Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

This blog will pay for itself.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday/Saturday, Jan. 21-22

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday/Saturday, Jan. 21-22

by | 60 Comments

This post is in: ,


======

From a longer thread:


Not that the rest of us are bitter…

… The communist government’s practice throughout the pandemic of trying to find and isolate every infected person has largely protected hospitals from becoming overwhelmed and staved off the deaths that have engulfed most of the world.

But the uncompromising approach also means most people in China have never been exposed to the virus. At the same time, the effectiveness of China’s most widely used vaccines has been called into question. New studies suggest they offer significantly less protection against infection from omicron, even after three doses, than people get after booster shots of the leading Western vaccines.

Together, those factors could complicate China’s effort to get past the pandemic. Experts say if the country of 1.4 billion people were to relax restrictions, it could face a surge similar to what Singapore or Australia experienced, despite a highly vaccinated population…

The world’s most populous nation was the only major economy to grow in 2020, and it accounted for a fraction of global deaths and infections.

As part of the country’s tough-minded strategy for keeping the virus at bay, residents in Chinese cities must display their infection status on a government-monitored app to enter supermarkets, offices or even the capital.

But weeks ahead of the Olympics, omicron is testing this approach with outbreaks in the southern province of Guangdong, as well as Beijing….

China relies heavily on its own Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, along with several others made domestically. It has not approved the Pfizer shot, even though a Chinese company bought distribution rights in 2020.

Instead, the focus is on developing China’s own mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer and Moderna formulas. One such vaccine is in late trials.

Another option for China may be to track how the virus is evolving and put off opening its borders until it becomes even milder. But it’s anyone guess when or if that might happen…

Japan on Friday acted to contain a record surge in COVID-19 cases with a return to curbs that have however shown diminishing results, while a laggard vaccine booster programme leaves many people vulnerable to breakthrough infections.

The government empowered authorities in Tokyo and 12 other prefectures to implement curbs on mobility and business activity – measures that, with three prefectures already under such devolved restrictions, now cover half of Japan’s population.

The highly infectious Omicron variant has driven the current wave of cases, and nationwide infections hit an all-time high of around 46,000 on Thursday…

But studies of cell phone traffic, train usage and other mobility data suggest levels of compliance by the public have steadily decreased…

Japan has fully vaccinated almost 80% of its population, but an increasing number of them are vulnerable to breakthrough infections as they got their shots more than six months ago. A booster programme that would help immunise them against the fast-moving variant has reached less than 2%…

One doctor told Reuters there appeared to be delays in imports of vaccines for boosters, as Japan depends on overseas drugmakers for almost all of its supplies.

Another pointed to a decision to shut down mass vaccination centres after the main inoculation push last year, and the health ministry’s initial insistence on an eight-month gap between first-phase inoculations and booster shots.

Makoto Shimoaraiso, a Cabinet official guiding Japan’s pandemic response, said that delays in regulatory approvals and reopening of inoculation sites had hampered the vaccine rollout…

The country has recorded just over 2 million coronavirus cases and 18,461 deaths during the pandemic.

Tokyo’s occupancy rate of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, rose to 31.5% on Friday. An increase to 50% would warrant escalation to a full state of emergency, officials have said…

… Authorities have said the latest wave of the pandemic will drive case numbers to levels not yet seen in Poland, with estimates of the peak ranging from 60,000 to as many as 140,000 daily infections.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Twitter that the number of tests being conducted had grown steadily over the past week, with some 151,000 test results, including 100,000 PCRs, reported on Saturday.

Poland, a country of around 38 million, has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 death rates per capita and its vaccination rate is below the European Union average. It has so far reported 4,484,095 COVID-19 cases and 103,819 deaths…

======

Bad ‘infection prevention’ techniques:

… The research was small in scale and drew no conclusions about whether or how vaccines may have caused rare, lasting health problems. The patients had “temporal associations” between vaccination and their faltering health, says Avindra Nath, clinical director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), who has been leading the NIH efforts. But “an etiological association? I don’t know.” In other words, he does not know whether vaccination directly caused the subsequent health problems.

NIH’s communications with patients faded by late 2021, though Nath says the work continues behind the scenes. The pullback caused bewilderment and dismay among patients who spoke with Science, who said the NIH researchers were the only ones helping them. Now, a small number of other researchers worldwide is beginning to study whether the biology of Long Covid, itself still poorly understood, overlaps with the mysterious mechanisms driving certain postvaccine side effects…

How frequently side effects like Dressen’s occur is unclear. Online communities can include many thousands of participants, but no one is publicly tracking these cases, which are variable and difficult to diagnose or even categorize. The symptoms also include fatigue, severe headaches, nerve pain, blood pressure swings, and short-term memory problems. Nath is convinced they are “extremely rare.”

Long Covid, in contrast, affects anywhere from about 5% to 30% of those infected by SARS-CoV-2. Researchers are making tentative progress with several ideas about the underlying biology. Some studies suggest the virus may in certain cases linger in tissues and cause ongoing damage. Other evidence indicates aftereffects of the original infection might play a role even after the body clears the virus.

