President Has The 'Rona

[CAAdmission]

38 minutes ago, MediMike said:

I just saw your reply to the thread. Thinks that's a completely applicable question. With that being said, I haven't seen data on influenza transmission and masking, are you familiar with any? And what are your thoughts on the statement? Balancing the wear and tear on the environment (masks are the new chip wrappers littering the roads) and social interaction issues with possible deaths?

Unfortunately no, no data. I struggle with the appropriate line between government intervention and personal responsibility. If some moron wants to ride a motorcycle with no helmet, my natural instinct is to say have at it. When that moron spends the rest of his life in a vegetative state, I probably wind up footing some portion of the bill through taxes or insurance premiums so I wonder if we should force a helmet on him? I still see a ton of people who don't wash their hands after using the restroom and then they touch doorknobs and other things. They are a hazard. Do we put monitors in restrooms? Fine these people?

Public health is good. Freedom is good. The two sides fighting in the mask debate are both fighting over good things. People feel passionately about one of these, and I can't really fault either of them. I've been accused of not being middle of the road, but I pretty much am. 

 

28 minutes ago, EMEDPA said:

Covid is going to be around for a long time. Even once we have a vaccine some folks won't get it. Also, no vaccine is 100%. Some folks will still get it, just like folks who get the flu shot and later get influenza. I predict that masks will become a part of our culture for years to come.

I agree, I think for most the "mask stigma" is gone. People used to make fun of Asian tourists that wore masks. I keep waiting for Prada or Gucci or someone to start producing $1000 bejewelled masks. 

If it was just to protect me, I'd be perfectly content to stop wearing a mask right now. I'd 100% go back to "normal life" and be willing to take my chances. If wearing it might potentially help protect some elderly vulnerable person, I'll wear it. 

I'm not an infectious disease person, but sometimes I feel like the half measures we are doing is absolutely the wrong approach and will draw this out for years. Either:

1. open everything up, let this burn through the population, and live with the consequences

or

2. shut everything down - and I mean everything - for a month and kill this thing off. 

[MediMike]

8 minutes ago, CJAdmission said:

Unfortunately no, no data. I struggle with the appropriate line between government intervention and personal responsibility. If some moron wants to ride a motorcycle with no helmet, my natural instinct is to say have at it. When that moron spends the rest of his life in a vegetative state, I probably wind up footing some portion of the bill through taxes or insurance premiums so I wonder if we should force a helmet on him? I still see a ton of people who don't wash their hands after using the restroom and then they touch doorknobs and other things. They are a hazard. Do we put monitors in restrooms? Fine these people?

Public health is good. Freedom is good. The two sides fighting in the mask debate are both fighting over good things. People feel passionately about one of these, and I can't really fault either of them. I've been accused of not being middle of the road, but I pretty much am. 

 

I agree, I think for most the "mask stigma" is gone. People used to make fun of Asian tourists that wore masks. I keep waiting for Prada or Gucci or someone to start producing $1000 bejewelled masks.

I get it, truly do.  There are few things I dislike as much as someone I don't respect telling me to do/not do something.  Finding that balance of freedom vs strain on others is brutal and will be the first to admit that my personal beliefs probably shouldn't dictate general policy. 

I can see you being middle of the road in plenty of topics on the board, you also have a tendency to poke whatever bear happens to be ambling by...or strutting by arrogantly. Which is also fun.

May be aging myself here, but I believe the term is "bedazzled" rather than "bejewelled".

[ANESMCR]

2 hours ago, EMEDPA said:

Also, no vaccine is 100%

Careful.......

[CAdamsPAC]

5 hours ago, EMEDPA said:

Covid is going to be around for a long time. Even once we have a vaccine some folks won't get it. Also, no vaccine is 100%. Some folks will still get it, just like folks who get the flu shot and later get influenza. I predict that masks will become a part of our culture for years to come.

Throw in a load of politics and hidden agendas and we have the morass of opinions and views that is on this site worldwide! I'm bored and disturbed by how this entire subject has devolved into an excretetory uretogram in general.

