Yes, the advantage of the mandate is that you can't just go to the next hospital if you lose a job. The disadvantage is talking about Nicki Minaj's cousin's balls.
The lack of patience compounds for (vaccinated) health workers into burnout - one's empathy and dedication is sorely taxed when 90% of the dying people came to you after willfully ignoring your advice.
What I'm hearing is the burnout is just as much a concern as non-vaxing health workers, probably more so - people are simply retiring. With the federal mandate, non-vaxing health workings are losing the option to move to red states, but the burnout will continue. We need to move to a general-population vax mandate ASAP, and add other inconveniences like air travel, restaurant, theater, and concert checks.
What if paying Boomers to retire and flounce out of things is a solution, not a problem. At least in the long term.
3: I'm also really tired of the vax-only solution. If everybody gets vaccinated, things will be hugely better, but we still need rapid tests so that you know if you're infected before you visit your friend who is a fully vaccinated lung transplant patient, and better ventilation would help with other respiratory illnesses too. And if kids are sick, it's important that there's a supportive way to keep them out of school. Heebie's experience sounds like hell. There has to be a better way.
Yes we need to get kids vaxxed ASAP too, but there are still like 5,000 fully vaccinated people who died, and I'd prefer not to accept extra death and disability.
3: I'm also really tired of the vax-only solution
Mass vaccination makes any other approach easier, because they can work on a smaller scale. You don't need mass testing; just enough testing for people who want it. You can do contact tracing in some sort of reasonable way, . . . .
5: Kids should not be going to school without both masks and at a minimum weekly testing. We should not be relying on symptom screening to let people into hospitals for routine appointments etc. given the amount of asymptomatic spread. Vaccinated or no, you shouldn't let people visit nursing homes without a mask without a rapid test first.
Calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated is gross, because it affects everyone including the unvaccinated children. Contact tracing would be fantastic. We appear to be inept at it. It's all additive, and we should have all of it in our toolkit in case a variant that does have more immune evasion evolves.
I'm also hearing that there might be a more discouraging study on efficacy of vaccines against Delta over time coming out in NEJM soon.
Strange as there have been other studies showing not too much drop. I hope Americans going to the hospital and lying about being vaccinated aren't going to start skewing results.
Apparently, the government of Trinidad and Tobago has had people checking to find a guy with swollen balls and they've failed. I blame baggy men's beach attire.
2: Yes, and too many health care workers got hit with layoffs, hour cuts, or transfers at the beginning, when non-essential procedures were shut down. One of my wife's good friends kept getting her schedule and assignments shifted those first few months. It seems short-sighted, much like the excessive cancellation of chip orders by manufacturers...
She was nearing retirement, so pushed it up so she could take care of her dad, who wasn't dealing well with Covid's isolation. It's been a good move for her -- but if she hadn't gotten jerked around, she'd still be helping with the problem, not sitting the pandemic out.
The Biden administration placed a big bet on rapid vaccine rollout being our ticket out of this mess and that has backfired. Their failure to address the testing problem is flatly inexcusable, particularly when compared to more developed and better governed countries where rapid tests are free and ubiquitous.
The Biden administration placed a big bet on rapid vaccine rollout being our ticket out of this mess and that has backfired. Their failure to address the testing problem is flatly inexcusable, particularly when compared to more developed and better governed countries where rapid tests are free and ubiquitous.
10 I would guess that given all the context, they really couldn't believe that anti-vax sentiment from right wing media would be as ferocious or as effective. Trump invented the vaccines! He and all the main line right wing pundits got the shot!
I don't know what the story on testing will turn out to be.
PCR tests are free and readily available. I agree that rapid tests should be free and all over the place, but it's not a total failure to ramp up testing. And OTC tests are readily available here, at least, although I think the price tag is too high for the kind of frequency of use that we need.
My guess is that close to nobody who refuses vaccination will agree to regular testing. May as well fight on the vaccine.
A family with whom I'm close friends in Tennessee all all caught COVID the week before last. It was a full five (5) business days between collecting the samples for the PCR tests and getting the results.
I don't think "readily available" is an accurate description at this point in time.
Meanwhile, a friend in Germany reports that taking rapid tests multiple times a day is not uncommon, notably as a requirement for entry to popular interior public spaces.
The rapid tests should cube fee or $. Around here at least within my own hospital system, there have been 4 or 5 day delays for pediatric tests - especially for those under 3.
And when I say delay, I mean delay in scheduling.
