Getting vaccinated

[Long Run]

stores where the people who work there are wearing them. Up to now that is every store I've been in.

I was astounded that here, when the governor lifted the mandate, every single store immediately eliminated the mask requirement. I cannot name one restaurant or store that has continued the policy here. Of course,about 75% of all residents (not just adults) have been vaccinated here.

[BoSoxGal]

stores where the people who work there are wearing them. Up to now that is every store I've been in.

I was astounded that here, when the governor lifted the mandate, every single store immediately eliminated the mask requirement. I cannot name one restaurant or store that has continued the policy here. Of course,about 75% of all residents (not just adults) have been vaccinated here.

That happened here in Massachusetts where we have a very high rate of vaccination - however there are still several stores and eateries where staff are continuing to mask, I assume by requirement of management as in those places it is universal among the staff.

[Sue U]

Had friends over for Sunday dinner. One is a kidney transplant recipient and takes immunosuppressive anti-rejection drugs. Although she has been "fully" vaccinated, she is still unable to produce a sufficient amount of antibodies, most likely due to her drug regimen. So masks for everyone, social distancing and remaining outdoors was the order of the day (thank Dog the weather was pleasant enough). I generally still wear a mask when I go to the grocery store or whatever, because you never know who may be vulnerable -- and many places still require a mask, although it seems to me most places have now dropped the requirement. But then again I don't get out much.

[Econoline]

[Gob]

Having that!

[Burning Petard]

Just what is my Christian duty to relieve people from the foreseeable results of their own actions? In the USofA we have laws that require seatbelts be worn by all passengers in the auto. The rationale is that the expected injuries without them bring unneccesary costs of physical, material, and human resources to the community and thus individual members of the community must absorb the inconvenience of seatbelts.

What is my responsibility as a taxpayer to provide medical care to those who choose to be unvaccinated?

[is is just an experiment. Nobody knows what the long term effects may be--it has not been tested long enough. For a female of child-bearing age, just walking by somebody who is vaccinated may cause long term infertility; we just don't know. And that mask! Everybody knows the pores of those paper filters are bigger than a virus particle, and cloth masks are even worse.]

My 71 year old sister is not vaccinated and refuses to wear a mask, indoors or out. But what about her responsibility to not spread the infection to others? In several regions of the USofA where vaccination rates are low, hospitals are again overwhelmed by patients with Covid-19 infections.

What is my duty as a good citizen toward those who refuse to mask or get vaccinated?

snailgate

[Big RR]

Re your first question, I think we should treat and relieve the suffering of those who are unvaccinated as best we can, just as we treat stroke victims who refused to take their blood pressure medication or treat a morbidly obese person suffering from heart disease or diabetes. IMHO this is part of the duty we owe each other. That being said (in response to question 2), I do not think we owe the unvaccinated anything else; I am not going to wear a mask because some people are unvaccinated and may catch virus collecting in my nose or sinuses (of course, if there is a chance that someone who cannot be vaccinated is present, we should take reasonable steps to limit exposure, which is why I consider to routinely socially distance in public, and would wear a mask if I knew someone was present). And FWIW, I think the unvaccinated (whether by choice or not) have a duty to take reasonable steps not to expose themselves to situations where they may become infected, although their failure to do so does relieve us of our obligations.

As for your parenthetical, I sincerely hope you were joking and I will enter no response to it.

[Burning Petard]

No joke. That is what my 72 year-old sister who works a a volunteer librarian in the local middle school in the Peoria, IL vicinity has said to me.

Including the magical connection between a uterus in one individual and the vaccine in an other individual.

snailgate

[Econoline]

‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying COVID patients

Updated 12:19 PM; Today 7:00 AM

Dr. Brytney Cobia said Monday that all but one of her COVID patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to fully recover. Some of the others are dying.

“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” wrote Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, in an emotional Facebook post Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

Three COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available in Alabama for months now, yet the state is last in the nation in vaccination rate, with only 33.7 percent of the population fully vaccinated. COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations are surging yet again due to the more contagious Delta variant of the virus and Alabama’s low vaccination rate.

For the first year and a half of the pandemic, Cobia and hundreds of other Alabama physicians caring for critically ill COVID-19 patients worked themselves to the bone trying to save as many as possible.

