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I was going to host a party outside in my lanai this evening. Incredibly, every single invitee (all fully vaccinated) had to cancel for a Covid-related reasons — spouse feeling ill, waiting for Covid test result; close friend suddenly sick with severe Covid and being hospitalized; daughter exposed at school and now feeling sick — whole family going to get tested etc., etc. Wow! The numbers seem to showing this is plateauing, but I am wondering if that is the case, or if my freinds just had really bad luck.
I was going to host a party outside in my lanai this evening. Incredibly, every single invitee (all fully vaccinated) had to cancel for a Covid-related reasons — spouse feeling ill, waiting for Covid test result; close friend suddenly sick with severe Covid and being hospitalized; daughter exposed at school and now feeling sick — whole family going to get tested etc., etc. Wow! The numbers seem to showing this is plateauing, but I am wondering if that is the case, or if my freinds just had really bad luck.
Jill, back in May the political talking heads at CDC aggressively advised everyone to indulge in risky behavior and you know the reasons why.
So what did people do? They indulged in risky behavior.
The mitigative shots are designed to enhance the protective affects of other common-sense preventive behaviors, not as a green light to indulge in risky behavior.
Now it's a bonanza for those producing the mitigative shots, for at least another year or two, to the tune of hundreds of billions a year, nearly rivaling military spending.
As with everything else, like don't drink and drive, use the mitigative shots wisely.
Exactly what I've been saying all along. If you've had covid, you do not need the vaccine! My Doctor even agrees. I had a recent antibody test and 9 months after having covid I am showing a strong SARS-Cov-2 Antibody count.
DeSantis' anti-scientific, incompetent epidemic policies cause great suffering in Florida relative to other states. Despite the availability of both vaccines and antibody infusions, Florida residents are dying of COVID infections at record rates.
<<But then came the hypercontagious Delta variant, which continues to hit Florida harder than anywhere else in the country.
The result? DeSantis just added another, less flattering distinction to his résumé. When COVID first surged across the Sun Belt last summer, the average number of Floridians dying of the disease every 24 hours peaked at 185, according to the New York Times’s state-by-state COVID database. The same was true over the winter.
A few days ago, however, Florida’s daily death rate cleared 200 for the first time, and today it stands at 228 — an all-time high.
This makes DeSantis the first (and so far only) governor in the U.S. whose state is now recording more COVID-19 deaths each day — long after free, safe and effective vaccines became widely available to all Americans age 12 or older — than during any previous wave of the virus.>>
Unlike other media articles and discussions, and policy pronouncements, this article doesn't even mention COVID sequelae, which DeSantis likely has inflicted unnecessarily on additional hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Floridians.
A national map in the article demonstrates vividly why the DeSantis Department of Health likely doesn't report COVID hospitalizations to its citizens (see post 335 in this thread). Based on U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data, the map shows that Florida is the only state with more than 70 COVID in-patient hospitals beds used per 100,000 residents on a 7-day average. Nevada, Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia are between 50-70 beds. Forty states are below 20, with a large majority of those below 10!!!
This article contrasts Florida's epidemic experience with that of California, where masking and a greater social caution about COVID appears to have spared CA the record-shattering Delta surge now underway in FL.
<<Last summer, COVID surged in both Florida and California, just as it did across much of the rest of the Southern and Southwestern United States. California fared better. There, new daily cases peaked at 25 per every 100,000 residents; total hospitalizations peaked at 23 per every 100,000 residents; and new daily deaths peaked at 0.35 per every 100,000 residents.
In Florida, those numbers were more than twice as bad: 55 cases/100,000 residents, 56 hospitalizations/100,000 residents and 0.86 deaths/100,000 residents.>>
During the current surge, California is doing much better, and Florida much worse, DESPITE THE AVAILABILITY NOW OF VACCINES AND ANTIBODY INFUSIONS.
<<In California, the current new daily rate case is somewhat higher (35 cases/100,000) than it was during its summer 2020 peak — in part because California is now conducting twice as many tests per day (about 250,000). Yet despite that, and despite the fact that Delta is twice as transmissible as the initial strain of SARS-CoV-2 that was circulating in 2020, current hospitalizations in California (21/100,000) are still lower than last summer’s peak — and deaths, the metric that matters most, remain twice as low (0.17/100,000).
That’s the kind of progress you’d expect after vaccination.
Florida is the opposite. There, new daily cases appear to have topped out at 138 per every 100,000 residents — more than two and a half times last summer’s peak. As a result, the state’s current hospitalization rate (80/100,000) is nearly one and a half times last summer’s peak; new daily deaths (1/100,000) are higher than ever. And they’re both still climbing.
