The Vaccine

[Wake_Dude]

Crazy the amount of symptoms anyone can have with this!

Indeed! There is no rhyme or reason as to who/how this virus will strike. I have taken care of several patients with comorbidities out the ass sitting there on room air, then some with no medical history who had to bite the plastic. It's unlike any other respiratory virus in the way it behaves. IMO, researchers should be spending most of their attention toward finding out why it affects certain people more harshly, and which characteristics/traits to screen for. I've also got news for some of you. The vaccine is not a 100% guarantee you won't end up in the ICU. Several prior vaccinated on the vent as we speak, and more and more admitted who have been vaccinated. If I could legally post our latest census, along with prior vaccination status, some of you would shit your pants. Just sayin......

 

[Julian]

Indeed! There is no rhyme or reason as to who/how this virus will strike. I have taken care of several patients with comorbidities out the ass sitting there on room air, then some with no medical history who had to bite the plastic. It's unlike any other respiratory virus in the way it behaves. IMO, researchers should be spending most of their attention toward finding out why it affects certain people more harshly, and which characteristics/traits to screen for. I've also got news for some of you. The vaccine is not a 100% guarantee you won't end up in the ICU. Several prior vaccinated on the vent as we speak, and more and more admitted who have been vaccinated. If I could legally post our latest census, along with prior vaccination status, some of you would shit your pants. Just sayin......

Which is why they are recommending booster shots. Many hospitals are saying that 90ish percent of their covid admissions are unvaccinated, which means 10% are vaccinated. I've seen that number as high as 17%.

 

[tabbibus]

Which is why they are recommending booster shots. Many hospitals are saying that 90ish percent of their covid admissions are unvaccinated, which means 10% are vaccinated. I've seen that number as high as 17%.

I mentioned that before. 2 of 20 at the start of last week. 10%. Now it's lower because same 2 still there but more unvaxxed. I'm ready for my booster

 

[Wake_Dude]

Which is why they are recommending booster shots. Many hospitals are saying that 90ish percent of their covid admissions are unvaccinated, which means 10% are vaccinated. I've seen that number as high as 17%.

I see these stats all over the news articles; however, my observations tell a different story. Granted, I can only believe what I see and hear, as well as reports from nurse buddies all over the Eastern US (prior travel nurse). Not doubting your numbers though; it would be idiotic to think certain areas of the US couldn't produce different statistics.

Interesting (and very sad) story in the way it can affect certain individuals and not others. Personally know of a family (2 parents, 3 young children) and the Mother's parents that all contracted Covid. Both parents in their late 30's. Grandparents pushing ~60. Grandparents have multiple comorbidities and ended up having mild symptoms. The mother is in the ICU waiting on an ECMO machine, the father is also in ICU on a vent. Neither of the young parents have any real medical history. Both parents vaccinated approximately 4 months ago. Not sure on vax status for the grandparents. All the kids are fine. Extremely puzzling to say the least.....

 

[Wake_Dude]

This is what I have to say to Covid. So tired of this shit. Greetings from the MICU.

 

[Bruce]

This publication tells the history of mRNA vaccination development well.

Lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery - Nature Reviews Materials

Lipid nanoparticle–mRNA formulations have entered the clinic as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, marking an important milestone for mRNA therapeutics. This Review discusses lipid nanoparticle design for mRNA delivery, highlighting key points for clinical translation and...

www.nature.com

 

[BigN8]

Whelp, it didn't take long for my company to throw down the hammer. Just got an email saying that by Nov. 1 all customer facing employees will be required to be fully vaccinated and verified. And commencing Aug. 30 thru Oct 31, if you have not complied with this new policy you will be required to submit to twice weekly Covid testing.

 

[swatski]

Whelp, it didn't take long for my company to throw down the hammer. Just got an email saying that by Nov. 1 all customer facing employees will be required to be fully vaccinated and verified. And commencing Aug. 30 thru Oct 31, if you have not complied with this new policy you will be required to submit to twice weekly Covid testing.

Same here. We were not given any firm deadlines yet, just a general statement. Most of my colleagues believe this's (long) overdue.

My prior employer, a large "teaching hospital", has had mandatory vaccinations in place for things like seasonal flu for years, so I guess I'm used to it.

I was very surprised my current employer, a large clinical diagnostics reference lab, has not had any of those mandatory requirements in place, until now. Ironically, we are the third largest COIVD PCR testing lab in the nation, including all major league sports. They process thousands of specimen, daily, in my building - collected from all over the country.

