General COVID-19 Topic

[imsys0042]

I did some googling and most of the info states that it doesn't decrease the vaccine being effective, but heavier drinking weakens your immune system in general.  That means it might not respond as well as moderate/no drinking.

So it seems pretty normal, since that would the case for anything.

[Hardspoon]

My friend, who I was supposed to see this weekend, also got COVID after being fully vaccinated. His symptoms are pretty minor. 

[Double Mocha Man]

1 hour ago, imsys0042 said:

My wife asked the person who gave her, her first dose, whether she could drink because the following day was her birthday.  The person said alcohol would not affect anything.   This was late March.  Has new info come out, or perhaps that person was wrong?

I think that person was partially wrong.  From my reading it says heavy alcohol consumption, within 48 hours of the shot, can negatively impact the immune system's response.  But moderate consumption is okay.

I say why take the chance.  My friend did.  I don't think he read or asked about it before getting the shot.

And what does a drunk antibody look like, anyway? 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Vinsk said:

Yes…as well as preventing variants. 

Yes, thank you.

[iacas]

 

Op-Ed: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I'm running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

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A doctor featured in a Times article published Sunday on the latest wave of COVID-19 speaks for...

Quote

The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated. On those who are eligible to get vaccinated, but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, “vaccination is a deeply personal choice.” But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice impacted the world as a whole as it does right now. When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die, when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.

If you believe the pandemic is almost over and you can ride it out, without getting vaccinated, you could not be more wrong. This virus will find you.

If you believe I’ll just wait until the FDA approves the vaccine first, you may not live to see the day.

If you believe if I get infected I’ll just go to the hospital and get treated, there is no guarantee we can save your life, nor even a promise we’ll have a bed for you.

If you believe I’m pregnant and I don’t want the vaccine to affect me, my baby or my future fertility,it matters little if you’re not alive to see your newborn.

If you believe I won’t get my children vaccinated because I don’t know what the long-term effects will be, it matters little if they don’t live long enough for you to find out.

If you believe I’ll just let everyone else get vaccinated around me so I don’t have to, there are 93 million eligible, unvaccinated people in the “herd” who think the same way you do and are getting in the way of ending this pandemic.

If you believe vaccinated people are getting infected anyway so what’s the point?, the vaccine was built to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from severe illness. Instead of fatal pneumonia, those with breakthrough infections have a short, bad cold, so the vaccine has already proved itself. The vaccinated are not dying from COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated countless times during this pandemic, adapting to survive. Stacked up against a human race that has resisted change every step of the way — including wearing masks, social distancing, quarantining and now refusing lifesaving vaccines — it is easy to see who will win this war if human behavior fails to change quickly.

The most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your loved ones and the world, is to GET VACCINATED.

And it will work.

 

[dennyjones]

CBS morning news had a report today that they showed a 911 operator trying for 2 1/2 hours in Louisiana to get a Covid patient into a hospital.   They were unsuccessful within a 100 mile range.   

[ChetlovesMer]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

 

Op-Ed: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I'm running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

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A doctor featured in a Times article published Sunday on the latest wave of COVID-19 speaks for...

 

This is a good article. Thanks for posting. 

[chspeed]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

 

Op-Ed: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I'm running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

---

A doctor featured in a Times article published Sunday on the latest wave of COVID-19 speaks for...

 

My wife (internal medicine doc) and her colleagues talk about the fact that if they worked in states in which many are not vaccinated, they would quit instead of having to treat non-vaccinated patients all day. Hats off to frontline workers willing to do this.

Edited August 18, 2021 by chspeed

[imsys0042]

1 hour ago, chspeed said:

My wife (internal medicine doc) and her colleagues talk about the fact that if they worked in states in which many are not vaccinated, they would quit instead of having to treat non-vaccinated patients all day. Hats off to frontline workers willing to do this.

My response would probably begin with “oh, so you’ve decided to be stupid” and end with telling them to get the hell out and giving them a bottle of “magical thinking pills” for their condition.  

Edited August 18, 2021 by imsys0042

[boogielicious]

Anti-vaxxers are selfish f**ktards. If it would only affect them, I would not care if they got it and died. But their incredible selfishness is costing other people their lives, causing mutations and prolonging the misery for everyone. 

[Double Mocha Man]

18 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Anti-vaxxers are selfish f**ktards. If it would only affect them, I would not care if they got it and died. But their incredible selfishness is costing other people their lives, causing mutations and prolonging the misery for everyone. 

It's ironic.  In these pandemic times we really find out who the patriots are...  and it's not the folks opposed to the shots.  They cannot answer the question:  Who's got your back?

[imsys0042]

25 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Anti-vaxxers are selfish f**ktards. If it would only affect them, I would not care if they got it and died. But their incredible selfishness is costing other people their lives, causing mutations and prolonging the misery for everyone. 