Edited October 8, 2020 by CAdamsPAC

[camoman1234]

On 10/7/2020 at 1:55 PM, EMEDPA said:

Ok, back on track. The difference between covid and influenza is that there is a functional vaccine for influenza. Is it a good idea to wear a mask during flu season anyway if you are at high risk? Probably. I imagine flu rates will be much lower this year, both due to masking and my assumption that more folks will get flu shots. Covid plus influenza is bad news. I have personally only seen one, but one was enough. Intubated on arrival, flown to a place that had ecmo. died anyway.

Functional and effective vaccine are two different things. I am for safe effective vaccines but the flu vaccine is no good enough unfortunately due to mutation. Per CDC 2017-2018 season had 68% for age group 6 months to 8 yrs  with all other ages ranging 17% to 33% with a "all ages" average of 38%. 2016-2017 all ages was 40%. 2015-2016 48%. 2014-2015 19%. So if everyone has a issue with mask now why not with flu? If I was for masking I would say a possible for flu with up to 61,000 people dying per year from it and a vaccine effectiveness around 30 to 40%. 

[camoman1234]

On 10/7/2020 at 2:51 PM, TheFatMan said:

So just to be clear, you asked for EBM, got EBM, dismissed it without looking at it, and then provided anecdotes as a rebuttal.

Okay, I'm done now.

Not EBM. Not sure what you are thinking are good trials done on mask. 4 people coughing in petri dish? Come on. There are actual studies on ovid or other from the 90s and early to mid 2000s that show masking doesn't work. These are just claims that everyone thinks it might work but not proven. It was a good try for a shotgun approach but again why not 2009 pandemic? If you tell yourself something over and over you will start to believe it.

[MediMike]

6 minutes ago, camoman1234 said:

Not EBM. Not sure what you are thinking are good trials done on mask. 4 people coughing in petri dish? Come on. There are actual studies on ovid or other from the 90s and early to mid 2000s that show masking doesn't work. These are just claims that everyone thinks it might work but not proven. It was a good try for a shotgun approach but again why not 2009 pandemic? If you tell yourself something over and over you will start to believe it.

You LITERALLY posted an article defending your position which quoted the "4 people coughing in a petri dish" study which was subsequently retracted. 

This is why you are considered a troll. 

[CAAdmission]

On 10/7/2020 at 3:39 PM, ohiovolffemtp said:

Observation: arguing over the internet, whether on message boards, email threads, etc, is a lot like wrestling with a pig in mud.  You won't win, and the pig will enjoy it.

I get what you are saying, but why not argue?

The alternative is to either avoid issues that affect us all, or only hang around people with the same beliefs all the time. I think this contributes to the polarization we are seeing. No one even has an acquaintance with different beliefs any more, so it's easy to depersonalize everyone with different beliefs and turn them into an actual Hitler. 

[Cideous]

OMG Republicans are going to get CRUSHED in a few weeks.  They know it, we know it...everyone knows it.  I honestly don't think the party of Trump (Republicans) will ever recover.  Thank god.

p.s. The New England Journal of Medicine is now begging Americans to vote this psycho out.......stunning how some here still carry his water.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Cideous

[MediMike]

4 minutes ago, Cideous said:

OMG Republicans are going to get CRUSHED in a few weeks.  They know it, we know it...everyone knows it.  I honestly don't think the party of Trump (Republicans) will ever recover.  Thank god.

C'mon...you can't swing that as being healthcare/PA related Cid. 

[Cideous]

1 minute ago, MediMike said:

C'mon...you can't swing that as being healthcare/PA related Cid. 

I can when Republicans are doing everything in their power to strip healthcare from everyday Americans.

 

First...do no harm.

[Reality Check 2]

Ok, I'll bite

If a country wants a productive work force and GDP, they have to invest in public health and a healthy work force.

This is how vaccines caught on for adults - keep people working instead of sick.

So, healthcare is a huge hot button politically and socially.

As a healthcare provider - I want all my patients to have access to healthcare despite the wealth disparity that keeps widening in our country.

A healthy population works - literally.

[Cideous]

11 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

Ok, I'll bite

If a country wants a productive work force and GDP, they have to invest in public health and a healthy work force.

