Hi gang! Come on in, and make yourselves at home. Just one thing, no shoes on the coffee table, OK? Let’s just be honest, after all, we’re all people of good will, right?
I’ll start off by being honest. I don’t honestly know how you feel. I’m 64 years old. By the time I was 6, I’d been stuck by more needles than a pin cushion. Polio, measles, mumps, rubella, small pox, chicken pox, and one I think was supposed to keep me from getting a pox on my house. And being fortunate enough to be born an airline brat, and spent 20 years working for a major airline myself, I had a chance to travel the world, and sometimes I had to get vaccines to go to certain places to see things. Vaccines are just a natural part of my life.
But while I may not know how you feel, even more importantly, I understand how you feel. Being 64, I too have had health issues in my life, and some of them have been some scary shit. Most of them required my buy in for the treatment. And there’s always this feeling that you don’t really have enough information. But guess what? Suck it up! You’ll never have enough information, because you’re not a doctor, and don’t honestly understand most of this shit, no matter how many questions you ask. Your doctor does, and you just have to trust his or her judgement.
The CDC can call it whatever they want, but the Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J vaccines are no longer emergency use drugs. For God’s sake, more than 160 million Americans have gotten at least one shot! But it doesn’t really matter what they call it, because Covid has made it immaterial. Covid has made it about something much more than the vaccine.
The Delta variant of the Coronavirus is running rampant, especially in states with low population vaccination rates. And they are starting to overwhelm the hospitals in ways that they didn’t even see in the initial surge of 2020! And that affects everybody.
Any of y’all have parents, grandparents? Let’s just say that since most of us old timers take our health seriously, they did the due diligence, did a risk/benefit assessment, and got the vaccine. So they’re golden. Because as it stands, emergency use or not, nobody who is vaccinated is dying or being admitted to the hospital with life threatening illness!
But, God forbid, one of them could have a heart attack, stroke, or take a tumble and get a concussion. And they’re going to require medical treatment most riki-tik. The paramedics rush them to the hospital, if they aren’t turned away because the entire ER is full of Covid patients. And even if they do get in, they will see a harried ER doctor who will spend five minutes looking at them, and then giving instructions to an overworked nurse and two paramedics doing their internship, while the doctor they really need to see is stuck up on the 4th floor, ventilating a Covid patient.
Got a spouse? Yeah, me too. And if yours is anything like mine, he or she drives. Which means that an accident is always a dreaded possibility. And if the ambulance can get your wife to the emergency room, can he or she get the full staff treatment that her condition deserves, while everybody in the ER is flapping around like chickens with their heads cut off, treating Covid patients in extremis? What if your child has a severe asthma attack, or a severe case of anaphylactic shock from a bee sting? Will all of the desperately needed respiratory therapists be already busy treating Covid patients?
Am I getting through here? Covid changed everything! Even if you never contract Covid, it can still have a catastrophic effect on you or a close member of your family. The only way to get the Covid virus epidemic down to manageable levels so that hospitals can provide proper care is for everybody to get vaccinated, so that people aren’t flooding the hospitals with their illnesses. You can’t bitch about the quality of the medical care that your loved ones receive if you’re laying there in a hospital bed, taking up critical medical personnel and resources. Here endeth the lesson.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
I totally agree with your points about this affects all of us. Another issue that I thought of, is the medical staff that are getting burned out to the point that some of them are quitting medicine. What kind of shape will our medical facilities be in, after this is over?
I was at my local walgreens the other day(mask on, vaccinated), picking up some drugs for my wife. There looked to be about 10-15 young people waiting in line to get the vaccine. Looks like this final wave has woke some folks that this shit is serious.
