Showing posts with label Covid-19 pandemic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covid-19 pandemic. Show all posts

Monday, January 3, 2022

Omicron surges in U.S. While So. Africa Passes Peak

 

So. Africa was the first to discover the Omicron variant, then it rapidly traversed the world. It was first found in this country in California, in Dec. of 2021, and from there has spread across the nation. We are luckier (over Delta) with this new mutation which has milder effects. But it spreads like wildfire, with a new U.S. daily record set recently of over 580,000 cases in one day with at least 551,000 Omicron. At the end of Dec. 2021, there were 79,161 U.S. hospitalizations, 17,282 in ICU.

Compared to Delta peaking last July/August, with 7,000 hospitalizations then, and patients aged 50 and older who died or were admitted to intensive care “ it generally trended upward in the Delta period," according to the New York Times. Deseret News reports, "The death rate dropped from 29.1% with delta to 2.7% with omicron." I'm perfectly willing to go with the good news, but do you wonder after Delta's ugly impact, is there something we still don't know about Omicron?

Fareed Abdullah of the South African Medical Research Council told the New York Times...
“The speed with which the Omicron-driven fourth wave rose, peaked and then declined has been staggering. Peak in four weeks and precipitous decline in another two. This Omicron wave is over in the city of Tshwane. It was a flash flood more than a wave."
President Biden on the Omicron Variant: Vaccination and Boosters Offer High Level of Protection...

 


Even Abdullah doesn't sound completely sure about the So. African stats, and the virus' "precipitous" decline does sound unreasonable to me, a layperson. But it happened and the studying will go on just like it has since the 1918 flu pandemic, which has produced a vaccine that protects us today. So far the experts still insist a peak to Omicron will occur by January 15, of this year, but Dr. Fauci and other well-known virologists are telling us to continue to maintain Covid protocols.

It has been suggested that statistical data during the holidays could be distorted due to reduced testing so the next two weeks will be crucial in determining the immediate future of the coronavirus. Especially Omicron. Which means there is hope just over the horizon.

Monday, August 16, 2021

Republican killing machines: Gov. Ron DeSantis/Gov. Greg Abbott

 

The Republican death cult has smoothly extended its reach from a general attitude of callousness for the American people to actually proposing and legislating their deaths in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic. Moscow Mitch McConnell led this movement when during Barack Obama's administration, saying he could care less about America. All he wanted was to deny Obama a second administration. He didn't. But McConnell has gone on to continually attempt thwarting the Democratic agenda.

Then only recently Moscow Mitch did the same with President Joe Biden, followed by Kevin McCarthy's invitation to insurrectionists to join the Republican Party. As L. Davis Bond said in the Galveston County Daily News...

"These two men care nothing about America. They only care about getting elected, so they can take care of the rich and be rich and powerful themselves."

And there you have the basic purpose of the Republican Party, the above and to stay in power so they can stonewall or undo anything in the Democrats' a

genda. The GOP has no mission of its own, only to block the left at every turn. And this goal has become more obvious as Republican governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis and Texas' Greg Abbott have become killing machines to circumvent every move Joe Biden makes in his objective to control the deadly coronavirus.
 

I have done a series of posts documenting just how Abbott and DeSantis have attempted to literally destroy their states by blocking any precautions set up by the CDC, especially banning mask mandates and undermining vaccinations. All this when Texas has 3,322,528 cases, 54,385 deaths; Florida 2,875,150 cases, 40,528 deaths. Combined, there are over 6 million cases between the two, and Texas is number one in new cases and new deaths. Here are some of my posts...

Who should know more about addressing the coronavirus than the scientific community, which all Republicans seem to disregard with disdain: "More than 800 Florida physicians implore Gov. DeSantis to allow local school mask mandates."

Greg Abbott has mercilessly pushed his denial in Texas forcing one school superintendent to comment that she "can't do the one thing she wants to protect students." Further, "'I am frightened by what is coming': Texas officials scramble to staff hospitals as Covid-19 surge continues."

