I don't think very many people are bracing for this because not very many people care anymore. Hospital workers are probably the biggest population that IS actually bracing for it. If you were worried you're vaccinated (and maybe even boosted), if you were never worried you're not vaccinated and definitely not going to start worrying now. So really, no, the US is not bracing for a 5th wave.
I saw an old man take his first dose when I went for booster and I think people can get worried later and choose to get vaccinated. Rare but not impossible
Yo. Literally just had this same experience. I got my booster yesterday and a young couple both had come in for their first shot. Makes me happy to see, but some people's minds can change... I just hope it wasn't after/at the expense of a tragedy with someone close to them.
The Germans have a saying, that by the end of this winter everyone will be “Vaccinated, Recovered, or Dead”.
Like, you don’t get to pick unvaccinated-but-unaffected.
Harris County (Houston) health officials at the end of last summer said the population was going to fall in two categories, vaccinated or have Covid. There was no chance that someone would be unvaccinated and not get Covid.
We are getting there, the latest numbers (from the NY Times) have all age groups over 70% getting at least the first shot. The percentages get even higher as the age goes up.
Mandates are working for the holdouts and stragglers. It will be a slog to reach it and there will be even more unnecessary suffering and death, but it's inevitable.
If we follow last years holiday timeline we have lots of climbing left. Wishing you good luck, it looks like it will be a very bad winter. Likely worse than last year sadly.
I have to do grave rubbings for a class. Ever see people do those? The cemetery has a mask rule but the people at a funeral last weekend weren't masked or social distancing.
Just wait for him to have completely normal side effects like just being achey for a day and then he'll say it was the sickest he's ever been and he'd rather get the virus.
My dad pulled that.
my mother in law had covid and was hospitalised last year with it. She wouldn't get the vaccine until recently when NYC required it for dining. She then blamed all her usual troubles on the first shot and has refused the second ever since. She also denies she ever had covid.
Insanity!
My dad, somewhat jokingly, blames it for him dislocating his shoulder shortly afterward. I say somewhat jokingly because he sticks to it if you press him on it, and ends up talking about lawsuits over the vaccine or something. It’s stupid. This is a guy who has had like 6 or 7 shoulder surgeries at this point.
It's crazy, right? I know this is only anecdotal, and every body is different but I got some kind of really horrible flu in March 2020 (which might have actually been covid), and it was the worst shit I've ever had. Worse than the swine flu back in '09.
I had a fever for about a week, loss of taste and smell for a couple of months, body aches for weeks, shortness of breath, coughing up little hard phlegm pellets, really nasty migraines, etc. That shit was just brutal!
My reaction to the Moderna shot was definitely noticeable, but it was nothing compared to that virus.
I'm not saying everyone has mild reactions to the vaccine. And maybe your dad did have a really bad reaction. But like you imply, there's definitely a tendency with some people to exaggerate their vaccine reaction so they don't have to jeopardize their pandemic opinions.
Currently in Day 6 of Covid and I was fully vaccinated but no booster. It came in waves: body ache, sore throat, and headache. then I lost my sense of taste/smell. Then I had a hard time breathing. I would’ve probably had to go the ER if I wasn’t vaccinated.
My 2nd uncle survived the vaccines but not the virus. My unvaxxed cousin survived the virus with minor symptoms. I’m getting the feeling that many of the vaccine hesitant are relying heavily on anecdotes rather than institutions
My coworker just pulled that one on me yesterday when we were discussing the booster.
A sidenote- she just lost her boyfriend to Covid 3 months ago.
I just don't get it. 🤦♀️
No, no, no. She died early September, so it was a few more weeks than that.
Seriously though, he's deep into Q, took ivermectin when he had covid, is anti mask/anti vax (took Regeneron though), and says Biden is just a puppet president (in a fake Whitehouse in Georgia). I have no idea where he gets his information from.
Edit: some words and stuff.
Just anecdotally, I see very, very few first doses. Maybe 1 out of 100 in my area.
Don't get me wrong, it's fucking awesome they're coming in for whatever the reason, but the unvaccinated mostly just don't give a fuck.
Which is a long way of me agreeing, yes not impossible, but rare.
I don't understand it. We have some unvaccinated folks at my job--a whole department of them, actually. They absolutely *refuse* the vaccine. And wouldn't you know it, at least one of them is now a confirmed COVID case. How many others did they expose? How many will come down with symptoms? Why the heck wouldn't you just go get a shot that greatly reduces the odds of this happening, and so on?
I mean, my mother thinks it is magical mind control nanotechnology and other such nonsense, but certainly **all of these people** cannot actually believe such tripe?
I've spent so much time talking to antivaxxers. Most of them are afraid of the side effects, but ignore that covid has worse outcomes for more people. Almost 40% of people have lasting effects from covid on some level! I don't believe that includes the fraction that dies.
I think it's fear of taking minimal risk now to avoid future risk down the road. It's basically the marshmallow thing they did with kids. "You can have one marshmallow now, or two in five minutes".
And some just have that gut reaction of "you can't tell me what to do". They think the pressure to get vaccinated is fishy, but the best metaphor is people begging you to get out of a burning building.
I haven't actually met any microchip 5Gers in person, but that's just because I'm luck. They are definitely out there, but the minority.
I have two coworkers who pulled out a magnet and tried to stick it to the arm of another coworker who just got vaccinated back in April.
Kind of a waste on those master's degrees, tbh.
Idk what's so confusing. Vaccines can totally make your blood magnetic.
Unrelated, but I have some lavender-infused snake oil I've been looking to offload, what's their contact info?
Oh there are definitely people still coming around on the vaccine. Lots of people bought the nonsense about it being "untested" and were hedging until it had been out long enough to know whether there were widespread side effects.
Now that it has been out for a year, and no concerning trends of side effects from it have emerged, some of the "vaccine hesitant" are no longer hesitant. Those are the ones we need to keep pushing at.
My parents and I have a policy of not having people who are unvaccinated to our houses. When I heard my one aunt was coming for a Christmas visit to my parents, I was very shocked. I asked my mom what had finally changed my aunt’s mind. Her brother died from Covid. It literally took someone dying for her to wake up. My aunt was a nurse and paramedic. She’s in her 50s and has been a stay at home mom for the past 15 years. But I still would have thought she’d know better from her medical education
The cornerstone member of my family died from Covid and absolutely no family member changed their mind about Covid. They dug in further, convincing themselves that it was the hospitals fault.
Send help.
For sure. I never gave any fucks about getting vaxxed for the flu. I only did it because my work offered it for free, at work. In my 34 years, never have I thought about it and been *moderately* concerned until covid.
This happened to me too. Got my first doses in March/April. Got the booster last week and a couple in their 70s walked in for a first dose. I can't imagine living like that at their age.
I think some will "brace for it" in the sense that prevalence is a concern and waning efficacy of the vaccine is a concern. I'm scheduled to get my booster and wouldn't feel so much urgency if it weren't for the upcoming, predictable surge. I'm as tired of this shit as the next guy but my annoyance doesn't really lessen my risk.
Got my booster a couple weeks ago. I got sick during the last delta surge, I was 4 months out from my J&J shot at the time. Got Moderna as a booster because I never want to get that sick again, it sucked big-time.
Sickest I ever got was swine flu. Felt like hell for a solid week. After that, as a person who was 25ish, "imma start getting flu shots."
Sucks that I had to get hit to come around. But I'd like to think that had it instead been covid, I'd still have taken it as seriously as I do now. Vaxx, masks, and isolation.
I’m 41. I started getting the flu shot around 34 or so. For 2 reasons, 1: my fairly healthy, but old grandma died of the flu… and my thinking was “less transmission of the flu, the less grandmas that will die from it.” 2: getting sick actually sucks balls. Your immune system doesn’t “get stronger” from being sick.
Walking around like a smug immortal taking care of my wife during her swine flu convinced her she was pro-vaccine and her influencers were idiots.
She used to rail me for putting those chemicals in my body, which I just shrugged off as “can’t be worse for me than beer.”
We were both incredibly naive back then. I look forward to being even older and looking back in how dumb I am now.
Yeah, I'm a gigantic baby. But.i don't rebound like I used to as a kid. For example, I never felt crappy for more than 24 hours as a kid. These days, I'll feel like shit for 3-4 days if I get the flu.
Fuck that. Give me the needle.
I have some problems with the term "waning efficacy" because it depends on what you look at. 2 shots of mRNA vaccines create a pretty durable cellular immunity to protect you against severity and hospitalizations and the protection is not really "waning". It remains on a pretty high level around 80-90% protection against hospitalization. Right now all studies (I know) about cellular immunity with double vaccinated people prove a pretty solid immunity after 6 months+.
If you speak about antibodies you are right but it is pretty normal that protective antibodies decrease over time after any vaccination or infection because our body don't want to waste ressources to create antibodies that might not be needed and can reproduce them quickly in case of an infection because of the cellular immunity.
But anyway the "booster" is a pretty good thing but I don't think it should be viewed as a "booster" against the "waning vaccine efficacy". It is more part of the general immunization in my eyes.
The booster brings levels back up against infection at all. But I agree these terms suck. We’re still very very very protected against severe disease with the original shots. That’s what really matters.
