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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of September 20
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
The Unbelievable Grimness of HermanCainAward, the Subreddit That Catalogs Anti-Vaxxer COVID Deaths (Slate)
from the article:
from the subreddit:
A gentle reminder to any journalists who will/want to write about this sub: NONE OF US WANTS THIS SUB TO EXIST.
there are also several comments disputing this line from the article:
he might have said some CYA-type things on his radio show, I'm not sure because transcripts aren't easy to find and the article doesn't cite a source. but:
it is absolutely not accurate to portray Cain as one of the "sane" conservatives on covid. Mitt Romney is the only person in that category who comes to mind.
I don't normally read this subreddit, but one of the mods seems to think the Slate article is fairly reasonable.
This put into words something I've been feeling but unable to express.
I find myself frustrated at how normalized cheering on COVID has become, but I also find myself baffled at how "light" COVID losses seem. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the US alone, with millions worldwide. There should be some weight to that, but it doesn't feel like it has any heft. There's an emptiness to the deaths, both at scale and at an individual level, that I haven't really figured out how to process. I feel like we're living with a sort of pervasive emotional hollowness, and I can't help but wonder if a lack of mourning for the dead and a corresponding cheering on of certain deaths both come from within that void.
Do you know anyone who has died from COVID? I have one friend who had to have heart surgery during the pandemic before the vaccine existed. He was a science-believer who took the precautions you would expect. He recovered and was doing well, then had to go back into surgery for some acute symptoms, and he never came out. It's not clear whether his problems in the second case were COVID-related or not. I didn't want to ask his spouse. But it seemed like COVID probably complicated things.
That is as close as I've gotten to someone close to me dying from COVID. The rest of my friends and family are also science-believers who did a reasonably good job of distancing before the vaccine, and have all gotten the vaccine since. So for us, COVID deaths are all at arms length – things we see on TV or read about, not things we've actually experienced. They're terrifying, but I haven't had to deal with them face-to-face very much.
On the other side, the people dying from it now are the unvaccinated. They're mostly non-believers who don't think COVID is real. There are all these stories of nurses and doctors having to subdue patients who get belligerent when told they have COVID and don't believe it. Morgues, particularly in the South, are being asked not to put COVID on death certificates because it would upset the family, and many are apparently complying. So from where they stand, nobody's dying from COVID. The numbers on the news are "fake". They don't personally know anyone who died of COVID because how can you die from something that doesn't exist?
Sorry about your friend. And I get what you mean. I also had a friend die during the pandemic -- not from COVID but from cancer -- and even that hasn't felt as real to me as it should because it began when we were all in isolation and then even after we came out of that we couldn't visit him. He died without us having seen him in person, at a distance from everyone. If I'm being brutally honest, its impact was lessened for me because of that, despite the fact that I know that, for him, it was far worse because of it. I wish it weren't like that, but it's the honest truth. I hate myself for that sometimes.
As for COVID, here's what it looks like in my circles, for people who have some immediate connection to me:
If I go one degree out, to involve friends-of-friends or that sort of thing, the numbers get much higher. If I include my students in that, it skyrockets, especially if we're including non-health outcomes like job losses. I also personally haven't had COVID but have suffered from it directly, in terms of fear of contracting it, concern for others, and just how it disrupted everything. Last school year was hellish for me, and I consider myself lucky I kept my job and am not a healthcare worker.
I don't have answers for the horror stories we're seeing, and your last sentence is a salient one. At this point I don't know what will reach those who still can't see it. I hate to write people off as lost causes, but I also don't know how you or me or anyone can get through to someone displaying such selfish, unrepentant obstinance.
I’m so sorry that you also lost your friend. I agree that the distance the pandemic caused made everything weirder. Don’t beat yourself up, though. You didn’t cause the pandemic or put yourself in that position.
Closest known relatives of virus behind COVID-19 found in Laos
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Rural Hospitals Worry They Will Lose Staff Because Of Biden's New Vaccine Mandate
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This is so stupid. The CDC has recommended that healthcare workers have a battery of vaccines for various diseases for years. I can't find the policy on a specific hospital, but this 2017 MDHHS survey shows that 77% of the 165 hospitals in Michigan had a mandatory flu and TDAP vaccine policy in place for their employees. This isn't new, or unusual, at all.
Alberta asks Ottawa for immediate help to airlift COVID-19 patients out of the province
The request conveniently timed for after the election, of course. ಠ_ಠ
Yeah, it's bad here right now. Here's the current graph of hospitalizations in Alberta, we're now at our highest point ever for both ICU and non-ICU hospitalizations, with over 1000 people hospitalized for the first time.
Calgary city council just passed a bylaw requiring a lot of businesses to check vaccination status starting tomorrow, since the province keeps refusing to do anything decisive.
It is astounding to me that your ICU and hospitalization rates are at their highest right now.
Stay safe, Deimos.
India to resume vaccine exports next month as covid pressure eases
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India won't buy Pfizer, Moderna Covid doses amid jump in local output: Report
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(Back in June, the Biden administration announced that they were sending 25 million doses to India. It seems they couldn’t come to an agreement.)
Mansukh Mandaviya sounds amazingly competent, the way he turned Indias manufacturing capacity around.
Well, something is working. I don’t think we know enough to give credit to specific people.
I read that he held daily calls to unblock manufacturers.
It's incredibly simple, but incredibly effective.
Nobody wants to be in the hot seat.
https://news.yahoo.com/india-flipped-vaccine-fortunes-104314807.html
Nice, I hadn't seen that one!
Can we live with COVID-19? Singapore tries to blaze a path
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'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs
the newest "miracle cure the doctors don't want you to know about" is apparently inhaling hydrogen peroxide.
beautifully word-crafted statement. really makes it sound like they're actually doing something.
they say they don't allow claims that ivermection is a guaranteed cure or prevention...so presumably you can still recommend it as a treatment, right? just don't make any explicit promises about it and you'll be fine.
fun time to bring up a totally unrelated fact, Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Trump in 2019 and agreed that Facebook wouldn't fact-check Trump's lies in exchange for hands-off regulation of Facebook from the Trump administration.
This part kills me. Anti-vaccination activists also falsely believe that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits. As such, I'd practically consider this article itself propaganda giving legitimacy to anti-vaxxers.
Efficient and targeted COVID-19 border testing via reinforcement learning
From the abstract:
A related article explains the context:
A machine-learning algorithm to target COVID testing of travellers
Billings, Montana - Postcard from an overrun ICU: 'The problem is we are running out of hallways'
The Biden administration announced they’re buying another 500 million doses to donate to other countries, on top of 500 million previous announced. In a Washington Post op-ed, they say they’ve delivered 160 million so far to more than 100 countries. (Notably not mentioning India, though it does include Pakistan.)
Opinion: There is no choice between vaccinating Americans and vaccinating the world. We must do both
The full list of countries is on this page.
UK Travel rule change delayed by lateral flow test shortage
Rapid tests should play a larger role in Biden’s Covid-19 plan
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