The “vaccination divide” in the US

[MEmama]

7 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

See I don't get it.  She posts stuff like this all the time:

Yet no one is telling her she is too negative. I post my frustrations off and on.  

I don’t hear anyone saying you are being negative. I do think you sound *depressed*, and that’s worrisome. 
 

You’re right, most of us do post our frustrations here from time to time. This an amazingly supportive community and a safe space to do so. In that vein, please keep in mind that there is “venting”, or having a tough day, or living under a backward, cruel governance, and then there is a tone of helplessness and despair. I won’t apologize for being concerned about you and your mental health. I’ve seen that dark road up close and I know it’s scary. I hope you know that there is help out there and I hope you seek it out. There’s truly nothing more I can offer up at this point.

[TexasProud]

Thought I would put this here. This article does a REALLY good job of describing the vaccine hesitancy and it not all being white Trump voters:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/unvaccinated-texas-demographics/

[TexasProud]

3 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Gently, the black death killed at least half of the people during the Middle Ages. COVID is bad but it's not anywhere near that bad. Also, the people in the Middle Ages didn't even understand what the plague was and how it was transmitted from one person to the next. We know what COVID is and we know how it's spread and even have a vaccine. 

Those sound like minor things we're using to know what diseases are but placed in the history of humanity, those are huge things. 

Let us wait about 5 years and see. Without vaccinations, this surge is going to be much more deadly.  We have lost 600,000 so far.  I am guessing another million in the next 6 months for the US alone. We really do not know how bad it was in India, Russia or China or many, many other places in the world.  It will keep mutating since people can get it more than once and after they are vaccinated.  it is going to kill many, many more before this is over. We have only begun.

[Terabith]

23 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

See I don't get it.  She posts stuff like this all the time:

Yet no one is telling her she is too negative. I post my frustrations off and on.  

Because she also posts a whole lot of other stuff.  She has been here for more than a decade.  She posts about her kids, her husband, her house, her yard, her dogs, her writing, her yoga, her walking, her faith.  We know a lot about @ktgrok.  She gets (understandably, justifiably) frustrated about her area and the lack of anyone taking covid seriously, but we're not worried that she's clinically depressed.  

You sound hopeless and despairing, and honestly, that's 90% of what we know about you.  So, we worry.  Because a lot of us have been there, and we don't want anyone else to go there.  

Maybe you should watch "West Wing."  We've been in the hole before, and we want you to find a way out.  

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Terabith

[TexasProud]

4 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Because she also posts a whole lot of other stuff.  She has been here for more than a decade.  She posts about her kids, her husband, her house, her yard, her dogs, her writing, her yoga, her walking, her faith.  We know a lot about @ktgrok.  She gets (understandably, justifiably) frustrated about her area and the lack of anyone taking covid seriously, but we're not worried that she's clinically depressed.  

You sound hopeless and despairing, and honestly, that's 90% of what we know about you.  So, we worry.  Because a lot of us have been there, and we don't want anyone else to go there.  

Maybe you should watch "West Wing."  We've been in the hole before, and we want you to find a way out.  

 

Believe me. I am not in a hole.  Tell you what, I will be positive for the next few days so you will feel better.  Really, I am fine.

[regentrude]

3 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Because she also posts a whole lot of other stuff.  She has been here for more than a decade.  She posts about her kids, her husband, her house, her yard, her dogs, her writing, her yoga, her walking, her faith.  We know a lot about @ktgrok.  She gets (understandably, justifiably) frustrated about her area and the lack of anyone taking covid seriously, but we're not worried that she's clinically depressed.  

You sound hopeless and despairing, and honestly, that's 90% of what we know about you.  So, we worry.  Because a lot of us have been there, and we don't want anyone else to go there.  

I think TexasProud has been on these boards for a very long time, too - under various different names. She keeps closing her account and disappearing when the boards become overwhelming for her mental health.

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

I think TexasProud has been on these boards for a very long time, too - under various different names. She keeps closing her account and disappearing when the boards become overwhelming for her mental health.

Yeah, I recall probably two other names, but I don't have a clear identity for her before a couple years ago.  And all of those identities seemed to struggle with depression.  

So, as someone who also struggles with depression, I worry.  

[regentrude]

Just now, TexasProud said:

Believe me. I am not in a hole.  Tell you what, I will be positive for the next few days so you will feel better.  Really, I am fine.

I am saying this gently: stop pretending. No, you are not fine. What you write does not sound "fine". Your posts over the past few days indicate that you have reached the same level of despair and hopelessness as in several instances before.
And I totally get it, because I have been there, too. And in the moment, we don't see hope. It's the nature of depression, the insidious beast. We can't see it ourselves when our reaction is out of proportion. We need kind friends to point it out. We don't believe them in that moment, of course, but time and time again, they prove to be right.
Take a break from engaging with the topic. It's not good.