--

 

[swatski]

I see these stats all over the news articles; however, my observations tell a different story. Granted, I can only believe what I see and hear, as well as reports from nurse buddies all over the Eastern US (prior travel nurse). Not doubting your numbers though; it would be idiotic to think certain areas of the US couldn't produce different statistics.

Interesting (and very sad) story in the way it can affect certain individuals and not others. Personally know of a family (2 parents, 3 young children) and the Mother's parents that all contracted Covid. Both parents in their late 30's. Grandparents pushing ~60. Grandparents have multiple comorbidities and ended up having mild symptoms. The mother is in the ICU waiting on an ECMO machine, the father is also in ICU on a vent. Neither of the young parents have any real medical history. Both parents vaccinated approximately 4 months ago. Not sure on vax status for the grandparents. All the kids are fine. Extremely puzzling to say the least.....

We all like to hear those anecdotes, thanks for sharing yours. I shared some of mine.

CDC has all/most of the data, while anything we can observe around us is just a little snippet which is subject to a potentially enormous sampling error.

--

 

[Julian]

Here is data that the NYT gathered on breakthrough cases in comparison to total cases (for 40 states) (sorry about the black bar-couldn't grab it on one screen) (from August 10th article)



Pretty compelling data since the highest percent is 4.7% of hospitalizations are for vaccinated people. The concern is that these numbers may be increasing, but the problem is that gathering this data is hard. Booster shots are being recommended due to this sort of data - showing that the numbers are creeping up as the vaccine efficacy wanes over time.

The article has more details on the challenges.

 

[Bruce]

Interesting (and very sad) story in the way it can affect certain individuals and not others. Personally know of a family (2 parents, 3 young children) and the Mother's parents that all contracted Covid. Both parents in their late 30's. Grandparents pushing ~60. Grandparents have multiple comorbidities and ended up having mild symptoms. The mother is in the ICU waiting on an ECMO machine, the father is also in ICU on a vent. Neither of the young parents have any real medical history. Both parents vaccinated approximately 4 months ago. Not sure on vax status for the grandparents. All the kids are fine. Extremely puzzling to say the least.....

My thinking is that you primarily have four groups of patients;

1. Beats the virus before harmful lung infection. Those with the strongest immune systems or responsive to vaccination who received reasonable to low levels of viral load.

2. Possibly long milder illness. Those whose immune systems are sufficiently weakened that they do not mount a sufficient response to cause severe lung injury or blood clotting.

3. Severe but delayed immune response. Those whose immune system does not mount a defense until the lungs are well involved then attacks so strongly that significant lung damage occurs.

4. Rapid onset of severe illness. Those who received a larger viral load overwhelming the immune system, even when vaccinated.

My thinking is from reading journals and limited anecdotal information.

My guess is that the grandparents fell into #2 and the parents into 3 or 4. The parents may have received an overwhelming load of virus while caring for the grandparents, children or each other.

I hope that both will survive and recover fully. I started to write "I hope that an ECMO will become available" but realized that likely would occur due to a bad outcome for another patient.

 

[tabbibus]

Anecdotally I've seen that viral load during exposure plays an important role in severity of disease.

 

[Bizywk]

Good discussion guys! Glad to see that in this forum strongly felt, and often highly politicized differing beliefs can be openly discussed in a respectful and civil manner.

 

[fatboyroy]

75 Doctors from Florida Hospitals Walk Out in Protest of Unvaccinated Patients: 'We Are Exhausted' (yahoo.com) uh oh Florida in trouble

 

[Bizywk]

75 Doctors from Florida Hospitals Walk Out in Protest of Unvaccinated Patients: 'We Are Exhausted' (yahoo.com) uh oh Florida in trouble

Skilled Doctors, Nurses and other medical professionals are being fired all over the country after refusing to be bullied into taking the vaccine. Then after firing the same staff they've lauded as heroes over the last 2 years, the hospitals are crying for federal help due to their self-imposed understaffing crisis. The problem is only going to get bigger since many of the hospitals, including my daughter's employer, have mandated upcoming zero tolerance dates.