For example, evidence from animal studies supports the idea that antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein—the same protein that many vaccines use to trigger a protective immune response—might cause collateral damage, notes Harald Prüss, a neurologist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. In 2020, while hunting for antibody therapies for COVID-19, he and his colleagues discovered that of 18 antibodies they identified with potent effects against SARS-CoV-2, four also targeted healthy tissues in mice—a sign they could trigger autoimmune problems…

======

Also, a person’s choices are always constrained by their circumstances. Access still matters. Unvaxxed people are disproportionately poor, rural, and uninsured. To a degree, medical care is *already* denied to them. 4/

And while unvaccinated people make up the bulk of hospitalized COVID patients, they are also far from the only reason that hospitals are now struggling. 5/

Many health-care workers have been harassed & threatened on the false grounds that they’re already withholding care (by not prescribing ineffective drugs). No one I talked to would countenance that. They’re still doing their jobs, in awful conditions. 6/

One of the most persistent misconceptions about the pandemic is that it’s a crisis of personal irresponsibility rather than political inaction. The instinct to punish individuals instead of holding leaders accountable is another manifestation of that 7/

And finally, I will note that there is a surprisingly large number of people who will casually state that unvaccinated folks should be left to die, and yet are incensed about being blocked on Twitter.

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:

    There were 1858 new cases of COVID-19 on 1/21.

    Hospitalizations:

    204 cases as of 1/20/22, 70.5% are unvaxed
    31 of the cases are in the ICU, 80% are unvaxed
    22 of the cases in the ICU are intubated, 77% are unvaxed

  2. 2.

    Quinerly

    Thanks for these posts. I don’t get a chance to read them every day so apologies if this has been asked and answered. Are there any #s available on deaths of fully vaxxed (both shots and booster) and vaxxed and no booster. Is that info being kept by individual states and sent to the feds?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    In the U.S. more people died of Covid in the past week than died of Ebola during the whole 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. Maybe it’s me, but the slew of ‘the pandemic is essentially over’ articles seem a bit premature

    No vaccine for ebola.

  5. 5.

    satby

    SIGH! Yesterday we interviewed a young, personable, well-qualified woman for an internship required for her degree in healthcare administration at the doctor’s office. It went wonderfully until our requirement of mandatory covid vaccination came up, at which point she said she hasn’t been vaccinated and hoped not to have to be. She wants and needs the internship, during which she will get her current grocery store salary matched though it’s supposed to be unpaid; but I have no idea if she’ll follow through. This entire issue has become so poisonous because of the misinformation spread by the right wing. We need to handle how the First Amendment is being weaponized to undermine our country with deliberate propaganda..

  8. 8.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 1/21 China reported 23 new domestic confirmed (none previously asymptomatic) & 6 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    Shaanxi Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. 76 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There are currently 434 active domestic confirmed cases in the province.

    • Xi’an did not report any new domestic positive cases. 76 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 433 active confirmed cases in the city. 1 sub-district remains at High Risk. 3 sub-districts have been re-designated to Low Risk. 2 sub-districts remain at Medium Risk.
    • At Weinan there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining.

    At Yuncheng in Shanxi Province there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case, a person arrived from Xi’an in Shaanxi.

    Guangdong Province reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases. There currently are 62 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • Shenzhen did not report new domestic positive cases. There currently are 17 active domestic confirmed (2 Omicron) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city, all but 1 in the same transmission chain. 1 residential compound & 3 residential buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Zhuhai reported 3 new domestic confirmed cases, all at Nanping Township, all traced close contacts already under centralized quarantine. There currently are 32 active domestic confirmed & 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all presumed Omicron) in the city, all part of the same transmission chain. 3 residential buildings are currently at Medium Risk. 
    • At Zhongshan there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed cases (both Omicron) in the city, part of the same transmission chain as the cases in Zhuhai. 1 residential building is currently at Medium Risk.
    • At Meizhou there currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case (Omicron) in the city, a traced close contact of domestic positive cases at Zhuhai.
    • At Guangzhou there currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city, both custodians responsible for cleaning international flights at the airport.
    • At Dongguan there currently are 10 active domestic confirmed cases remaining, a secondary outbreak seeded by travels returning from Xi’an in Shaanxi.

    At Guangxi “Autonomous” Region 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 8 active domestic confirmed (7 at Dongxing in Fangchenggang & 1 at Ningming County in Chongzuo) & 1 active domestic asymptomatic (at Chongzuo) cases in the province.

    Tianjin Municipality reported 6 new domestic confirmed cases (all mild, all at Jinnan District), all from persons already under centralized quarantine. 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 351 active domestic confirmed & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all presumed Omicron). 12 residential compounds are currently at High Risk. 23 residential compounds & 3 villages are currently at Medium Risk.

    Beijing Municipality reported 10 new domestic confirmed (7 mild & 3 moderate) & 6 new domestic asymptomatic cases. Of the 16 new domestic positive cases, 10 are cold chain logistics workers at the warehouses in Fengtai District, 3 are there traced close contacts of previously reported domestic positive cases, 2 are residents near the cold storage warehouses & 1 is a caretaker at a hospital (found via regular screening). There currently are 21 active domestic confirmed cases (3 Omicron & 18 Delta) & 6 active domestic asymptomatic cases (in 3 separate clusters, likely via 3 different introductions) in the city. The cluster suspected to be seeded by international mail has not grown, but the outbreak originating from the cold storage warehouses in the SW suburbs is the more concerning 1. 1 Medium Risk residential compound has been elevated to High Risk. 1 warehouse is currently at Medium Risk.