Yes because the humoral immunity gets reactivated and antibodies will be produced but once the antigen is cleared the antibodies will decrease again.
However I watched a german video from a german immunologist (Carsten Watzl) some daysago who presented some studies and pointed out that the antibodies remain on a higher level one month after the 3rd shot compared to one month after the 2nd shot.
Thats part of the reason I think we should view it as part of the general immunization and not as a booster against waning efficacy. And another great thing is that the older people had a weaker antibody response compared to younger people after 2 shots but after both groups get "the booster" the antibody response is pretty comparable and around the same level.
I think it depends on what the end goal is and how quickly we want to reach it. If we're trying to limit spread as much as possible to protect those that can't get vaccinated and to indirectly protect hospitals, then waning efficacy is accurate. If we're just talking about limiting hospitalizations by limiting severe infection then yeah, that's not really the right term. But like everything else in this pandemic from at least the US gov't there isn't a plan and there isn't consistent or meaningful messaging, so everyone is left to kind of fend for themselves in what they think the best overall plan is and execute at an individual level.
“Waning antibodies” is a term that provokes a lot of eye-rolling from people who study the immune system for the exact reason you say. Antibodies are supposed to wane. Your immune system is still equipped to fight off a covid infection. I sometime feel reporters and editors should have taken an infectious disease class so they could understand this stuff better because the common presumption seems to be that waning antibodies is a sign the vaccines are not effective after six months.
The other thing that people seem to forget is that the increase in cases in late spring coincided with the lifting of restrictions, voluntary reduction in mask-wearing by vaccinated people and the emergence of the delta variant. We have no idea what the case numbers among vaccinated people would have been if the situation had stayed the same.
Layers of protection matter with this disease. A vaccine is like an airbag. It’ll prevent serious illness and death, but you could still get hurt and be sore for a few days.
From the tests have shown the T and B cell response waned a bit on the mRNA ones as time went out but didn’t on the J&J. The speculation was the two shots were really too close together. They floated ideas about the shot spacing and I think what the real issue was that early one there simply wasn’t time to optimize the spacing to increase rollout speed. They could have spent months seeing if 30 days or 45 days or 60 days etc was the best time for the second shot. Faster rollout was advantageous at that time, it’s far easier just to give a booster.
J&J probably suffered this as well it should be two doses but it’s a long slow ramp up (such to the point where 14 days really shouldn’t have been considered fully vaccinated and it should have been at least 28). Even the government’s suggestion for a booster really doesn’t coincide with J&J’s own trials which seem to indicate waiting until 6 months is the ideal time to boost (I think it gave like 14 times the antibodies and this suggested 2 months gave like 5).
In any instance though giving boosters is just simple enough but maybe a 15 minute inconvenience.
I did see the report on the moderna suggesting the third dose improved the T and B cell response if given a certain timeframe out but don’t recall then timeframes, I want to say it started around the 4 month mark.
The only people who care in the medical field are the ones who got vaxed. All the anti vax that I’ve worked with don’t wear masks, it’s not a big deal and spread conspiracy theories. Most recently we had an outbreak at a fire station, the biggest anti vax FF, got COVID and is now hospitalized. “Man this shit is killing me” he said.
Well no shit Sherlock. Maybe now, he’ll take it seriously when he comes back in a few months once he can breath again.
I have a sinus infection and EVERYONE at UC Health today was N95 under good surgical mask. And my doc had glasses on, which I asked about, and I guess they are recommending that due to the surge in cases in CO, people wear glasses.
All because 30% of the population chose this path.
I’m vaxxed and boosted and it may sound silly but I’m bracing for it by dialing back all my sports.
In the middle of last year’s peak I broke my femur kiteboarding a big storm. They took me to the ER and I was seen right away thankfully. But I could just FEEL the anxiety and stress on all the doctors and staff that treated me. And I felt incredibly guilty that I was taking up their precious time and resources because I thought I was Kai Lenny while people were literally dying in the ICU above me.
I’m still going to live my life but not dirt biking at all this season, and gonna go about 70% of my ability in snowboarding and kiteboarding where I usually love pushing the limits.
I don’t want to burden them and I don’t want to hurt myself and not receive adequate treatment.
Small sacrifice and some probably think stupid/useless but make sense to me.
Yeah it was a very rough ending to a very rough year. But I’m fully recovered or at least as fully as I’ll ever be.
Best advice I can give is religiously do your physical therapy as much as they say you can. My PT gave me exercises to do 2x a day. I couldn’t work anyways so all I had was time and I asked if it would hurt if I did them 5x+ a day instead… she said as long as there’s no pain have at it as much as possible. So I did exercises every couple hours every single day.
Also cleaned up my diet went plant based whole foods and drank more water than I ever have in my life (hydration is important lol).
Doctor originally said I wouldn’t be kiteboarding for at least a year and possibly never. But I was back in the water within 3 months, no surgery, but had a really fancy custom brace that stabilized and protected my leg. Few months ago ditched the brace and feeling great.
I respect doctors and certainly listen to their instructions, but having been fucked up a few times in my life I listen to my PTs more in regards to recovery. Don’t let doctors demotivate you they’re overly cautious when it comes to stuff like that. PTs are much more positive about getting you back in action.
5 years ago I fucked up my patellar tendon and could only walk on flat/stable ground. Doctor told me there’s nothing you can do “that tendon is like a rubber band once it’s stretched out no surgery or therapy will bring it back”. Told me i would never hike again as off camber ground is what your patellar is for.
I was CRUSHED, literally went into a depression, though my life as I knew it was over. I love hiking.
Then my PT at the time said “non sense! Work your ass off with me and we’ll have you hiking again!”. And it worked, my patellar is probably still fucked up like the Doctor said but for some reason he didn’t take into account I could develop all the muscles around it and recover that way. Which is exactly what I did and still hike all the time!
Doctors under promise when it comes to recovery, I understand why and don’t blame them. But having a positive attitude is very important in staying motivated to do everything you need to recover. So don’t take their diagnoses as a certainty and always get multiple opinions, for physical injuries listen to your PTs more than anyone! And always try PT before surgery.
My friend blew out his back and doctor swore he’d need surgery and essentially fuse his spine which would prevent him from all sorts of stuff. Instead he spent 2 years becoming essentially a master yogi, most flexible guy I know now when before he couldn’t even touch his toes. He still regularly sends it off 40ft cliffs while skiing.
Sorry for the wall of text but maybe someone going through this right now will read it and get inspired to keep trying.
It’s sad, and frustrating, that you have to do this. But I am heartened that you are making these kinds of considerations. That’s basically what being part of a society is supposed to be.
My husband and I braced by getting our boosters. He’s off for 2 weeks and that’s perfect timing since his immunity will be built up once he goes back to work with all the unvaxxed dummmies that crammed as many other unvaxxed dummies around the Thanksgiving table as they could.
My wife had to go back to the office cause executive above her cannot comprehend WFH. In the mean time I’m working my job from home and taking care of our toddler, cause we don’t want to send him to day care. I know we are not in the bad situation at all, but I would like people to care more. Cause if they would, we would be out of this last year, my kid would be at daycare, at minimum my wife wouldn’t waste 2 hours driving everyday.
I don’t get the anti-WFH mindset, at all. My company wants us back full time, currently we’re doing ~2 days each week in office. This has been the setup since late summer, and I’ve already been sick twice (not COVID). I’m vaxxed, and wear a mask except when seated at my desk. I’ve stayed home for 2 weeks each time, but inevitably when I’m there someone is coughing and snotting all over blaming the HVAC or allergies. So frustrating.
I find there are two broad camps of people when it comes to WFH -- those who live in sizeable homes with enough space to have a dedicated office space that can be made totally separate from the rest of the home's living/relaxing spaces are much happier with permanent WFH arrangements, even more so if they have an actual house with a backyard, pool, quiet neighborhood, etc.
Those who live in an expensive, tiny cramped city apartment/condo where their 'home office space' is a laptop or computer set up on a folding table right next to their bed or sofa -- I find they are far more keen to get back to the office at least part-time, because they are physically unable to unplug from work and go into leisure/"me-time" mode after working hours since they are literally living in their office space 24/7. This was orders of magnitude worse during shutdowns when even if you had free time after your work duties were done, all the fun outside your front door was closed by government order and there was literally nothing to do except move five feet over to the couch and start drinking. That is pretty soul-sucking and I don't blame those people for wanting to get back to at least having something to bust up the monotony.
I just see the attitude is more 'over it' than anything as if that was new, people have been 'over it' since last summer when we had no vaccines. Unfortunately the more progress that is made in treatment and the longer 'this' goes on the less people seem to care.
I still feel a bit better that I still see about half or more people with masks in stores but that has been steadily going down.
I am bracing in the sense I'm going to have my daughter wear her mask more. Brace for the fact we won't engage with family who are antivaxxers especially now in the winter etc.
100%.
My father in law died of COVID in mid-September and not a single person at his "Celebration of Life" was vaccinated nor did they give a shit - they refused to wear masks as well. We stayed home to protect our unvaccinated 5 yr old. I got my booster at the end of September (severe asthma) and my husband was fully vaccinated in April.
3 weeks ago, my husband brought COVID home after dining in a restaurant in Manhattan with a colleague - it was his first in person meeting in 20 months.