In other words, Florida did roughly twice as badly as California last summer in terms of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. This summer, however, Florida is doing roughly four times worse in terms of cases and hospitalizations — and nearly six times worse in terms of deaths.>>
Capturing this for posterity for when the northern blue states get slammed this winter.
Also, you can’t compare FL & CA over just 1 season, as they are different climates. Wait out winter, then compare FL & CA again.
First Florida long COVID clinic packed, six-month wait list
Though hidden, long COVID is a reality in Florida. The "success" of the state's first long COVID clinic demonstrates the burden that long COVID will place on the state's health care system and insurance premiums. The plight of patients also has implications for work force size and productivity.
<<"It is really heartbreaking to see people who are 35 years old, or 27 years old," Haggerty said. "They can’t think to go to work. They can’t physically do their job, even if that job is a desk job.">>
<<Cyr is a nurse who has been living with long-hauler side effects for more than a year and has yet to get a spot in a long-COVID clinic like Haggerty’s.
“My cardiologist told me that COVID has aged me, my body 20 years. I never had a cardiologist, a pulmonologist and a neurologist before, and now I got all of them.”
The side effects of chronic fatigue, tremors and an unstable heartbeat are so severe, they affect Cyr’s most basic tasks. “People look at me, and they think I look like a healthy person. They have no idea what struggles I have going on inside.”>>
Capturing this for posterity for when the northern blue states get slammed this winter.
Also, you can’t compare FL & CA over just 1 season, as they are different climates. Wait out winter, then compare FL & CA again.
Your faulty assumption is that greater rates of vaccination and more stringent social distancing policies won't impact COVID cases, hospitalizations, deaths, let alone long COVID cases. As the article quoted in post 343 documents, Florida fared twice as worse than California in COVID statistics last summer, and is faring time 4-6 times worse than CA this summer. Florida is setting COVID records despite the vaccine roll-out. Last paragraph of post 343:
[b]<<In other words, Florida did roughly twice as badly as California last summer in terms of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. This summer, however, Florida is doing roughly four times worse in terms of cases and hospitalizations — and nearly six times worse in terms of deaths.>>
Unlike CA, FL HAS SEEN NO IMPROVEMENT in its COVID parameters this summer despite heavy vaccination rates through May. The Delta variant has overwhelmed Florida to a much greater degree than its impact on California.
Just some examples of why Florida is experiencing a massive Delta variant surge compared to other states:
<<And Florida is Florida: People have enjoyed many months of barhopping, party-going and traveling, all activities conducive to swift virus spread.
Unlike in places like Oregon, which is clamping down again, adopting even outdoor mask mandates, Mr. DeSantis continues to stay the course, hoping to power through despite the devastating human toll....
The situation in nursing homes, where infections can spread swiftly, has also been problematic. While vaccination rates among older Floridians as a whole have been good, the rate of nursing home residents who are fully vaccinated — an average of 73.1 percent in each home — is lower than every state but Nevada, according to the C.D.C. About 47.5 percent of nursing home staff members were fully vaccinated as of Aug. 15, the lowest of any state but Louisiana....
Fifty-six percent of people between the ages of 12 and 64 in Florida’s 10 largest counties are fully vaccinated, which is consistent with national figures. But in the rest of the state, that figure is only 43 percent, and in 27 counties, less than 1 in 3 residents in the age group is fully vaccinated....
There is some question as to whether Florida’s vaccination rates, especially in places like Miami and Orlando, might have been inflated by tourists getting shots. >>
CA compared to FL this winter likely will have much more stringent social distancing and masking policies, higher vaccination rates, and possibly a state-wide vaccination mandate law (depending upon the outcome of the recall election of its governor's recall election). CA likely will see a greater rate of third dose booster vaccination (roll-out by end of September) and vaccination rates among children less than 12 (emergency use vaccination expected by many by mid-October) than FL based on past history, given the heightened opposition to masking and vaccinations in Florida, greatly enabled if not promoted by DeSantis and other Florida Republicans.
So it's not unreasonable that CA's COVID statistical performance will exceed that of Florida this winter despite any negative impacts of climate.
Other states that do follow CA's lead in implementing more stringent masking, vaccination and social distancing policies may experience Delta variant surges as society moves back indoors as summer weather yields to cooler weather and winter, as noted in the above NY Times article.
With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likely still fighting against mask and vaccine mandates, Florida's COVID epidemic management likely may remain pitiful this winter in comparison to other states such as CA with much more proactive efforts to limit COVID transmission.