    At Dalian in Liaoning Province there currently are 3 active domestic asymptomatic cases (all Omicron) in the city, part of the transmission chain from Tianjin.

    At Shanghai Municipality there currently are 2 active domestic confirmed & 20 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city. 1 shop is currently at Medium Risk.

    At Jiangsu Province there currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Nanjing) & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases (both at Wuxi) in the province.

    At Zhejiang Province 3 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 75 active domestic confirmed & 1 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province. The Medium Risk factory & village at Jinhua have been re-designate to Low Risk.

    Henan Province reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases. 18 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently are 939 active domestic confirmed cases in the province. As the province does not break down the recovered cases by location, I can no longer track the counts of actives cases at different cities in the province.

    • Zhengzhou did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 residential compound have been re-designated to Low Risk. 8 residential compounds & 3 residential buildings are currently at Medium Risk.
    • Xuchang did not report any new domestic positive cases. 1 sub-district & 2 villages at Yuzhou remain at High Risk. 2 sub-districts, 14 villages, 4 communities & 1 residential compound at Yuzhou remain at Medium Risk.
    • Anyang reported 4 new domestic confirmed cases (all at Tangyin County), all from persons under centralized quarantine. 1 township & 1 school at Tangyin County are currently at High Risk. All of Tangyin County (except High Risk areas) is currently at Medium Risk, as are 1 district, 1 village, 1 residential compound & 1 residential building elsewhere in the city.

    Yunnan Province did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 7 active domestic confirmed (2 at Dehong Prefecture & 5 at Kunming) & 4 active domestic asymptomatic (all at Sipsongpanna Prefecture) cases in the province.

    Imported Cases

        

    On 1/21, China reported 40 new imported confirmed cases (8 previously asymptomatic), 37 imported asymptomatic cases, 0 imported suspect cases:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 22 confirmed cases, 6 Chinese nationals returning from the US, 3 from Nigeria (2 via Frankfurt & 1 via Amsterdam Schiphol), 2 from France & 1 each from Canada, Costa Rica (via Amsterdam Schiphol), Dominican Republic (via Frankfurt), Jamaica ( via Frankfurt), Mexico (via Paris CdG), Peru (via Amsterdam Schiphol), South Korea, Russia, Switzerland, the DRC (via Paris CdG), Liberia (via Paris CdG), Madagascar (via Paris CdG), 
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 4 confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic), 2 Chinese nationals returning from Australia & 1 each from Canada& the US; 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national each returning from Bangladesh
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both coming from Saudi Arabia; all off flights that landed at Guangzhou
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Singapore
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 2 confirmed cases (both previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from Japan & an Indian national coming from India (via Tokyo)
    • Longyan in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases (all previously asymptomatic), 1 Chinese national each returning from Cambodia & Canada, & an Ecuadorian national coming from Canada; 5 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese national returning from Cambodia & 1 each from Ethiopia & Singapore, & a Tajik national coming from Tajikistan 
    • Ziyang in Sichuan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore; the case had passed through 14 days of centralized quarantine at port of entry + 7 days of centralized quarantine after returning to Ziyang, tested positive during follow up health monitoring, all close contacts have tested negative so far
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 2 confirmed cases (both previously asymptomatic); 4 asymptomatic cases, 2 coming from Japan & 1 each from the DRC & Mexico
    • Guangxi “Autonomous” Region (location not specified) – 2 confirmed cases, no information released
    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Myanmar; 9 asymptomatic cases, 8 Chinese nationals returning from Laos & 1 from Myanmar
    • Beijing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Namibian national coming from Hong Kong; 3 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Qingdao in Shandong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from South Korea
    • Tianjin Municipality – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from France & Poland)
    • Jiangsu Province (location not specified) – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released
    • Changsha in Hunan Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Overall in China, 175 confirmed cases recovered (75 imported), 22 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (all imported) & 8 were reclassified as confirmed cases (all imported), & 3,061 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 3,173 active confirmed cases in the country (1,177 imported), 12 in serious condition (all domestic), 778 active asymptomatic cases (727 imported), 4 suspect cases (all imported). 53,090 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 1/21, 2,960.675M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 4.457M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 1/22, Hong Kong reported 26 new positive cases (most are suspected to be Omicron), 1 imported & 25 domestic. Another 105 cases are preliminarily positive (most in a single building).

    On 1/22, Taiwan reported 130 new positive cases, 48 imported & 82 domestic (including 60 cases at a factory at Taiyuan & 14 cases from the cluster at Kaohsiung port).

  9. 9.

    Wvng

    I certainly hope the postal service has worked out above freezing transportation for the tests, because minimum storage temp is 34 F. It’s 8 below at my house in WV right now.

  10. 10.

    Quinerly

    @satby: I tried that earlier. It takes me to an “Oops…..”

    Basically l am looking for a source that tells me in clear English how many vaxxed people in Missouri have died of Covid. I just read the the # of “over a 1000.” No source cited. I will play around on Google when l have time; check Mo gov sites. Honestly, l dont trust any #s being put out by Parsons so the exercise is probably a waste of time.

