The New Normal

[Campgottagopee]

But it’s useful to think back on where we were a year ago and compare.

Hospitals over capacity. Not enough nurses to provide care. We're back.

 

[Brownski]

Hospitals over capacity. Not enough nurses to provide care. We're back.

I know. That sucks but I don’t think nationally the numbers are anywhere near what they were. My ex BIL got admitted and put on oxygen this week in NJ.

 

[Milo Maltbie]

Hospitals over capacity. Not enough nurses to provide care. We're back.

That's what exponential growth is all about. It all looks like small numbers until it's not. By the time you see how bad it can be, it's too late to do much about it. If public health authorities intervene early and a catastrophe is avoided, then they're ignored the next time a threat is identified.

We're screwed.

mm

 

[Milo Maltbie]

Electricity is somewhat easy to understand....

... is what everyone who doesn't know anything about it says.

But what was your original point? That we should ignore the knowledge gained by actual geniuses because we don't understand it? Is the anti-vax movement a corollary of that? If Ignoring math and science becomes the new educational standard civilization will devolve back to subsistence farming.

mm

 

[Milo Maltbie]

Here's something Tim Miller wrote in a newsletter that found my in box. It pretty much sums up what I think about the whole vaccination issue.

The Triad | The Bulwark | Substack

Three things to read, from JVL. Click to read The Bulwark, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

thetriad.thebulwark.com

---

​

1. The Vaxxed are Pissed ​

At this point, just having to talk about the state of the unvaccinated gets me pissed. And clearly, I’m not alone.

Whether it is hearing from friends who work in hospitals and are getting worn down by patients and family members who aren’t heeding their professional advice on the vaccine; worrying about a kid entering school this fall and having to mask; or looking at the death chart and finding hundreds of totally unnecessary deaths every day.

It’s all rage-inducing.

Consider this - despite having a damn miracle drug that all but eliminates deadly risk from the virus - there are still more deaths every single day in this country than assholes with massive platforms claimed there would be for the entire pandemic! And yet these same human sphincters continue spreading their lies, utterly remorseless.

Just typing this shit has my blood boiling.

So when I read JVL in this space last week calling for the end of the vaccine wars, I had a visceral negative reaction. As the saying goes, even a clock that is always right, is wrong twice a day (or something like that).

I utterly reject his call to let the unvaxxed lay down their unjabbed arms in peace.

We cannot continue to sit idly by as thousands die a week for no damn reason. We cannot continue to let our lives be hijacked by anti-vax charlatans and their enablers.

The politicians who facilitate such carnage must pay the price politically.

It’s past time for Democrats and the smattering of actively pro-vax GOP governors to up the ante and wage a pro-vaccine culture war of their own.

It starts with additional vaccine mandates, ASAP.

 

[MarzNC]

Here's one way "math" can be confusing. Suppose a population has 100,000 people. A local news report states that there are 25 people in the hospital with COVID-19, with 15 who are unvaccinated and 15 who are vaccinated. Sounds like being vaccinated doesn't help, doesn't it? What's missing is the vaccination rate for that population. Consider two situations:

1). 65% are vaccinated -> 0.65 x 100,000 = 65,000 vaccinated -> 15/65000 = 0.0002 = 0.02%
2). 35% are unvaccinated -> 0.04%

In this simplistic model, being unvaccinated means being twice as likely to be hospitalized.

Here's a real world situation where it seemed to some people that vaccination wasn't helpful but in fact the rate of infection was much higher for the unvaccinated people at Provincetown in early July. Overall, there were only 7 people hospitalized out of about 60,000 who partied on Cape Code that week. 90% of residents were vaccinated and perhaps 75% of travelers.

August 1, 2021, Medium, by physician who was at Provincetown

The Provincetown outbreak is actually good news (if you are vaccinated)

August 1, 2021 — by Ingu Yun, MD

inguyun.medium.com

 

[Harvey]

Here's something Tim Miller wrote in a newsletter that found my in box. It pretty much sums up what I think about the whole vaccination issue.