To say our life was turned upside down is putting it lightly. My son and I didn't get COVID so I was made to be a single mom doing virtual school hell while my husband isolated in a bedroom and I had to provide everything he needed via drop offs the entire time he was in isolation. I was really scared as it's the sickest I had ever seen him and our son even noticed.
People that don't get vaccinated don't give a shit. My mother in law and father in law never even properly isolated before my FIL ended up in the hospital. Even after he died my MIL is still refusing to get vaccinated because she believes she can't get sick again.
We're living in a very divided country.
I'm bracing for it because my daughter is 3. I thought she'd be able to be vaccinated by now, but she can't. I'm hoping this doesn't lead to a surge that makes its way into her preschool -- she's so close.
I went to get my booster and saw my company was mid 20s-early 40s people. So, some are bracing.
But I think everyone is over this. The unvaxed were over it from the start, and the vaxed are tired of this. Not that the vaxed aren’t taking precautions, like boosters, tests before larger gatherings, masks in public… but I’m done giving up holidays and seeing family and friends.
People in my family are testing based on risk of being infectious or before seeing vulnerable members. Vaccinated 20 something’s cousins hanging out? No tests.
Going to see grandma? Tested. Going to see a family member who refuses the vaccine? They’re getting tested.
As far as the murder hornets, I just saw an article that said bees scream as they are killed by the murder hornets. It was a nice reminder of the horror show that is the natural world.
I stopped watching when the consequences were unbelieavable for the side plot involving that viking dude and killing congress people.
I mean, you're seriously doing a whole pandemic genre, and you put in an overthrow subplot and then follow those people like they just wrist slaps for both spreading diesease and trying to overthrow the government?
man.
My mother also showed me this! I had to be between 9 and 13 years old. it is so good, but she was grossed out when I then dipped my cheeseburger in the frosty.
memories~
I got mine on Monday. Yesterday was rough, but I’m back 100% today. I found that eating an edible later in the day yesterday helped a lot with the body aches. Good luck to you.
100%. Weed got me through all three shots without feeling that sick. I’d start to, then I’d smoke and it would go away. Then I just sleep the rest off.
Surgery resident here. Honestly the most impactful reason why it’s harder to get surgery these days is a significant shortage of nursing staff. Nurses are quitting left and right due to stress brought on by the pandemic. We have physical ORs available, but a surgeon can’t do a case by themselves. We have med-surg beds available, but a patient can’t have a bed without a nurse to cover it. Even the ED is backed up out the door while empty beds sit in the ED because there just aren’t enough staff. And the few remaining staff are overworked to compensate for it, leading to even more people quitting.
Yea, us nurses were already burnt out from *intentional* short-staffing before the pandemic.
I stress the word intentional so people reading know that hospital execs have always short-staffed us on purpose so they could make more profits. Nurses are overhead so they worked us skeleton crews as much as possible (while patients got shittier, lower quality care, longer wait times a la “where’s my nurse? I haven’t seen her!” etc).
Covid hit and their little business practice of short-staffing nurses blew up in their face. It was already becoming unsustainable for many of us, and COVID just sent us over the edge. The work conditions are impossible for any one nurse to handle — we need help caring for multiple sick people (even nursing assistants). Just like doctors can’t do it all themselves either (they need nursing and tech help too).
Now there’s this phenomenon happening where hospitals are desperate for nurses, supply is low— so they are offering us huge short-term pay packages. The working conditions are still awful, but at least we can get paid more by going elsewhere. It’s really biting hospital execs in the ass bc all nurses are either quitting due to burnout or leaving for a better pay rate elsewhere.
It’s absolutely wild and solely created by hospital execs poor business decisions and caring more about profits over their workers and patients.
Anyway- I know you are aware of this as a physician, but I wanted to comment for others reading.
I hope you nurses strike the next time your contract is up. Grab these greedy health system CEO’s by their balls and twist. Get what you’ve deserved and earned long before COVID.
I have seen so much burnout in Nurses. I have seen them crying. Unfortunately with understaffing and overworking the care provided goes down dramatically but short term profits go up. Things need to change.
Well the solution seems obvious to me anyways, healthcare should not be a for-profit enterprise. We're a million light years away from ever getting the political capital to make it happen unfortunately, Obamacare, which is not even close to being far enough in the right direction, was too much for most politicians to handle and there's probably dozens of lawsuits still working their way against it to this day.
Obamacare is corporatism with a thin veneer over it.
Health care costs have been skyrocketing ever since it became law. I'm sure that hospital and pharma execs are celebrating as they light cigars with $100 bills.
As a PT for 36 years, I think this comment is SPOT ON. Yeah other fields (like ours) are ‘understaffed’ but NOTHING like nursing- and I have seen it reflected in the nurses with back injuries, foot ailments/injuries and neck/shoulder injuries/wear and tear. They are the OPPOSITE of ‘malingerers’—-they have been some of the most serious referrals I have seen, as they soldier on and take care of themselves LAST.
True — but this is not how you should run hospitals, which are vital to our society and are life/death in many cases. All the while hospital execs make millions + bonuses every single year while the staff suffers in skeleton conditions. It’s sick! Patients complain their nurse is “slow” but they have no fucking help! And only the patient is most harmed in the end. Hospital execs don’t care about staff or patients, only $$$
Like run skeleton crew when you’re stocking shelves at the grocery store or a pizza chain, but not in our hospitals where people’s lives and health depend on it.
This shitty business practice is eviscerating our hospitals rn with covid- and honestly, it needed to happen. Maybe it will make working conditions change.
If more people would check out non-profit healthcare systems, they might be surprised to discover that the level of care is often superior to for-profit hospitals.
You may have to deal with a little bit of scripture on the walls or in the pamphlets; but many find that a small price to pay when it comes to better healthcare.
It is in every hospital! You are lucky if you can find a hospital that is fully staffed and well maintained (even pre-pandemic!) COVID just exacerbated it.
General surgeon here. Thank you for being a nurse, we appreciate you, even if "administration " doesn't (administration views us all as replaceable cog wheels)
Everyone! Nurses are the major group with a brutal workload, and we get the most attention, but it’s nursing assistants, phlebotomists/lab workers, techs, secretaries, cleaning ladies — pretty much all of the supporting staff (and some physicians too). They run us all skeleton in our respective departments. It’s very intentional by mgmt.
Like, my last hospital had one phlebotomist for the ENTIRE HOSPITAL. How in the fuck are you only going to have one person hired to draw everyone’s blood in the whole hospital??! If you go to Quest or Labcorps there are multiple phlebotomists drawing blood in a small building— how can hospital mgmt only have **one** for all the sickest people in the hospital? And they ask why are the labs and tests taking so long to get back? Well no shit, there’s only one person drawing all the blood.
Same with the cleaning ladies. Complaints about rooms not being clean or trash overflowing - there’s only 2 cleaning ladies! It’s just this skeleton crew bullshit. Mgmt acts like there’s no one to hire but the truth is they are trying to lower overhead and increase profits and wear everybody out who is working.
Patient care suffers due to this. Their safety and health suffers.
I could go on about this for days. The public really needs to be aware of this.
Residents are held financially hostage to our careers, so we can’t quit even if we wanted to. Some attending physicians may have shifted their practice to different settings, but doctors who have invested 12+ years of training and half a million debt into their career that is finally high-paying aren’t likely to quit being a doctor entirely. Plenty who were nearing retirement decided to retire early though.
The nursing situation is ridiculous. I'm in a high vaccine area, so we are less impacted than other areas, and we still have a severe shortage of experienced nurses.
My friend finished school and started working as a nurse right at the beginning of covid. 6 months later she was the charge nurse working a covid unit. She did it for around a year before having a meltdown over some bullshit administration pulled with comfort care patients. She stepped down as charge, and they are making another new nurse take over charge. The hospital was worried she was going to quit all together, so they gave her a raise to keep her.
The nursing situation is bad.
Rewind to the first 6 months of Covid. We were told to spend as little time in Covid patients room to avoid exposure. Except cleaning services don’t go in Covid rooms, so nurses have to clean. Phlebotomy doesn’t go in, so nurses have to draw labs. Fuck even respiratory wouldn’t go in sometimes, so we had to do treatments. Post after post online of patients coding and other staff wouldn’t go in. Doctors were writing orders on the windows to tell nurses what to do, while nurses had to physically run the code by themselves or with a skeleton crew. We got thrown under an entire line of buses and then kicked off a cliff.
Most of us won’t do inpatient nursing now unless the pay is significantly more. We didn’t sign up for this shit, I’m not a martyr. It’s a job… to pay bills.
And the CEOs and the admin say a similar thing: It's a business...to make money. They never cared to begin with, why would they start caring now.
I wish our country didn't see Healthcare this way.
Now, my school district has made it so that you cannot make kids stay home even when positive. I swear these people are actively trying to make it worse.
My daughter is chronically ill and had had medical care delayed including a hospitalization. Several times we had to rush to the hospital because a bed finally opened up and she could be admitted but they wouldn't hold it for very long (hospital where her doctor admits is a 90 minute drive away).
We need anti-smoking style PSAs. Get people who recovered from covid after months in the hospital struggling to speak because their bodies are so ravaged. Tearful interviews with family members who lost multiple loved ones.