[SKL]

51 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Let us wait about 5 years and see. Without vaccinations, this surge is going to be much more deadly.  We have lost 600,000 so far.  I am guessing another million in the next 6 months for the US alone. We really do not know how bad it was in India, Russia or China or many, many other places in the world.  It will keep mutating since people can get it more than once and after they are vaccinated.  it is going to kill many, many more before this is over. We have only begun.

Keep in mind that a high % of the deaths to date occurred before vaccines were widely available in first world countries.  Vaccines still aren't widely available worldwide, but we're moving in that direction.

If you look at the fatality rates for even less developed countries that have only recently had big Covid waves, you will notice the death rate appears significantly lower.  I assume this is partly because of vaccines and partly because of how much was learned in the first year of Covid.

There are going to be more deaths, but it's not going to stay the way it was at its worst.  I think the worst is over for developed countries at least, and hopefully more.

Then it goes back to, you can't control other people, and nobody lives forever.  It goes back to what many of us feel about the choice to smoke or drive under the influence.  I have lost a ridiculous number of loved ones to damn cigarettes.  But I can't do anything about that.  So I don't focus on what I can't do.

[SKL]

I do feel that the tone of this board has turned more toward catastrophizing again, and that probably isn't helping those who take this to heart beyond their power to change things.

I can understand Delta is taking up a bigger part of our minds though.  It's human nature.

[regentrude]

13 minutes ago, Plum said:

Other countries that are focusing on learning how to live with covid are handling it much better. It's a much more mentally healthy approach. 

Which countries are you referring to?

[Susan in TX]

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Let us wait about 5 years and see. Without vaccinations, this surge is going to be much more deadly. 

What is your evidence for this? So far (at least in the US) each surge has been less deadly than the first. 

We really do not know how bad it was in India, Russia or China or many, many other places in the world. 

True. Which means that it may have not been as bad as the media has portrayed it to be.

It will keep mutating since people can get it more than once and after they are vaccinated. 

Studies have been done that show that infection provides robust immunity. Yes, vaccinated people are getting it, but we don't know how common that is. Also, we don't know how many of those people are older or otherwise immunocompromised. 

Susan in TX

[Susan in TX]

21 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Which is the reason I got it. I am not really concerned for myself. I just don't want to pass it onto anyone else. So the fact that I can now is really disappointing and means that once again, I can't do anything I love to do. I had planned to join choir this month after being out of it for 18 months.  ( I sang for 40 years before that.) Lots of other stuff. Back to being a hermit. 

Why? Why cant you join choir? Why do you have to be a hermit? If you are vaccinated, you are protected from severe disease. If other people are vaccinated, they are also protected. Those who chose not to get vaccinated chose to take that risk so you have no obligation to protect them. So go out and live your life!

Susan in TX

[HeartString]

4 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Let us wait about 5 years and see. Without vaccinations, this surge is going to be much more deadly.  We have lost 600,000 so far.  I am guessing another million in the next 6 months for the US alone. We really do not know how bad it was in India, Russia or China or many, many other places in the world.  It will keep mutating since people can get it more than once and after they are vaccinated.  it is going to kill many, many more before this is over. We have only begun.

Is that million deaths figure just your feeling or something you got from somewhere?  I’m curious, I haven’t seen any future death estimates since we hit 500k.    My gut feeling/guess is that we’ll hit a million total, but that’s based on nothing really. 

[Murphy101]

11 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Why? Why cant you join choir? Why do you have to be a hermit? If you are vaccinated, you are protected from severe disease. If other people are vaccinated, they are also protected. Those who chose not to get vaccinated chose to take that risk so you have no obligation to protect them. So go out and live your life!

Susan in TX

Not everyone can get vaccines whether they want to or not.  Young children for one.

[Susan in TX]

Just now, Murphy101 said:

Not everyone can get vaccines whether they want to or not.  Young children for one.

Children have very low risk of morbidity/mortality from Covid. 

Susan in TX

[ktgrok]

7 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Children have very low risk of morbidity/mortality from Covid. 

Susan in TX

There are children's hospitals whose ICU beds are full of covid patients. A recent post highlighted such a hospital, and half the kids in the ICU had no previous health conditions. 

If it only is dangerous for a small percentage of kids, but massive numbers of kids catch it, that's a lot of kids in danger. 

