Our local shit garbage Sinclair station is reporting that the biggest hospital in the Rochester area is considering pausing elective surgery for two weeks after the September 27 healthcare vaccination deadline. I’m not going to link to their story, which quotes one politician, a Republican State Senator from a district east of Rochester. Note that we have two Democratic State Senators that represent the actual Rochester area, but neither of them would have amped up the drama around a possible pause in elective surgeries. I wonder if Sinclair reporters can even speak with Democrats — let me know in the comments.
Anyway, the hospital in question has a 91% staff vaccination rate, so I’m guessing they’ll be able to keep going even if a few of their staff take the career suicide option. The same hospital has had constant demonstrations, some of which were impeding access to the Emergency Department. One of the demonstrations features an asshole driving his asshole-mobile around the hospital using a PA system to share his bullshit. Someone I know who works at the hospital says that she can’t even tell what he’s saying, only that it’s loud. Of course, that noisy fucker will be FULL CODE when he’s intubated by the doctors and nurses who have been working their asses off since March, 2020 to save lives. No DNRs for these folks — they’re all “fighters”. As one who always looks on the bright side, the good news about this goober is that intubation requires sedation, which means that he’ll finally shut his god damned ignorant piehole.
Speaking of ignorant pieholes, there’s a group of healthcare workers who think that some Republican Gandalf will ride in on Shadowfax and save them from mean Joe Biden and his vaccine mandates. Sadly, they might get their masturbatory fantasies fulfilled — some of them got a restraining order yesterday from a federal judge that temporarily blocks our New York mandate, probably because our mandate is a real one: no “religious exemptions” (what a load of shit those are) and no testing out. I really hope they lose in court, because mandates, mandates and more mandates are the only thing that will get us out of this endless pandemic.
Starboard Tack
MAGAT Motto
All rights for me. All responsibilities for thee.
brendancalling
I hate these selfish assholes as much as you do. I hope they lose their jobs, get covid, and there are no beds or vents available.
they’ve made all of US suffer, and I wish them nothing but the worst.
wenchacha
It’s such an embarrassment.
Suzanne
@brendancalling: Come sit by me.
Delk
Unvaccinated idiots now want to be called purebloods.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Maybe they can quit and take some of those restaurant jobs that are going unfilled
Citizen Alan
@Delk: So … do they not know that the Purebloods were the bigoted bad guys from Harry Potter? Maybe they can call themselves Death Eaters next.
Another Scott
Relatedly, …
Er, winning??
Nope, not winning. But numbers don’t matter to the monsters pushing these policies that are killing people. Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Delk
@Citizen Alan: they know and are using Harry Potter hashtags.
Shalimar
Religious exemptions are complete bullshit. It shouldn’t even be possible unless your actual religion is anti-vaccination. No real religions are.
banditqueen
@Delk: Sadly, they’ll still be called dead on sorryantivaxxer.
Poe Larity
How about counter-protesters handing out DNR forms?
Get in front of the cameras and ask “why won’t these freedom fighters sign up, are they lacking faith?”
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Poe Larity: That idea is pure genius.
Betty Cracker
This kid’s appendix ruptured after he and his parents waited more than six hours for treatment in a Florida hospital that was overrun with plague rats:
Luckily, the medical staff were able to save the boy’s life.
pajaro
@brendancalling:
Before Trump and the pro-Covid Republican caucus, I had always thought of Mrs. Pajaro as a woman without a mean bone in her body. I wondered if that was still the case over the last couple of years when, night after night, I saw her looking up from her cell phone and saying “I hate them, I just hate them.” The other night she told me that indeed, she still does not have a mean bone in her body, but that it is true that ” there are some people I’d just like to see dead.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting, and specific to NY, but I’m guessing anti-Covid Govs around the country are thinking along the same lines. Fauci was on the Hayes program last night and as I understood him was pro-booster based on the date coming out of Israel
Israel overwhelmingly used the Pfizer vaccine, isn’t that right?