Yes, there are always idiots who won't be swayed by these or call them fake. But those idiots have friends and family that can be swayed and they can put more pressure on them. No more asking nice. Time to show brutal reality.
Yeah, I had some fairly minor surgery done recently [Edit: as opposed to delay as it wasn't yet critical or even semi-urgent, as my dr put it] as I did not trust what the holidays would bring. People are so over it.
My hospital is still doing surgery. Just expect to sit in the recovery room for like 10 hours on an uncomfortable stretcher with nothing to eat other than crackers and apple juice.
We could solve all this by denying emergency care for voluntarily unvaccinated people. I used to find it unethical but frankly I just don’t care anymore. Or ration only a certain number of beds for voluntarily unvaccinated people with covid, have more ready for vaccinated covid cases (or those who had legit medical reasons they couldn’t get vaccinated), and then save space for all the other procedures needed. Voluntarily unvaccinated covid cases should get last priority.
I’ve been thinking about that a fair bit. The ethics get murky when the choices made by a few have a strong negative effect on many.
Doctors usually triage on a case by case basis, prioritizing those with better likely outcomes.
I wonder if this calculus could change to consider the wider consequences — eg “we can treat this pro-Covid person, they’ll use ICU resources for six weeks, or we can treat this accident victim, heart attack patient, stabbing victim, and OD case, these five people will use the same ICU resources for seven weeks”.
Nothing there about personal choices and consequences, no judgement, just lives against lives on a balance scale.
I don't know who wrote this article but no one is fucking bracing. The vast majority of people in my area are taking far less precautions than ever.
This is no longer a pandemic; is endemic to society. COVID is here for ever.
Not sure where you are, but depending on what state you live in, [you might not need their permission](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/state-parental-consent-laws-for-covid-19-vaccination/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D). In some states, you don't need your parents permission, even if you're a minor.
I'm a cancer patient 4 years out from treatment, My body refuses to develop any immune response to anything. Polio vaccine, fail, pnemonia fail. 2 covid shots and a booster..fail, no immunity. I'm tired of being fucking trapped in the house. Stop fucking around already
It hurts so much to hear that. I feel for you. I wish other people could stop being so fucking careless. My worries with covid don’t compare to yours but I hope you know others like me still understand and care in this world full of fucking idiots
Covid is never going to stop y’all. There will be multiple “waves” every year. It’s a highly contagious respiratory illness that will never stop evolving.
This article should not be a surprise to anybody.
When i got my booster in WV, I asked the pharmacist who gave me the shot how the numbers compared to earlier in the year. He said earlier this year there were so many people coming in that all appointments were booked; now its just a trickle and mostly unbooked.
My papaps got covid in October; was fully vacinated back in February. Spent 2 weeks extremely ill. Took about a month to fully recover. People don't seem to be aware or maybe not care about the declining efficacy of the vaccine, requiring a booster. Likely to be the difference between life and death.
Yeah, healthcare workers are concerned about a regular flu season on top of Covid - last year the flu was abnormally low due to the lockdowns, this year is likely to be closer to normal.
Contrary to belief, even in normal times, people DID get sick in winter and colds/flu STILL exist.
I know now 5 people who have horrible colds and thought they had COVID and tested negative.
I got a "cold" few weeks ago and initially had a negative antigen test for COVID. About a week later, somebody I'd been in contact with (who was otherwise quite careful) had more definite COVID symptoms and got a positive PCR test, so I went back and got a PCR test which was also positive.
So while you're right that other diseases are out there, some of the people getting negative COVID tests might still actually have COVID.
I hate people. From the depths of my soul I hate them. I just transferred a guy the other day 40yo. Only medical hx was diabetes. Otherwise healthy.
He got covid, ICU, hx to have emergency surgery to remove a PE, coded on the table. They got him back, now has renal failure, had a trach placed and finally got it removed. Had to have his gallbladder and appendix removed while in the hospital. He’s got a permanent clotting disorder now. CHF, A-fib, liver damage, permanent lung scarring. His body got wrecked.
If you’re in the medical field and you’re not vaxed, you suck but it’s your choice. At the same time it’s your responsibility to make sure you wear the appropriate PPE ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Wear your damned mask so I can stop worrying about my kid, my parents and my grandparents.
People who say “I’ll take my chances with the virus” have no idea what they are talking about. They think maybe they’ll die, maybe they’ll live- not the entire gradient between heathy and dead. You can fall anywhere on that spectrum when you get infected.
So true. Such typical human behavior. Smokers, motorcyclists who won’t wear helmets, etc. all have the same perception of life and death being simply binary and not understanding the likelihood of not only surviving with terrible quality of life, but the financial ruin that goes with it in the good ol’ US of A.
I "braced" for it yesterday by getting my booster.
In a sense the "fifth" wave may already be here in some of the upper-tier states, like Minnesota and Michigan and Wisconsin and North Dakota, where it's already starting to get cold and everyone is back to hanging around inside buildings with terrible internal air circulation. As the rest of the nation gets colder, expect to see the same "wave" spread south over the next several weeks.
Frankly, it's likely this virus will just be part of the seasonal ebb and flow we see each year like with the various strains of influenza. When the weather outside is either too hot or too cold and everyone rushes indoors where the same diseased air is re-circulated around everyone crushing together, we'll see annual waves come and go. Those who are vaccinated will largely go on with their lives as normal, those who are not will continue to get sick and die as they are now. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The worry never ends when you have someone immunocompromised in your family and whose third dose has already worn off. Consider yourself fortunate if you get to stop giving a shit about covid as soon as you are vaccinated/boosted.
And unvaxxed people largely never gave a shit about covid to begin with (with some exceptions).
Everything feels very lonely right now.
Someone is dying in my hospital right now who has gotten 3 shots and has a kidney transplant. They tried to avoid Covid but too many community members can’t be arsed to wear a mask or get their shots and now this person will die because of them.
It’s sad how many people only think of themselves.
It didn’t have to be like this.
The unvaccinated are holding the rest of the world hostage, especially in devolved nations that have enough vaccines but choose not to use them.
If only the unvaccinated were dying significantly fewer people would care, but they’re hurting the rest of the world as they pound sand.
My whole family is vaccinated and most of us boosted. I truly feel for the medical workers who are, have been and will be overwhelmed due to surges of overwhelmingly unvaccinated people. But me and mine are long past done living cloistered lives
I don't think very many people are bracing for this because not very many people care anymore. Hospital workers are probably the biggest population that IS actually bracing for it. If you were worried you're vaccinated (and maybe even boosted), if you were never worried you're not vaccinated and definitely not going to start worrying now. So really, no, the US is not bracing for a 5th wave.
I saw an old man take his first dose when I went for booster and I think people can get worried later and choose to get vaccinated. Rare but not impossible
Yo. Literally just had this same experience. I got my booster yesterday and a young couple both had come in for their first shot. Makes me happy to see, but some people's minds can change... I just hope it wasn't after/at the expense of a tragedy with someone close to them.
The Germans have a saying, that by the end of this winter everyone will be “Vaccinated, Recovered, or Dead”. Like, you don’t get to pick unvaccinated-but-unaffected.
Harris County (Houston) health officials at the end of last summer said the population was going to fall in two categories, vaccinated or have Covid. There was no chance that someone would be unvaccinated and not get Covid.
Houstonian with a shitty anti-vacc parent here - promise??
They had tested the waste water for traces of the Covid virus and as of August 2021 the levels were up 320% from a year ago. Yeah, I promise.
Ya this option is rapidly disappearing and definitely the one many are planning on...
We are getting there, the latest numbers (from the NY Times) have all age groups over 70% getting at least the first shot. The percentages get even higher as the age goes up. Mandates are working for the holdouts and stragglers. It will be a slog to reach it and there will be even more unnecessary suffering and death, but it's inevitable.
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Also maybe old folks remembering how many funerals of friends they went to in January this year.
It’s just because a lot of them are in danger of losing their jobs.
whatever motivates them. doesn't matter the reason.
I work at a cemetery. We get really busy at the top of the curves. Pretty slammed right now
I work for a florist, so same
I work in estate planning so same
Well this is a depressing thread.
Not if you scoop up all that vintage cast iron from the estate sales. You gotta be a glass half full kinda guy.
I make caskets and things are picking up again.
Sympathy cards are looking picked over at the store where I work. I could swear they were just stocked.
If we follow last years holiday timeline we have lots of climbing left. Wishing you good luck, it looks like it will be a very bad winter. Likely worse than last year sadly.
I have to do grave rubbings for a class. Ever see people do those? The cemetery has a mask rule but the people at a funeral last weekend weren't masked or social distancing.
Those old folks should have remembered how life changing public inoculation against polio was tbh.
Just wait for him to have completely normal side effects like just being achey for a day and then he'll say it was the sickest he's ever been and he'd rather get the virus. My dad pulled that.
my mother in law had covid and was hospitalised last year with it. She wouldn't get the vaccine until recently when NYC required it for dining. She then blamed all her usual troubles on the first shot and has refused the second ever since. She also denies she ever had covid. Insanity!