“Back in 2020 and early 2021, when the vaccine wasn’t available, it was just tragedy after tragedy after tragedy,” Cobia told AL.com this week. “You know, so many people that did all the right things, and yet still came in, and were critically ill and died.”

In the United States, COVID is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated, according to the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Alabama, state officials report 94% of COVID hospital patients and 96% of Alabamians who have died of COVID since April were not fully vaccinated.

“A few days later when I call time of death,” continued Cobia on Facebook, “I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

More than 11,400 Alabamians have died of COVID so far, but midway through 2021, caring for COVID patients is a different story than it was in the beginning. Cobia said it’s different mentally and emotionally to care for someone who could have prevented their disease but chose not to.

“You kind of go into it thinking, ‘Okay, I’m not going to feel bad for this person, because they make their own choice,’” Cobia said. “But then you actually see them, you see them face to face, and it really changes your whole perspective, because they’re still just a person that thinks that they made the best decision that they could with the information that they have, and all the misinformation that’s out there.

“And now all you really see is their fear and their regret. And even though I may walk into the room thinking, ‘Okay, this is your fault, you did this to yourself,’ when I leave the room, I just see a person that’s really suffering, and that is so regretful for the choice that they made.”

Cobia said that the strain wears on healthcare workers after the trauma of 2020 and 2021.

“It’s really hard because all of us physicians and other medical staff, we’ve been doing this for a long time and all of us are very, at this point, tired and emotionally drained and cynical,” she said.

Cobia said the current wave of Delta patients reminds her of the time in October and November of 2020, just before Alabama’s peak of coronavirus cases and deaths.

“What we saw in December 2020, and January 2021, that was the absolute peak, the height of the pandemic, where I was signing 10 death certificates a day,” she said. “Now, it’s certainly not like that, but it’s very reminiscent of probably October, November of 2020, where we know there’s a lot of big things coming up.”

Cobia worries that the upcoming school year will lead to a similar surge.

“All these kids are about to go back to school. No mask mandates are in place at all, 70% of Alabama is unvaccinated. Of course, no kids are vaccinated for the most part because they can’t be,” Cobia said. “So it feels like impending doom, basically.”

Cobia also had a personal experience with the virus, contracting it in July while 27 weeks pregnant with her second child. Her symptoms were mild and the child, Carter, was delivered early out of caution but suffered no serious complications.

Her husband, Miles, is also a physician, and the couple says they were both extremely cautious about wearing protective equipment but one of them still caught the virus and gave it to the other, as well as other family members.

“We still went to work but we masked 100% of the time,” Cobia said. “We didn’t go anywhere or do anything, we ordered through Shipt for all of our groceries, we did nothing at the time.”

Cobia said she delivered in September without incident and got the vaccine herself in December when it was made available to healthcare workers.

“I did not hesitate to get it,” she said. “There was a lot unknown at that time, because I was still breastfeeding about whether that was safe or not. I talked to as many other physician colleagues as I could and spoke with my OB as far as data that she had available and decided to continue breastfeeding after vaccination.”

For people who are hesitant to receive the vaccine, Cobia recommends speaking to their primary care physician about their concerns, just as she did.

“I try to be very non-judgmental when I’m getting a new COVID patient that’s unvaccinated, but I really just started asking them, ‘Why haven’t you gotten the vaccine?’ And I’ll just ask it point blank, in the least judgmental way possible,” she said. “And most of them, they’re very honest, they give me answers. ‘I talked to this person, I saw this thing on Facebook, I got this email, I saw this on the news,’ you know, these are all the reasons that I didn’t get vaccinated.

“And the one question that I always ask them is, did you make an appointment with your primary care doctor and ask them for their opinion on whether or not you should receive the vaccine? And so far, nobody has answered yes to that question.”

[Bicycle Bill]

-"BB"-

[Long Run]

A new communications strategy is needed because the current one has convinced all the people it is going to convince. Madison Avenue approach?

[Big RR]

If they don't see a spike in new cases and deaths among the non-vaccinated as a reason to get it, I seriously doubt any cute Madison Avenue campaign could do anything to convince them. Some people just refuse to learn. The funny thing, among the unvaccinated people I know are two nurses (one a nurse practitioner) and life scientist working in the pharma industry, people you think shoudl know better.