Here’s another thing to consider. In-person appointments, or rather what should have been in-person appointments have also been affected. For example, in the fall of 2019 I developed a heart condition called A-Fib. For those who don’t know, but see commercials about common drugs for it it means your heart randomly speeds up and slows down. Irregular heartbeat like this is different than it skipping a beat or two which happens with everyone sometimes. With A-Fib it’s more pronounced and affects the efficiency of your heart. It can lead to dizziness (and due to severe neuropathy I already have significant balance problems) and falls which especially for us older folks isn’t good. It can also lead to worse things. For all the happy talk in the commercials, medication which can be effective in controlling it really isn’t a good long-term answer. Having to take a blood thinner presents other issues that can affect other things, especially during acute care situations where unlike my cataract surgery I could go off my med ahead of time one doesn’t have that chance. Or if you cut yourself somehow. Or fall or get banged really hard. You bleed a lot more, and a while back I had a bad fall and a massive subdural hematoma of the kind that could have formed a blood clot which in turn could wind up being life threatening. The point is that there are steps that get taken to try and provide a long-term fix for A-Fib other than medications that thin the blood. Which don’t always work well enough either btw.
The thing that usually provides the best long-term (for most permanent) solution is something called cardiac ablation. After tests to ID the right spot(s) in your heart they snake a catheter up there and burn some tissue to kill off the nerves they believe are causing the A-Fib. But first they are obligated to go through a lesser procedure where they briefly put you under and shock your heart back into normal rhythm. I had that done six months ago.
Today I was supposed to head out to the VA in Durham for my follow-up. I’d have answered the questions, they’d have monitored me some and hooked me up for an EKG and so on and a decision would be made on whether to schedule me for another round of shock the heart, or (unlikely because they like to try shocking you twice) move straight to ablation. The thing is, once again in-person appointments are being postponed! Due to Covid. I got a call Wed. telling me that instead of coming in just make sure I was available to take a call from my cardiologist. I’ll get asked some questions, but not actually examined the way I should be, and the whole routine that would lead to what I’ve learned is my best chance of getting my heart working properly (and therefore not having to worry about it) again will be delayed. That in turn will mean taking that freaking blood thinner with the various complications for my health care THAT presents for even longer!
All because Covid is again rising to alarming levels due to ASSHOLES who could and should but won’t get vaccinated. There are other, more dire situations that can develop due to in-person appointments again being curtailed. My semi-annual skin cancer screenings (which yes, sometimes result in on-the spot removal of spots of concern and even biopsies – fortunately nothing has had a chance to develop into something serious) for example. For other people it can be much more serious. Catching cancer early provides a clear advantage when it comes to successfully treating it. Mammograms are essential for women, especially if there is a history of breast cancer in their family. And what’s going on will again cause that kind of procedure to be postponed. Or colonoscopies for people who have a history of polyps. I could go on and on about various fairly common preventative care procedures/tests that require showing up at a hospital or clinic and for a long time weren’t getting done. And we are headed into yet another widespread period in which it’s happening again. How many people will die, or have to undergo far more extensive treatment than would have been necessary because Covid has limited seeing medical care providers in-person?
The ripple effects and the full extent of the disruptions to medical care in this country won’t be known for years, maybe even decades! All because a shitload of selfish ASSHOLES decided proving their political bona fides to a flaming orange human shaped rectum mattered more than anything else.
My teeth cleanings have been postponed. My mammogram has been postponed. My OBGYN exam and pap smear have been postponed. My DEXA scan has been postponed. My monitoring lab tests for my monoclonal gammopathy have been postponed. My monitoring tests for scleroderma has been postponed. My sleep center appointment for my OSA has been postponed. My needed physical and lab have been postponed. All because we have a continuing pandemic because a lot of frikkin’ assholes won’t get vaccinated. Hubby and I are vaccinated, but with my autoimmune disease and IL-6 gene variant (relates to cytokine storm), if I had a breakthrough infection it could still be serious.
When I was in Walgreens this week getting my first jab (yeah, I have been dragging my feet for reasons I have elaborated on before), there was a young couple. He was wearing a mask and she wasn’t. Since he was there for his vaccine, I am assuming that she was already vaccinated and his future romantic prospects hinged on him getting up to speed on it.
May be a way to get through to the younger generation. Win over the girlfriend and, like a pair of romantically entwined canines, where she goes, he has to follow.