Also, filling up hospitals and overwhelming the health care system.   My wife is back to worrying about what happens if someone in the family needs urgent care.   Not everything is filled up around us, but it's getting there.  What happens if you can't be operated on quickly enough?

 

4 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

It's ironic.  In these pandemic times we really find out who the patriots are...  and it's not the folks opposed to the shots.  They cannot answer the question:  Who's got your back?

But they'll sure as hell ask it when they want something!

[imsys0042]

Pressley Stutts, local idiot in the state I live in, has died today.   He was influential in state politics and pushed legislators to defund any school that tries to require vaccines or masks.  College and lower.   
 

money quotes from news articles. (I am not linking anything because they are crazy political)

”After Stutts tested positive for COVID and was hospitalized, he continued to post Facebook messages reaffirming his belief that masks and vaccines should not be mandated by the government.”

“It is a deadly bio-weapon perpetrated upon the people of the world by enemies foreign, and perhaps domestic,” he said on social media.

He said it was up to individuals — and not government — to decide to wear a mask or to be vaccinated against the virus.

 

on the last point, at some point there are going to be more companies and schools that require this vaccine.   When full FDA approval comes, I hope there are more sticks instead of carrots to beat this back.

before going on a ventilator he ranted about how doing so was “his choice” and that “God will protect me”.    Instead of the two boats and helicopter joke. I’ll defer to the Pope who encouraged people to get the vaccines developed by the very smart people and science that He created.

my sympathy level —> zero.  He fought against basic and safe ways to keep people, especially kids, safe.   
 

and I really hate this argument about letting people make up their own minds.   I WANT people who know what they are doing to make decisions that keep us safe.  Throwing complex problems on large numbers of people and then having them choose is just dumb,  there are so few things that the government actually makes us do, it’s just people being ridiculous.

and you know what, if you don’t want to get the vaccine, I’m not saying we kidnap people and jab them.   Just like anything else, there are going to be a lot of companies that require it, and school as well.  They can require it, so you either go somewhere that doesn’t  or you don’t work/go to school.   The idiots in my state made the argument that you can just home school your kids yourself (we aren’t equipped to so that) and they banned mask mandates and limited virtual school offerings to 5%, with a requirement to sign up by this March for 2021-2022 session.   So they completely are trying to force people to “get back to normal” when people haven’t gotten enough shots to do so.

someone else’s personal freedom intrudes on my right to not get sick and die when it could have been prevented.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by imsys0042

[Double Mocha Man]

Yep.  Sure.  It's your choice to not get vaccinated.  Just don't leave your damn house and infect me!  Concealed carry has a new meaning these days.

[iacas]

A Reddit post from a nurse:

Quote

Throwaway, obviously. NSFW for swears and discussing graphic death. Sorry not sorry for the rant, but here it is:

I’m a nurse in a hospital in one of the worst places hit by this pandemic. Not sure how many times it had to be said, but the disease is real, it is BACK, it is awful, and you will die in a horrible way if you are one of the unlucky ones who happens to get the real bad reaction to COVID. If this is you, you will suffocate slowly, over days, weeks, or months (depending on how long you can coast on a vent).

also can’t believe this needs to be said, we still don’t know exactly why some get so extremely sick. We don’t know the long-term effects of having contracted covid. We don’t know how one person with the same comorbidities as another lives while the other dies an insta-death. We. don’t. f***ing. know. Yet.

What we DO know, is that millions have gotten the vaccine and (virtually) nothing bad’s happened (handfull of weird-ass unfortunate reactions - definitely not widespread). We DO know that COVID can (and will) kill you and potentially anyone you give it to.

There’s been ample time and opportunities for most (at least in my country) to get vaxxed. Not counting those who can’t get vaccinations for medical reasons. If your ass gets COVID and dies that’s natural selection, baby.

Why are you all rolling the dice on your life like this? What is it like to be so stupid?

It is worse than that, though. If you’ve had the opportunity to get vaxxed and decline, you can basically call yourself a murderer because you’re then directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not more, at this point.

I hate that i’m so burnt out. I hate that I’ve lost my passion to go to work and do a good job. I used to love going to work and helping people. Now i just go in to complete the tasks necessary to get paid. Because also: the families of the anti-vaxxers will come into the hospital, will wear their masks down the whole time, will be suspicious of everything you do, will demand access to certain areas/basically act like they own the hospital. This is not a hotel, i am not a maid, i am not your waitress. You did not spend money on a fun ticket where your dumb ass could (and this is still shitty) expect a 5 star experience in exchange for jack shit. This. is. the. hospital. You. Will. Do. as. I. say. or. I. Will. Call. Security. it is not a conspiracy. You’re being an asshole and putting everyone in danger.

This is the same family member who will scream at you that you’re doing a bad job when their loved one’s O2 drops, and that you: “have to save them! you don’t understand! get in there!”