JoyceH
@Citizen Alan:
One thing that struck me watching 1/6 and the clips of it later – some of the outfits they were wearing, and the group searching for Pelosi with that one guy calling in that mocking sing-song, “Naaaaancy, oh Naaaancy…” for all the world like every villain in a suspense movie – these guys know they’re the villains. They KNOW.
pajaro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
yes, almost all of Israel’s vaccinations are Pfizer
JoyceH
Isn’t there some local ordinance about excessive noise in a hospital zone? If so, they should enforce it and arrest the jerk, and if not there ought to be.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So if Pope Frank says “get your vaccine”, how does that square with the Catholics who are screaming “fetal tissue, so I’m exempt”? Do they then reach out to SSPX nutters?
Citizen Alan
@pajaro: I hear ya. If you’d told me ten years ago that one day something like the Herman Cain Award would exist and, moreover, I would check it every morning because of the sheer satisfaction I got from reading it, I would have been mortally offended.
Sure Lurkalot
@pajaro:
I’m not totally sure but I think that’s better than “I see dead people.”
Mike in NC
MSNBC today reported that 35% of Republicans refuse to get vaccinated. The pandemic is here to stay, evidently.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@JoyceH:
She said that public safety (cops who have real guns) has been showing more of a presence and he turns off his speaker when he sees them. I think the hospital (U of R Medical Center – Strong Hospital) is trying to engage with these assholes as little as possible to avoid giving them what they want, which is attention. I don’t know if that is a smart strategy or not.
debbie
@Delk:
Pureblood idiots are what they are. And doesn’t anyone cite for public nuisances anymore?
hueyplong
@Citizen Alan: I just spent a half hour on banditqueen’s link to an “anti-vaxxers who are dead” site. Not overly proud of how I feel about it, but that’s where I am now thanks to these people.
Another Scott
@Mike in NC: OTOH, if someone would have told me in January 2020 that 63% of the entire US population would, today, have at least one shot I would say they’re dreaming.
We’ve made amazing progress and are still making progress every day.
It doesn’t matter what people say on a survey, it matters what they do. We can’t give up on the laggards.
Cheers,
Scott.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, uh… they know
waspuppet
@Starboard Tack: “Hey, it’s Fck YOUR Feelings, not Fck MY Feelings!”
I find it remarkable that these “(so-and-so) quit their job rather than get vaccinated” are presented as bad things, as opposed to “win-win!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Well, I’m glad you were able to include that. I was actually scared reading the tweet and headline.
That’s the worst of these Covidiots, that they’re sucking up critical resources for their pitiful unvaccinated selves at the expense of kids with bursting appendices and old folks having a coronary event. Beds, ICU units, staff, equipment. Fuckem [salutes EFG].
CaseyL
The families of patients who die for lack of medical care should file personal lawsuits against the unvaxxed who were taking up the hospital space.
jjkennedy
I’d be careful here – a lot of hospitals are limiting elective procedures because of the surge of COVID-19 patients and resources needed for intensive care. The vaccine issue is more about community rates, not medical workers who refuse to get vaccinated.
Roger Moore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It doesn’t, but that won’t stop them.
New Deal democrat
I would just like to point out that there is nothing uniquely applicable to COVID in that judge’s order temporarily enjoining NY’s vaccine mandate. If a religious exemption is constitutionally required for the COVID vaccine, then it is required for *all* vaccines.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
Every time I hear about this, I think how lucky AsianGrrlMN was to live in a place where the ER and ICU hadn’t been overwhelmed with covidiots. If she had lived in Florida, she would most likely be dead today rather than getting ready to come home from the hospital.
Betty Cracker
@Mike in NC: I’m terrible at math, but if our population is about 330M, of which 40% are Republicans, if 35% of them refuse, that works out to about 14% total? I don’t think anyone knows for sure what it takes to reach herd immunity, but 86% vaccinated falls into the ranges I’ve heard bandied about.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
You still need to worry about people too young to be vaccinated, with health conditions that prevent them from getting vaccinated (or mean their vaccination is less likely to work), etc. It’s definitely best if there isn’t a group of intransigent yahoos refusing to get vaccinated or take other public health precautions.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
Yup. I was thinking something along those lines myself.
Any new news on our friend today?
Jim Appleton
Not the first to nod at Chris Wallace for flaying Nebraska Gov Ricketts on vaccs hypocrisy.
Brachiator
I hate the stupidity of these people, but the larger enemy is the virus. I was just listening to a news story about how soft messaging often works better when some people become stubbornly resistant.