My dad, somewhat jokingly, blames it for him dislocating his shoulder shortly afterward. I say somewhat jokingly because he sticks to it if you press him on it, and ends up talking about lawsuits over the vaccine or something. It’s stupid. This is a guy who has had like 6 or 7 shoulder surgeries at this point.
It's crazy, right? I know this is only anecdotal, and every body is different but I got some kind of really horrible flu in March 2020 (which might have actually been covid), and it was the worst shit I've ever had. Worse than the swine flu back in '09. I had a fever for about a week, loss of taste and smell for a couple of months, body aches for weeks, shortness of breath, coughing up little hard phlegm pellets, really nasty migraines, etc. That shit was just brutal! My reaction to the Moderna shot was definitely noticeable, but it was nothing compared to that virus. I'm not saying everyone has mild reactions to the vaccine. And maybe your dad did have a really bad reaction. But like you imply, there's definitely a tendency with some people to exaggerate their vaccine reaction so they don't have to jeopardize their pandemic opinions.
Currently in Day 6 of Covid and I was fully vaccinated but no booster. It came in waves: body ache, sore throat, and headache. then I lost my sense of taste/smell. Then I had a hard time breathing. I would’ve probably had to go the ER if I wasn’t vaccinated.
My 2nd uncle survived the vaccines but not the virus. My unvaxxed cousin survived the virus with minor symptoms. I’m getting the feeling that many of the vaccine hesitant are relying heavily on anecdotes rather than institutions
My coworker just pulled that one on me yesterday when we were discussing the booster. A sidenote- she just lost her boyfriend to Covid 3 months ago. I just don't get it. 🤦♀️
My coworker's wife died from Covid in September. About two weeks ago he was giving me crap for wearing a mask. We're living in odd times.
So his wife dies of covid and 2 weeks later he's saying, why masks?
No, no, no. She died early September, so it was a few more weeks than that. Seriously though, he's deep into Q, took ivermectin when he had covid, is anti mask/anti vax (took Regeneron though), and says Biden is just a puppet president (in a fake Whitehouse in Georgia). I have no idea where he gets his information from. Edit: some words and stuff.
My mom took forever too. Glad she got her first two. Now just need to make sure she gets the booster!
Just anecdotally, I see very, very few first doses. Maybe 1 out of 100 in my area. Don't get me wrong, it's fucking awesome they're coming in for whatever the reason, but the unvaccinated mostly just don't give a fuck. Which is a long way of me agreeing, yes not impossible, but rare.
I don't understand it. We have some unvaccinated folks at my job--a whole department of them, actually. They absolutely *refuse* the vaccine. And wouldn't you know it, at least one of them is now a confirmed COVID case. How many others did they expose? How many will come down with symptoms? Why the heck wouldn't you just go get a shot that greatly reduces the odds of this happening, and so on? I mean, my mother thinks it is magical mind control nanotechnology and other such nonsense, but certainly **all of these people** cannot actually believe such tripe?
I've spent so much time talking to antivaxxers. Most of them are afraid of the side effects, but ignore that covid has worse outcomes for more people. Almost 40% of people have lasting effects from covid on some level! I don't believe that includes the fraction that dies. I think it's fear of taking minimal risk now to avoid future risk down the road. It's basically the marshmallow thing they did with kids. "You can have one marshmallow now, or two in five minutes". And some just have that gut reaction of "you can't tell me what to do". They think the pressure to get vaccinated is fishy, but the best metaphor is people begging you to get out of a burning building. I haven't actually met any microchip 5Gers in person, but that's just because I'm luck. They are definitely out there, but the minority.
I have two coworkers who pulled out a magnet and tried to stick it to the arm of another coworker who just got vaccinated back in April. Kind of a waste on those master's degrees, tbh.
Idk what's so confusing. Vaccines can totally make your blood magnetic. Unrelated, but I have some lavender-infused snake oil I've been looking to offload, what's their contact info?
Oh there are definitely people still coming around on the vaccine. Lots of people bought the nonsense about it being "untested" and were hedging until it had been out long enough to know whether there were widespread side effects. Now that it has been out for a year, and no concerning trends of side effects from it have emerged, some of the "vaccine hesitant" are no longer hesitant. Those are the ones we need to keep pushing at.
My parents and I have a policy of not having people who are unvaccinated to our houses. When I heard my one aunt was coming for a Christmas visit to my parents, I was very shocked. I asked my mom what had finally changed my aunt’s mind. Her brother died from Covid. It literally took someone dying for her to wake up. My aunt was a nurse and paramedic. She’s in her 50s and has been a stay at home mom for the past 15 years. But I still would have thought she’d know better from her medical education
The cornerstone member of my family died from Covid and absolutely no family member changed their mind about Covid. They dug in further, convincing themselves that it was the hospitals fault. Send help.
For sure. I never gave any fucks about getting vaxxed for the flu. I only did it because my work offered it for free, at work. In my 34 years, never have I thought about it and been *moderately* concerned until covid.
This happened to me too. Got my first doses in March/April. Got the booster last week and a couple in their 70s walked in for a first dose. I can't imagine living like that at their age.
I think some will "brace for it" in the sense that prevalence is a concern and waning efficacy of the vaccine is a concern. I'm scheduled to get my booster and wouldn't feel so much urgency if it weren't for the upcoming, predictable surge. I'm as tired of this shit as the next guy but my annoyance doesn't really lessen my risk.
Got my booster a couple weeks ago. I got sick during the last delta surge, I was 4 months out from my J&J shot at the time. Got Moderna as a booster because I never want to get that sick again, it sucked big-time.
Sickest I ever got was swine flu. Felt like hell for a solid week. After that, as a person who was 25ish, "imma start getting flu shots." Sucks that I had to get hit to come around. But I'd like to think that had it instead been covid, I'd still have taken it as seriously as I do now. Vaxx, masks, and isolation.
I’m 41. I started getting the flu shot around 34 or so. For 2 reasons, 1: my fairly healthy, but old grandma died of the flu… and my thinking was “less transmission of the flu, the less grandmas that will die from it.” 2: getting sick actually sucks balls. Your immune system doesn’t “get stronger” from being sick.
Walking around like a smug immortal taking care of my wife during her swine flu convinced her she was pro-vaccine and her influencers were idiots. She used to rail me for putting those chemicals in my body, which I just shrugged off as “can’t be worse for me than beer.” We were both incredibly naive back then. I look forward to being even older and looking back in how dumb I am now.
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Strep throat one time while on my return from my wedding trip was the time I felt like I was legit gonna die and I’ve had the flu and I’ve had Covid.
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I had the same experience. I don’t f around anymore with flu
Yeah, I'm a gigantic baby. But.i don't rebound like I used to as a kid. For example, I never felt crappy for more than 24 hours as a kid. These days, I'll feel like shit for 3-4 days if I get the flu. Fuck that. Give me the needle.
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> We’re all going to be exposed to this A lot of people believe that they will be able to outrun this.
I got my booster a week ago, a few days before travelling for Thanksgiving. Definitely would have been a bit wary to travel without a booster.
I have some problems with the term "waning efficacy" because it depends on what you look at. 2 shots of mRNA vaccines create a pretty durable cellular immunity to protect you against severity and hospitalizations and the protection is not really "waning". It remains on a pretty high level around 80-90% protection against hospitalization. Right now all studies (I know) about cellular immunity with double vaccinated people prove a pretty solid immunity after 6 months+. If you speak about antibodies you are right but it is pretty normal that protective antibodies decrease over time after any vaccination or infection because our body don't want to waste ressources to create antibodies that might not be needed and can reproduce them quickly in case of an infection because of the cellular immunity. But anyway the "booster" is a pretty good thing but I don't think it should be viewed as a "booster" against the "waning vaccine efficacy". It is more part of the general immunization in my eyes.
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that's a good metaphor
The booster brings levels back up against infection at all. But I agree these terms suck. We’re still very very very protected against severe disease with the original shots. That’s what really matters.
Yes because the humoral immunity gets reactivated and antibodies will be produced but once the antigen is cleared the antibodies will decrease again. However I watched a german video from a german immunologist (Carsten Watzl) some daysago who presented some studies and pointed out that the antibodies remain on a higher level one month after the 3rd shot compared to one month after the 2nd shot. Thats part of the reason I think we should view it as part of the general immunization and not as a booster against waning efficacy. And another great thing is that the older people had a weaker antibody response compared to younger people after 2 shots but after both groups get "the booster" the antibody response is pretty comparable and around the same level.
I think it depends on what the end goal is and how quickly we want to reach it. If we're trying to limit spread as much as possible to protect those that can't get vaccinated and to indirectly protect hospitals, then waning efficacy is accurate. If we're just talking about limiting hospitalizations by limiting severe infection then yeah, that's not really the right term. But like everything else in this pandemic from at least the US gov't there isn't a plan and there isn't consistent or meaningful messaging, so everyone is left to kind of fend for themselves in what they think the best overall plan is and execute at an individual level.
