Jax and Coronavirus

[BridgeTroll]

Great debate question Steve because there is no consensus or right answer. First sentence refers to "we".  I  know what I am trying to prevent and I'm sure every individual has a good idea of what they are trying to prevent but after that things diverge quickly... businesses are just trying to stay open, hospitals are trying to not be overwhelmed, teachers want to instruct effectively without infection, government wants to keep everyone safe, tourists want to travel... the list goes on.

Common sense says, inoculate, mask and distance but complying with some of those things interfere with some of the activities and attitudes listed above... remote learning as a stopgap was Ok but isnt a solution.  Businesses cannot be mask/jab police, and relaxing quarantine time to accomodate "vital services" puts health care and others at risk. 

I  don't know the answer to any of these but I will protect myself and family...

[jaxoNOLE]

Aside from the disproportionately amplified political partisans, I think most of us -- experts and laypeople alike -- are struggling with the uncertainty. We have decades of data to baseline the flu and other viruses against; when 30k+ people have severe complications from flu annually for decades, we're used to it.

Maybe the next COVID variant is highly transmissible and even milder than omicron. Maybe it degrades and fails to effectively propagate. Maybe it gets even more severe and kills more people than any earlier variant. People smarter than me may even know the probabilities around these outcomes, but with only 2 years of experience handling this virus, I think current guidelines and policies skew more aggressive to hedge against the uncertainty of what has so far been a volatile range of observations in outcomes associated with this virus.

[tufsu1]

I have mentioned this before, but encourage people to follow www.covidestim.org
Their modeling was pretty spot on for how Delta spread and then receded throughout the country. 

It now shows that virus spread has pretty much stopped in Miami - primarily because so many there got it. Her in Jax, the replication factor just dropped below 1, which means the virus is starting to recede. If you look at the maps of Florida this week compared with two weeks ago, things are clearly improving. Of course hospitalizations lag, so we likely won't see a decline there for several more weeks.

[Steve]

I think this time hospitalizations will recede a lot faster than in other spikes, as there's a MUCH higher percentage of being hospitalized WITH Covid vs. FOR Covid.

[MusicMan]

If Insurance companies would stop covering hospital stays for unvaccinated people what effect would that have? 

[acme54321]

If Insurance companies would stop covering hospital stays for unvaccinated people what effect would that have?

Nothing.

[Steve]

Debt for the Hospital.

Most hospitals won't turn a sick patient away, regardless of what happened. I mean, that goes down a path: suppose a patient OD'ed on an illegal drug; the hospital is going to do their best to save the person regardless of payment ability.

[acme54321]

Debt for the Hospital.

Most hospitals won't turn a sick patient away, regardless of what happened. I mean, that goes down a path: suppose a patient OD'ed on an illegal drug; the hospital is going to do their best to save the person regardless of payment ability.

Exactly, these people wouldn't all the sudden go out an get a vaccine.  They already think it's not a big deal.  They'd just get COVID and show up at the hospital without insurance.  Sort the rest out later.

[jaxlongtimer]

DeSantis really amp-ing it up.  Railing against even his conservative Supreme Court justices.  He's not happy with the court's split decision that still allows a vaccine mandate for health workers.  While he is worried about the near 1% of them refusing vaccines he has no concern for the near 99% that got the vaccines, most of which want the mandates along with their patients.  You got to wonder how he thinks this builds his base.

Gov. Ron DeSantis offered a mixed review of the Supreme Court's two decisions regarding vaccine mandates Friday, questioning the judgment of two GOP-appointed justices in the process.

He noted the decision to uphold a challenge to Occupational Health and Safety Administration private business vaccine-or-test mandates was a "no brainer," but said Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh failed to show "backbone" in their decision to keep a mandate in place for health care workers.

The Governor made the comments on the right-of-center Ruthless Podcast.

"We won 6-3 on that, which is good, but honestly, this a no brainer. Anybody who's not a far-left jurist is going to go that way. But on the medical, the nurse mandate and the doctor mandate, Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the liberals to allow the nurse mandate," DeSantis said, to boos.

"Here's what's going on. Think about how insane this is. Now in Florida, we protected the nurses, so we have people who are working. But in other states, they fired nurses who were not vaccinated. Many of them have natural immunity from prior infection. So they fire them. Now they're so shorthanded, they're bringing back nurses who are COVID positive," DeSantis said.

Florida will "enforce its protections" for medical staff — developed in 2021's Special Session — DeSantis said, before closing with a slam of Roberts and Kavanaugh again.

"Honestly, Roberts and Kavanaugh didn't have a backbone on that decision. That's the bottom line," DeSantis said on the ruling on health care workers.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/486763-gov-desantis-questions-backbone-of-john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-after-justices-uphold-health-care-vax-mandate/

The state Attorney General Ashley Moody piles on and adds a refrain railing against Federal efforts that "obliterate the separation of powers."  Really?  How about her governor who is running rough shod over local community governments and boards, dissenters, the media, educators, etc. without any regard to limiting his powers?  Is anyone paying attention to the latest effort to effectively block local ordinances if even one party is negatively effected, basically gutting local government?

DeSantis' interview was released shortly after a television interview with Attorney General Ashley Moody, who lauded the court decision on the private employer mandate and suggested more of these fights are coming between the state and the Joe Biden administration.

"This isn't the end," Moody warned. "You're going to see more mandates, more attempts by this administration to encroach upon states, to obliterate the separation of powers. And in order to have a free society, a true democracy, you have to have people willing to fight and stand up, and we'll continue to do that."

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/486763-gov-desantis-questions-backbone-of-john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-after-justices-uphold-health-care-vax-mandate/

[MusicMan]

"They'd just get COVID and show up at the hospital without insurance.  Sort the rest out later."

"Most hospitals won't turn a sick patient away, regardless of what happened. I mean, that goes down a path: suppose a patient OD'ed on an illegal drug; the hospital is going to do their best to save the person regardless of payment ability"

Makes you wonder why anyone at all pays for health insurance. 

[tufsu1]

Seriously - this crap DeSantis spews about natural immunity. How many of us know people that have caught COVID more than once?

[Tacachale]

Seriously - this crap DeSantis spews about natural immunity. How many of us know people that have caught COVID more than once?

Good point. I do.

[BridgeTroll]

Just ordered my 4 (free) Covid tests... covidtest.gov

Very easy...

[BridgeTroll]

A little piece of time travel. This PBS documentary chronicles the earliest days of the pandemic and plainly and painfully illustrates China's direct contribution to MILLIONS of deaths worldwide.

Watch this... you will be shaking your head...

https://www.pbs.org/video/chinas-covid-secrets-fvxx8y/

[Lunican]

Genuine question here-what exactly are we trying to prevent here (aside from those who do not have funny functioning immune systems): Assuming you're healthy and vaccinated, the hospitalization rate for Covid is like 5 per 100k people. Flu is between 40 and 60 per 100k (CDC numbers on both).

The whole, "zero Covid" thing isn't going to happen since vaccines -while dramatically improving symptoms - don't seem to be doing much to limit spread.

Personally I just think we're all delaying the inevitable with all of this.

I certainly am not a doctor and I have been wrong on many things in life so this could be one of them, but shouldn't we be targeting public health policy to those that do not have fully functioning immune systems?

I think we are still trying to prevent healthcare collapse. Since there are so many unvaccinated people, masks are still recommended for everyone. With 100% vaccination I think the public policy for masking and other mitigation would be different.