COVID-19 (coronavirus disease)/SARS-CoV-2 virus

Continued:


How close are we are to hitting those pinch points with nursing staff?
It changes every day. We’re thankful that Gov. Abbot is recruiting more nurses to come into the state of Texas to help with this wave. The first count is 2,500 more nurses for all of Texas. That’s far short of what we need.

During the earlier peaks, which were not nearly as devastating as this one, we were using 2,000 extra nurses just in the Texas Medical Center alone.

I don’t have exact numbers on how much more we can withstand in our own institutions, but we’re being pressed to the wall. We don’t have a lot of bandwidth now. We are fully stretched.

If you look at most of the hospitals in the north, some of the areas that have the highest number of unvaccinated people, you see a direct correlation of unvaccinated populations and overwhelmed hospitals. That’s consistent throughout the country, and certainly here in Texas.

What percentage of cases are delta variant?
It’s amazing to see how it’s grown. Early when we detected it, it was maybe 2 to 5 percent of cases. Now, invariably, all the cases are delta.

What we’re seeing is a combination of two things: a variant that’s three times more transmissible than the original; and a community where 44 percent of eligible people are unvaccinated.

Our hospital admissions show what’s happening. The COVID patients now are so much younger. They’re in their 20s and 30s.

And we’re losing them. They are not invulnerable.

Imagine having to turn to a 20-year-old and tell them you’re about to turn them over and put a respirator down their throat and paralyze their body. Then they don’t feel so invulnerable. It’s heartbreaking to see.

But the politics have been blinding. People have been misinformed.

There’s a myth, created by an anti-vax group, that the vaccines will affect fertility. There’s absolutely no science to it. Anyone that’s thinking about having a child should be vaccinated. My daughter is pregnant now. She was vaccinated, and is doing extremely well.

But it’s hard, dealing with these politics, and we’re seeing it firsthand in our hospitals on a daily basis.

The White House is recommending a booster shot for people who were vaccinated eight months before. What are your thoughts?
It’s outstanding.

We’ve already started to give boosters to immunocompromised people — cancer patients or people who have a complexity in their health that requires them to be vaccinated. We anticipate will probably in the next two weeks receive the CDC recommendation to start vaccinating. We’ll start with healthcare workers, and then we’ll migrate to our 65 and above population.








How much does the medical center have to gear up to do more vaccinations?
We are already ready. We’re prepared and ready to go. We’ve been vaccinating all along.

We’re also delighted to see a slight uptick in vaccinations of late, even before this mandate from the federal government. Perhaps it’s going back to school: We hope that people are taking their 12-and-up students to be vaccinated.

I think the word is starting to get out into the community of the unvaccinated: The people being hospitalized are younger and younger.

I was out on a golf course about two weeks ago. Four young gentleman came up next to me, and they were talking. One’s spouse was COVID-positive and had gone to camp with their father because he was also exposed. And the other three chimed in. One said, “Yes, I’ve got a friend that’s in the hospital right now. The second one said, “I think John’s heading into the hospital tomorrow. We thought he was going to beat it at home.”

It’s sad to see, but it’s starting to resonate with that younger community, people who thought that they would just handle it like a cold. When they hear about friends being ventilated, that’s an eye-opener.

I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish they were just basing it on science.

Healthcare workers are feeling a lot of frustration. They’re 18 months into this heartbreaking exercise, and now they’re treating this pandemic of the unwilling.

It’s sad. The community of the unvaccinated is now trusting to save their lives the very same people that have been telling them to get vaccinated. It’s sad that somehow politics got in the way of health care.

And now, this game of Russian roulette that they’re playing is not just with their own lives. They’re playing with the lives of our children and our grandparents who, even if they got vaccinated, may be getting reexposed to the delta variants. So it’s not just a personal decision.

It’s a decision we all make as citizens, to help our family, our friends, our parents, our children. I hope it resonates with people, and that they don’t need to lose a friend or a neighbor before they change their opinion about getting vaccinated.

Any other final thoughts?
I think that what resonates with people is returning to a life of freedom — football games, returning to work, traveling the world — all of those things that we miss so much. I hope the people who are focused on those things are seeing good examples of how to do this.

New York City now mandates that you have to show your vaccine card to get into a restaurant or health club. Maybe the politics of our state don’t allow that, sadly. But if we really want to return to the freedoms we all enjoyed, vaccination is the actually the only path to that.

