“If they’re sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, they are unvaccinated. That is the absolute common denominator amongst those patients,” he said. “I can see the regret on their face. You know, we ask them, because we want to know, are you vaccinated? And it’s very clear that a lot of them regret (not being vaccinated).”
$$$ BILLIONS being debited from Medicare to try and save these people.
Still think giving people a choice is a good thing? Absolutely doesn't work.
I overlooked the most important reason for everyone to get vaccinated, and that is variants arise in unvaccinated people, not vaccinated people. This is such an important vulnerability Fauci is talking about mandatory vaccination of the problematic segments of the population. As long as we have these uncooperative nobodies in significant numbers, we will have some variant or another circulating. They do have the freedom to pack up and leave the country permanently, but that's the extent of it. They can't stay here. CDC has come out and stated as much: unvaccinated people create the variants. I haven't found a hard study concluding this but I'm sure some are in progress.
Every infection counts. Anyone can create a new strain. The odds go up with more infections and more severe infections.
The numbers are presently low, but are headed back up of course. Some people can't understand the significance of first and second derivatives as indicated by their self admitted lack of understanding of math. By all appearances the US is following the UK in reducing efforts to prevent transmission of this disease at the exact time the delta variant is spreading through the population. The US was on a consistent downward slope (negative 1st derivative) even if that slope was lessening (positive 2nd derivative) resulting in an upward curve that has gone into an upward slope again.
The reality of the US situation is there is wide variations in vaccination rates and so much of the higher infection rates are in some areas with the national numbers diluted by the areas with smaller or no increase in infection rates.
We will see how it plays out, but I expect the numbers to continue to rise this summer as many individuals continue to disregard the issue and many states continue to relax restrictions (under the control loop theory of maintaining a non-zero infection rate). Then as we head into the fall, we will see numbers take off once again with a second holiday peak of both infections and deaths. Maybe by then there will be more who fear the disease more than they fear the vaccine, John Larkin aside.
So then the problem is Medicare. It was already obvious it doesn't "work" as in "function", because if it did then it wouldn't be necessary to go to ACA, etc. This only shows that it doesn't work because it is not compatible with freedom to make personal choices. Conservatives have been saying, since the dawn of progressivism, that it's not compatible with freedom. The left always responds as if they don't understand how that can be.
That's not a very realistic assertion. Mutations in viral replication are random events. Every new mutation survives on its own in competition with the environment. Given the hugely lower rate of infection and replication in the US and similar countries compared to the largely unvaccinated parts of the world there is no real selective pressure that is likely to create a vaccine resistant strain.
Then as Bill will happily explain in detail, the vaccines target proteins in the highly conserved portions of the spike required for the virus to attach to a human cell. So a vaccine resistant variant is not likely at all. What is potentially more likely is for variants to continue to evolve that are more infectious overcoming the minimal barriers to transmission many western countries mount as appears to be the case with the delta variant. In spite of wearing masks (to a greater or lesser degree in various regions) and distancing and even significant vaccination rates, the delta variant seems to be reproducing faster than a 1.0 rate.
I think we can still manage the delta variant if we can get people's heads screwed on straight. It's like any team effort. You can't win a tug of war if much of your team is not pulling or worse, pulling in the wrong direction. If variants develop that are even more infectious we may find the only thing that will prevent another major outbreak is higher vaccination rates, Rob Schneider aside.
I don't recall where you live, but I think you don't understand Medicare. You talk as if it was intended to provide healthcare for all when it doesn't. It is intended to provide healthcare for those above the working age of 65 and a few other smaller groups. So how does having the ACA mean Medicare "doesn't work"? Most people are covered by neither, rather their employer provides some portion of healthcare insurance premiums.
The rest of your remarks are the sort of unintelligible, disconnected comments I would expect from Ed Lee or one of the ultra-conservatives here.
Huh? Do you KNOW anyone on Medicare? Most folks are pretty happy with it. And, most providers begrudgingly accept the Medicare assignment -- because a fair bit of their "business" is in that population.
It also has a lower administrative overhead than PAID insurance.
Do you understand how Medicare works? Do you understand that it largely leaves your right to choose your provider unimpeded? (isn't that the "choice" that a PATIENT would be interested in?)
The other "private-public" partnership plans allow you to trade some of your choice for other benefits. But, you are under no obligation to make that tradeoff.
Apparently the *Right* has a funny idea of "freedom" -- given all of the above! (Yet you don't see any of them swearing off Medicare for themselves! Funny, that...)
Here's another BIG problem in U.S. "The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) told CNN in May that more than 250 public health officials had left their jobs since the pandemic started – many of them against their will, and others under pressure from people opposed to public health efforts to control the pandemic."
For the most part U.S. has no leadership, just self-serving space-takers hogging leadership positions. As usual, southern states are especially bad.
It's the big urban centers and environment in those places. Most of NJ cases have to be acquired in NYC metro I would assume. As you get out into suburbs and countryside, it should be no worse than anyplace else. Central and eastern Massachusetts is always a disaster.
From day one rather than the daily or weekly figure to indicate what is happening now.
As someone has pointed out, Larkin is not illiterate. Clearly however, he reads what he wants to read when exercising that ability. Or maybe more accurately, he thinks what he feels. Rather than using logic, he feels what he wants the result to be and then finds the way to manipulate the information to prove his point.
I can't say the rise in infections the last few weeks are being driven by the less vaccinated states all by themselves. Some states with higher vaccination rates are also seeing upturns in infection rates. But there is a clear correlation. I believe it was in this ABC web page where I saw a chart of the various US states vaccination rates and the spread of the delta variant. I am blocked from viewing it now so maybe someone else can find the graph. The data was a bit scattered, especially at the low end of vaccinations, but I seem to recall the end of the graph that was high vaccination rates only showed low infection rates.
formatting link
There is a clear correlation to the data. What concerns me is the data is from 5/9/2021!!! That's rather out of date at this point. I expect the correlation is much more pronounced with current data. Consider Oregon which is shown in the chart as having a 4 week growth rate of over 40% because they had just crested a wave. Now the state is at a -25% point over 4 weeks although the recent week or so is showing a small increase. In this graph Missouri is shown with a -60% 4 week change in infections while it now has more than doubled from 4 weeks ago!
The chickens are coming home to roost. I'd much rather see more people get the vaccine and stop all variants in their tracks. There's no reason to allow a new fall wave (or summer wave for that matter) to kill many thousands again. All we have to do is get our heads out of our asses and get vaccinated.
Why would you assume anything when you don't know anything about it??? NJ has lots of people who don't ride the NYC subway or buses or even live near the city. Right now NJ is seeing less than 300 cases per day with a population of almost 9 million. Missouri has around 1,200 per day with a population of just 6 million.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.