[KSera]

4 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Let us wait about 5 years and see. Without vaccinations, this surge is going to be much more deadly.  We have lost 600,000 so far.  I am guessing another million in the next 6 months for the US alone.

I don't know what would indicate it would get that bad, given how well the vaccine is protecting against death and the proportion of the population vaccinated. It would have to mutate to something that completely evades the vaccine in order to cause that many deaths in the next 6 months. I believe case numbers are likely to rise higher than we have seen at any other point in the US, but I think deaths will be much lower most places, except for those that have low vaccination rates, which may have significant waves of deaths (but hopefully not as big as before, since the elderly are the most likely to have been vaccinated, even in places that are otherwise anti vax).

[TexasProud]

22 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Why? Why cant you join choir? Why do you have to be a hermit? If you are vaccinated, you are protected from severe disease. If other people are vaccinated, they are also protected. Those who chose not to get vaccinated chose to take that risk so you have no obligation to protect them. So go out and live your life!

Susan in TX

I wasn't going to be back on this thread because I want to stay positive, so I am not answering any other questions, but could not resist this one.

I  felt comfortable singing when our positivity was 2 percent and cases were very low. But now our numbers are up to 40 with a positivity of 24 percent. Only 1/3 of our population is vaccinated. Singing is a high risk activity with a HIGH method of transmission. The CMDA has been recommending that singing not be done in churches. Not sure if that is their current stance, though I am guessing with the higher rates it is. 

Vaccinated people can get it and can spread it, even when asymptomatic. Choir could be another superspreader event. And it can be serious for people that have been vaccinated, just look at the woman who posted on the other thread. She nearly died. And moderate Covid may still be too much for some people. I do not want to contribute to their deaths. I am one of the younger members of the choir and I am in my mid to late fifties. Nope, will not kill some of those wonderful people. 

Ok, back to happy movies. 🙂

[TexasProud]

15 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Children have very low risk of morbidity/mortality from Covid. 

Susan in TX

Ok, have you looked at the Louisiana numbers.  All of their beds are full.

[Susan in TX]

1 minute ago, TexasProud said:

Ok, have you looked at the Louisiana numbers.  All of their beds are full.

Source? 

Also https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/05/covid-19-hospitalizations-among-kids-likely-overcounted.html

"Children being treated in hospitals are tested for SARS-CoV-2, but many who test positive never develop COVID-19 symptoms, leading to overestimates of disease severity, a study found."

Susan in TX

[TexasProud]

2 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Source? 

Also https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/05/covid-19-hospitalizations-among-kids-likely-overcounted.html

"Children being treated in hospitals are tested for SARS-CoV-2, but many who test positive never develop COVID-19 symptoms, leading to overestimates of disease severity, a study found."

Susan in TX

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/childrens-hospitals-covid-louisiana-capacity-full/289-bc234f66-2ee8-43bb-99ea-853c4cd9528a

 

Make sure you watch the video. Also, I believe your article was before the Delta Variant.  You are correct about that before Delta. Delta has changed the game for children and pregnant women.

Edited August 3, 2021 by TexasProud

[Pam in CT]

re the unbearable heaviness of overwhelming scale

4 hours ago, TexasProud said:

No, not really.   I mean I am doing what I can, but what has that done in my corner. NOTHING. I cannot do anything else to change the tide here. I am doing everything I know to do and it is useless. Thousands will probably die in my corner as this virus continues to mutate. I cannot change that. Yeah, I can stay safe, but I can't fix the thousands of deaths.

You are right. You cannot change the tide.

4 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Yes, this will just change our society, much like the Black death in the Middle Ages. The way of life completely changed and many, many died.  Just a repeat now with same results. Nothing I can really do to change it.

You are already right about many many deaths, and you may well be right about our way of life changing permanently.  (Widespread, quick & cheap international air travel, for instance, may well be out of reach for a long long time.)

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

An acknowledgement that none of us have the control that we think we do...

We

are

not

in

control. 

CDC is not suggesting we are, nor is the Israeli government or Pfizer or President Biden or the Main Stream Media or anyone else. Certainly no one on this board.

 

 

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

I was replying to the poster who told me there is always something we can do to make a difference. Nope. Sometimes what we do makes do difference at all. None.

That might have been me.

And I agree that for problems of COVID-scale magnitude, our individual actions can't change the overall trajectory of the problem.  Same with climate change, global hunger, nuclear arms race, other similarly scaled issues. 

Collective action can effect big scaled change -- collective action eliminated smallpox, sharply bent the incidence of polio and a handful of other miserable diseases, vastly improved treatment and odds of surviving a large number of other diseases.  Humans have held the technological capability of destroying the earth entirely since the 1940s and yet  have managed, through a combination of public policy and dumb luck to have lurched on for going on 80 years without doing so.