  13. 13.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly: see my post above. Do you know anything about over 1000 vaccinated State of Misery folks dying of Covid? Is that being reported somewhere? On local news lately?

  14. 14.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Baud: Ebola is not an airborne virus that can infect 50% of the people on a bus in an hour, unlike COVID-19. The Ebola outbreaks were treated as serious emergencies worldwide with strict quarantines and bans on travel etc. with no-one recommending megadoses of Vitamin C or cow urine as a preventative against catching a disease with a case fatality rate in the double digits.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly: No. I haven’t been paying much attention to Misery’s covid news figuring at least 50% of it is bullshit and being too lazy to try and figure out what isn’t.

  16. 16.

    New Deal democrat

    Not that it means anything, but I dissent emphatically from the article regarding the ethics of taking into account vaccination status, where the choice has been willfully made by an adult with no prohibiting medical condition.

    In the first place, the article states a straw man argument. Nobody is saying that, if there are plenty of hospital beds available, the unvaccinated should be turned away. The argument is that willful vaccination status should be a criteria for crisis standards of care.

    The argument made by the article assumes that the ethical situation is static: that the ethical choice made today will not affect the ethical choices you have to make tomorrow. That assumption is false for 2 reasons:

    1. Giving the unvaccinated any sort of priority rewards free ridership, I.e., the patient has rejected medicine until they themselves are in crisis. Rewarding free ridership today will encourage the behavior in the future, guaranteeing more of it.

    2. There is ample evidence that medical staff are burning out and leaving the profession in large numbers. This permanently shrinks the number of staff available to treat medical emergencies in the future more or less permanently. Rules of ethics for providing medical care in emergencies aim to maximize the number of lives saved. But prioritizing the willfully unvaccinated today decreases the number of lives that will be saved over the long term.

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    @satby: ​
     

    We need to handle how the First Amendment is being weaponized to undermine our country with deliberate propaganda..

    IANAL, so I don’t know how true it is. But the old line used to be that free speech doesn’t extend to the right to shout “FIRE!!” in a crowded theater.

    Just seems like the far right’s anti-vax, anti-mask propaganda is a thousand times worse than that hypothetical. If ‘fire’ in a crowded theater isn’t protected by the First Amendment, then neither should the right-wing plague of lies about the pandemic.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    @Quinerly:

    Does the state health department have a site for COVID stats? Ohio does, but I haven’t found that specific statistic, though I saw something more general that said the death rate of fully vaccinated was 0.xxx%. So, miniscule.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @lowtechcyclist: If ‘fire’ in a crowded theater isn’t protected by the First Amendment, then neither should the right-wing plague of lies about the pandemic.

    Popehat says you are wrong. I forget his exact reasoning but it is based on case law.

  22. 22.

    satby

    @Baud: yes, we should have. But if a job she wants and needs for her degree is the impetus to get vaccinated then the previous hour was worth it. Besides, as I pointed out to her, SCOTUS upheld the mandate for healthcare facilities that take federal $ (aka all of them) so she’s going to need to be vaccinated to get a job in her field.

  24. 24.

    Mousebumples

    @Quinerly: can’t speak for Missouri, but I have heard it’s difficult to distinguish between fully vaxxed and boosted versus counting someone like myself as a fully vaxxed (2x mrna) + a second individual who has had 1 mrna vaccine. (first 2 shots at Walgreens, booster at Walmart since they had the earliest availability I could find)

    If you can find a reputable citation, I’d also wonder how many of those reported deaths were from 1 dose of J&J only?

    I think I’ve seen Wisconsin charts with vaccinated versus unvaccinated for hospitalization and I think death, but I think those were all pre Omicron. I can try to track those down if that would help?

  25. 25.

    sab

    @satby: There is also the fact of the disruption to everyone’s work and paychecks when the last unvaxxed employee’s status led to repeated quarantines disrupting everyone’s schedules. She may feel she is too young and healthy to need a vaccine but it impacts eveyone else a lot.

  28. 28.

    Ohio Mom

    Yesterday Ohio Son and I were in one of his service provider’s office and this service provider called a second provider so the two service providers and Son could update one another.

    “How are you?” asked the provider we were visiting. “Still very tired,” said the voice on the phone, “but I hear that’s to be expected.”

    Turns out the tired provider spent three weeks in the hospital with Covid. He was so matter-of-fact about it, like, I don’t know, he was describing a minor change in the interagency billing procedure.

    When the call ended, the first provider muttered, “No wonder I couldn’t get through to him,” which was mildly funny in the moment but thinking about everything, I am aghast.

    I hope Mr. Obviously Couldn’t Be Bothered to Get a Shot has done and will continue to do all his client interfacing remotely because people with disability are at a higher risk for Covid complications (particularly people with Down Syndrome, who I am sure are among his case load).

    I am not in a position to make my displeasure known. I’ll just make sure we don’t ever meet in person. Which we haven’t to date, hooray for the phone, email and Zoom.

  29. 29.

    Mousebumples

    @debbie: I doubt it. Hospitalization usually lags infection by a week or two, and deaths lag another few weeks behind that. In Wisconsin, at least, we’re still peaking with Omicron infections, so i would think it would be too soon.