This is how vaccines caught on for adults - keep people working instead of sick.

So, healthcare is a huge hot button politically and socially.

As a healthcare provider - I want all my patients to have access to healthcare despite the wealth disparity that keeps widening in our country.

A healthy population works - literally.

THIS.

[CAAdmission]

13 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

A healthy population works - literally.

Except when the government prevents them from doing so through series of executive orders, right?

[Reality Check 2]

8 minutes ago, CJAdmission said:

Except when the government prevents them from doing so through series of executive orders, right?

Except during a pandemic that has never happened in our lifetime and no one knows how to deal with it.

And there is no pandemic team.

And there is no belief in science.

And there is mental illness involved. 

Shall I continue.............................

UNPRECEDENTED issues

 

[CAAdmission]

10 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

Shall I continue.............................

If you wish.

You surely recognize that in many states, governors have monthly renewed executive orders that, in many cases, appear to authorize them to do just about anything they want to do?

You think this is a good way to conduct a representative government? This can go on indefinitely?

I'd argue it is ok for a time, but there has to be some rational limit where the legislature needs to approve ongoing action. Seven months is way over any reasonable line. 

[MediMike]

49 minutes ago, Cideous said:

I can when Republicans are doing everything in their power to strip healthcare from everyday Americans.

 

First...do no harm.

There we go. I'm just trying to keep this thread going, feel like we've had some good conversations in good faith for a change. Would hate for it to all fall apart again.

It is definitely nice to be able to talk to people and get their perspective without all of the polarizing bull$$+! that so often comes along these days.

Tribalism is alive and well on all sides of the aisle, left, right, and those who lord themselves over both *cough* @CJAdmission *cough*

[Reality Check 2]

A disease with no past, no vaccine and completely unpredictable - kills some, maims others, some go without a sniffle - yeah, let's underestimate that disaster....................

Governors had to do something, the national govt wasn't doing anything helpful.

We couldn't just say "FREE FOR ALL" and let folks do whatever - millions would have died. Hello, Brazil......

Shutting down wasn't fun or easy but a choice between life and death.... I will take life please.

Everything has a learning curve.

Medically, I say damn the economy, preserve life - we can figure it out. 

Folks in WWII didn't argue about curfews, blackouts, bomb drills, rubber drives, no silk stockings and shortages. They just DID IT to be citizens.

Time to be citizens and preserve each other.

Medically, I vote to preserve life through vigorous disease management and prevention.

The responsibilities of citizenship are there - not free. Suck it up and participate.

[CAAdmission]

16 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

Medically, I say damn the economy, preserve life - we can figure it out. 

So this is one point of view. It's one I would vehemently disagree with, and consider very shortsighted and unbalanced but I get where you are coming from. People are losing their families' life savings over this, being crushed into poverty and commuting suicide, so don't take it lightly. 

I agree governors were doing what they were responsible for doing, within the constraints allowed by law. This is the way our government is supposed to work. The federal government is not supposed to charge into every situation uninvited by the state's executive. And governors in a rational system are not supposed to assign themselves unconstrained power for an unlimited time.

I have to laugh at the whole "pandemic team" thing. Realistically, what were they going to do? You have to face the fact that any system we set up will get overwhelmed sooner or later. This was a 100 year event. People are acting like every hospital has a responsibility to have 2500 ventilator machines on standby in storage. Here's a newsflash: one day, San Francisco is going to be utterly leveled (again) by an earthquake. The event will overwhelm any response we can provide. Is it the Federal government's fault?

 

16 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

We couldn't just say "FREE FOR ALL" and let folks do whatever - millions would have died. Hello, Brazil......

Dr. Google say Brazil has 5 million cases and 148,000 deaths. I'm not much for math, but this is a 0.0296 death rate?

Edited October 8, 2020 by CJAdmission

[CAAdmission]

I'd be interested to know the community's impression - where did this virus come from? Naturally occurring or lab mishap?

[MediMike]

2 hours ago, CJAdmission said:

People are losing their families' (LIVES) life savings over this, being crushed into poverty and commuting suicide, so don't take it lightly. 