Growing up, one of my cousins could become extremely hard headed. Nothing seemed to work. Not discussion. Not spanking. When he was very young, his parents could sometimes just force him to submit. But later they had to lay out alternatives that were close to what they wanted and let him choose.
As an adult he is surprisingly usually very reasonable and easy going. But every now and then, the old beast will emerge.
Steeplejack
@Citizen Alan:
Hey, you’re a hard-ass cynical New Yorker now!
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
The latest report is from yesterday:
It sounds like it’s still as good as could reasonably be hoped for. I suspect they would be more willing to keep her around for more inpatient rehab if not for COVID.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
I’ll admit, I’m tending to the 2×4 camp a bit.
Almost Retired
Employer mandates may be (partially) our salvation (says the employment lawyer).
As my contribution to the cause, I circulated a pro bono draft mandatory vaccination policy (with onerous procedures for requesting exemptions) to my small business clients, with a promise to handle the process without charge up until the time the employee gets an attorney.
The preamble to my draft policy said, in essence, “and you can stuff your fucking personal beliefs into each and every one of your orifices with a red-hot pitchfork smeared with anthrax,” but in proper legalese.
In three of the cases, the holdout employees got vaccinated based just on the rumor that the policy was in the works. In a fourth, the two holdouts got vaxxed, but claimed it was because of the Pfizer approval and not the mandatory vaccination policy (okay, whatever).
In the fifth, the lone holdout (who we called “Huntington Beach man” because he is), quit in protest this morning, but was too stupid to at least try and claim an exemption. Buh bye.
Ken
@Almost Retired: Hmm, candens furca for the red-hot pitchfork, I think; but what does the rest of the legalese look like?
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
That’s just amazing. As a survivor of a minor heart attack (1993) and a quadruple bypass (2001), I am in awe of asiangrrl’s recuperative powers! I continue to send her all the healing light I can muster.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@jjkennedy:
Our ICUs are not yet full, so the reason stated by the hospital management was the (small number) of workers who were going to quit over the mandate.
Lyrebird
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I am grateful to the Arkansas hospital company that put together this list of common meds benefiting from research on fetal cell lines, including Sudafed, Benadryl, acetominophen, Zoloft, and even Tums!!
I am also grateful Hochul is my gov.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
This too shall pass. At some point, these jackasses will either get the ‘natural’ immunity they value so much or they will die. The best we can do is dish out mandates and encourage anyone we still know who isn’t vaccinated to just get it done. I hate that these people are doing so much damage in the mean time, but this is one of those situations that I have no control over. In Missouri, the infections are now on the down slope despite our pathetic vaccination rate. That will happen in other states too.
smith
@Mike in NC: I couldn’t find a poll for party identification more recent than Gallup’s poll in April of this year. At that time 25% of people identified as Republican. According to my calculations, 35% of 25% would be 8.75% of the whole population. I’d gladly take a 91.25% vaccination rate.
The poll you cite may have different base rate for Republican ID, especially if they include leaners (I couldn’t find it in googling around), but that’s still going to be a minority of Americans, and 35% would still be a minority of a minority. Thinking about it this way has helped me avoid too much despair when I see polls like the one you cite.
ETA: What Betty Cracker said.
dmsilev
Makes sense, not enough INT or WIS to be mages or clerics.
Martin
@Roger Moore: Hard to tell. My uncle in NC had back surgery a few weeks ago and the minimum week hospital stay he was told he would need to have got shortened to 3 days because they needed the bed.
Getting hard to tell ‘can you stay longer, we need the money’ from ‘good recovery, go home’ from ‘well, you won’t die if you go home early, but some unvaxxed asshole is going to die, so off you go’.
Another Scott
@Almost Retired: Excellent.
And it makes sense. E.g. It’s how animals behave when there are no predators – they spend all day eating and making babies and eventually destroy their environment. When they always have to be looking around to see if something is going to eat them, they have to spend calories doing other things.
Similarly, once people face consequences, their behavior changes. Mandates matter, easy access matters, social pressure matters, accurate information matters, combatting disinformation matters. What people say on surveys about what they will do matters much, much less.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@New Deal democrat: CA doesn’t have a religious exemption and that’s been tested in court, so unless it’s related to the NY state constitution or they permit exemptions for other vaccines, my guess is that it won’t hold.
