Vaccinated and unvaccinated are transmitting it. Also, I think people that are proposing refusing care to the unvaccinated are a little messed up. I get why people want to lash out. People need an enemy. They need a bad guy. But refusing care to the unvaccinated, largely proposed by the outraged left is so far removed from their way of thinking. It really turns the whole pro-life/pro-choice debate into a whacky shack, doesn't it? I'm just all about not telling people what to do.
Yes vaccinated can spread the virus but so far it looks like at less of a rate than unvaccinated and vaccinated when catching it are far less likely going to get serious COVID requiring the use of medical resources. Under the Hippocratic oath doctors and hospitals cannot deny emergency medical care to anyone. I get the sentiment but I think it would be much more dangerous for society to change that standard. That doesn't change that unvaccinated are taking up resources from something that is largely preventable.
Of course it is largely preventable, but honestly, so are probably 60% of hospitalizations. And of course we know the first part. That's the biggest issue, right? Well, that and now, these hospitals with no rooms and not enough workers have even less workers now that the mandates are firing them. These mandates are literally quite possibly making the situation worse in some areas.
That's really what it comes down to. Those who are authoritarian minded are using this as an excuse to take more control over people's lives. Look at the ridiculous extremes some have gone to in countries like Australia. None of that BS makes anyone any safer, but that's not really the goal. To those who live in areas that are keeping the insanity going, maybe it feels natural, to those of us who resumed living life as usual 6-8 months ago, it's just weird. If you're vaccinated, you have no reason to live your life any differently than you would have a few years ago. If you're not vaccinated, you are really only putting yourself at risk.
We've clearly given up on eradicating this, and it's a basic impossibility now. It's time to just get vaccinated and move on. We can't be afraid of the unvaccinated. They need to get vaccinated or move out of the way. They're the ones at risk, not everyone else. Don't get me wrong, we should be wearing masks still to help people not get sick and distancing, but eventually, we'll have to draw a line there. Once life resumes, we need to figure out exactly what caused this, so we can prevent that means of pandemic from happening again. If and when we find out that China was implicit ( by this I mean keeping the rest of the world from knowing what they knew about it), they need to be treated by the rest of the world as if they dropped a nuclear bomb, because they basically did worse. Sorry for D and D level stuff. I'll step aside now.
I agree. If there is proof something better be done in regards to China. I am not saying you are wrong. One thing though is many less people have died in Australia compared to for example Florida. Close to the same population I read Aussies have had 10-12k deaths while Florida has 50k something which if it were per capita it would be equivalent to 60 something thousand deaths in Australia. So all things aside it is less death. Not taking into account density etc
Similar population....though as you hinted, Australia's population is spread out over 2.97 million square miles while Florida's is within 65,000 square miles. So, sort of different population densities, also Florida's population is significantly older and less healthy....the two most important factors when it comes to risks associated with COVID-19 infection becoming serious. There's just no apples to apples comparison to be made. If you compare states like Texas and Florida that had mostly hands off approaches to states like NY and California who leaned pretty heavily into authoritarian BS, there's really very little difference when it comes to COVID lethality. Certainly nowhere near the difference that would be needed to justify those draconian measures....at least in my opinion, but I do lean libertarian rather than authoritarian so there's my bias. To me, if we were talking about a virus that affected the entire population the way it does those who are 65+ who are unvaccinated, then MAYBE we'd have a case to go full on authoritarian dystopia like Australia has, but when we're talking about a virus that isn't a threat to the vast majority of the population even BEFORE the vaccine was a thing, it's simply impossible to justify. Given what we're actually dealing with, I think it's best to let people make their own choices. If you're vaccinated, and you should be, you have nothing to worry about from those too dumb to get the vaccine.
Antiviral should be cheaper in the long term (think tamiflu). Mon AntiB are very expensive to manufacture and to administer. It also becomes quite useless once there is any major changes to the virus. Antiviral in a pill form should be much easier to manuf and much easier to administer. Early data for molnupiravir is promising and phase 3 data should be available in weeks. Other drug manufs are also in the games.
They do, but vax drastically reduce transmission. CA data below. The bump is Delta. Obviously, you can't spread if you aren't infected. What the data below doesn't show though is that once infected, vax clear up the virus faster and less of it is even transmissible to start with. Tracking COVID-19 in California - Coronavirus COVID-19 Response [/QUOTE]
At this point, there's enough data and research to know how well the vaccines work. Don't waste your time convincing the doubters.
Kids under 17 are the least impacted group. More than twice as many kids 17 and under died from the swine flu in the US the year that was a thing than have died from COVID-19 in the 18 months it's been a thing. Of all the thousands of things people should worry about when it comes to children under 12, COVID-19 barely makes the list at all.
I brought this up in another thread. I'm not comfortable with the idea of health care workers and others not engaging in best practices. Getting vaccinated so you don't potentially spread COVID-19 to your patients and others or end up sick yourself is a best practice. I recognize though that we have a shortage of health care workers. This is is one area I think we should consider how to figure out how to keep workers while reducing their risk of unvaccinated. Maybe move them to less at risky positions and require daily testing.
Except there are countries like Singapore and Taiwan that have much higher population densities yet COVID cases and deaths are miniscule compared to the US. Also South Dakota has very little population density yet at less than 1/20th of Australia's population has almost twice as many COVID-19 deaths.
Entirely valid, but population density only relates to spread, the age and health of the population is the most relevant factors when it comes to COVID-19 deaths. Now Singapore is an aging population which is a strike against them but they are a far healthier population than in the US. For example their obesity rate is under 10% overall and under 7% among those 60 and over. In the US its over 40% overall and nearly 30% among seniors. That will potentially cause a massive difference in outcomes with COVID-19. A tubby junk food addict with diabetes has more to fear from COVID-19 than someone who lives a more responsible lifestyle. Also, with Singapore, they are currently experiencing their worst ever outbreak of the virus with the most ever deaths, so perhaps we should revisit them in a few months to see how things shake out. They may have just delayed the inevitable....which isn't a bad thing, the treatments are much more successful today than a year ago.
monoclonal antibodies are administered intravenously. What I posted is a pill you take. The pill was so successful they canceled the trial early.
I've been bringing this up though and no one has a response.... Teachers should be the ones mandated to get the vaccine before anyone else. A healthcare worker knows the covid status of their patient at least half the time. They can and do use PPE. They interact with less people than teachers on the daily, in most cases. Teachers are in a class room with kids, and many of them every day. More kids are asymptomatic with covid than adults. Kids are not as good (in some cases) about wearing masks. They're not as good about hand washing and distancing. They spread their germs easier. The teachers then interact with their coworkers, who have interacted with many more kids. Then the kids all interact with their families. A much wider circle than most healthcare workers. So why aren't teacher mandated in more than a handful of states? Also, I agree with you on the testing. Testing trumps the vaccine anyways, based on what we know about the vaccine. More testing should be occuring more regularly, period.
Is that a thing? Cancelling the trial early because they like the success? Serious question, though it may sound dumb...
Sounds good, but doesn't further research help determine side effects, dosages, etc? I don't know enough about this stuff...
