COVID-19

Thanks guys.😷

Outta left field. Great you are getting taken care of.

Now Pfizer is basking in the glow of media coverage for the so-called "Pfizer Vaccine." The company deserves credit for its all-out efforts to distribute the medication to millions of people. But the vaccine was created by the Turkish/German founders of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, who guided the development of the messenger RNA process that triggers an immune reaction against Covid. The groundwork for the relatively rapid production of the vaccine was laid in place at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania by research on the prior SARS and MERS outbreaks. More expertise came from the taxpayer-funded Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC). According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, "The speed is a reflection of years of work that went before." Indeed, a successful vaccine is the product of long-term social cooperation, not individualism.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/14/how-right-wing-conservatives-have-laid-waste-america-50-years

Happy B'day Flatch! Get well soon and ripping loam in no time. \^^/ 

And...well, my dad used to have a few heart attacks, but I always thought it was because of his drinking and diet which was heavy on meat and gravy.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1341440166452285441

So how many of you are still hard for the vax?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/25/uk-scientists-trial-drug-to-prevent-coronavirus-infection-leading-to-disease

Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips resigns after getting caught vacationing in St. Bart's, all the while making it appear as if he was spending the holidays quietly at home. This guy must think he is above the law and does not have to abide by guidelines, like he expects regular folks to do. Good riddance.

Nurse Kristen Cline was working a 12-hour shift in October at the Royal C. Johnson Veterans Memorial Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when a code blue rang through the halls. A patient in an isolation room was dying of a coronavirus that had raged for eight months across the country before it made the state the brightest red dot in a nation of hot spots.

Cline knew she needed to protect herself before entering the room, where a second COVID-19 patient was trembling under the covers, sobbing. She reached for the crinkled and dirty N95 mask she had reused for days.

In her post-death report, Cline described how the patient fell victim to a hospital in chaos. The crash cart and breathing bag that should have been in the room were missing. The patient wasn’t tethered to monitors that could have alerted nurses sooner. He had cried out for help, but the duty nurse was busy with other patients, packed two to a room meant for one.

“He died scared and alone. It didn’t have to be that way. We failed him — not the staff, we did everything we could,” she said. “The system failed him.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/those-of-us-who-dont-die-are-going-to-quit-a-crush-of-patients-dwindling-supplies-and-the-nurse-who-lost-hope

In May, Cline had reached out to me, describing the plight of hospital staff dealing with unresponsive VA management. “They have been rationing masks for weeks now, but sending emails daily saying we have plenty of PPE and that rumors of a shortage are completely false. We have suspected for a few days now that they are lying about this,” Cline, 38, wrote.

Her outrage intensified when she read a story I wrote about how the VA awarded a $34.5 million contract to a random mask broker, who then rented a private jet to locate N95s that never existed from suppliers he didn’t know with money from investors he’d never met.

“I had a colleague who went to Sturgis,” Cline said of the August biker rally in South Dakota that may have led to 266,000 new COVID-19 cases. “She said, ‘Well, I drank so much alcohol it probably killed any virus.’ This was a nurse!”

masks are 5 for 8$ at safeway, in the rack in checkout next to the people magazine

+ Roughly 20% to 40% of the L.A. County’s frontline workers who were offered the vaccine declined to get the shot. In Riverside County an estimated 50% refused the vaccine.

+ Meanwhile, Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine reported this week that an estimated 60% of nursing home workers in his state who have been offered the vaccine have refused it.

+ Amy Watson, a 47-year old preschool teacher in Portland, says she’s had a fever for more than 280 consecutive days, after testing positive for COVID.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/12/23/lives-changed-by-covid-19/

What is everyone's thoughts about the outdoor community attitude toward COVID?  In my townhouse complex there is no shortage of garages filled with bikes, ski gear, etc, but that "can't hold me back spirit" seems to come with a pretty lax attitude towards COVID safety.  Throughout the pandemic families near me have still been meeting in their yards or on the street and setting up games for the neighborhood kids when we were not supposed to and nothing seemed to change much. The other day one of my neighbors was being dropped off by a buddy after a day of touring, he grabbed his skis out of the back and then leaned in to the truck (no masks of course) to tell another guy in the back that I couldn't see that "it was great to meet" him.

I take extra precautions because my wife is high risk, but it is frustrating when I have avoided a lot of human interaction in 2020 only to see the numbers jump up because some people just had to have that big dinner party, or meet their friends at a cabin for a couple of days.  It seems like anyone that they want to meet is suddenly "in their bubble".

I think it's entirely possible to do outdoor activities in a responsible way.  I hike and mountain bike in small groups and plan to ski-tour at some point.  I don't car-pool with anyone, and try to keep my distance on the trail. Most of the people I recreate with I also see in the office every day, so I don't feel like I am putting people at increased risk.

Anybody here actually get it? I’ve just finished getting through it.