Massive Nurse Shortage Hits Houston—Weeks After 150 Unvaccinated Nurses and Hospital Workers Fired | Jon Miltimore

Houston Methodist hospital, which in June fired roughly 150 nurses, is one of several Houston hospitals experiencing a severe shortage of medical personnel. “Please send help now," said one ICU medical officer at a nearby hospital.

fee.org

Nurses fired for not getting COVID-19 vaccine explain their rationale

More than 100 staff members at Houston Methodist Hospital who were fired for refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19 appealed a judge’s ruling that sided with the hospital’s right to terminate their employment. The group now believes their fight will make it to the Supreme Court.

news.yahoo.com

More than 150 Houston hospital workers fired or quit after refusing COVID-19 vaccine

Hospitals run low on nurses as they get swamped with COVID

Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oregon all have more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic and nursing staffs are badly strained.

nypost.com

Yesterday's heroes in coronavirus battle dismissed by text message

More than 100 nurses hired in Zacatecas last year to treat Covid patients during the pandemic's first peak were abruptly fired last week.

mexiconewsdaily.com

Hospital CEO wonders where all the nurses went after he fired them for not getting jab • Genesius Times

EDGEWOOD, TX—St. Luke’s Hospital CEO Jimmy Onenutt is wondering where all the nurses went after...

genesiustimes.com

 

[Julian]

Skilled Doctors, Nurses and other medical professionals are being fired all over the country after refusing to be bullied into taking the vaccine. Then after firing the same staff they've lauded as heroes over the last 2 years, the hospitals are crying for federal help due to their self-imposed understaffing crisis. The problem is only going to get bigger since many of the hospitals, including my daughter's employer, have mandated upcoming zero tolerance dates.

Massive Nurse Shortage Hits Houston—Weeks After 150 Unvaccinated Nurses and Hospital Workers Fired | Jon Miltimore

Houston Methodist hospital, which in June fired roughly 150 nurses, is one of several Houston hospitals experiencing a severe shortage of medical personnel. “Please send help now," said one ICU medical officer at a nearby hospital.

fee.org

Nurses fired for not getting COVID-19 vaccine explain their rationale

More than 100 staff members at Houston Methodist Hospital who were fired for refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19 appealed a judge’s ruling that sided with the hospital’s right to terminate their employment. The group now believes their fight will make it to the Supreme Court.

news.yahoo.com

More than 150 Houston hospital workers fired or quit after refusing COVID-19 vaccine

Hospitals run low on nurses as they get swamped with COVID

Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oregon all have more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic and nursing staffs are badly strained.

nypost.com

Yesterday's heroes in coronavirus battle dismissed by text message

More than 100 nurses hired in Zacatecas last year to treat Covid patients during the pandemic's first peak were abruptly fired last week.

mexiconewsdaily.com

Hospital CEO wonders where all the nurses went after he fired them for not getting jab • Genesius Times

EDGEWOOD, TX—St. Luke’s Hospital CEO Jimmy Onenutt is wondering where all the nurses went after...

genesiustimes.com

It is indeed an interesting challenge. Hospitals have been struggling with staffing shortages for years. Many (no idea what percentage) requires staff to have flu vaccines. I wouldn't want to be in a hospital where a significant percentage of the staff wasn't vaccinated (unless I was being treated for covid-so then it would matter less). It was a question I asked while looking at nursing homes for my Dad "are all the staff required to be vaccinated".

The flip side of this is that we know that you can still carry covid even when vaccinated. So why push it? The theory (unproven) is that the amount of virus produced by Delta breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people goes down faster than infections in unvaccinated people. This means fully vaccinated people are likely infectious for less time than unvaccinated people.

This is certainly a flash point controversy for sure. My company (I work in healthcare) has mandated vaccines. I think its the right thing to do as the data I posted above shows- you are far less likely to get sick, be hospitalized and die if you are vaccinated. Which means the hospitals are:

1. far less likely to LOSE critical staff to Covid if they are vaccinated
2. less likely to have staff transmit Covid to patients (because they'll have it less time and contract it less often)
3. practice what they are preaching - hard to tell patients to get vaccinated if you aren't yourself.

 

[tabbibus]

One thing to ponder is why over 90% of docs are vaccinated and why only 50% of nurses are.

 

[Evil Sports]

Not sure why booster is going to change this current break through situation, doing more of the same and expecting a different result?

 

[Crob83]

Whelp, it didn't take long for my company to throw down the hammer. Just got an email saying that by Nov. 1 all customer facing employees will be required to be fully vaccinated and verified. And commencing Aug. 30 thru Oct 31, if you have not complied with this new policy you will be required to submit to twice weekly Covid testing.

Same here. Nov 15th must be fully vaccinated or seperated from the company

 

[Bruce]

Not sure why booster is going to change this current break through situation, doing more of the same and expecting a different result?

Breakthrough infections happen when either there is a low antibody response or a high viral load is transmitted.

Boosters increase the antibody response. Masks reduce the viral load.

This publication from Isreal compares antibody response in medical workers with and without recognized breakthrough infections.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072