[BoSoxGal]

A new communications strategy is needed because the current one has convinced all the people it is going to convince. Madison Avenue approach?

In the last few days a new strategy has emerged, even on some FOX News shows. Just report the Delta variant 4th surge, the escalating hospitalizations and deaths, and that 99.2% are of unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated patients.

Antivaxxers all over the country are about to see the virus targeting only others like them for horrible suffering and death.

Prominent Republicans are starting to publicly call for vaccination with some urgency - DeSantis, Scalise and even Hannity issuing strong pro-vaccine messages this week. (Hannity said enough people have died! Glad he got there, sorry it took 610,000 dead for him to take the virus seriously.) It’s overwhelmingly GQP voters who will die in this current wave, and given the overall vaccination rate at present with vaccines widely and readily available nationwide, there is sadly room for a great many more deaths if these brainwashed people don’t wake up soon.

Physician interviewed on the morning show today, works on a covid ward and related the desperation of dying covid patients begging for the vaccination - so illiterate on the subject of vaccine induced immunity that they don’t understand it is far too late and they have killed themselves. Imagine the horror.

[Big RR]

We can only hope that this will make a difference.

[Long Run]

The scare mongering is not working and will not work. While the death toll is substantial, most people do not know someone who actually died solely from COVID. The vast majority of people who get COVID have negligible or minor symptoms and recover quickly. Everyone knows multiple people who have had COVID and it was a nothing experience. Only some people know a person who has had major symptoms, and even fewer someone who has passed away. Trying to scare people who are reluctant to take the vaccine has failed because their experiences do not support the message.

[Long Run]

Physician interviewed on the morning show today, works on a covid ward and related the desperation of dying covid patients begging for the vaccination - so illiterate on the subject of vaccine induced immunity that they don’t understand it is far too late and they have killed themselves. Imagine the horror.

Econo posted the same or something similar just above. While you can find people who are clueless about the vaccine, the vast majority of those not taking the vaccine are doing so knowingly and they have various reasons for thinking they are being smart, even as they clearly understand the risks. Someone who claims ignorance must have had their heads in the sand or somewhere else for the last year because the number one topic/story in the news, on social media, lunch conversation, etc. has been COVID and the vaccines.

[Big RR]

Perhaps LR, but then, unless the veracity is disputed, there are considerable death and hospitalization rates that should show the concern is serious. Sure, many who died had some sort of preexisting conditions which exacerbated the disease, but some did not, including children. And even if this were not true, you never know who you come across in day to day interactions, so we have a responsibility to each other to end this spread so that the persons who are at risk will not contract it. Face it, I had covid and still had antibodies when I was vaccinated, but getting the vaccine was the least I could do for my fellow residents as the higher the vaccination rate, the lower the chance of spread. I don't know how you encourage that sort of behavior, but perhaps there is a way to try.

The point is, we all owe it to each other to try and end this nightmare, and vaccination is our best shot (pun intended).

[Long Run]

I totally agree with you BigRR, but clearly a little less than half the country is not buying it so a new approach is needed to try to change the mind of as many of these as possible.

[BoSoxGal]

Not all Republicans are embracing McConnell's vaccine push. Read what some had to say when asked this week

vaccine rejection rhetoric right wing media republicans stelter dlt vpx_00004218
(CNN) — Nearly half of House Republicans still won't say publicly​ whether they are vaccinated against Covid-19, even as new cases rise nationwide.

Some of the 97 Republicans who aren't sharing their vaccination status told CNN they don't have a responsibility to model behavior to their constituents.

"I don't think it's anybody's damn business whether I'm vaccinated or not," Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told CNN. "This is ridiculous, what we're doing. The American people are fully capable of making an educated decision about whether they want to get the vaccine or not."
Over the past few months, CNN has sent multiple inquiries to members of Congress and reviewed public statements but is unable to confirm the vaccination status of almost half the Republican conference.

More GOP lawmakers embrace vaccine but still aren't calling out misinformation about it
Still a few of them offered some explanations during hallway interviews with CNN this week.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN "that's very nosy of you," when CNN started asking about his vaccination status, but the congressman cut off the question before it got to whether or not he was vaccinated.

