The pandemic of the unvaccinated, as they’re starting to call it, means that people who don’t believe in science are clogging up the health system with a virus they may have beaten in a few days had they been vaxxed.
But instead they’re taking up a bed, a doctor and nurse that could be treating someone with another medical condition or emergency.
Some say the unvaxxed shouldn’t be allowed medical treatment. I think that’s going way too far. But perhaps priority should be given to other patients instead of the unvaccinated. Thoughts?
The #1 slot should go to those who are capitalizing on their fears and ignorance and encouraging them to fear a life-saving vaccine and resist common-sense precautions such as face covering and hand hygiene. Because there are people making money and political gains out encouraging the people who take them seriously to throw their lives away, and that is just plain fucking evil.
Which is still a minuscule tiny fraction of the 80 million unvaxxed running around. There's plenty of unvaxxed who definitely should be vaxxed, especially older folks and pre-existing health problems for sure.
Those "healthy people who when contracting COVID don't even notice" are infecting others, some of whom are getting sick or dying. This justly earns them a very high place on the list of public enemies, especially since so many of them refuse to wear face coverings, wash their hands, socially distance, or do anything at all to reduce the number of people they infect. But of course, some of them are also dying themselves.
COVID-19 is the most random disease, and nobody knows whether a given person will have no symptoms, have the worst "flu" of their lives, get horribly sick and be hospitalized, or get horribly sick or die... and your general health has little to do with it. People in the prime of life who were perfectly healthy get sick and die, old folks or the unhealthy survive. Nobody knows why.
Medical care is being rationed in areas where anti-vaxxers with covid are occupying the majority of ICU beds which means others with heart attacks, accidents or asthma who played by the rules can't get medical help and are dying.
A better way to ask the question is should anti-vaxxers be forced at the end of the line?
Also, anti-vaxxers insist on taking drugs which hospitals refuse to give them since they're quackery. Lawsuits have been started against hospitals. Wouldn't it make more sense for an extremely ill anti-vaxxer to stay home and take their horse dewormer?
If it comes to a shortage of available care, the vaccinated are going to get preference, because they're much more likely to survive a severe case of COVID.
That's how disaster triage works, just so you know, and every medical person from a top surgeon to an EMT knows that. If there's a disaster and it's impossible to treat everybody, you let the people who can't be saved die and save your resources for those who can be saved. And because vaccination reduces the risk of severe illness and gives the best chance of survival, if it comes to a shortage of hospital beds or ventilators... the vaccinated ARE going to get what few resources are available.
So get vaccinated, wash your hands, avoid crowds, and wear a face mask in public, BECAUSE THERE IS NO CURE, THERE IS ONLY PREVENTION.
I don't think it's useful to make antivaxxers the 'enemy'. Many of them are victims of poor education. They don't know how to evaluate sources and they fall back on magical thinking and pseudo-religious conspiracism. They're easily manipulated by the people Otter mentions, who consider them to be useful idiots.
There's nothing much to be done about them. We just have to improve educational standards so that we create fewer of them in subsequent generations.
On the news they were talking about how they're being INDOCTRINATED (the same way as ISIS recruits others on the INTERNET to be one of them by feeding people MISINFORMATION).
Only it's FACE BOOK that is responsible for the RADICALIZATION of these people, because it's also the way ZUCKERBERG makes 100 BILLION a year (by encouraging DIVISION and HOSTILITY among members of our society ... by making sure messages are posted that encourage SOCIETY to be that way).
The WALL STREET JOURNAL has also called him out on it, and something should also be DONE ABOUT IT, because people also DIE because of what he's doing by PROMOTING this kind of IGNORANCE in regards to the VIRUS.
But since he also PAYS LOBBYIST lots of MONEY to keep from getting in trouble, until something is done to put a stop to that kind of thing (along with making contributions to campaigns), the NONSENSE will most likely also continue.
But maybe if the families of the DEAD TEENAGE GIRLS who killed themselves because of him SUE HIM, then that could put a STOP to it???
The COMPANY that manufactures VOTING MACHNINES also SUED the PROPAGANDA CHANNEL as well (which may also eventually put an end to the MISINFORMATION that they SPEW FORTH).
Otherwise they'll just keep on thinking that there are NO CONSEQUENCES for the way they behave and an education won't matter.
Aye. That's kind of what I was getting at with 'pseudo-religious'; that gnostic attitude - 'We alone have the True Knowledge'. It's a product of ignorance, isn't it? Dunning-Kruger, and all that.