    Also overloaded hospitals may lead to non covid deaths (eg a patient with a heart attack avoids the hospital or care/ambulance service is delayed due to covid) which should show on excess mortality charts, but may not be sure to the heart attack individual having covid ever.

  30. 30.

    Percysowner

    @New Deal democrat: I agree, if there are plenty of bed everyone should be treated, but if not then the unvaxed who come in for COVID should be treated after vaccinated people. I would actually lobby for X% (maybe 5%-10%) of ICU and hospital beds be reserved for people who have been vaccinated so when they get hit by a car, have a heart attack, whatever emergency comes up they will have a bed available.

    I would also give preference to people who, when they come in, say they will get a vaccine after they are recovered over those who hold fast to no vaccine ever. If me or any of my fully vaccinated, boosted loved ones get sick I want there to be a bed available, PERIOD.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Ohio Mom: I am not in a position to make my displeasure known.

    You remind me of something I saw way back in the USENET days: “I must find a way to properly thank him. I wonder if the Post Office ships live scorpions…”

    I do wonder, though, what positions the professional standards organizations are taking regarding COVID. We have seen some doctors disciplined for mis-prescribing ivermectin and other quackery, but I haven’t seen any for being unvaxxed.

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @Percysowner: I would imagine that a problem with the “reserve X% of ICU” idea in many areas would be that X would be upwards of 90%.  Years of cost-management will have scaled resources and personnel to match local requirements, since an empty ICU bed and idle staff are costs not being matched by income.

  33. 33.

    Hoodie

    @New Deal democrat: the willfully unvaccinated who present themselves to the ER should be given a week’s supply of ivermectin and sent home. Alternatively, hand them a curtain rod and direct them to the nearest overpass. Maybe give them a sparrow if you’re feeling generous. I’m sure there are some who have socioeconomic reasons for not being vaccinated, but I’m acquainted with far too many who have no such excuse.

  34. 34.

    Barbara

    @Percysowner: It may be defensible to reserve beds for non-Covid cases of all kinds for the reasons you stated, but if someone requires services for an appendectomy, injuries from a car accident, heart attack, etc., it shouldn’t matter that they have been vaccinated.  That would be withholding care based on a moral assessment — which, really, we don’t want to do. 

    In addition, as NDD said above, vaccine status should be used as a factor in assessing the likely benefit of care when an institution or community is in the position of implementing crisis standards. Vaccination status clearly affects the potential outcome of care when the reason for the person’s admission is Covid.  Not taking vaccine status into account in that situation would be deeply unfair when you are accounting for other factors like age and underlying conditions that raise moral issues in their own right.​

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    One of the most persistent misconceptions about the pandemic is that it’s a crisis of personal irresponsibility rather than political inaction. The instinct to punish individuals instead of holding leaders accountable is another manifestation of that

    I’d LOVE to see the leaders punished.  I’ve said before that we should officially declare war on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, so that we could round up our homegrown Tokyo Roses and Axis Sallys who are actively providing aid to the virus in this war, put them on trial for treason, and ship them all off to Gitmo.

    But there’s responsibility at the individual level too. People who don’t get vaccinated are a risk to the rest of us, by keeping the virus continually present and mutating, so that its presence in our country never diminishes. And by doing that, they are keeping the hospitals overwhelmed and threatening everyone’s health care.

    And that’s the problem. Nobody should receive a lesser level of care for their individual decisions that affect only their own health. But their willingness to be plague carriers affects us all, not just themselves.

    I don’t propose that they be rounded up, tried, and locked up. I personally don’t propose that we deny them health care entirely.  But IMHO, our hospitals should give them a lesser level of attention, with the ups and downs of their conditions being monitored by a skeleton crew of nurses and orderlies in a field hospital-type setting, so that the hospitals can provide everyone else with a normal level of care under normal workloads.

    That would be a fitting consequence for their ongoing decision to continue to endanger everyone else in this country.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    @Percysowner: I think the most critical question isn’t whether or not we should treat the unvaccinated or in what order…. it is pretty clear to me that the answer is yes. But the question is really about shortage, and whether or not we want to have more capacity in the healthcare system. Most people probably don’t know that health systems in most states have to get state approval to build more inpatient beds (ICU and acute), operating rooms, nursing home beds, etc. That is because governments have an interest in keeping health care costs low. There is also the issue of staff capacity. If we want to have more hospital capacity moving forward, we will have to accept that it comes at increased cost. This is also an issue that will be incredibly stressful to healthcare systems, as most of them are not very profitable (or in the case of nonprofits, not making a whole lot). Rural hospitals are already failing all over the country. Urban areas have more options but it’s harder to build more capacity. And we will need more of every type of healthcare worker, and we will have to pay them more. So what are we going to do? We talk a lot in the country, or at least we did pre-pandemic, about bringing costs down. We still have to find a way to do that, but we are also running into the absolute limit of that strategy and also finding it unacceptable.

