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It's 100% about hospital capacity and mass death. When hospitals around the country are no longer turning away cancer patients needing treatments and have plent

by zzzeek 5y ago

It's 100% about hospital capacity and mass death. When hospitals around the country are no longer turning away cancer patients needing treatments and have plenty of ICUs for heart attacks and such, when they no longer have to rent fleets of refrigerator trucks every outbreak to store the bodies, the restrictions will end. It has always been about that and nothing more.

trentnix 5y ago
They could start by not terminating perfectly capable doctors and nurses who have decided, for whatever their reasons may be, to refuse vaccination. I’m vaccinated (and boosted) but I cannot understand why it was okay for these people to be on the frontlines of the fight for over a year but suddenly they are no longer acceptable. And I find no convincing argument as to why actually recovering from infection counts for nothing, but the vaccine does. The decision to terminate unvaccinated individuals reeks of bureaucracy, not an understanding of science or medicine.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  It’s pretty simple. They are more likely to get sick and more likely to infect those whose care they are entrusted with. There’s a long history of this type of sanction. If you are a provider or nurse in a hospital who fails to get a measles, hepatitis, or rabies (after exposure) shot, you’ll be terminated for cause in many places. The reason why recovery doesn’t “count” the same as vaccination is that immunity doesn’t last very long - 60-90 days typically. Some countries, such as Israel will recognize a single Pfizer dose and recovery as immune, if you have a negative PCR test.
  - trentnix 5y ago
    > It’s pretty simple. They are more likely to get sick and more likely to infect those whose care they are entrusted with. In a vacuum, that makes sense. But in the midst of genuine shortage of healthcare professionals, it's myopic foolishness. And I'd guess your comment about the lasting effect of actual recovery is going to turn out to be very wrong and already contradicts most everything I've seen recently regarding the immune response to reinfection after Covid recovery. edit: Here are a few links that contradict your statement that immunity doesn't last very long: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting... https://www.futurity.org/covid-19-survivors-immunity-viruses-2602672/ https://www.futurity.org/covid-19-survivors-immunity-viruses...
    - tandymodel100 5y ago
      In all honesty I don't want people uneducated or conspiracy-minded enough to not take the vaccine treating me anyway even in a shortage situation.
      - trentnix 5y ago
        Let them eat cake!
      - claytongulick 5y ago
        You don't want people who have medical degrees and are experts in their field treating you? Because you have a better understanding of this than they do? That seems like a strange position to take. I would take a different position, like "what do these highly qualified health care workers understand that I don't?"
        belltaco 5y ago
        What percentage of doctors are unvaccinated? Or is there atleast a number or some reporting on doctors getting fired for refusing vaccinations? >I would take a different position, like "what do these highly qualified health care workers understand that I don't?" Examples?
        mikeyouse 5y ago
        It’s literally the dumbest line of logic and my barely literate neighbor justifies his antivax status with the same theory. “What do the doctors who have declined the vaccine know that I don’t” Even though over 99% of practicing doctors and something like 99.9% of hospitalists are vaccinated, they hold up that 1/1,000 as some sort of “truthsayer”. If 999 experts in a field told you they trusted something and 1/1,000 said they didn’t —- you’d have to be an absolute fool to blindly follow the 1 and I'm a bit surprised how common this argument is on HN.