"I think we should be talking more about freeing Britney," he added.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, told CNN he couldn't believe that reporters were asking about his vaccine status.

In the Republican Senate conference, ​46 of 50 senators confirmed to CNN that they are vaccinated. Only two refuse to say if they are not vaccinated: Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

"I don't feel like it is my job to encourage people to do something that they don't want to do," Cramer said.

More and more Republicans are starting to endorse the idea of other Americans ​getting vaccines, but that doesn't mean every Republican wants the public to know their own personal vaccine status.
To be sure, the needle is starting to move ever so slightly. Since CNN last reported on members' vaccination statuses in May, CNN​ has learned of 17 more House Republicans had been vaccinated.
CNN confirmed that 114 of 211 Republicans in the House have been vaccinated, meaning 54% of the conference.

And their persistent silence stands out even more this week, as the Delta variant rages across the country and has even made its way to Capitol Hill.

Pushed on if he was worried about the virus spreading or mutating the longer people wait to get vaccinated, Cramer said, "Nah, I don't. You know me, I haven't been worried about this since the beginning." He added later, "I am a policy maker, I am not an educator."
Biden health officials begin discussing mask recommendations as variants surge cases
"There is this fixation on certain things and vaccinations are one of them," Cramer said. "None of the treatments or therapies have ever been given any credit ... and people intuitively know that is not right."

And then there are the select few that go further than not disclosing their vaccine status by stating they don't plan to get vaccinated at all. Two GOP senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, confirmed to CNN that they are not vaccinated. And in the House, Thomas Massie of Kentucky is the only member since the vaccine became widely available to confirm to CNN that he was not vaccinated.

Co-chair of the GOP Doctor's Caucus Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland told CNN members not sharing their vaccine status does not impact positive messaging around the vaccine.

"I would say not at all," Harris said. "Look, we believe in health privacy."

Freshman Republican Peter Meijer of Michigan, who has been open about being vaccinated and encourages his constituents to do so, told CNN that while it is his colleagues' choice whether or not they want to get the vaccine or disclose it, "I think individual leaders should do right by those who support them. And in my view, that's, being upfront and honest. And it's also not doing anything that may harm those individuals."

As silence on vaccine status remains, misinformation looms


The silence from some Republicans does even more damage when considering the ​extent of misinformation that ​ some Republican lawmakers are spreading.

Freshman Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was temporarily suspended from Twitter on Monday after sharing misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines. Greene, along with fellow freshman Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, ​have also invoked Nazi-era imagery to mock President Joe Biden's latest Covid-19 vaccination efforts.
Sen. Ron Johnson, ​one of the two non-vaccinated ​GOP senators, has repeatedly spread vaccine misinformation,​ including a news conference in June and on a right-wing radio show in May.
On his colleagues who spread misinformation about Covid vaccines, Meijer told CNN, "I don't know why some, especially on the fringes, are doing the equivalent of telling folks not to wear seatbelts when we're suffering tremendous amounts of highway fatalities. I mean, your voters are believing this."

"So, there's a moral and humanitarian imperative to be upfront and honest," Meijer said.

"At the end of the day, every leader is going to be accountable for his or her own actions."

'It's not too late': Some Republicans ​make last-​minute push for vaccines


While a significant portion of elected Republican lawmakers remain silent about their vaccination status, many lawmakers have started to speak out more solidly in favor of the Covid-19 vaccine in an effort to combat the misinformation and hesitancy ​circulating within their own party.

As Florida cases surge, DeSantis stays the course on Covid
In the latest sign that Republicans are ​increasingly shifting messaging strategies on the necessity, safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, Minority Whip Steve Scalise announced ​he had finally received his first shot this week and went on Fox News to encourage others to get vaccinated before it was too late.

Scalise said he got the Covid-19 vaccine now because of the rising number of Delta variant cases and that he waited this long because he had antibodies from a previous infection. While antibodies from previous infections do make getting infected again less likely, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that even people who have been previously infected should still get vaccinated.
"I had the antibodies but ultimately with this new Delta variant you're seeing, I've toured a lot of hospitals in the last few weeks and you're seeing the cases go up," Scalise said on Fox on Wednesday, pointing out that the overwhelming majority of people who are getting hospitalized for Covid-19 are not vaccinated.