Also, free masks should be everywhere - like Kleenex. Even post-pandemic pharmacies should have them in dispensers so that people who are sick and get prescriptions, can put them on.
Maybe it should have come earlier, but cheap, ubiquitous testing is one of the six prongs in the new White House plan. They're using DPA to increase industrial capacity for testing, including home testing; they got Walmart, Amazon and Kroger to sell home tests at cost for three months (35% price cut); they're adding home tests as a Medicaid benefit; and they're expanding the number of pharmacies offering free walk-in tests to 10,000.
20: 35% price cut is not enough when 2 tests cost $24 at Walmart. We need like a 95% price cut.
Our school totally f'ed up testing so far. First there was some contract with the testing supplier that didn't get finalized until the second week of school. Then they screwed up the consent records and didn't test a bunch of kids, including ours, because they couldn't find the electronic forms. Our kids still haven't been tested at all 2+ weeks into the school year.
I just want to be able to purchase at-home tests. Everywhere online seems to be out of stock, and they're not in stock anywhere locally.
My state DHS partners with a lab who will sell their kits to businesses at $120/pop. I'm legitimately furious.
Say you're running a fast food franchise, you pay your workers $10/hr and they work 40 hours a week. At $400/week. Round up to $500/week for payroll taxes and other ancillaries. Maybe you want to commit to weekly testing for safety, but are you going to eat a ~25% increase in your cost of labor in order to do so? Of course not.
I guess I'm glad the Biden administration has stated that cheap, ubiquitous testing is among their prongs but I'm kinda judging them on the evidence. Resuming widespread in-person schooling without this capacity actually being present was at best a gamble, at worst gross malfeasance.
Our school only ever did batch testing or testing of direct contacts of cases. The batch thing probably isn't going to work if incidence keeps climbing.
Not getting the vaccine approved for under-12s before school started was another huge fail.
I think it's unfortunate, but I don't think it's a fail. You really don't want to be seen as rushing that and you really don't want to have enough kids exposed to let it be faster.
I think not rushing is worse than being seen as rushing. Fire engines never complain about being seen as rushing.
That's not how science works. You need cases to have data and to do that, you need sick people. The only alternative is lowering standards and lowering standards for vaccination research would be a long term cost far in excess of potential benefits.
"Get needles in arms -> end the fourth wave -> don't screw up education for another year" seems like a ginormous potential benefit, and I think failure to do that has massive, massive long term costs that I think stack up quite significantly against process-based concerns about lowering standards. It seems like they could have found a way.
A new disease (mostly) with four passable adult vaccines in a year. They moved fucking mountains.
I just want to be able to purchase at-home tests. Everywhere online seems to be out of stock, and they're not in stock anywhere locally.
Sincere offer: would you like me to snail mail you a batch?
Right and this isn't the last new infectious viral disease. There will be others and they stand a good chance of being more deadly. You need to do it right and without the appearance of pressure or you could see greater vaccine resistance for something where kids are at substantial risk of death and but mostly of concern because of the risk they transmit to others.
33: I may take you up on that if I can't manage to scrounge up some -- sincere thanks. This is just plain bananas that I can't order this like I did with the little paper pregnancy tests nine years ago (cost approximately 10 cents each.)
Much as I appreciate planning for the next disease we've got to beat this one first.
Let's put Covid-sniffing dogs in schools.
What if they just go for the pot instead?
I don't think vaccinating under 12s is a big part of the solution to covid. They don't seem very vulnerable and they seem to pass it on less than adults even in states that have been back to in-person school all last year.
28: 5-12 sure. I think dosing for the 6 months to 4 is complicated.
Its a big part of reducing the disruption that Covid is causing to education, which is a huge part of the social cost we are currently paying.
One has to be extra cautious with kids because COVID isn't unusually risky for them. I'm willing to accept the very minor risk of bad side effects of a vaccine to me, because the risk of being hospitalized/death in my age group (about 5%/1%) is substantial enough to worry about. That calculation changes depending on the risk of side effects to the risk of COVID, and we know the latter is low (less than 25 deaths of 125,000 cases for under 25 in Utah. There isn't even data for under 14 on the state dashboard, just estimates of 'under 5') What does rushing it get us? Potentially greater risk to the kids, for the sake of preventing illness and hospitalization in other people, most of whom are eligible for the vaccine already (and if they'd gotten it, we wouldn't be anywhere near the shape we're in.) That's a very different calculation.