Every time this virus hops from one unvaccinated person to another, it becomes more deadly, because viruses change over time. That’s why we’re dealing with the delta variant now, and not the original alpha variant.

Imagine what the next one could be. The next one could work around all of our vaccines. Then we could imagine a whole other year of shutdown of the economy, loss of jobs and loss of freedoms. So if you really want to do the best thing for the economy, get vaccinated, and have your friends get vaccinated.

We’re still figuring out the toll that COVID is taking. This is a novel virus. We don’t have history with it. The long-term effects of COVID that we’re seeing — for instance with brain fog, the same symptoms as Alzheimer’s — is tremendously scary.

I hope that people would take to heart that this is not about who you voted for. This is really a decision that you make — a gift you give not to just yourself but to your family and friends. The evidence for that is what we see every day in our ICUs. It’s heartbreaking to turn to a person and say, “We’re going to ventilate you, and we’re gonna flip you over. Is there anything you want me to pass along to your family?”

I don’t wish that on anyone. Sadly, the people who are voting with their bodies by not being vaccinated will continue to fuel the fire of this pandemic for months and months, maybe years to come, if we don’t really extinguish it.

And with this variant, extinguishing it will be harder now. Because it’s so much more transmissible, it’s no longer about 75, or 80% of us needed to reach herd immunity. It’ll take virtually 95% of us to get this down to a level where we can snuff it out forever.

I hope we can do that. Americans have faced other terrible diseases as a community. Polio comes to mind. When I was a child, I had an aunt whose arm was stuck in one position from when she was crippled from polio. And I remember lining up in school and getting vaccinated. Now you’ll never see a polio case again.

That’s what we did as Americans — not as Americans that voted Republican or Democrat. We were Americans, and it was the right thing to do, and we gave ourselves the blessing of never having polio in our lives again.

I just wish people could step back from all of this and do their part to bring back the freedoms we all enjoy. That’s what I hope in my heart.

My mind thinks differently. The data tell me that we’re going to be at this for a much longer period of time.

 

I feel uncomfortable giving your post a “like” about what is a personal tragedy for you, losing a friend, and a far worse tragedy for his immediate family. It isn’t news that any person should like to hear. I did because it’s important that people know about the real consequences of not being vaccinated, which your post illustrates.

While I certainly don’t know why your friend chose not to be vaccinated - whether he believed false information put out on social media that the vaccines are unnecessary or unsafe, or if he decided to put off being vaccinated until a vaccine was given official government approval, something the Pfizer vaccine received today - it’s important that everyone understands the danger they are placing themselves in by not getting vaccinated for Covid-19. The hospitals are overflowing, overwhelmed with unvaccinated fellow Texans. Today, right now.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 is incredibly contagious. Far more contagious that the original virus. While before, older people like myself were more at risk from contracting Covid-19 than the average person, that isn’t true with the widespread and spreading astonishingly fast Delta variant.

Healthy people like your friend, young people, even children are being hospitalized and sometimes dying from it. It’s so dangerous that even vaccinated Americans are catching it in “breakthrough” cases. I know some. The huge difference there is that while you might get very sick for a week or two, in most instances, not all, you can avoid hospitalization and worse.

Now, with the Pfizer vaccine getting official approval by the FDA for safe use, there is no reason not to get vaccinated. Whereas before it had “emergency” FDA approval, like the Moderna vaccine still has (likely to get official FDA approval within weeks), as well as the Johnson and Johnson single dose vaccine, that isn’t the case for the Pfizer vaccine, starting today. Unless someone has unique reasons spelled out by their physician not to be vaccinated, everyone should get vaccinated. Then we would all be far more likely to avoid having to do what you will be doing this weekend, @bobrek. Take care, and my condolences on the loss of your friend.

 

It literally isn't...

 

Why not take your dishonest political takes to D&D, where they belong? Need the attention in Hangout?

 

Why is this thread even in the hangout? I just answered your question. The "Warp Speed" vaccine was brought out a few weeks prior to Biden. It isn't even up for debate. Ironically, I can show you plenty of democrats who said they wouldn't take the vaccine if Trump was in office. How silly is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera...) was,vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

 

Thank you. I sent you a PM

 

Take it to D&D. This is a thread in Hangout because it’s about a serious issue of public health, which affects all of us.