Even though Scalise waited so long to get vaccinated, he said, "I've always felt it was safe and effective." CNN reported that Scalise received his first vaccine shot Sunday.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, has ​long advocated for vaccines and has talked about vaccines during multiple visits to his home state of Kentucky, but on Tuesday, he issued one of his fiercest calls to get vaccinated yet.
"These shots need to get in everybody's arm as rapidly as possible, or we're going to be back in a situation in the fall that we don't yearn for, that we went through last year," McConnell said Tuesday. "I want to encourage everybody to do that and to ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice."

House speaker Nancy Pelosi, at left, and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were vaccinated with their first dose in December.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, at left, and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were vaccinated with their first dose in December.
"I think you should be vaccinated," Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky later pleaded to viewers on CNN Wednesday. "It's not too late."

As part of the growing chorus from Republicans urging their supporters out about the need for Covid-19 vaccines, the GOP Doctors Caucus held a news conference on Thursday with Scalise and Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to discuss the impact of the Delta variant, but the focus was more on wanting to uncover the origins of Covid than on encouraging vaccine efficacy.

This ​rise in enthusiasm for vaccines among GOP House members, as cases climb and vaccination rates stall, comes as Republicans face an uphill battle in getting ​their own constituents vaccinated.

Each state that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 ​has fully vaccinated ​fewer than half of​ its residents, according to the latest data from the CDC. In those states, an average of 42% of people are fully vaccinated, compared to an average of 54% fully vaccinated in states that voted for President Joe Biden.

GOP Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas said on Thursday that all Republicans have a responsibility to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Biden says he believes kids under 12 will be able to get Covid-19 vaccines 'soon,' but it's up to scientists
"We all do," Burgess said. "Look -- down in my part of the world, is probably the heart of Trump country, where's the best place to open a vaccine hub? A NASCAR racetrack. And we did. And it ran for months, and the vaccination rate was incredible. Now the hard part is getting that last mile of people who need vaccinations."

For some Democrats, the Republican evolution ​in messaging, which has been​ drastic across conservative media as well, is too little too late.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said he thinks many of ​his Republican colleagues in the Senate have handled the vaccine issue responsibly, but he's argued GOP members in the House have been complicit​ in allowing misinformation to spread.

"There is no doubt that a big swath of the national Republican Party is sending an anti vaccine message to their base," Murphy said. "It is not the Senate Republicans, but the House Republicans have been criminally negligent when it comes to how they have approached the vaccination campaign."

Some Republicans that have push​ed for Covid vaccines all along


Although a significant portion of the Republican conference​ has been slow to​ get on the bandwagon, some Republicans have made the push to get their constituents vaccinated an ongoing fight.

"It is discouraging that so many people remain unvaccinated. I am a big fan of vaccinations. I had a personal experience with that in my own life and it is pretty clear from all the evidence that if you get the disease, you are much more likely to survive it if you get vaccinated," McConnell told CNN last week.

Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, told CNN that he, too, has been making a vaccine push back home, teaming up with his Democratic colleague Sen. Jon Tester to encourage people to get the shot in a public service announcement.

"It is important we try to get the message out there in as many avenues as possible. Some people trust Steve, some people trust me," Tester said.

Freshman House Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, who took to the House floor on Wednesday to reassure that the Covid vaccine is safe and effective, is a doctor who has administered vaccines to constituents in her district.

Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina and the ranking GOP member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he makes his vaccine status a topic when he's talking to constituents.

"What I tell them is, if you don't want to go to the hospital and you don't want to die, get a vaccine," Burr said. "We have always had an anti-vaccine group in America. This is for a different reason, but they should not take it lightly. This is a very serious virus. People should not risk their lives or their children's lives."

[Scooter]

This data on vaccination progress shows that, of the 25 states plus DC showing the highest vaccination rates, 23 of 26 voted for Biden (the three that voted for Trump rank 23, 24 and 25). Of the 25 states with the lowest vaccination rates, 22 voted for Trump (the three voting for Biden rank 30, 32 and 45).

Speaks for itself.