I have to laugh at the whole "pandemic team" thing. Realistically, what were they going to do? You have to face the fact that any system we set up will get overwhelmed sooner or later. This was a 100 year event. People are acting like every hospital has a responsibility to have 2500 ventilator machines on standby in storage. Here's a newsflash: one day, San Francisco is going to be utterly leveled (again) by an earthquake. The event will overwhelm any response we can provide. Is it the Federal government's fault?

 

Dr. Google say Brazil has 5 million cases and 148,000 deaths. I'm not much for math, but this is a 0.0296 death rate?

Fixed that for ya up top. CDC did show an increase in people struggling with mental health issues and a serious rise in people who have considered suicide which is absolutely terrible. Is that due to the disease or our response to it? Haven't seen the stats on people actually committing it.

I disagree with you on the notion that a nationwide crisis doesn't require a coordinated nationwide response, easily pre-planned for. And while like the great strategist Mike Tyson said "Everyone has a plan - until they get punched in the face", having a plan is helpful, as is preparing.

Your San Francisco analogy doesn't quite work in this instance as that would be a localized disaster, now if it qualified for a FEMA response and it got screwed up then yes, the feds should be on the hook for it.

Brazil deaths aren't super high, question their reporting as their current president is a denier of the crisis from my recollection. Would also query how many of those 5 million went back to living normal lives. The cost can't just be measured in mortality.

No easy answer. There's probably something in the middle of the road between "put the old people out to die" and "shut the world down forever"

[CAAdmission]

48 minutes ago, MediMike said:

Fixed that for ya up top.

I know it's only N=1, but I don't personally know a single person who has been killed by corona. I know a decent number of people who got sick (no one bad enough for admission) but no fatalities. 

On the other hand, I know dozens of people who have major league financial problems. Including a bunch of PAs that got laid off or furloughed when everything shut down. Some of them worked on places I would have thought were impervious to this, like the ER. 

So yes, the lens I'm looking at this through is primarily economic. If I had 5 family members die, it would probably be otherwise. But we have gone from "let's lock down for 2 weeks to flatten the curve" to something more like "let's lock down indefinitely to ensure not another single person dies." 

As to the nationwide plan, it's great to tabletop these things, but the plan came down to "we need a shizzle load of hospital beds and vents" neither of which were going to materialize quickly. 

[ohiovolffemtp]

7 hours ago, CJAdmission said:

I get what you are saying, but why not argue?

The alternative is to either avoid issues that affect us all, or only hang around people with the same beliefs all the time. I think this contributes to the polarization we are seeing. No one even has an acquaintance with different beliefs any more, so it's easy to depersonalize everyone with different beliefs and turn them into an actual Hitler. 

Actually, no.  I pick forums where folks are receptive, e.g. a group of fellow retirees from the Fortune 50 company I retired from, who are receptive to medical information,; educating my patients, etc.  On a practical basis, who have we seen on these forums who's changed their position?

[MediMike]

4 hours ago, CJAdmission said:

I know it's only N=1, but I don't personally know a single person who has been killed by corona. I know a decent number of people who got sick (no one bad enough for admission) but no fatalities. 

On the other hand, I know dozens of people who have major league financial problems. Including a bunch of PAs that got laid off or furloughed when everything shut down. Some of them worked on places I would have thought were impervious to this, like the ER. 

So yes, the lens I'm looking at this through is primarily economic. If I had 5 family members die, it would probably be otherwise. But we have gone from "let's lock down for 2 weeks to flatten the curve" to something more like "let's lock down indefinitely to ensure not another single person dies." 

As to the nationwide plan, it's great to tabletop these things, but the plan came down to "we need a shizzle load of hospital beds and vents" neither of which were going to materialize quickly. 

Anecdotes can definitely go both ways.  I've watched a large number die.

The upvote for utilizing "shizzle".

[FiremedicMike]

13 hours ago, Cideous said:

I can when Republicans are doing everything in their power to strip healthcare from everyday Americans.

 

First...do no harm.

Can you please qualify this statement?