The key element is that the vaccine doesn't stop the spreading. It doesn't work like traditional vaccines. It's more about keeping COVID in a 'bad flu' level.
Mandatory vaccination makes sense when the goal is to reach herd immunity. However, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Then, where's the problem? it's about unvaccinated people using more medical resources than necessary?
You could say the same about people who smoke, or people who have overweight, or people who have non-healthy habits. Should they not be allowed to have medical treatment?
And what about people who depend on welfare health insurance? You're using but you're not contributing, so there's less medical resources per person. Should poor people not be allowed to have welfare medical treatment?
The level of hate you see doesn't make sense from a logical point of view. The vaccine is more of an excuse for a semi-religious crusade.
If enough people were VACCINATED the VACCINE would STOP the VIRUS from SPREADING.
The only reason why it keeps spreading now is because people REFUSE to GET VACCINATED.
And that leads to the MUTATIONS of the VIRUS (which is why we've been hit with the DELTA WAVE of it now whereas last year we had the ALPHA WAVE).
But IF most people were VACCINATED, that wouldn't happen. The MUTATIONS would STOP (the same way as we also conquered SMALL POX).
COVID is NOT the FLU. FLU doesn't result in LONG COVID or LONG FLU symptoms or in needing to have DOUBLE LUNG TRANSPLANTS, etc. COVID is much more NASTY about the kind of damage it does to your BODY than the FLU.
One guy (a VETERAN) died who needed GALL BLADDER SURGERY and couldn't get it because the UNVAXXED had all of the hospital beds.
In some states PREGNANT WOMEN also can't give birth in a HOSPITAL anymore because of the UNVAXXED.
That's the problem.
People are DYING because of them and their IGNORANCE and STUBBORNESS and their REFUSAL to do the right thing.
"The very idea of “herd immunity” itself is a false concept when it comes to COVID. We have seen how antibodies naturally acquired through infection do not make you “immune” to the virus and many people have reported getting second infections. The same is true for the vaccines; their aim is not make those vaccinated “immune” to the virus but to protect them against becoming seriously ill should they contract the virus. This is different to previous vaccination programmes, such as for measles and smallpox, where vaccines did confer immunity to the disease."
denying them medical care is a silly, not serious idea.
but i have no issue with hospitals attaching a 'non-vaxxed' surcharge to any bill they pay, or any insurance company ratcheting up their premiums.
one of the things they've started doing here that i actually quite appreciate is giving a breakdown of new cases & active hospitalizations by vaxxed vs unvaxxed.
currently73% of hospitalizations are unvaxxed, 22% are partially vaxxed, & 5% are vaxxed.
75% of manitobans over the age of 12 are fully vaxxed, 5% are partially vaxxed, 20% are unvaxxed.
so if i have my basic calculations right, you're 54.75 times more likely to be hospitalized if you're unvaxxed than if you're fully vaxxed.
unless i flubbed the numbers, which i don't think i did, as it's a pretty straightforward calc.
of course, that doesn't account for age. a much higher % of elderly manitobans are vaxxed. but i don't know the ages of the hospitalized people, so i can't get to that kind of granular detail with that info.
nothing unique in those numbers. i believe they are the same story seen everywhere.
i don't think it makes sense to vilify unvaxxed people. at least it doesn't make sense to me. they're making a bad mistake i'm pretty certain, but i don't think it helps much to get angry.
but i'm certainly a-ok with businesses asking for proof of vaccination, denying entry to anyone that can't provide it, etc.
In a disaster such as an explosion that injures hordes or a pandemic, if medical resources are inadequate... every doctor, nurse, and EMT has been trained to save the last available services for those who are more likely to survive. If not everyone can be treated, those most likely to die are allowed to die, while the last resources are given to those who can be saved.
That's how the medical profession has always handled mass casualties, and that's how they're going to handle mass casualties in this pandemic if things continue to get worse. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm saying that's what IS.
fair point. if you're in a situation where demand outstrips supply, then those are the kinds of decisions that happen. no question.
that wasn't really stipulated in the original post, not as i read it, & wasn't really what i was considering in my post. so when i say it's a silly idea, i mean solely silly to deny someone care when you could give them care cuz you think they're stupid or irresponsible. that's a non-starter.
but if we're looking at scenarios where you have two critical patients and one opening for treatment, then that's a trickier thing, no question.
It's not fair it's downright evil. If they wanted to encourage more people to get vaccinated they shouldn't have demonized it during the presidential campaign because it was developed under Trump. Also not everyone needs to be vaccinated.