that all workers in long term care facilities must be vaccinated. They have until October 12, and in the meantime, unvaccinated workters MUST be masked and tested regularly. Volunteers and outside personal care workers must be vaccinated as of today, or they are not allowed in full stop.
From the article:
“All the eight active COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care settings in B.C. were caused by unvaccinated workers – including West Kelowna’s Brookhaven Care Centre outbreak with five sick residents and 17 staff and Cottonwoods Care Centre in Kelowna where eight residents and three staff are infected.”
It’s about time that workers, including nurses in long term care were told to get vaccinated or leave. They do not have the right to cause sickness and death to others.
History? Public opinion?
~Max
Hell, if I’m a nurse and I have a genuine belief that injections of KCl are a good thing, then you can’t fire me if many of my patients mysteriously die under my care. It’s my freedom!
Yeah, and then those unvaccinated nurses get covid and wind up in one of the in-very-short-supply hospital beds, which just adds to the problem.
I have to wonder if a nurse who does not have an actual medical reason to avoid the vaccine would be properly compliant with PPE given they are already demonstrating a lack of understanding of infectious disease measures.
You don’t know why those exemptions were issued by the hospital system. It could be each and everyone of those people has a medical reason to not take the vaccine, and most/all of them might have nearly no patient contact.
I’m firmly in the camp that unless someone has a medical reason to not get the vaccination they have absolutely zero business around patients these days. Sure, you have a right to be an unvaccinated, irresponsible idiot. You do not have a “right” to a particular job. Don’t want a vaccine? Then you lose your nursing job. You can go work in a warehouse for Amazon or shop groceries for Instacart or sell crocheted dolls on Etsy for a living.
Although that table contains data “since vaccination began”. So it’s mostly pre-delta data.
I’d love to see data on current hospitalizations and recent deaths, and haven’t been able to find it anywhere.
I haven’t had coffee yet, so this isn’t a fully formed thought, but …
Creative destruction comes to mind:
Creative destruction is the dismantling of long-standing practices in order to make way for innovation and is seen as a driving force of capitalism.
Creative destruction is implicated in no end of social policy discussions.
- “If we get rid of the bad cops, it’s going to be awfully hard to find new cops. Meanwhile, the crime rates will soar.”
- “If you fire your health care workers, during a pandemic, for refusing to take the vaccine that is well-established to drastically mitigate said pandemic and its effects, who’s going to take care of your sick people ?”
One thing the US does far too well: makes piece with ‘the cost of doing business.’ Misery is a line item on many corporate spreadsheets (inarguably, including Health Care).
As long as the other numbers make sense, misery stays.
Being held hostage by the Refusniks (who have no bona fide medical contraindications to the COVID vaccine) is a moral hazard. They are – wittingly or unwittingly – forcing us into a pretty thorny choice that may well involve:
- lessening our ability to care for the sick by holding continued employment out as conditional upon accepting the vaccine, and
- creating fewer sick people in the first place by getting the Refusniks out of a position where they can create an excessive amount of new sick people.
I lean toward the side of creative destruction, both in the health care workers and the LEOs situations. We just have to understand that both may have human costs.
My guess is good delta data will take three to five more months.
May not be enough, but every day the New York Times has a hospitalization map and its data. I don’t know if they’re archived or the data source. This doesn’t break out vaccinated vs. unvaccinated.
It’s unclear how many of the 151 were nurses as opposed to other hospital workers, who could include secretarial staff, maintenance etc.
I don’t care if my nurse or doc is a Trumpite or worships Zog while sacrificing goats in their backyard. Refusal to acknowledge and follow evidence-based medical practices, however, is a deal-breaker.
I’m pleased to see that in my specialty, pathology, a sizable majority of docs identify as Democrats, along with other fields I respect, such as internal medicine and infectious disease (the latter was found to trend most strongly blue of any specialty). It doesn’t surprise me that most surgeons and urologists tilt Republican, given the notable percentage of assholes in those specialties.
Old joke:
What’s the difference between a surgeon and God?
God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.