The Triad | The Bulwark | Substack

Three things to read, from JVL. Click to read The Bulwark, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

thetriad.thebulwark.com

---

​

1. The Vaxxed are Pissed ​

At this point, just having to talk about the state of the unvaccinated gets me pissed. And clearly, I’m not alone.

Whether it is hearing from friends who work in hospitals and are getting worn down by patients and family members who aren’t heeding their professional advice on the vaccine; worrying about a kid entering school this fall and having to mask; or looking at the death chart and finding hundreds of totally unnecessary deaths every day.

It’s all rage-inducing.

Consider this - despite having a damn miracle drug that all but eliminates deadly risk from the virus - there are still more deaths every single day in this country than assholes with massive platforms claimed there would be for the entire pandemic! And yet these same human sphincters continue spreading their lies, utterly remorseless.

Just typing this shit has my blood boiling.

So when I read JVL in this space last week calling for the end of the vaccine wars, I had a visceral negative reaction. As the saying goes, even a clock that is always right, is wrong twice a day (or something like that).

I utterly reject his call to let the unvaxxed lay down their unjabbed arms in peace.

We cannot continue to sit idly by as thousands die a week for no damn reason. We cannot continue to let our lives be hijacked by anti-vax charlatans and their enablers.

The politicians who facilitate such carnage must pay the price politically.

It’s past time for Democrats and the smattering of actively pro-vax GOP governors to up the ante and wage a pro-vaccine culture war of their own.

It starts with additional vaccine mandates, ASAP.

I get you are pissed. I think you went too far with this. Post the link, and not all the text and I probably let it go.

 

[Harvey]

Here's one way "math" can be confusing. Suppose a population has 100,000 people. A local news report states that there are 25 people in the hospital with COVID-19, with 15 who are unvaccinated and 15 who are vaccinated. Sounds like being vaccinated doesn't help, doesn't it? What's missing is the vaccination rate for that population. Consider two situations:

1). 65% are vaccinated -> 0.65 x 100,000 = 65,000 vaccinated -> 15/65000 = 0.0002 = 0.02%
2). 35% are unvaccinated -> 0.04%

In this simplistic model, being unvaccinated means being twice as likely to be hospitalized.

Here's a real world situation where it seemed to some people that vaccination wasn't helpful but in fact the rate of infection was much higher for the unvaccinated people at Provincetown in early July. Overall, there were only 7 people hospitalized out of about 60,000 who partied on Cape Code that week. 90% of residents were vaccinated and perhaps 75% of travelers.

August 1, 2021, Medium, by physician who was at Provincetown

The Provincetown outbreak is actually good news (if you are vaccinated)

August 1, 2021 — by Ingu Yun, MD

inguyun.medium.com

View attachment 10090

Even when I understand it, it escapes me. I get it, but partly on faith.

It's better to be part of the 57,000 and risk being one of the 6, vs being part of the 3,000 and risk being the 1.

 

[Brownski]

This is also somewhat comforting to me. It’s not over yet and this doesn’t make any individual’s suffering easier but things are generally getting better. Honestly, based on my own memory I would have thought the spring numbers were bigger but I think that’s just based on my personal experience since I’m so close to the city and was working from home for two and a half months at the beginning.

 

[MarzNC]

Even when I understand it, it escapes me. I get it, but partly on faith.

It's better to be part of the 57,000 and risk being one of the 6, vs being part of the 3,000 and risk being the 1.

What's important is to account for a reasonable estimate of the denominator. Knowing that there are 10 people hospitalized doesn't mean much if you don't know if they are part of a subpopulation of 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000. Now that over 150,000 million Americans are vaccinated, there will be breakthrough cases that make news every so often. Unfortunately there will also be a lot of news about unvaccinated people of all ages who are overwhelming hospitals in places with low vaccinations rates (under 40% for adults).

I check the CDC summary for serious breakthrough cases every so often. About 8000 cases when there were 166 million people vaccinated.

COVID-19 Breakthrough Case Investigations and Reporting | CDC

Information and resources to help public health departments and laboratories investigate and report COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases.

www.cdc.gov