(01-15-2022, 08:48 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: [ -> ]Oh Jesus christ this is ignorant.
Again, I don't know why you aren't hearing this. We've had multiple code red paramedic situations in the region in the past week. This means if you call 911 and say "I'm dying please help"...they might as well send a hearse.
Healthy people need healthcare too. And this magic idea that we can somehow segregate the vulnerable parts of society (and never mind that isolation might harm them too) has never and can never work. Just because you want a unicorn doesn't mean they exist...those "muscle freak gym bros" are at the same gym as the nurse who takes care of my grandmother.
If seasonal influenza hospitalized 1% of people who get it and had an R value in 3-6 range, you better fucking believe we'd be more worried about it.
Can we do better, absolutely, but this idea that we can just do what we did before and it'll be fine so long as we somehow make the vulnerable people go sit alone in their rooms for the rest of their lives is magical thinking.
Honestly, I'm done with this pandemic, but I'm especially done with the bad takes I've been hearing for 2 friggin years.
Lol...
Not sure what you mean by Code Red? In health care that refers to a fire.
But anyway, I'll unpack. Paramedics are getting overwhelmed is mostly due to the problems with how we distribute paramedic services and due to our shitty health care system, which is an entirely different problem. It's not because people are dropping dead in the middle of the street because of Covid-19. It's because people call paramedics for nonsense or because they are getting sick due to not having the same protections as other EMS staff so they're working on a skeleton crew.
Next. If the healthy need to be protected against a small, miniscule minority of unvaccinated people...then something went wrong somewhere along the line. If you wish to cower in fear because someone gets too close to you in Zehrs, that's your problem, but I went ahead and got vaccinated because I have tried to understand the scientific mechanisms of them and trust that they'll protect me. That's what has allowed me to return to travelling, going to night clubs, seeing friends, eating out within reason. 2 years in and I have not once caught this thing despite doing the opposite of hiding in my house all day - hell, I have even dusted off my old resume in 2020 to work in long term care, despite being a practicing architect with a Doctorate degree. I saw the problems and wanted to help. Thankfully we handled it okay. For those people out there that can't or won't get it, then I think it's time for them to stay home. I spent 2 years doing that for them, now it's their turn. Don't hold the rest of us hostage.
Next. The R-naught of SARS-CoV-2 in Waterloo Region is actually 0.9, so please don't make BS numbers up to fear monger. It hit a high of 1.9 in late December - which is still much lower than any previous spikes - but has continued to fall into an abyss. The University of Waterloo data on wastewater surveillance - which provides very solid data on infections well before PCR or antigen testing does - is already suggesting we've plateaued with this wave so the R-naught should continue to drop even lower and thus so should hospitalizations.
Hospitals are coping okay, though they are getting stressed but much of that is due to staff being temporarily let go, getting infected or being redeployed to other units. But the good news is that there are only 12 people in the ICU (in a region of 620'000+! That's 12 people spread across 3 intensive care units...in other words, basically nothing). 106 in total are hospitalized, but that is spread amongst 4 hospitals and not all of those cases are severe. In fact, many are just patients or staff who happened to catch it due to being in a specific unit - mental health, surgery, medicine etc. Yet they are doing fine...I have 3 family members who work in health care and get pretty good anecdotal information about what goes on. There's no hallway medicine, no triaging, there are rarely deaths etc. The issues we are seeing is very much a result of political impacts on the Canadian health care system, not the virus.
In contrast to LTC/hospital/shelter outbreaks, community spread is bad, but again - plateauing in so far as we can determine. This is all just more proof we need to be better protecting those sort of environments and those amongst us who are vulnerable. Here's an analogy: when an enemy is attacking you, you put up defenses first. Sandbags, Czech hedgehogs, landmines. You don't immediately cower away in underground bunkers and let the enemy run over you and capture the city until they are overwhelming you. We are not being overwhelmed in this region and we really have never been.
But I'm sure none of what I wrote will really matter to you.