41: The reason for the disruption is because the teachers didn't want to die (now they can get vaccinated and should be required to do so outside of some extremely limited circumstances) and to protect the weaker/older. I know vaccinated adults aren't fully protected, but they are protected enough that I don't think it reasonable to expect parents to use a vaccine on young kids without the FDA's unpressured approval
I don't think it reasonable to expect parents to use a vaccine on young kids without the FDA's unpressured approval
I wouldn't go with "expect" but, given how long its taking and the ongoing cost to everybody, "allow" would not be unreasonable.
While the chances of kid dying relative to adults is low, it's still pretty high compared to other infectious diseases including flu. There are a lot of kids in the hospital snd pediatric ICUs are filling up. There are just not that many pedi critical care docs. 500 kid deaths is a lot, plus hospitalizations plus MIS-C.
Especially at the high school level: everyone there can be vaccinated. There is no reason that high schools should seem "disrupted" at this point except that the entire nation is.
39: I haven't seen any research that convinced me that kids aren't just as potent spreaders as anyone else. The most widely touted study I recall seeing from somewhere in New England last summer basically concluded that when widespread community transmission was occurring, having the schools open didn't make things measurably worse. Whee. My intuition is that there's just way more motivated reasoning than research at work here. Remember, the claim started out being that kids basically didn't get it at all, which I'm pretty sure we've learned was basically nonsense, and that kids are excellent asymptomatic spreaders.
Michael Lewis had a lot of axes to grind in his book on the pandemic but the realization that public schools are perhaps the most potent spreaders of any communicable disease seems well grounded.
My sense on kid vax approval is that the FDA freaked out over the myocardititis adverse events and is allowing caution over its reputation to override the urgency of the public health crisis. It's not... entirely irrational; there is a real cost-benefit consideration to the individuals to measure, and a real reputational hit to the concept of vaccinations on the line. But in the current crisis, I think public health would have been better served by them granting an emergency use authorization for kids and just being straight with the public on what they think the risks are.
There's seemingly a ton of paternalism at work in public health measures and communications, and I think it's mostly been demonstrably harmful.
having the schools open didn't make things measurably worse. Whee.
That strikes me as very important, but possibly not relevant with delta.
Re: cost of rapid tests, $7-8/test is a price I would expect. The lowest bound I have heard of for mainstream rapid tests from reputable companies is somewhere around $3-5/test, and that's the discount for international NGO price, not selling in a wealthy country price. So 25% off $12/test is pretty much what I would expect. These are not cheap tests (yet).
I think I paid over $100 for a test back in February.
47: Agreed that they're spreading it. I don't think it's wrong for the FDA to be extra cautious, and its reputation is worth a lot given that most of us need to rely on it not being experts ourselves. Understand, I'll get the kids their vaxx as soon as it is approved, but if the risk of myocarditis were greater than the risk of hospitalization from COVID, I think I'm not alone in thinking there's no reason to risk my kids' health to stop the spread of a virus when adults who are seriously at risk are unwilling to take it. At some point the adults need to be more responsible than my five-year-old.
(Apologies. I'm really fed up and a student who sits in the front row in my mandateless class is positive for COVID (do I have to quarantine? do I count as an exposure? We'll know eventually, the preschool is out with COVID exposure, and "we have to wear a mask because other grown-ups won't get a shot" is starting to wear thin. The healthcare workers have my sympathy but I'm running short on it for everyone else.)
My suspicion is that the risk of severe adverse events from myocardititis is at least 2 orders of magnitude smaller than from COVID-19. Maybe the study data are more alarming! But that's where I think emergency use authorization and being clear about what the FDA knows or suspects about the risks would be useful in legitimately allowing parents to make an informed choice.
Granted, we're in uncharted waters with a novel disease whose R0 has spiked up into the ~10 range, but my overarching take is that institutional conservatism has been harmful from almost every big actor at almost every stage.
The risk of death from covid for kids is two orders of magnitude smaller (or more) than adults. For kids that young, they need to make sure this as safe as the vaccine is for the flu.
Assuming that there really isn't a problem, the Pfizer vaccine will be approved for kids in a couple of months.
I know of some docs with ID and immunology backgrounds who think it's kind of an emergency.
51: That sounds really awful. I just saw a Secretary in a doctors office not wear a mask which bugged me.
I don't care for the Emily Osterification of the discourse around kids. If kids do spread the disease, and they wear masks not just for themselves but to protect others, because they are part of society. But it's also awful for kids f they lose a caregiver - especially if they bring it home to their grandmother or another immunocompromised relative.