Yep. That’s your family member. They didn’t get a vaccine. and neither did all of y’all. I just got on shift and don’t have all my PPE donned yet to protect myself from you and your sick family member. every time i enter your room I’m putting myself at risk. And the patient had full capacity to not do this to me. I’m going to be patient and careful when applying my PPE, to protect myself. If I get sick and die, that’s one less nurse to take care of ignorant assholes like your loved one. FUN FACT: your family member is 100% going to die. Now they’re critical. It’s the end of the line. Maybe like 1% of patients survive after they get to this point - and usually those end up with some pretty extensive brain damage from hypoxic brain injury.

I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve seen die this year. I’m not exaggerating. When it was really bad in the beginning, they were going quick. like every 30 minutes or so. then sometimes you’d be given an admission, and it’s an old colleague. Or you’d walk past a stretcher and do a double-take. “Is that?..” And you knew it was all over for them, for these people you used to know. They’d ask if they were gonna be okay.

Then it went away for a few months, and came back again. That first time it started creeping back… I can’t even describe the anxiety. I cried at work. A lot. I didn’t used to do that. It couldn’t be happening again. But it was -numbers-wise not as bad as the first time… but it was worse - we had even less staff than before, and none of us got to do the healing we needed from the first time around.

Went away for a little while again… came back again. This third time round i’m honestly so empty about it that I can’t honestly say I’ve had any extreme feelings when I’m at work. But sometimes when I sit alone I think of how absurd this all is. Surrounded by people who act like it never happened. So excited to take off masks. It hasn’t been that long. A year isn’t really a long time. But whatever… I guess the feeling of a small square of soft cloth over your face is just like being waterboarded, so I understand.

I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, depression, adjustment disorder, and have survivor’s guilt all because y’all couldn’t reel it in for one goddamn year, and that y’all can’t understand basic science. You’re losing your family member. That’s sad. I’ve lost many, and I’ve lost count of how many random mother f***ers I’ve seen die. I’ve lost my capacity to care. In fact, save me your tears - I’m f***ing thirsty.

It is futile, and it’s not my fault. It’s your family member’s fault. It’s you and everyone like you’s fault. I’m going to protect myself and run through the motions of treating everyone’s respiratory failure while they die a gruesome death (ALSO, you keeping your poor family member a full code when they’re clearly suffering - and we’ve been telling you we’ve never seen anybody survive past this point is SHAMEFUL. let them die in peace and dignity: with pain medicine; with anxiolytics. Do your loved one one last solid and sign that DNR and apply for comfort care. If there is an afterlife they will thank you).

Yes, I AM resentful. Yes, I hate all anti-vaxxers. Yes, I hate that hospital staff has been getting a lot of on-the-job hate from suspicious families of patients… Just…

Did people shit on firefighters after 9/11? Like seriously, what the f*** IS THIS? Healthcare is already thankless - and now, it’s not just thankless, you get a nice serving of “f*** YOU” served on a silver platter at the beginning of every shift. I hope you’re all happy with yourselves.

edit: I’m getting a lot of messages calling me a psychopath. I encourage your to visit r/nursing 1 to know that I am not the only one with this take on the unvaccinated. I and everyone like me are still performing our jobs to the best of our abilities. What I’m saying is that I don’t really feel bad anymore for people who refuse to get the vaccine who subsequently get covid. I’m not the only person who feels this way. most medical staff I talk to agree. seriously. we’re running out of steam.

 

[imsys0042]

I got fired up today because my informed me, via one of her direct friends who does Covid contact tracing, that she is aware of people in our area who have Covid and are sending their kids to school.   School started Monday and there’s already 71 cases in the district (which is big, like 11-13 separate schools).

I can’t even begin to fully understand what that nurse is feeling.  Bunch of loads ruining their jobs and lives.   

[Vinsk]

I’d love to have a sit down, beer drinking night of ranting with this nurse. 

[imsys0042]

Sorry everyone, we lived in a failed timeline that was abandoned at this point.

Never thought I'd have to spread this as a PSA, but please don't (if you were considering it) take livestock de-wormer to fight Covid.

https://abc7chicago.com/ivermectin-for-covid-livestock-dewormer-mississippi-poison-control-what-is/10966065/

If you search in Facebook for Ivermectin and look at the public groups you will see that all is not going well with that crowd.   They are buying different doses and potencies and then don't know why they are dizzy, sore or have blurred vision.    One person took a dose meant for a 1750 lb horse and then wondered if he did something wrong.

People are literally buying this up at Tractor Supply and asking how much to take and can they give it to their kids.   Lest anyone say "well there are human versions of this as well", they are not using those.   They are trying to use meds for sheep, horses and cattle for getting rid of worms/pests and then posting questions like "has anyone had any bowel or bathroom issues after taking this?"

The real victims at this point are the comedy writers.   WTH do they come up with after something like this, that seems remotely funny?