Ken
@dmsilev: And dmsilev wins today’s internet.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I think that may have been a pre-Delta number.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker:
Is the population of self ID’d Rs that high? Seems to me over the last couple of years it’s bounced around the low to mid thirties. Dem numbers were only a couple of points higher, as I recall.
Wapiti
@Lyrebird: That’s a very informative list. I use at least 6 of those drugs in a typical year.
Martin
@WaterGirl: It was 70%. I’ve seen between 90% and 100% for Delta. Some of that may factor for falloff in vaccine efficacy.
In short, we can’t have 14% go unvaccinated and still have them be part of society. And that’s actually the strategy. We won’t force you to get vaccinated, but you won’t be able to do anything if you aren’t. You can be a unvaccinated hermit, or a vaccinated person who goes to restaurants and ball games and college and a job. That’s the choice. They may not like the choice, but that’s the choice.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ken:@dmsilev:
I second this nomination. @dmsilev has won the whole internet.
Feathers
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: “Elective” procedures is another one of those medical terms that should probably be changed so that the public will understands what it means. “Elective” sounds like nose jobs. Instead of every surgery that is scheduled rather than done immediately to save your life. I tried to explain to someone that their heart surgery, which had been scheduled for a week out and they would have probably died without, was in fact “elective” surgery. “Elective” doesn’t mean it was a personal choice whether or not to have it. Well, you are consenting, but it doesn’t mean it was a frivolous procedure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gallup, whose graphs I can’t cleanly post, says party ID for both sides is under 30%
Delk
@Martin: the orthopedic practice that replaced my hip sent me an email that they are performing replacement surgery completely outpatient.
Feathers
@pajaro: This has really been missing from the press coverage, with all the glowing discussion of how people are finding it so hard to decide whether or not to get the vaccine. Very little coverage of the rage that the vaccinated are feeling about the fact that this could have been over months ago if these assholes had just bucked up and gotten the shot. Which you know they would have done if Fox News had been in favor of it. The Republican electeds would have fallen in line and that would be that. No one seems to be willing to place that blame, and it seems to be getting worse.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I really wish Francis would say that Catholics can’t claim religious exemption and that if you aren’t vaccinated you need to go to confession over it. But the anti-vaxx Catholics probably all hate him as a Commie anyways.
dmsilev
@Martin:
Today:
L.A. County plans to require proof of vaccination at indoor bars, nightclubs, breweries, wineries
Suzanne
@Delk: I am literally in a meeting with surgeons right now, and yes, they are turning people through and out exceedingly quickly.
That is going to outlast the pandemic, too.
andy
@Martin: that 14% think they are society in it’s entirety.
Bill Arnold
@Almost Retired:
Might you share it? There are a lot of curious readers here.
Martin
@dmsilev: Yep, that’s basically the strategy. Should be mandatory to get on a plane as well. I mean, if they want to claim the founders would have opposed vaccine mandates, then they can get to their business meeting on horseback like Jefferson did.
VeniceRiley
I propose we open the field hospitals on, say, Sinclair station parking lots and Gov. Abbot’s lawn, etc.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: There’s been a good bit written about this. Basically, hospitals are outsourcing lots of care to family members who may be both unqualified as well as lacking in time and space to perform such care. It’s just another way in which the rich are sucking every last bit of life out of the rest of us. B/c you just know they’d hire their own private nurses.
Skepticat
@pajaro: She’s my soul sister (though many of my bones are mean). I’ve always tried very hard not to hate anyone, but I’m failing miserably nowadays. A friend once said about a terrible boss, “I don’t wish anything bad for him, but if his being dead is what it’s going to take to save us from him, so be it.”
Betty Cracker
@Martin: I support that strategy wholeheartedly but don’t see how it can be implemented with knobs like DeSantis, Abbott, etc., in positions of power.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
?
Sure Lurkalot
@Almost Retired: You must have very good words! Four out of five is a fine result. I hope your policy is successful for all the clients who use it.
burnspbesq
Top:
If they don’t, it will be the biggest upset since UMBC beat Virginia.