Mike Scott
Pretty much all of the invaded are Trumpies which means that many of that 30%are evangelical.right-wing notions that nothing will.convince. It is,an act of faith and this means facts don’t make a debt because when facts oppose the Bible wins..If they were only killing g themselves, I would be fine with their choice to risk their life, just like doing something g else stupid and likely to be fatal Jump out a plane? Fine. Shoot up with heroin? Your decision. Those only have an effect on you and your family. Problem.is refusing the vaccine affects others around you who haven’t chosen to reject science in favor of death. You are killing others who didn’t get a choice because they are immunosuppressive (transplant patients, chemo, those with autoimmune disorders like lupus) or too young.
My solution is that if you won’t mask or get vaccinated,and you infect someone, you should be tried for attempted murder, and if they die, you should be tried for negligent homicide or voluntary manslaughter because you.murdered them.as clearly as if you shot them with a hollow point bullet. Covid was your weapon
The lowest vaccination rates in Texas are for African Americans. Maybe evangelical, but not right wing. This is the same unvaccinated population dying in hospitatals right now.
My sis was supposed to get cataract surgery this month. It’s been postponed to October.
My dentist is doing teeth cleaning, but you do a virus questionnaire first, and then they give you a cup with hydrogen peroxide to rinse your mouth with. (Last year they had us call from the parking lot to see if it was clear to come in.) It’s L.A. county, so masking is required indoors, and it was only optional for maybe a month; most people didn’t stop.
Anti-VAXers need to consider that they can have Covid and be asymptomatic, but may be a spreader, and with the Delta variant they may be a super spreader. So they may in actuality be causing Delta to spread even worse than it would normally. People who have the Delta virus have 1000 times more viral particles in their nose then with original Covid. This makes their propensity for spreading even worse. How anybody who gives even half a damn about our nation and our society can shirk taking the vaccine is beyond my Ken.
You are five years younger than I am, so you probably didn’t have any kids in our classes who had the aftereffects of Polio, but I did.
No matter how well I hold my liquor, I, nor YOU, can legally drive when drunk. Why? Cuz I will likely injure or kill someone. After 700,000 (cuz u know the real number is higher due to no testing under Orange hitler), deaths, NO FUCKING BODY HAS ANY RIGHT TO SPREAD DEATH! Period. Let it kill any of my children & u antivaxxing insurrectionists will need to avoid me like I’m death incarnate. U will be responsible & I don’t want to hear ur goddamn ignorant ideas.
Unfortunately you can’t fix stupid.
You can fix ignorance but chosen ignorance has the same effect as stupidity. So does selfishness.
Remember the uncaring words of 45 regarding the spread of Covid-19. “It is what it is.” This coming from a man who has failed in marriage, business and leadership. Romney was correct in the primary of the GOP in 2016. Trump is and always has been a fraud.
NYT article about going back to work in offices: “Without a federal vaccine policy, employers have largely been left to figure out guidelines themselves.”
Gee, isn’t this just what the Republicans always preach? Market driven dribble?
They complain the govt is too overbearing, then complain that there aren’t enough guidelines, then complain about the guidelines.
Other than individual health issues, there are NO excuses to not get vaccinated. None. Alabama’s Gov. Hutchinson’s town hall the other day had some dudette who said, “I’m a nurse…and I am not convinced this emergency vaccine has been tested enough.” Not a nurse I’d trust. How about 160 million doses in the US alone, worldwide I don’t know the number. But the only people dropping like flies are the UNvaccinated.
When will they ever learn?
THANKS MURPH .. I am a Doctor and my D is an ER Doctor and we ENDORSE THIS MESSAGE. ..
was just sharing it on FB when a Friend in Nashville who has loved one in ICU 4 46 days now..not Covid but multiple treatment complications says that HOSPITAL now back on full COVID measures. He can only visit once a day and only one of them each day. Etc etc
COVID is alive and well and you and your families will never have good medical care again thanks to TRUMP and NONVAXXERS..
At least #FL vaccinated 79,000 yesterday .. #Georgia only 643!
AND WAIT TILL Hurricanes come..