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Is the AP article seriously arguing that “hybrid immunity” from mixture of vaccination & natural infection is the better way out, never mind the tremendous losses accumulated (not just in deaths & disabilities, but also economic/social disruption, lost productivity & stress on mental health) in the rest of the world getting to that point. That is the kind of cynical amoral calculation that the CCP regime is often accused of. Robert Sneddon has mentioned many times that everyone in the world will eventually catch COVID-19, China too once it opens up at some point in the future, & he is right. However, it is much better for people to have been fully vaccinated & boosted (after a round or two) before they encounter COVID-19, as we have seen in the rest of the world, & may be a less virulent strain, too. Unfortunately, most people have been facing COVID-19 while unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, or unboosted, many more than once. I also cannot see the widespread disruptions in public health, public services & economic activity (not to mentioned the death toll) as the Omicron rampages across the world & come to the conclusion that it is somehow preferable than the situation here in China.

    All of these articles questioning the quality of Chinese vaccines all focus on its sterilizing efficacy against infection, & it is true the inactivated whole varion vaccines have much lower sterilizing efficacy than the mRNA ones against Omicron, as were the case against previous variants. However, looking at the epidemiological curves of countries w/ high vaccination/booster rates, it is clear that the western vaccines (especially the non-mRNA ones) are not doing that much better against infection, certainly not enough to obviate the need for any NPI measures. Of course, western vaccines are rightly loaded for their ability to drastically reduce hospitalizations & deaths, even against Omicron w/ its immunity escape.  Then again, so far the Chinese vaccines appear to be holding up in this regard, too. ~ 2K active domestic positive cases in China & just over 0.5% are serious enough to required oxygen support & hospitalization, ~ 0.1% requiring intubation & ICU care, & most of the serious/critical cases are still Delta. A year ago, during the height of the outbreaks in Hebei, Heilongjiang & Jilin Provinces, when vaccination rate was very low in China, ~ 5% of the cases were serious/critical.

    One thing to note w/ these articles, it is quite notable that most of the experts quoted from political science, international relations & “China Watchers”, & very few from epidemiology or public health. The Chinese quoted voicing frustration w/ strict pandemic response are invariably those caught up in sudden lock downs or movement restrictions, 1 or 2 anecdotal voices really, & none from the 99% of the Chinese population that is not under any movement restrictions or social distancing. For example. Zhengzhou in Henan Province is just a couple of hours away from Wuhan by high speed rail, & Xuchang is even closer, but the to sizable outbreaks there have not had any impact anywhere in Hubei Province, precisely because they were quickly contained. Likewise, Anyang in Henan Province is adjacent to Hebei Province, but despite the outbreak there being Omicron, it has not had any impact anywhere in Hebei.

    I would also say most people within locked down areas are still supportive of the policy (to at least acquiesce to it), though they rightly complain about shortcomings in execution. The lock downs cannot be sustained w/o a high degree of compliance by the population, they are not being enforced at gun point.

  39. 39.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: ​ Most states do not regulate hospital capacity by requiring institutions to prove that there is a need for additional beds. Most states used to do this as a result of federal legislation in the 1950s, but only a handful continue to require demonstration of need. Of course, any hospital has to receive a license to operate, but the real driver of hospital beds has been the continuing migration of more and more procedures to outpatient providers of care. Many hospitals stopped staffing beds that they are technically licensed to operate.

    Thus, when a disease like Covid that requires a high level of hospitalization appears out of nowhere, the secular trend of the last 30 years becomes all too apparent to many people who never gave it a thought.

    The other trend that makes Covid harder to deal with is one that has probably been more apparent, at least in the areas where it has occurred, and that is the death of rural hospitals and the utter refusal of state and Federal authorities to rethink how care is delivered and paid for in less densely populated regions.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yup.  Basically it was a case about a group advocating against US participation in WWI.  The court said prosecuting them was fine because it was just horrible for them to say that.

    The court eventually threw out that opinion.

    Popehat makes the case that it was a lazy argument and very bad law.  And people shouldn’t use it.

    I agree with satby that bad actors are killing people and ruining lives and the economy and education and all the rest.  But I don’t know how to fight them when the mass media actors refuse to crack down on them.  Their business depends on outrage and Engagement and that is too profitable for them…  There might be something in the FCC requiring license holders to the public airwaves (and even cable, satellite, fiber, WiFi use the public airwaves eventually) operate in the “public interest”, but it would be a bit of a stretch and (the big problem) is – who would enforce it??

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @YY_Sima Qian: While I don’t think the Chinese approach can be carried out here, the other thing that has always bothered me about any variant of fatalistic “let it rip” approach is that it fails to account for our anti-COVID technology improving over time, which it actually has done at a fantastic rate. The later you get it, the better the medical toolbox is to deal with it.

    The vaccinated/boosted people I know who have gotten Omicron have not had too bad a time of it–basically a particularly bad cold, worlds apart from the experience of my cousin who got COVID unvaccinated in early 2021, ended up on oxygen at the hospital and has had chronic issues after, let alone my aunt who died–but in a few months we will almost certainly have an effective Omicron-tailored booster vaccine, and antivirals for the bad cases will be more widely available too, and if I’m going to get infected, I would like it to be after that rather than before.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    @YY_Sima Qian: Thanks.

    Too much of the reporting by the BBC, AP, and other western news organizations is slanted ways that always gets the causality backwards.  It’s not the lockdowns that are the problem, it’s community spread. We’ve known that for years now (it was the same with Ebola).  Wishing it were different will not make it different.