 

Buhbuhbbuttttttt, the DEMOCcratttssssssssssssssssssssss are being MEAN

 

Our hospitals’ staffs are 18 months into this. They’re exhausted.​

And we have far fewer nurses than we used to have. They’re being recruited to other states, like Florida, that are even worse off than Texas.
​

Same old story we've been hearing for 6+ months where healthcare workers are stretched thin and beyond while ignorant carefree dipshits bang their head against the wall until they need a doctor for their accidental concussions.

If it dun happen to me, it literally dun exist!

Kids are a troubling vector. Can't get immunized. Parents can't really shun them or scrub them down for quarantine. Hope the dummy no-mask tru-warrier parents are vaccinated.

No one deserves drowning in their own fluids with no family in sight.

 

I'm one of the so call breakthru cases. Fortunately just a couple of days of "under the weather" and still have a light lingering cough. Had my 2nd shot back in May, can't imagine how bad it'd be if I didn't get any shots.

By the way, got it from my freakin boss, of all people. The biatch didnt get her shots and didn't bother to wear a mask at work.

 

Any truth to tests coming back with false negatives if you've only been symptomatic for 24-36 hours?


I found out a couple days after I got sick that I had a likely exposure. I took an at home test (seemingly negative) within 12 hours of my first symptoms and a test at Rite Aid within 36 hours. A nurse friend of my wife's said she has seen false negatives if taken too soon.

My test was negative, but not my 3-4 year old has a fever, runny nose and isn't as active as normal. My wife wants me to get tested again...

 

Pfizer got the FDA approval today. Where will the goalposts move now?

 

I'm worried about this myself. I was sick as a dog all of last week, went and got a rapid test Thursday with results coming out negative. While I didn't experience the same symptoms when I got COVID last November (Chills, fever, body aches, head aches) some of them (body aches, head aches, slight chills) did occur. Now my 6 year old has a runny nose and a sore throat that started over the weekend. We kept her home and will go see the doctor today.

 

@EddieWasSnubbed @steddinotayto

The nasal PCR tests are significantly the most accurate. Rapid tests have been known to be inaccurate for quite awhile. obviously, a ton of folks want to avoid the discomfort of the nasal test and people still do but it's considered the gold standard of all this, so if you want the most reliable results that's the route one should take.

 

How silly is it for a grown man to drunk post 1am randomly on a basketball forum?

 

We are drawing close to the 2 year mark for COVID. This has been handled very poorly top to bottom. In my primary circle, nobody has gotten COVID. I have kept my primary circle very minimal. Only one has not gotten vaccinated and he is the 'smart' one of the group.
In my secondary, lots of gotten COVID and there have been a couple hospitalized.

What we are seeing now is what the chicken littles crowed on back in march 2020. Get your booster shots people.

 

You're as high risk as it gets in your age group without being immunocompromised. Let us know when you hit the ICU. It's cathartic to admit you're wrong, even when it's too late.

My 3yo and 6yo have both been sick the last week. Nasty coughs, lost voice, wheezing when sleeping. Needless to say I haven't gotten much sleep because I'm watching them at night.

We did an OTC test for the 3yo, was negative, did another one two days later, negative. Taking the 6yo to the doc today for a rapid test.

Our kids weren't sick for an entire year with most people wearing masks. Now the masks are off, people are getting sick again. It might be flu, it might just be a cold virus or bacteria, but our health care system can't handle the extra load right now. Mask up, get a booster. stay home.

 

been over a year and a half & I've been around thousands of folks the entire time. Here's the facts: When the power went out at my Mom's house during the freeze, I was there. No issues. When my friend's son got cancer, all of y'all were there. I'll keep that updated.

This thing? Nonsense.

(and btw, Batman tried this tactic on me a year ago. It's classless. I don't shame anyone for taking the shot. It's your prerogative. But quit trying to **** on me for thinking otherwise)

 

whether or not you take the vaccine, your choice of course. But when you post a bunch of your thoughts that clearly are what you personally think yourself and try to pass it onto others, well that's a different story. Don't complain about people ******** on you as a result. Lets not act like you didn't know what you were doing when making those posts either

 

Such as? You'll have to refresh my memory. I've been pretty straightforward on my feelings about this from the beginning. But if you show me otherwise, I can respond.