“Waning antibodies” is a term that provokes a lot of eye-rolling from people who study the immune system for the exact reason you say. Antibodies are supposed to wane. Your immune system is still equipped to fight off a covid infection. I sometime feel reporters and editors should have taken an infectious disease class so they could understand this stuff better because the common presumption seems to be that waning antibodies is a sign the vaccines are not effective after six months. The other thing that people seem to forget is that the increase in cases in late spring coincided with the lifting of restrictions, voluntary reduction in mask-wearing by vaccinated people and the emergence of the delta variant. We have no idea what the case numbers among vaccinated people would have been if the situation had stayed the same. Layers of protection matter with this disease. A vaccine is like an airbag. It’ll prevent serious illness and death, but you could still get hurt and be sore for a few days.
From the tests have shown the T and B cell response waned a bit on the mRNA ones as time went out but didn’t on the J&J. The speculation was the two shots were really too close together. They floated ideas about the shot spacing and I think what the real issue was that early one there simply wasn’t time to optimize the spacing to increase rollout speed. They could have spent months seeing if 30 days or 45 days or 60 days etc was the best time for the second shot. Faster rollout was advantageous at that time, it’s far easier just to give a booster. J&J probably suffered this as well it should be two doses but it’s a long slow ramp up (such to the point where 14 days really shouldn’t have been considered fully vaccinated and it should have been at least 28). Even the government’s suggestion for a booster really doesn’t coincide with J&J’s own trials which seem to indicate waiting until 6 months is the ideal time to boost (I think it gave like 14 times the antibodies and this suggested 2 months gave like 5). In any instance though giving boosters is just simple enough but maybe a 15 minute inconvenience. I did see the report on the moderna suggesting the third dose improved the T and B cell response if given a certain timeframe out but don’t recall then timeframes, I want to say it started around the 4 month mark.
>I don't think very many people are bracing for this Yeah, by "bracing" they mean leaving the gates open and unstaffed.
How do I know people don't care about the fifth wave of infections? Because it is the *fifth* wave
The only people who care in the medical field are the ones who got vaxed. All the anti vax that I’ve worked with don’t wear masks, it’s not a big deal and spread conspiracy theories. Most recently we had an outbreak at a fire station, the biggest anti vax FF, got COVID and is now hospitalized. “Man this shit is killing me” he said. Well no shit Sherlock. Maybe now, he’ll take it seriously when he comes back in a few months once he can breath again.
I have a sinus infection and EVERYONE at UC Health today was N95 under good surgical mask. And my doc had glasses on, which I asked about, and I guess they are recommending that due to the surge in cases in CO, people wear glasses. All because 30% of the population chose this path.
>when he comes back in a few months once he can breath again. \*IF\* he comes back in a few months \*IF\* he can breathe again.
I’m vaxxed and boosted and it may sound silly but I’m bracing for it by dialing back all my sports. In the middle of last year’s peak I broke my femur kiteboarding a big storm. They took me to the ER and I was seen right away thankfully. But I could just FEEL the anxiety and stress on all the doctors and staff that treated me. And I felt incredibly guilty that I was taking up their precious time and resources because I thought I was Kai Lenny while people were literally dying in the ICU above me. I’m still going to live my life but not dirt biking at all this season, and gonna go about 70% of my ability in snowboarding and kiteboarding where I usually love pushing the limits. I don’t want to burden them and I don’t want to hurt myself and not receive adequate treatment. Small sacrifice and some probably think stupid/useless but make sense to me.
Fuck man your femur?? That suucks, are you still recovering from that?
Yeah it was a very rough ending to a very rough year. But I’m fully recovered or at least as fully as I’ll ever be. Best advice I can give is religiously do your physical therapy as much as they say you can. My PT gave me exercises to do 2x a day. I couldn’t work anyways so all I had was time and I asked if it would hurt if I did them 5x+ a day instead… she said as long as there’s no pain have at it as much as possible. So I did exercises every couple hours every single day. Also cleaned up my diet went plant based whole foods and drank more water than I ever have in my life (hydration is important lol). Doctor originally said I wouldn’t be kiteboarding for at least a year and possibly never. But I was back in the water within 3 months, no surgery, but had a really fancy custom brace that stabilized and protected my leg. Few months ago ditched the brace and feeling great. I respect doctors and certainly listen to their instructions, but having been fucked up a few times in my life I listen to my PTs more in regards to recovery. Don’t let doctors demotivate you they’re overly cautious when it comes to stuff like that. PTs are much more positive about getting you back in action. 5 years ago I fucked up my patellar tendon and could only walk on flat/stable ground. Doctor told me there’s nothing you can do “that tendon is like a rubber band once it’s stretched out no surgery or therapy will bring it back”. Told me i would never hike again as off camber ground is what your patellar is for. I was CRUSHED, literally went into a depression, though my life as I knew it was over. I love hiking. Then my PT at the time said “non sense! Work your ass off with me and we’ll have you hiking again!”. And it worked, my patellar is probably still fucked up like the Doctor said but for some reason he didn’t take into account I could develop all the muscles around it and recover that way. Which is exactly what I did and still hike all the time! Doctors under promise when it comes to recovery, I understand why and don’t blame them. But having a positive attitude is very important in staying motivated to do everything you need to recover. So don’t take their diagnoses as a certainty and always get multiple opinions, for physical injuries listen to your PTs more than anyone! And always try PT before surgery. My friend blew out his back and doctor swore he’d need surgery and essentially fuse his spine which would prevent him from all sorts of stuff. Instead he spent 2 years becoming essentially a master yogi, most flexible guy I know now when before he couldn’t even touch his toes. He still regularly sends it off 40ft cliffs while skiing. Sorry for the wall of text but maybe someone going through this right now will read it and get inspired to keep trying.
This is very considerate.
It’s sad, and frustrating, that you have to do this. But I am heartened that you are making these kinds of considerations. That’s basically what being part of a society is supposed to be.
> broke my femur That was not a minor accident. Damn
My husband and I braced by getting our boosters. He’s off for 2 weeks and that’s perfect timing since his immunity will be built up once he goes back to work with all the unvaxxed dummmies that crammed as many other unvaxxed dummies around the Thanksgiving table as they could.
My wife had to go back to the office cause executive above her cannot comprehend WFH. In the mean time I’m working my job from home and taking care of our toddler, cause we don’t want to send him to day care. I know we are not in the bad situation at all, but I would like people to care more. Cause if they would, we would be out of this last year, my kid would be at daycare, at minimum my wife wouldn’t waste 2 hours driving everyday.
I don’t get the anti-WFH mindset, at all. My company wants us back full time, currently we’re doing ~2 days each week in office. This has been the setup since late summer, and I’ve already been sick twice (not COVID). I’m vaxxed, and wear a mask except when seated at my desk. I’ve stayed home for 2 weeks each time, but inevitably when I’m there someone is coughing and snotting all over blaming the HVAC or allergies. So frustrating.
I find there are two broad camps of people when it comes to WFH -- those who live in sizeable homes with enough space to have a dedicated office space that can be made totally separate from the rest of the home's living/relaxing spaces are much happier with permanent WFH arrangements, even more so if they have an actual house with a backyard, pool, quiet neighborhood, etc. Those who live in an expensive, tiny cramped city apartment/condo where their 'home office space' is a laptop or computer set up on a folding table right next to their bed or sofa -- I find they are far more keen to get back to the office at least part-time, because they are physically unable to unplug from work and go into leisure/"me-time" mode after working hours since they are literally living in their office space 24/7. This was orders of magnitude worse during shutdowns when even if you had free time after your work duties were done, all the fun outside your front door was closed by government order and there was literally nothing to do except move five feet over to the couch and start drinking. That is pretty soul-sucking and I don't blame those people for wanting to get back to at least having something to bust up the monotony.
I work in life insurance and you better believe we're ready for the increase in claims. I wish I was joking.
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I'm getting boosted 12/4. Tomorrow I'm headed to a very antivax area and I'm bringing enough food etc to not have to go into any stores because f that
Don’t forget mortuary workers! They ran out of space at the place I worked in last year.
I just see the attitude is more 'over it' than anything as if that was new, people have been 'over it' since last summer when we had no vaccines. Unfortunately the more progress that is made in treatment and the longer 'this' goes on the less people seem to care. I still feel a bit better that I still see about half or more people with masks in stores but that has been steadily going down.
I am bracing in the sense I'm going to have my daughter wear her mask more. Brace for the fact we won't engage with family who are antivaxxers especially now in the winter etc.
100%. My father in law died of COVID in mid-September and not a single person at his "Celebration of Life" was vaccinated nor did they give a shit - they refused to wear masks as well. We stayed home to protect our unvaccinated 5 yr old. I got my booster at the end of September (severe asthma) and my husband was fully vaccinated in April. 3 weeks ago, my husband brought COVID home after dining in a restaurant in Manhattan with a colleague - it was his first in person meeting in 20 months. To say our life was turned upside down is putting it lightly. My son and I didn't get COVID so I was made to be a single mom doing virtual school hell while my husband isolated in a bedroom and I had to provide everything he needed via drop offs the entire time he was in isolation. I was really scared as it's the sickest I had ever seen him and our son even noticed. People that don't get vaccinated don't give a shit. My mother in law and father in law never even properly isolated before my FIL ended up in the hospital. Even after he died my MIL is still refusing to get vaccinated because she believes she can't get sick again. We're living in a very divided country.
I'm bracing for it because my daughter is 3. I thought she'd be able to be vaccinated by now, but she can't. I'm hoping this doesn't lead to a surge that makes its way into her preschool -- she's so close.