    Community health measures have to come first in fighting a pandemic, or the pandemic will continue…

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 6,800 new cases reported yesterday. Note that the method of classifying new cases changed over a week ago and it now counts lab-tested positive results as well as home tests where the positive result is notified to the public health authorities. Generally the numbers are trending down from the Omicron-variant spike early this month. The authorities no longer report the test positivity rate.

    There were 30 deaths reported from yesterday. Hospitals are still under pressure with over 1400 beds occupied by COVID-19 cases but they are only reporting 16 people in intensive-case beds. This last figure is either an error in reporting a a major fall in numbers over the past few days when it was 40-plus ICU beds in use. I suspect the error hypothesis is correct, we’ll see.

    Vaccinations continue, but slowly as the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. Most first vaccinations are now occurring in the 12-17 age group with the holdouts in the Young Immortals aged 18-39 still not coming forward. Scotland is doing a little better than the UK generally with 91.9% of age 12+ vaccinated once, 85.7% double-vaccinated and 67.7% having received a booster dose. Note that 12-17 year olds are not generally cleared for boosters and many of them still haven’t reached the point in time where even a second dose can be administered. Some younger people have received third and even fourth doses for preventative medical reasons.

    Generally Scotland is relaxing restrictions roughly in line with the rest of the UK despite the high case numbers, hospital bed occupancy etc. I personally think the science and epidemiology doesn’t warrant it but I’m not in charge, the politicians are and enough people would not comply with existing or enhanced restrictions on pubs, clubs, sports grounds etc. that I think the politicians have bowed to the inevitable. Worst case, a Delta-class new Variant of Concern makes its appearance and we can’t do anything structural such as new lockdowns and restrictions to cope with it.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    Preliminary but no the less troubling data.

    The coronavirus may cause fat cells to miscommunicate, leading to diabetes
    [snip]
    People who had COVID-19 were 31 percent to 166 percent more likely to develop diabetes than people who never got the disease, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in the Jan. 14 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. And diabetes was 116 percent more likely to strike people who had infections with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, than people who had infections with other respiratory viruses. The new cases of diabetes after COVID-19 includes type 1 diabetes in children younger than 18 years-old and type 2 diabetes in adults.

    In an earlier study of more than 3,800 COVID-19 patients, just under half developed high blood sugar levels, including many, like Sullivan, who were not previously diabetic, cardiologist James Lo and colleagues reported November 2 in Cell Metabolism. About 91 percent of the intubated COVID-19 patients had high blood sugar, as did almost 73 percent of people who died of the disease, the researchers reported. Source

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Locally,

    Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported two new coronavirus-related deaths and 4,473 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,137 fatalities and 195,151 cases. Source

    Maui Memorial Medical Center is caring for 44 COVID-19 patients, breaking a previous record of 41 set in August 2021.

    Of the 44 patients, 26 are unvaccinated, four require ICU level of care (three unvaccinated), and one is on ventilator (one unvaccinated).

    Positive cases continue to rise within Maui County, also breaking a COVID-19 positive case record with 1,067 new cases reported today. This includes: 996 cases on Maui, 43 on Molokaʻi, and 28 on Lānaʻi. This is a 93% increase from 14 days prior, representing the largest percent increase in the state. Source

    Come Monday, a COVID-19 booster shot will be required for eligible individuals in order to be considered fully vaccinated in Maui County. Proof of a booster will be required to confirm patrons are “up to date” with their vaccination, if they want to dine indoors at a restaurant or bar, or exercise inside of a gym. Source

    Just the unlinked headline, as the body of the story is paywalled.

    Captain claims his body being a temple of the Holy Spirit, sues Hawaiian Airlines over employee vaccination mandate

  47. 47.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ken: The cognitive dissonance here is that Mr No Vaccine has been incredibly helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

    He’s the type who will remember a loophole that just fits your predicament and solves your problem. I like him much better than the person in this role we used to work with. I’m glad he survived, just don’t want to be in the same room with him.

    This fellow works for a state agency, and I don’t think we can expect any mandates from the DeWine administration or the heavily-gerrymandered State legislature.

  48. 48.

    Sloane Ranger

    Friday in the UK we had 95,787 new cases. This is a decrease of 27.3% in the rolling 7-day average. New cases by nation,

    England – 85,902 (down 10,072)

    Northern Ireland – 3568 (down 311)

    Scotland – 3890 (down 853)

    Wales – 2427 (down 341).

    Deaths – There were 288 deaths within 28 days of a positive test yesterday. This is an increase of 0.5% in the rolling 7-day average. 255 deaths were in England, 6 in Northern Ireland, 16 in Scotland and 11 in Wales.

    Testing – 1,370,093 tests took place on Thursday, 20th. This is a decrease of 13.3% in the rolling 7-day average.

    Hospitalisations – There were 17,976 people in hospital and 664 on ventilators on Thursday, 20th. The 7-day average for hospital admissions was down by 9.9% as of 17th January.

    Vaccinations – As of Thursday, 20th, 52,186,398 people had had 1 shot of a vaccine, 48,082,636 had had 2 and 36,753,644 had had a 3rd shot/booster. This means that 90.7% of all UK residents aged 12+ had had 1 shot,83.6% had had 2, and 63.9% had had a 3rd shot/booster.