Contact tracing ineffective in Florida and much of U.S.
In the U.S., contact tracing of COVID infections essentially is non-existent. Florida, echoing its pathetically inadequate COVID health statistics disclosures, offers no transparency about its contact tracing efforts or capabilities.
<<Florida, where Covid has become a political buzzword, is another state where the tension is playing out. Broward County Mayor Steve Geller said he has asked about contact-tracing capabilities, including how many investigators the state Health Department has, but he said he is told only: “We're working on it. It's under control.” Contact-tracing data are not publicly available; Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis once told local reporters that contact tracing “has just not worked.”>>
Enforced, government-controlled quarantines to my knowledge exist nowhere in the U.S.
As I read the following article, which contrasts the anti-COVID diligence of Australians, I thought how disastrously poor our public health system has become due to inept and disingenuous politicians supported by the legions of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers that these politicians have indoctrinated to oppose life-saving, health preserving policies.
COVID patients in Australia can discuss their "line of contact," a term that I never see discussed in the U.S.
<<“We caught Covid from a line of contact,” Donna says. “We were in contact with a friend whose dad was in contact with his boss who was in contact with someone else positive with the virus.
“And people are still going to protests. They think they’re excluded from the effects of this thing. It is ****ed. Can you put that in capital letters?
“I am an 18-year-old kid. My body worked healthily as a body. Celebrating our friend’s birthday, within Covid guidelines, is all it took to put three 18-year-olds in quarantine, and me in hospital twice.>>
From very low levels of vaccination under 20 percent just weeks ago, Australia rapidly is vaccinating its population and may surpass the U.S. full vaccination rate sometime in October at current rates of new vaccinations in both countries.
<<But with vaccination rates now surging in New South Wales and the authorities predicting 70 per cent of adults there will be fully vaccinated by October, residents weary of prolonged restrictions have been promised some modest freedoms....
Nationally just 33.7 per cent of those eligible have been fully vaccinated, although in recent weeks Australia has been racing to inoculate its population. At current rates, 80 per cent could be vaccinated by mid-November. >>
The above article says that Australia's prime minister wants to eliminate lockdowns and border controls between Australian states when the national vaccination rate reaches 70 percent (apparently under the theory that Australia's robust public health measures then can control any infections), but Queensland and Western Australia may not agree. Both states, with about 40 percent of Australia's population, remain COVID free, which means no lockdowns and residents can live mask free with no worries of infection. No infection means not only no cases, no hospitalizations, and no death, but also no long COVID, no educational deficiencies, etc.
<<How Australia could become the world's most COVID-19 vaccinated country, with 90 per cent coverage>>
Only 15 percent of Australia's population are vaccine reluctant, according to this article.
<<"That number could drop if these are the people who were unsure about AstraZeneca, but were comfortable with moving forward with another option, then we may get some of those people across, because they talk about safety," she said.
Most of those would need to get vaccinated to reach the 90 per cent target, as she estimated the vaccine refuser population represented around 10 per cent.>>
In the U.S., vaccine refusal often is a political decision, likely higher in states with governors like Ron DeSantis who misrepresent prevailing medical science and oppose the most effective anti-COVID public health measures.
<<Counties with higher support for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election had higher hesitancy rates, and the difference in hesitancy between areas with high and low Trump support grew over the study period, the findings showed.
"This finding really highlights the politicization of public health recommendations," said study first author Wendy King, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Senior study author Robin Mejia said, "What's concerning is there is a subset of the population that's got strong levels of hesitancy, as in refusal to take the vaccine, not potential concern about it, and the size of that group isn't changing." Mejia is part of special faculty in Carnegie Mellon University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
<<Nearly 40% of Republicans are still hesitant about getting the Covid-19 vaccine or refuse to get it, a new Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)/Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) poll finds, though certain subsets of the GOP appear notably more likely to accept or refuse the shot based on their religion, media consumption and whether or not they believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory.>>
Actually, the overall willingness vaccine numbers for the U.S. and Australia don't seem much different. So why aren't U.S. vaccination rates soaring given ready vaccine availability here compared to Australia and much more dire infection, hospitalization and death rates???
<<71%. That’s the total percentage of poll respondents in the PRRI survey who said they’re either vaccinated or will get the shot as soon as possible, up from 58% in March. A further 15% are hesitant about the shot and say they’ll “wait and see how [it’s] working for others” or only get it if they have to (10% and 5%, respectively), while 13% of all respondents refuse to get vaccinated entirely.>>
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Thursday 8/26/2021 Update