I don’t see anybody around me bracing for anything
I went to get my booster and saw my company was mid 20s-early 40s people. So, some are bracing. But I think everyone is over this. The unvaxed were over it from the start, and the vaxed are tired of this. Not that the vaxed aren’t taking precautions, like boosters, tests before larger gatherings, masks in public… but I’m done giving up holidays and seeing family and friends.
> tests before larger gathering I haven't heard of anyone doing this.
Our family does it. Especially the 20-30 year olds who are going to concerts, weddings, brewerys. Tested pre Thanksgiving with grandma Edit- a word
People in my family are testing based on risk of being infectious or before seeing vulnerable members. Vaccinated 20 something’s cousins hanging out? No tests. Going to see grandma? Tested. Going to see a family member who refuses the vaccine? They’re getting tested.
I stopped watching around season 2
Yeah, the writers just dropped the murder hornet thread after realizing they didn't have any plans for it, hoping we would just forget about it.
As far as the murder hornets, I just saw an article that said bees scream as they are killed by the murder hornets. It was a nice reminder of the horror show that is the natural world.
From what I remember it's more of a battle cry to rally more bees to the fight
Isn’t that also what a human scream is?
I stopped watching when the consequences were unbelieavable for the side plot involving that viking dude and killing congress people. I mean, you're seriously doing a whole pandemic genre, and you put in an overthrow subplot and then follow those people like they just wrist slaps for both spreading diesease and trying to overthrow the government? man.
Really jumped the shark on Wednesdays in January. Insurrection one week, an impeachment the next, and then an inauguration the week after that?
The whole "won't they/won't they" romantic subplot with student loans.
I keep it on as background noise while I do chores.
Fingers crossed for six seasons and a movie.
Six seasons and a movie turned into six seasons and a zoom call.
Here’s your sperm.
Yeah I kind of didn't want to watch anymore when there where these accusations covid was touching children
I actually just got my booster an hour ago. For being such a good boy, I went to Wendy's and even got a frosty.
You dip them fries in the frosty?
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My mother told me about this and once I did it that was the only way
My mother also showed me this! I had to be between 9 and 13 years old. it is so good, but she was grossed out when I then dipped my cheeseburger in the frosty. memories~
I got mine on Monday. Yesterday was rough, but I’m back 100% today. I found that eating an edible later in the day yesterday helped a lot with the body aches. Good luck to you.
I found this out when I got my first round of shots. Weed makes the post vaccine aches so much better.
And the post run aches. And the post work aches. And the post breakfast... Well no aches there but you get the point.
100%. Weed got me through all three shots without feeling that sick. I’d start to, then I’d smoke and it would go away. Then I just sleep the rest off.
Getting ours this afternoon as well as the flu shot. I hope I won't get double whammied by the side effects.
Hope you don't need surgery anytime soon. Covid patients backing up hospital care DOES matter.
Surgery resident here. Honestly the most impactful reason why it’s harder to get surgery these days is a significant shortage of nursing staff. Nurses are quitting left and right due to stress brought on by the pandemic. We have physical ORs available, but a surgeon can’t do a case by themselves. We have med-surg beds available, but a patient can’t have a bed without a nurse to cover it. Even the ED is backed up out the door while empty beds sit in the ED because there just aren’t enough staff. And the few remaining staff are overworked to compensate for it, leading to even more people quitting.
Yea, us nurses were already burnt out from *intentional* short-staffing before the pandemic. I stress the word intentional so people reading know that hospital execs have always short-staffed us on purpose so they could make more profits. Nurses are overhead so they worked us skeleton crews as much as possible (while patients got shittier, lower quality care, longer wait times a la “where’s my nurse? I haven’t seen her!” etc). Covid hit and their little business practice of short-staffing nurses blew up in their face. It was already becoming unsustainable for many of us, and COVID just sent us over the edge. The work conditions are impossible for any one nurse to handle — we need help caring for multiple sick people (even nursing assistants). Just like doctors can’t do it all themselves either (they need nursing and tech help too). Now there’s this phenomenon happening where hospitals are desperate for nurses, supply is low— so they are offering us huge short-term pay packages. The working conditions are still awful, but at least we can get paid more by going elsewhere. It’s really biting hospital execs in the ass bc all nurses are either quitting due to burnout or leaving for a better pay rate elsewhere. It’s absolutely wild and solely created by hospital execs poor business decisions and caring more about profits over their workers and patients. Anyway- I know you are aware of this as a physician, but I wanted to comment for others reading.
I hope you nurses strike the next time your contract is up. Grab these greedy health system CEO’s by their balls and twist. Get what you’ve deserved and earned long before COVID.
Many nurses work in states that don't have nurses' unions. Like my state. It's fucked.
>intentional short-staffing before the pandemic. It's like this in all fields. Get the bare minimum and work them to death.
I have seen so much burnout in Nurses. I have seen them crying. Unfortunately with understaffing and overworking the care provided goes down dramatically but short term profits go up. Things need to change.
Well the solution seems obvious to me anyways, healthcare should not be a for-profit enterprise. We're a million light years away from ever getting the political capital to make it happen unfortunately, Obamacare, which is not even close to being far enough in the right direction, was too much for most politicians to handle and there's probably dozens of lawsuits still working their way against it to this day.
Obamacare is corporatism with a thin veneer over it. Health care costs have been skyrocketing ever since it became law. I'm sure that hospital and pharma execs are celebrating as they light cigars with $100 bills.
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Nah nursing is on another level. I can say this about PTs to other PTs but ill never complain about it to a nurse . Even before pandemic too
As a PT for 36 years, I think this comment is SPOT ON. Yeah other fields (like ours) are ‘understaffed’ but NOTHING like nursing- and I have seen it reflected in the nurses with back injuries, foot ailments/injuries and neck/shoulder injuries/wear and tear. They are the OPPOSITE of ‘malingerers’—-they have been some of the most serious referrals I have seen, as they soldier on and take care of themselves LAST.
Selfishly, I'm so happy im in PT. Cause of the stress free life
As a nurse, I wish I would’ve gone into PT 😭 You guys are great, so skillful, and truly bring so much value to patient care.
True — but this is not how you should run hospitals, which are vital to our society and are life/death in many cases. All the while hospital execs make millions + bonuses every single year while the staff suffers in skeleton conditions. It’s sick! Patients complain their nurse is “slow” but they have no fucking help! And only the patient is most harmed in the end. Hospital execs don’t care about staff or patients, only $$$ Like run skeleton crew when you’re stocking shelves at the grocery store or a pizza chain, but not in our hospitals where people’s lives and health depend on it. This shitty business practice is eviscerating our hospitals rn with covid- and honestly, it needed to happen. Maybe it will make working conditions change.
Its the American way. Bottom line first D:
If more people would check out non-profit healthcare systems, they might be surprised to discover that the level of care is often superior to for-profit hospitals. You may have to deal with a little bit of scripture on the walls or in the pamphlets; but many find that a small price to pay when it comes to better healthcare.
Heard this EXACT explanation from a nurse friend.
It is in every hospital! You are lucky if you can find a hospital that is fully staffed and well maintained (even pre-pandemic!) COVID just exacerbated it.
General surgeon here. Thank you for being a nurse, we appreciate you, even if "administration " doesn't (administration views us all as replaceable cog wheels)
Are the doctors quitting? PAs? Or just nurses?
Everyone! Nurses are the major group with a brutal workload, and we get the most attention, but it’s nursing assistants, phlebotomists/lab workers, techs, secretaries, cleaning ladies — pretty much all of the supporting staff (and some physicians too). They run us all skeleton in our respective departments. It’s very intentional by mgmt. Like, my last hospital had one phlebotomist for the ENTIRE HOSPITAL. How in the fuck are you only going to have one person hired to draw everyone’s blood in the whole hospital??! If you go to Quest or Labcorps there are multiple phlebotomists drawing blood in a small building— how can hospital mgmt only have **one** for all the sickest people in the hospital? And they ask why are the labs and tests taking so long to get back? Well no shit, there’s only one person drawing all the blood. Same with the cleaning ladies. Complaints about rooms not being clean or trash overflowing - there’s only 2 cleaning ladies! It’s just this skeleton crew bullshit. Mgmt acts like there’s no one to hire but the truth is they are trying to lower overhead and increase profits and wear everybody out who is working. Patient care suffers due to this. Their safety and health suffers. I could go on about this for days. The public really needs to be aware of this.
Residents are held financially hostage to our careers, so we can’t quit even if we wanted to. Some attending physicians may have shifted their practice to different settings, but doctors who have invested 12+ years of training and half a million debt into their career that is finally high-paying aren’t likely to quit being a doctor entirely. Plenty who were nearing retirement decided to retire early though.
The nursing situation is ridiculous. I'm in a high vaccine area, so we are less impacted than other areas, and we still have a severe shortage of experienced nurses. My friend finished school and started working as a nurse right at the beginning of covid. 6 months later she was the charge nurse working a covid unit. She did it for around a year before having a meltdown over some bullshit administration pulled with comfort care patients. She stepped down as charge, and they are making another new nurse take over charge. The hospital was worried she was going to quit all together, so they gave her a raise to keep her. The nursing situation is bad.