  49. 49.

    smith

    Just another comment on the sorry state of American journalism —  from the AP tweet above: “Latin America and Asia are the latest nations to face an omicron surge.”

  50. 50.

    Scout211

    A woman speaking in front of a school board in Virginia   says that when she said,

    My children will not come to school on Monday with a mask on,” King told the Board. “Alright? That’s not happening. And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to… I will call every…”

     

    (CN)Police in Virginia said a woman has been charged after she claimed at a school board meeting she would show up with loaded guns if her children were required to wear masks at school.
    In the post on the department’s Facebook page, authorities said Amelia King, 42 of Luray, was charged with making an oral threat while on school property Friday afternoon.
    A magistrate judge released her on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

    She didn’t mean that her threats were actually threats. She was just speaking figuratively (in a public school board hearing).

    “I in no way meant to imply all guns loaded as in actual firearms, but rather all resources I can muster to make sure that my children get to attend school without masks,” she purportedly said in the email. “I would never do such a thing; I was speaking figuratively.”
    King, in the email, said she contacted the Sheriff’s office to explain herself.

  51. 51.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Popehat says you are wrong. I forget his exact reasoning but it is based on case law.

    This was the “‘fire!’ in a crowded theater’ bit?  Anyhow, good to know that bit of folk knowledge about the law isn’t to be relied on.

    I’d be interested to know the case law, but in a general sort of way – I’m not asking you to come up with a cite.

  53. 53.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: Right. The laws are still there but in practice it’s just a handful that really put providers through the paces and the most common disputes center on new outpatient technologies. New inpatient capacity is typically centered around exurban development.

  54. 54.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    There might be something in the FCC requiring license holders to the public airwaves (and even cable, satellite, fiber, WiFi use the public airwaves eventually) operate in the “public interest”, but it would be a bit of a stretch and (the big problem) is – who would enforce it??

    The Communications Act of 1934 required that users of the public airwaves serve “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”

    But even when the 1934 Act was still operative, that standard didn’t apply to cable: maybe they use the airwaves in some indirect fashion, but apparently it didn’t count. Part of the justification, IIRC, was that the airwaves were a scarce resource, and you could have hundreds of cable channels.

    At any rate, they revamped communications law with the 1996 Communications Act, and I have no idea whether the 1934 standard even applies to the airwaves anymore.

  55. 55.

    sdhays

    @New Deal democrat: It’s a little late to be talking about “medical ethics” in a country where millions of people still don’t have real access to non-crisis healthcare. The ACA made a big difference, but it was partially gutted, and it’s still built on top of a horrible system.

    Hospitals discharge patients that aren’t going to be able to pay (or are on Medicaid, so reimbursement rates are low) ASAP, with little regard for if that is good for the patient all the time. Why isn’t that an “ethics crisis”?

  56. 56.

    sdhays

    @Scout211: Oh, good. I’m glad she got charged with something over that. I saw that yesterday and was worried that she would get away with her “apology”.

  58. 58.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    People who had COVID-19 were 31 percent to 166 percent more likely to develop diabetes than people who never got the disease…

    That 166% more likely statistic concerns me. How can you be more than 100% more likely to develop a disease. 100% is everyone gets the disease. Obviously this statistic is not properly explained in the extract you provided. Or a reporter misunderstood some portion of the scientific article, or something.

    I took stats in the long ago, and actually did well in the two semesters I had. Not that this means much 40 years later on…

    And while I agree that willfully unvaccinated people with Covid should get available care, they should certainly NOT be ahead of people who sought out vaccinations and need health care at the same time, whatever causes vaccinated people to need care.

    Just my $0.02 worth of opinion, worth exactly what you paid for it..            ;~)

  59. 59.

    Barbara

    @J R in WV: ​ “More likely” does not mean 166% of people get it (obviously) but that if, on average 10% of all people have it, then 17% (or so) of people who have had Covid will develop it. They are 1.7 times — or 170% — more likely to get it. I don’t like the use of percentages like this because the underlying statistic really matters and is hidden from view — if the likelihood is 1% and the increase gets you to 1.7% you might not care. But 20% versus 34% might really mean something to you.

  60. 60.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott:  Thanks for the link!

    Having read it, I remain confused: while “‘fire’ in a crowded theater” (FIACT herein) was used by Holmes to support censorship of basically any opposition to a war during wartime, basically the argument against FIACT in the early part of the piece seems to be:

    1) Holmes said A=>B, and B is false.

    2) So A is false.

    Well no, if the argument that A implies B is bad, that B is false says nothing about A.  So our society’s later concurrence that unlimited wartime censorship is bad doesn’t say anything about whether FIACT is or isn’t, should or shouldn’t, be protected.

    Then there are those two tests he mentions later on.  By the second, speech is protected “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”  Under this one, FIACT would be protected in any jurisdiction that didn’t specifically have a law banning such utterances, IOW, practically everywhere.

    But under the other one he mentions, the “clear and present danger” standard, it would seem that FIACT wouldn’t be protected, because the prospect of people getting crushed to death in a stampede for the exits would surely qualify.

    Popehat succeeds in eviscerating Holmes in that piece, and I agree that Holmes had it coming.  But I’m not sure whether or how Holmes’ most famous utterance gets skewered in the process.  Just that one shouldn’t cite that Supreme Court decision, or its author, in its support.

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