I hate so much that we are completely abandoning disabled and other vulnerable people.
I'm sitting in Pebbles' gymnastics lessons and I'm the only parent in the facility with a mask.
So it turns out people are reading the Herman Cain Awards and then figuring out who the report is about and making fun of them on their Facebook. I guess this is bad publicity for Reddit but somehow not bad publicity for Facebook when you see just how many people die after re-posting obvious lies they've seen on Facebook.
Apparently 1 is wrong. It's Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's balls.
57: Indoors? That's terrifying. Does she have an N95 type mask?
59: Her cousin's friend's fiance's balls.
49 et al.: I paid like €2 for a rapid antigen test because I had forgotten my backpack (where I usually keep that document) when I went to a place that requires testing/proof of vaxx for entry. In boxes of 10 or so, I think they're that price or less, so we just have some around the apartment. And quick tests at testing centers are still free, as far as I know. They'll give you a certificate (with checkable QR code) that's valid for 24 hours of whatevering.
I mean really, if you're not getting massive overproduction of useful things like quick tests, what is even the point of American-style capitalism?
16: I'm not sure why someone in Germany would be getting multiple quick tests done in a single day unless they are unvaccinated. And at this point access to vaccination is not difficult. The smaller states are coming up toward 75% vaxxed now, and even the most reluctant (Thüringn and Saxony) are up to 60% and 57% respectively. Those two had the highest levels of infection in winter and spring, so there are probably higher levels of naturally acquired resistance. Certainly current levels of infection in those two states are lower than what I might otherwise expect.
OT: If you have to go to prison, it's best to go with a criminal record so horriblemake the other inmates recoil in fear.
Can someone ask Biden to ban sticking your penis in a beehive? I have a theory I'd like to test.
I don't understand at all how that works. How do you fake a barcode for a coupon that ends up with a discount larger than the price? How does that not immediately tell the store this is fake?
In high school, I knew a kid who printed out tons of "Student of the Week!" coupons for burgers or whatever at any old chain he wanted, and then passed them out indiscriminantly. At the time I thought it was more ingenious than illegal.
The real hard cases would forge certification that you read five books so you could get a free personal pan pizza.
60: Indoors. Pebbles will be fine -- the classes are small and the gym is in a giant converted warehouse so the gymasts are well spread out and it's well ventilated.
The parents crowded into the little seating area, on the other hand.... well, I got a few dirty looks for wearing a mask but at leat no one said anything because I was in a mood to pick a fight.
My daughter's teacher has Covid and my patience is now completely worn the fuck out.
Yikes. Is she is enough to be vaccinated?
OT: I can't tell if this is the old school argument about the admiralty court/gold fringed flag or not. One of the capital rioters is saying: 'the court is trying to put her "in the water"... and that she chooses to be "on the land"'.
I feel like emailing the reporter to ask him to describe the flag in the courtroom.
It doesn't have gold fringe but it does say "Fuck Trump" on it.
76: No motive was ascribed to the Las Vegas shooter in the end, but there were several interviews where people remarked that he either told them or they had overheard his views on the subject.
Woman who sat near him at a diner a few days before the shooting: She says she heard him and his companion saying that courtroom flags with golden fringes are not real flags.
75: An 11 year-old teacher in training maybe?
Somebody took the hook from that song with 'I could never be a woman" and made a different song without thinking about how it would confuse me.
It's okay as long as the new song also disses the addressee's "highbrow Marxist ways." Otherwise it's not consistent.
There once was a Frenchman, Henri,
Who was gripped by a sense of ennui,
For haschisch and le vin,
He cared not a centime,
And he didn't finish his brie
S/b "He did not even finish his brie"
There once was a man
From Cork, who got limericks
And haiku confused
Hey Cala - I hate Walmart with a passion, but we founds some online there. Tim will be going to visit his mother over Columbus weekend, and the compromise for him eating/ taking off a mask in his brother's house with the unvaccinated school kids is that everybody take a rapid test before they eat.
Still need to do "one spoon per person" even though that seems really too formal for family.
88: thanks! I keep checking and they're out of stock online - I must just miss it.
90: they may only be showing what's available regionally.
I guess in Idaho things are so bad the hospitals won't serve you potatoes regardless of diagnosis. There's a DNR (Do Not Russettate).
3. According to the first table in the WaPo article, Covid is on target to get the boomers out of the way whether they flounce or not.
If there are enough unprotected people left, the U.S. is going to pass Italy in covid deaths per capita.