        claytongulick 5y ago
  - nradov 5y ago
    I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but that doesn't produce lasting immunity against infection either. Immunity is a spectrum, not a binary condition. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
  - midasuni 5y ago
    Confine them to covid wards
- gspr 5y ago
  Those doctors and nurses are little more than saboteurs. Would you hire someone who would willingly increases their own risk of being unable to work by orders of magnitude for no actual gain? Note that this is not like not hiring someone who likes to go mountain biking and therefore are more likely to hurt themselves and not work. Hobbies like that have real benefits. Vaccine denial not.
enchiridion 5y ago
How about scale up the hospitals, or at least covid capacity in a meaningful way. How long does they public have to bear burden of insufficient health infra. EDIT: Sorry that might have come off a bit blunt. But the entire pandemic response has been frustratingly insufficient in my opinion. A variant like Omicron was long predicted and expected. How are we not prepared with a plan to end lockdowns? And blaming unvaccinated or anti-maskers is not a good answer. Modeling of acceptance should’ve been done. It’s not like these contrarian sentiments were surprising either. All together it feels like this response to omicron is a public health failure.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The US is a public health failure. We didn’t want “socialized” medicine. So we got what we wanted, the best nurses are making $300/hr in COVID hotspots and leaving new grads and understaffed facilities in their wake.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    Feel free to name the country that isn't experiencing the exact same issues regarding COVID hotspots and understaffed facilities, "socialized medicine" or not.
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      Japan, Israel, South Korea, New Zealand come to mind. Honestly, it’s not very hard… the US went from the respected world leader to a public health carnival sideshow overnight. CDC is taking cues from places like South Africa and Israel now. It’s pathetic.
  - enchiridion 5y ago
    This is not a productive viewpoint, it’s defeatist. How would socialized medicine help in this specific case? More power to the government? The government already has plenty of power to influence outcomes through spending. However, that power has been applied poorly. We need mass repeal of old government regulations and the appointing of technocrats (as in people concerned with low level details of regulations). Additionally we need new highly adversarial independent regulatory bodies to prevent capitalistic interests from causing market collapse. The current agencies are too in bed with industry, and it’s not beneficial to the public. Giving more power to the current government systems which rolled out this poor response seems like the wrong answer.
anm89 5y ago
As many others below have pointed out, there are a variety of reasons why this narrative is extremely flimsy. All ends do not justify all means, especially when the proven correlation between the ends and the means is often lacking or doesn't support the use of the means at all.
roenxi 5y ago
It has been nearly 2 years. Have they considered training a few people to handle respiratory diseases and bulking up the hospitals? Nursing is hard and takes years of training, but 2 years would have been long enough to teach people how to manage the average case of 1 disease. There have been a lot of people sitting around doing not much, they could probably use the work.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  There is also the argument for encouraging people to lead a healthier lifestyle. Even though it’s political suicide to tell people that they need to get in shape, two years of a push from the government would have had enough time to make a great impact on overall population health.

