Do your own research

[Maryanne Solo]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:35 AM, Silent Mistwalker said:

They certainly won't ever forget you.

An "insiders" chuckle for you Silent.
The candidates generally end up forgetting to get their own scientific calculator, no matter how many reminders I give them, so I give them the latest one I have purchased. Generally a reasonably cheap Casio FX model.
Sometimes at the end of an (intense) class they *might remember "OMG its your calculator, sorry here it is" and I just laugh and say, "Here's the deal, you can keep it for your use here at this campus if you promise to do tons of revision of this/that and make sure to memorise this national standard etc etc". They say "sure wow thank you so much, yes I promise I will"
So a year or three rolls by and they pass their course/s.
The joke and part of "the deal" is, I scratch my signature on the back of it, along with my real life company name and date it, saying:
When I am world famous in a couple of years, you can show this to people and say "Oh yes we're very good friends. We completed this course together when I was just starting out!" and psst! you'll also be able sell it for a couple of hundred dollars.
Laugh laugh laugh and the rest of the class is like - OMG what are they giggling about THIS TIME lol. 😊
 

   
 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Akane Nacht said:

To be fair, India's numbers are only the ones reported.. which are unlikely to reflect what actually happened in areas with little or no medical services. Research on this is only as good as the raw data collected (if it's collected). A lot of developing/wide income disparity countries have people who don't officially exist and will not come forward for treatment or vaccine. We'll probably never know those numbers. 😟

Not to say it isn't terribly sad what is happening in the US. I truly hope more get vaccinated if they possibly can.

India’s reporting infrastructure is terrible, and likely underreports. They’re also unable to handle anywhere near the caseload the US can, so bodies pile up on the news at much lower death rates.

Few people are masking where I live, even in stores requiring them. It’s truly disheartening to see such willful ignorance, particularly from people most at risk.

 

[Luna Bliss]

15 hours ago, Mollymews said:

20 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

 Say there is one bed left in a hospital and you must choose between an unvaxxed person who caught Covid vs one who took the vaccine and is having a non-Covid emergency?  Which one would you allow to have that one remaining bed in the hospital?

the triage has always been that it is the person who has the most urgent need

to change triage to the person who brought or never brought the need on themselves is a very slippery slope

for example: pick between a person who chose to never take the vaccine and a person who is vaccinated but chose to smoke cigarettes. Both of them need the bed urgently

another example: pick between a person who has had the vaccine, doesn't smoke but has medical issues due to poor diet choices,  and a vaccinated smoker who has made good diet choices. Both need the bed urgently

this kind of choice moves triaging from medical needs to triaging morality, and I am not in favour of it

I wasn't advocating triaging morality via pointing out the missing perspective of the person with a NON-COVID EMERGENCY who might need the ICU bed -- I was trying to get Rose to consider the non-Covid emergency patient perspective too along with her fears surrounding the treatment of unvaxxed people -- by imagining having to make a choice between these 2 groups of people. But, it did not work -- just like the Unicorn unvaxxed person with cancer being denied treatment she believes is an issue, another unicorn was added via imagining there would never need to be a choice between the two needing care because she would place any excess patients in a hallway (but ICU beds are very specific with ventilators and such that don't exist in a hallway).

Anyway, to my point, once again I don't advocate triaging morality, but we do need to consider the perspective of the other side -- the person needing care for any number of medical issues (people both vaxxed and unvaxxed) who is denied because it's primarily the unvaxxed Covid patients clogging up the beds.
The unvaccinated are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than the vaccinated, the CDC reported earlier this month.

Those with non-Covid emergencies in need of ICU beds who can't get treatment have suffered and died, and will suffer and die even more as we get another winter surge of Covid. And they are suffering because far too many unvaxxed refuse vaccination and take up needed hospital space.

For example, according to this NPR article a man died after being turned away from 43 ICUs at capacity due to COVID.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/13/1036593269/coronavirus-alabama-43-icus-at-capacity-ray-demonia

Consider this war hero who died from gallstone pancreatitis because he could not get needed help due to hospitals filled to capacity:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-You-want-tyranny-A-war-hero-died-16419994.php

Although I'm not to the point of believing we should triage according to vaccination status I'm afraid after researching all the people who have been harmed and will continue to be harmed by the unvaxxed I'm liking the perspective of the following person more and more:

"Among the main things driving the militant anti-vax bloc is a fear and loathing of the big evils — big government, big pharma, big tech, big this, big that, big the other thing — all of which, the theory argues, act in concert to beguile, befuddle and bamboozle the gullible into being vaccinated.

The argument is people who’ve been vaccinated are just too lazy to find, too blind to see or too stupid to comprehend the awful truth right there on YouTube.

If people want to believe that, fine. But why do those same people show up at the hospital — a veritable temple to the big evils — demanding treatment when they begin suffering badly from COVID infection?

Why not stay home, out of big medicine’s clutches, and treat the infection with CBD oil or quartz crystals?

Personal rights are among the cornerstones of society, but they’re not unlimited. Nor do they supersede everything else.

One person’s rights end where they impede the rights of others.

That’s not a radical notion. It’s not even sophisticated. It’s trite. It’s middle-school civics.

We’re headed toward that collision of rights".

https://www.galvnews.com/opinion/editorials/free/article_218a58d6-9417-5731-ae60-c1010b819393.html

[Luna Bliss]

15 hours ago, Mollymews said:

the triage has always been that it is the person who has the most urgent need

 

14 hours ago, Mollymews said:

 

what is being introduced in some areas where there are shortages of beds is that the health providers can base their bed allocation on who is more likely to survive

two people have covid. One is vaccinated, the other isn't. It is determined that they both need an ICU bed. There is only one bed. The decision then is who of the two is more likely to survive

this is a complete reversal. The person least likely to survive is no longer seen as the person with the most need

I don't know where you're getting this. When medical triage is needed it has always been about who is deemed more likely to survive and whose life is supposedly more valuable -- it has never been about who is more needy. In most countries it's about ending up with only one dead person instead of two.

However, the determination is often left up to the person in charge, who can be biased. For example, take a look at discrimination against Blacks during triage decisions:
  https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-covid-triage-standards-worsen-racial.html

And issues with older people:
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/patriciagbarnes/2020/07/03/sentencing-older-covid-19-patients-to-death-by-triage/?sh=69c0aab1276b

When medical triage is needed we often place value on people's lives according to various standards -- all lives are not given equal value -- and these standards vary from country to country.

BTW, we already have a kind of triage via morality in the U.S. Health insurance is more expensive for those who smoke and those who are obese, and this makes health insurance unaffordable for some. Death is sometimes the result without the needed medical care insurance makes possible.

[Dakota Linden]

Greetings, All!

As this topic remains a pain point. We have chosen to close the thread.