And here's one that takes the cake, DeSantis and Abbott screwing around with peoples' lives, especially the school children: "Abbott and DeSantis playing 'game of chicken' in balance between killing their constituents and owning the libs: columnist."

 Abbott at his very best putting his killing machine in motion: "Texas governor files legal challenge to end Dallas County mask mandate."

After the above, there should be no doubt that the Republican Party places


absolutely no value on the lives of American human beings. They can try and explain it away with any number of excuses, but it still comes down to their greed for power. But what is even more frightening is that a certain portion of American's agree with this lunacy, thus, why these political lunatics do what they do. The ringleaders are Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott but there are more.

President Biden has come on strong against those GOP governors that rally against masks and the vaccine telling them to act to save their constituents or "Get out of the way." If they don't, they may have no choice in 2022 and 2024.

Here are three of my recent blogs on the Covid-19 pandemic:

When it's too late for a vaccine...what?...UPDATE

Private health insurers/Medicare should deny anti-vaxxers coverage

Doctors' battle cry: “We can’t let COVID win.”


 

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Doctors' battle cry: “We can’t let COVID win.”

 

That was almost 18 months ago expressing a commitment to take "care of the infected and the critically ill when no one else would." And they did, when at times it looked as if everything was against them. This is the story of Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S., is an ICU physician and researcher at UCLA Health. She is also the medical director of the UCLA 3 Wishes Program so she understands dying patients. What she doesn't understand is the refusal of the unvaccinated. 

Dr. Neville recounts how it was and is on the frontlines...

"We reused N95 masks, carefully placing them in labeled brown paper bags in between shifts. We witnessed lonely deaths and held up iPads for families to say their heartbreaking goodbyes. We created elaborate backup schedules and neglected our personal lives. We stepped up during surges and when our colleagues fell ill."

But she and her fellow physicians stuck together to fight an enemy not seen since the flu epidemic of 2018. And there were deficiencies like personal protective equipment for the staff where some got sick, then some died, "more than 3,600 from COVID-19 in the first year." And during this period, most of the emphasis was on patient deaths, but the health care industry plodded along doing what they knew must be done to save Americans from this new deadly virus.

And because of the severity of the situation, it was necessary to quarantine ourselves in order to protect our loved ones...

"We counted the risk factors of our children, our elderly parents, our spouses, and came up with our own formulas to decide whether to come home at the end of the shift or hole up in a hotel room."

Vaccines were finally introduced across the U.S. and there was hope. Cases did take a sharp turn down giving workers a brief respite. But the Delta variant snuck in the back door with a sizable transmissibility that knocked the health care folks and their patients right out of their socks. The unvaccinated, led on by anti-vaxxers and a hoard of misinformation, had turned a large portion of the population against the vaccines to add to the problem. Dr. Neville became angry.

She's mad at those who refuse to get vaccinations. Most all of the vaccination

Dr. Thanh Neville
population is, and we are fast becoming tired of the anti-vaxxer excuses and whining about their freedom and how they are being persecuted. The doc is most angry over the misinformation with specifics on the virus that misleads people and jeopardizes their health. She attacks those not considered anti-vaxxers but resist the decision to get vaccinated...

"Although such individuals do not consider themselves anti-vaxxers, their inaction itself is a decision — a decision to not protect themselves or their families, to fill a precious ICU bed, to let new variants flourish, and to endanger the health care workers and immunosuppressed people around them. Their inaction is a decision to let this pandemic continue to rage."

Dr. Neville finishes with the following...

"I am at a loss to understand how anyone can look at these past months of the pandemic — more than 600,000 lives lost in the U.S. and more than 4 million worldwide — and not believe it’s real or take it seriously."

There is no doubt there is maximum agreement between all of us who are and have been vaccinated for months. In case you haven't checked recently, here are the latest USA figures on the coronavirus...

Coronavirus Cases: 36,951,577

Deaths: 634,998

Amen! 

Read Dr. Neville's article in full, here.

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