by zzzeek 5y ago

trentnix 5y ago

They could start by not terminating perfectly capable doctors and nurses who have decided, for whatever their reasons may be, to refuse vaccination. I’m vaccinated (and boosted) but I cannot understand why it was okay for these people to be on the frontlines of the fight for over a year but suddenly they are no longer acceptable. And I find no convincing argument as to why actually recovering from infection counts for nothing, but the vaccine does. The decision to terminate unvaccinated individuals reeks of bureaucracy, not an understanding of science or medicine.

Spooky23 5y ago
It’s pretty simple. They are more likely to get sick and more likely to infect those whose care they are entrusted with. There’s a long history of this type of sanction. If you are a provider or nurse in a hospital who fails to get a measles, hepatitis, or rabies (after exposure) shot, you’ll be terminated for cause in many places. The reason why recovery doesn’t “count” the same as vaccination is that immunity doesn’t last very long - 60-90 days typically. Some countries, such as Israel will recognize a single Pfizer dose and recovery as immune, if you have a negative PCR test.
- trentnix 5y ago
  > It’s pretty simple. They are more likely to get sick and more likely to infect those whose care they are entrusted with. In a vacuum, that makes sense. But in the midst of genuine shortage of healthcare professionals, it's myopic foolishness. And I'd guess your comment about the lasting effect of actual recovery is going to turn out to be very wrong and already contradicts most everything I've seen recently regarding the immune response to reinfection after Covid recovery. edit: Here are a few links that contradict your statement that immunity doesn't last very long: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting... https://www.futurity.org/covid-19-survivors-immunity-viruses-2602672/ https://www.futurity.org/covid-19-survivors-immunity-viruses...
  - tandymodel100 5y ago
    In all honesty I don't want people uneducated or conspiracy-minded enough to not take the vaccine treating me anyway even in a shortage situation.
    - trentnix 5y ago
      Let them eat cake!
    - claytongulick 5y ago
      You don't want people who have medical degrees and are experts in their field treating you? Because you have a better understanding of this than they do? That seems like a strange position to take. I would take a different position, like "what do these highly qualified health care workers understand that I don't?"
      - belltaco 5y ago
        What percentage of doctors are unvaccinated? Or is there atleast a number or some reporting on doctors getting fired for refusing vaccinations? >I would take a different position, like "what do these highly qualified health care workers understand that I don't?" Examples?
        mikeyouse 5y ago
        It’s literally the dumbest line of logic and my barely literate neighbor justifies his antivax status with the same theory. “What do the doctors who have declined the vaccine know that I don’t” Even though over 99% of practicing doctors and something like 99.9% of hospitalists are vaccinated, they hold up that 1/1,000 as some sort of “truthsayer”. If 999 experts in a field told you they trusted something and 1/1,000 said they didn’t —- you’d have to be an absolute fool to blindly follow the 1 and I'm a bit surprised how common this argument is on HN.
        claytongulick 5y ago
- nradov 5y ago
  I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but that doesn't produce lasting immunity against infection either. Immunity is a spectrum, not a binary condition. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
- midasuni 5y ago
  Confine them to covid wards
gspr 5y ago
Those doctors and nurses are little more than saboteurs. Would you hire someone who would willingly increases their own risk of being unable to work by orders of magnitude for no actual gain? Note that this is not like not hiring someone who likes to go mountain biking and therefore are more likely to hurt themselves and not work. Hobbies like that have real benefits. Vaccine denial not.

enchiridion 5y ago

How about scale up the hospitals, or at least covid capacity in a meaningful way. How long does they public have to bear burden of insufficient health infra. EDIT: Sorry that might have come off a bit blunt. But the entire pandemic response has been frustratingly insufficient in my opinion. A variant like Omicron was long predicted and expected. How are we not prepared with a plan to end lockdowns? And blaming unvaccinated or anti-maskers is not a good answer. Modeling of acceptance should’ve been done. It’s not like these contrarian sentiments were surprising either. All together it feels like this response to omicron is a public health failure.

Spooky23 5y ago
The US is a public health failure. We didn’t want “socialized” medicine. So we got what we wanted, the best nurses are making $300/hr in COVID hotspots and leaving new grads and understaffed facilities in their wake.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  Feel free to name the country that isn't experiencing the exact same issues regarding COVID hotspots and understaffed facilities, "socialized medicine" or not.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Japan, Israel, South Korea, New Zealand come to mind. Honestly, it’s not very hard… the US went from the respected world leader to a public health carnival sideshow overnight. CDC is taking cues from places like South Africa and Israel now. It’s pathetic.
- enchiridion 5y ago
  This is not a productive viewpoint, it’s defeatist. How would socialized medicine help in this specific case? More power to the government? The government already has plenty of power to influence outcomes through spending. However, that power has been applied poorly. We need mass repeal of old government regulations and the appointing of technocrats (as in people concerned with low level details of regulations). Additionally we need new highly adversarial independent regulatory bodies to prevent capitalistic interests from causing market collapse. The current agencies are too in bed with industry, and it’s not beneficial to the public. Giving more power to the current government systems which rolled out this poor response seems like the wrong answer.

anm89 5y ago

As many others below have pointed out, there are a variety of reasons why this narrative is extremely flimsy. All ends do not justify all means, especially when the proven correlation between the ends and the means is often lacking or doesn't support the use of the means at all.

roenxi 5y ago

It has been nearly 2 years. Have they considered training a few people to handle respiratory diseases and bulking up the hospitals? Nursing is hard and takes years of training, but 2 years would have been long enough to teach people how to manage the average case of 1 disease. There have been a lot of people sitting around doing not much, they could probably use the work.

ThalesX 5y ago
There is also the argument for encouraging people to lead a healthier lifestyle. Even though it’s political suicide to tell people that they need to get in shape, two years of a push from the government would have had enough time to make a great impact on overall population health.