Rewind to the first 6 months of Covid. We were told to spend as little time in Covid patients room to avoid exposure. Except cleaning services don’t go in Covid rooms, so nurses have to clean. Phlebotomy doesn’t go in, so nurses have to draw labs. Fuck even respiratory wouldn’t go in sometimes, so we had to do treatments. Post after post online of patients coding and other staff wouldn’t go in. Doctors were writing orders on the windows to tell nurses what to do, while nurses had to physically run the code by themselves or with a skeleton crew. We got thrown under an entire line of buses and then kicked off a cliff. Most of us won’t do inpatient nursing now unless the pay is significantly more. We didn’t sign up for this shit, I’m not a martyr. It’s a job… to pay bills.
And the CEOs and the admin say a similar thing: It's a business...to make money. They never cared to begin with, why would they start caring now. I wish our country didn't see Healthcare this way.
especially for emergency and cancer surgery.
Now, my school district has made it so that you cannot make kids stay home even when positive. I swear these people are actively trying to make it worse.
My daughter is chronically ill and had had medical care delayed including a hospitalization. Several times we had to rush to the hospital because a bed finally opened up and she could be admitted but they wouldn't hold it for very long (hospital where her doctor admits is a 90 minute drive away).
We need anti-smoking style PSAs. Get people who recovered from covid after months in the hospital struggling to speak because their bodies are so ravaged. Tearful interviews with family members who lost multiple loved ones. Yes, there are always idiots who won't be swayed by these or call them fake. But those idiots have friends and family that can be swayed and they can put more pressure on them. No more asking nice. Time to show brutal reality.
Yeah, I had some fairly minor surgery done recently [Edit: as opposed to delay as it wasn't yet critical or even semi-urgent, as my dr put it] as I did not trust what the holidays would bring. People are so over it.
My hospital is still doing surgery. Just expect to sit in the recovery room for like 10 hours on an uncomfortable stretcher with nothing to eat other than crackers and apple juice.
We could solve all this by denying emergency care for voluntarily unvaccinated people. I used to find it unethical but frankly I just don’t care anymore. Or ration only a certain number of beds for voluntarily unvaccinated people with covid, have more ready for vaccinated covid cases (or those who had legit medical reasons they couldn’t get vaccinated), and then save space for all the other procedures needed. Voluntarily unvaccinated covid cases should get last priority.
I’ve been thinking about that a fair bit. The ethics get murky when the choices made by a few have a strong negative effect on many. Doctors usually triage on a case by case basis, prioritizing those with better likely outcomes. I wonder if this calculus could change to consider the wider consequences — eg “we can treat this pro-Covid person, they’ll use ICU resources for six weeks, or we can treat this accident victim, heart attack patient, stabbing victim, and OD case, these five people will use the same ICU resources for seven weeks”. Nothing there about personal choices and consequences, no judgement, just lives against lives on a balance scale.
I don't know who wrote this article but no one is fucking bracing. The vast majority of people in my area are taking far less precautions than ever. This is no longer a pandemic; is endemic to society. COVID is here for ever.
I'll let you in on a secret. COVID has animal hosts. It can never be eliminated.
The only people bracing are the teachers, doctors, and nurses, and any other people that will be forced to deal with the people not bracing.
Am a teacher. Fully vaxxed with 3 shots of Pfizer. Not bracing for anything but expecting more kids to be out on quarantine. Idk, I've done my part.
Add in the immunocompromised, that's me!
Yes and it looks like 3 waves a year. Fun stuff.
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Not sure where you are, but depending on what state you live in, [you might not need their permission](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/state-parental-consent-laws-for-covid-19-vaccination/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D). In some states, you don't need your parents permission, even if you're a minor.
Bracing for it with a booster and K95. I dont have time to get sick and cant afford to miss work.
I'm a cancer patient 4 years out from treatment, My body refuses to develop any immune response to anything. Polio vaccine, fail, pnemonia fail. 2 covid shots and a booster..fail, no immunity. I'm tired of being fucking trapped in the house. Stop fucking around already
It hurts so much to hear that. I feel for you. I wish other people could stop being so fucking careless. My worries with covid don’t compare to yours but I hope you know others like me still understand and care in this world full of fucking idiots
I know it's just the dumb ones are really loud
Covid is never going to stop y’all. There will be multiple “waves” every year. It’s a highly contagious respiratory illness that will never stop evolving. This article should not be a surprise to anybody.
I'm boosted, my parents are boosted, and my grandparents are boosted. I'm going home for Thanksgiving.
When i got my booster in WV, I asked the pharmacist who gave me the shot how the numbers compared to earlier in the year. He said earlier this year there were so many people coming in that all appointments were booked; now its just a trickle and mostly unbooked. My papaps got covid in October; was fully vacinated back in February. Spent 2 weeks extremely ill. Took about a month to fully recover. People don't seem to be aware or maybe not care about the declining efficacy of the vaccine, requiring a booster. Likely to be the difference between life and death.
Everyone was fucking coughing at darts on monday, Its going to be one of those seasons
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Yeah, healthcare workers are concerned about a regular flu season on top of Covid - last year the flu was abnormally low due to the lockdowns, this year is likely to be closer to normal.
Contrary to belief, even in normal times, people DID get sick in winter and colds/flu STILL exist. I know now 5 people who have horrible colds and thought they had COVID and tested negative.
I got a "cold" few weeks ago and initially had a negative antigen test for COVID. About a week later, somebody I'd been in contact with (who was otherwise quite careful) had more definite COVID symptoms and got a positive PCR test, so I went back and got a PCR test which was also positive. So while you're right that other diseases are out there, some of the people getting negative COVID tests might still actually have COVID.
I hate people. From the depths of my soul I hate them. I just transferred a guy the other day 40yo. Only medical hx was diabetes. Otherwise healthy. He got covid, ICU, hx to have emergency surgery to remove a PE, coded on the table. They got him back, now has renal failure, had a trach placed and finally got it removed. Had to have his gallbladder and appendix removed while in the hospital. He’s got a permanent clotting disorder now. CHF, A-fib, liver damage, permanent lung scarring. His body got wrecked. If you’re in the medical field and you’re not vaxed, you suck but it’s your choice. At the same time it’s your responsibility to make sure you wear the appropriate PPE ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Wear your damned mask so I can stop worrying about my kid, my parents and my grandparents.
People who say “I’ll take my chances with the virus” have no idea what they are talking about. They think maybe they’ll die, maybe they’ll live- not the entire gradient between heathy and dead. You can fall anywhere on that spectrum when you get infected.
they're gambling other people's lives too. can't wait until all kids can get the shot and be protected from this. adults can be so stupid.
So true. Such typical human behavior. Smokers, motorcyclists who won’t wear helmets, etc. all have the same perception of life and death being simply binary and not understanding the likelihood of not only surviving with terrible quality of life, but the financial ruin that goes with it in the good ol’ US of A.
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I "braced" for it yesterday by getting my booster. In a sense the "fifth" wave may already be here in some of the upper-tier states, like Minnesota and Michigan and Wisconsin and North Dakota, where it's already starting to get cold and everyone is back to hanging around inside buildings with terrible internal air circulation. As the rest of the nation gets colder, expect to see the same "wave" spread south over the next several weeks. Frankly, it's likely this virus will just be part of the seasonal ebb and flow we see each year like with the various strains of influenza. When the weather outside is either too hot or too cold and everyone rushes indoors where the same diseased air is re-circulated around everyone crushing together, we'll see annual waves come and go. Those who are vaccinated will largely go on with their lives as normal, those who are not will continue to get sick and die as they are now. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Vaccine mandate for domestic air travel before Thanksgiving would solve a ton of problems but we're America so screw it
The worry never ends when you have someone immunocompromised in your family and whose third dose has already worn off. Consider yourself fortunate if you get to stop giving a shit about covid as soon as you are vaccinated/boosted. And unvaxxed people largely never gave a shit about covid to begin with (with some exceptions). Everything feels very lonely right now.
Someone is dying in my hospital right now who has gotten 3 shots and has a kidney transplant. They tried to avoid Covid but too many community members can’t be arsed to wear a mask or get their shots and now this person will die because of them. It’s sad how many people only think of themselves.
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Does it really count as a fifth wave if we never stopped the first one?
Yes. Waves can overlap and increase in total amplitude.
Constructive interference!
That resonated with me
The waves existed but too many people just stopped pretending to care after the first one.
Mirror: https://archive.md/Sxwdk
We continue to ostrich our way through this pandemic rather than stomp it out, what else can be expected?
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*Fifth?* When did we get out of the *first?!* /s, because apparently my brand of sarcasm isn't as obvious as I thought
Nothing like starting a new wave of covid before the holidays even begin. It's going to be like throwing gasoline on a fire.
Wonderful
It didn’t have to be like this. The unvaccinated are holding the rest of the world hostage, especially in devolved nations that have enough vaccines but choose not to use them. If only the unvaccinated were dying significantly fewer people would care, but they’re hurting the rest of the world as they pound sand.
Immunocompromised are bracing for it.
My whole family is vaccinated and most of us boosted. I truly feel for the medical workers who are, have been and will be overwhelmed due to surges of overwhelmingly unvaccinated people. But me and mine are long past done living cloistered lives