Apparently I missed something, but the family wanted us to work this guy up for reversible signs of infection because he was confused and had a fever. Part of that workup includes a COVID test. Initially the plan was to admit him for a few days for IV antibiotics for a nasty UTI he had, but after he was ripping out his IVs his family decided it would be best to go back to his facility and get some antibiotics by mouth.
This guy will probably die, and that’s fine. People die, and this man decided a long time ago with his son to die on his own terms. He gets to leave the hospital because I greatly respect people’s wishes on how and when they want to die, especially when they’re 94 and their choice is whether or not to spend their last days in a hospital.
If MAGA refuses to get vaccinated, will that make the virus mutate and screw everyone over? Or are we gonna be able to laugh at these morons dying to own the libs?
Covid seems to mutate (relatively) slowly, but, yeah, the more chances a virus gets to interact with different hosts, the more it will probably mutate.
Also
A) Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, so those who are not vaccinated will harm people who got the shot but didn’t have a robust immune response. More Covid circulating in the community means those people in the second group are more likely to contract it.
B) My understanding is that there are legitimate medical reasons why some people can’t take vaccines, so those people are similarly impacted by greater community spread.
C) If so many anti-vaxxers continue to get sick that hospital resources are constrained, that impacts care for other conditions.
Hey while we are doom and gloom, how about a reminder that Mother Nature has more viruses just waiting to mutate to transmit effectively person to person.
I heard Dr Sanjay Gupta say yesterday that it will take about 70% of the population to get vaccinated (as opposed to like 95% for measles) for herd immunity to work. So it seems possible. I don’t think 30% of this country are anti-vaxxer’s, right? Right…?
The 70% would have to be distributed rather evenly. With an R0 of around three (without any mitigation strategies at all), the virus would not find enough host to keep on infecting new hosts.
Unfortunately Covid-hoaxers and general anti-vaxxers will mostly cluster geographically and socially, so I think you will still have virus spread at vaccination levels where you should not see them based on epidemiological considerations only.
I think all of us are kinda depressed right now. I think it just hit me this week that we’ve said all along while it was warm out… “Winter’s gonna suck… Winter’s gonna suck…” I think personally all I can do is continue to be thankful for everything I have and survive the next few months.
Sometimes as humans we have to ebb and flow between surviving and thriving. There are patches where we have to put in the hard work, have to do the unpleasant things to keep ourselves healthy and fed so that we can enjoy the better times. It’s a huge depressing feeling when literally all of us are in survival mode at the exact same time but that’s all we can do right now. Be there for your loved ones in any capacity you can, find whatever you can keep your mind focused on to get through these next 3 months until sunlight and warmer weather come back.