Given that the plaintiffs are represented by the ethically challenged St. Thomas More Society, I’m guessing that neither the complaint nor the request for a TRO said word one about Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Defendants will in due time politely remind the court that it doesn’t get to ignore dead-on-point Supreme Court precedent that is still good law. And that should be that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of Papa Francesco, gotta agree with the twitter ghost of a dead president, cold as hell.
WeimarGerman
“Sinclair” and all I could think of was the green dinosaur. Fitting but took me a minute.
opiejeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Part of the anger about making the kid wait, is that after his appendix burst, the hospital bill soared far over what it would have cost to remove it before it ruptured. The parents are stuck with a pretty big bill.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, I know a lot about this issue. This is one of the hottest topics in my job.
To be fair, there is also significant research demonstrating that on the whole, patients do better at home to heal than they do in hospitals. But that’s not because home is so great (though it is often a stress reducer), but because hospitals are bad places to recover: loud, bright, stressful, full of infections.
Much of why we are screwed in terms of ICU space is because older hospitals usually have a much higher ratio of “acute care” beds (typical run-of-the-mill hospital rooms) than ICU, because people used to stay in hospitals longer on average. Now we kick that kind of patient out ASAP, so the average hospital patient is much sicker than they used to be. So we have more acute care than we need, but now we need ICU and we don’t have enough.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
Also, too, …
Cheers,
Scott.
Gravenstone
@Delk: They misspelled Inbreds.
Walker
@Delk: So they are looked upon as dead ends capable of only spawning horrors such as Ardat Yakshi? Sounds appropriate to me.
Athenaze
I’ve seen those protestors while driving past the hospital. I very obviously give them the finger as I go by.
Betty Cracker
@Almost Retired: Well done!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 40% is allegedly the percentage of Americans who reliably vote for Republicans, but you’re right — registration is much lower (but not low enough).
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When Arizona closed it’s voter rolls a month before last November’s election, registration in that state was 35% Republican, 32% Democrat, and 31.7% Independent. This merited a headline in an Arizona Public Broadcasting story, because for the first time in recent decades Democratic registration exceeded that of Independents.
There is no party registration in Virginia, but the Wason Center does regular polling on candidates and issues, and asks for self descriptions of party allegiance. Last February, the numbers were 37% Democrat, 33% Independent, and 25% Republican. This was a change from the December 2019 poll that came up 34% Democrat, 31% Republican, and 30% Independent- a 6 point drop in the Republican number. The February poll was taken just weeks after the January 6 insurrection, so Republican identification may recover a point or two. I suspect this will be what is called a “dead cat bounce,” however.
J R in WV
I’m still of the strong belief that if you are a patient in a hospital suffering from Covid and unvaccinated, then when any other patient needs that bed for their coronary event, stroke, any non-Covid illness, the unvaccinated Covid patient with the worst outlook goes out to a tent in the far corner of the parking lot, to make room for any patient with a non-covid issue who needs hospital care.
My next door neighbor, whom I have known for at least 40 years now, who helped us move into the little farm house when we first moved onto our farm back in the late 1970s, had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, he hasn’t needed hospital care, except for outpatient services that are standard for cardiac care, imaging to ID the actual damage, perhaps stent work later on depending upon the success of his clot buster medications. A great person.
These people coming down with the TrumpianPlague who are not vaccinated are despicable vermin killing people with their personal neglect. I hate them, and rejoice when I hear of their death after a long and personal horror show in ICU… if that makes me an evil person, I’m good with that. They are despicable and deserve their fate.
Our neighbor is a musician and instrument rebuilder who brings joy to big crowds of people who love old-time Mountain Folk music. He is worth a hundred vaccination deniers spreading their virus to the larger community. His first question when they met with the Cardiac doc after the imagery work was “Can I mow around the house?” and his wife yelled “NO!” before the doc said a word… then “Not for a while yet.” He likes to keep their farmhouse neat looking!
You all, please pray for him, if you believe in that. It can’t hurt and might help…
These are hard times, hard times come again!
snabby
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I work at said Rochester hospital, and we did learn yesterday that they are pausing elective surgeries for two weeks as of September 27, as they don’t know how many vaccine refusniks will be gone after 5pm that day. And the hospital is over bed capacity. That said, there has been a nice uptick in vaccinations over the last two weeks, but as you note, about 10% are still holding out.