Some folks are, by disposition and skill set, gifted at translating individual effort toward collective work, through science, politics, activism, writing, art. 

A lot of us have trouble doing so.  The scale is too big, the work is too Sisyphean, the time is too long, the payoff is too invisible.  It is overwhelming.

I've posted this before: Ruth Messinger reverts often to the idea that we cannot retreat into the luxury of being overwhelmed.  We all experience moments when we're too overwhelmed to do much beyond getting up in the morning and slogging through the motions; that's part of being human.  But over the course of months, years, a lifetime, it is incumbent upon us -- for the sake of our own selves, our families, our communities, the strangers in our midst, ethics, in her worldview God -- to figure out some small way to leave the earth a teeny-tiny bit better than how we found it.  We are not expected to complete the work, but neither may we refrain from picking it up and starting.

 

But none of that big-scale challenge is where you seem to be *in this moment.*

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Not enough. It will not stop the trajectory of my part of the world.  Plus, that just means my life is miserable.

Where our individual actions definitely CAN make a difference is here, at this level.  The other thread you started, about finding "productive" ways to fill your time and absorb your energy, is excellent.

COVID sucks.  There is no redeeming silver lining.  None of the small bits of light it has forced upon us -- a rethinking of what most matters, a better appreciation of real life contact over flickering screens, a recognition that more types of work can be accomplished more remotely than we once knew, better tech skills, emergent businesses able to adapt to and flourish in unexpected opportunities, completed craft projects, newly constructed chicken famrs and gardens and fire pits -- none of those things are worth the costs we bore and are continuing to bear.

And yet, it is also true that we have learned things.  I learned to ZOOM.  My octogenarian mother learned to ZOOM.  My octogenarian mother's octogenarian book group learned (I won't lie: painfully, and late) to ZOOM. We learned to live off deliveries, to project movies outside, to play scattergories online, to do the daily NYT spelling bee puzzle competitively across friend groups, to carry on civic group board meetings virtually, to "attend" author lectures and poetry readings on line, to convert some old work to virtual and pick up new activities outdoors / spaced / ventilated.

None of which -- to your point -- changed the trajectory of the virus.

But it very much DID change the experience of living through it.  Our individual actions very much DID affect our ability to ENDURE this terrible horrible no good very bad time.

 

Also: Therapy helps.  I speak from experience. An awful lot of us have spent time in that hole.  Almost always, the hole starts with, I am not in a hole. I do not need help.

 

 

That said,

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

....I have a right to be frustrated and here on this board is the only place I can express it.

You absolutely have a right to be frustrated. 

Also to express it here on this board.

I am, myself, at the moment, pretty d@mned irritated at where we are with Delta, with how some policymakers and many of my fellow Americans are approaching public policies, with what imminent school re-opening is looking like.  And I express that on this board on occasion.

I would only encourage you to find OTHER places, besides these boards, to express yourself.

Because however valuable these boards are -- and they are -- there is no substitute for real life connections.  Folks here are smart, funny, perceptive, up on current developments, wise beyond measure. I've learned SOOOOOOO much here.  Nonetheless, it's still only an imaginary space populated by virtual and mostly anonymous strangers. For your own sake: find real ones, as well.

[Matryoshka]

4 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Source? 

Also https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/05/covid-19-hospitalizations-among-kids-likely-overcounted.html

"Children being treated in hospitals are tested for SARS-CoV-2, but many who test positive never develop COVID-19 symptoms, leading to overestimates of disease severity, a study found."

Susan in TX

Um, if they're at capacity in the pediatric ICU, I think we can conclude they have severe disease. They don't put kids in ICU beds for funsies.

Also, that article was from May, so pre-Delta hitting the US. We're talking Delta- it's a whole 'nother beast than the other variants.  Much more contagious,  and hitting kids much harder (which may or may not be just because so many more are getting it with Delta, but either way, ICUs full of kids = bad) 

[Murphy101]

26 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Children have very low risk of morbidity/mortality from Covid. 

Susan in TX

One - that’s less true with Delta

Two - there’s a lot in life that doesn’t kill you that you have to live with the rest of your life.

Three - children can have underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk too. 

[Melissa Louise]

4 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re the unbearable heaviness of overwhelming scale

You are right. You cannot change the tide.

You are already right about many many deaths, and you may well be right about our way of life changing permanently.  (Widespread, quick & cheap international air travel, for instance, may well be out of reach for a long long time.)

We

are

not

in

control. 

CDC is not suggesting we are, nor is the Israeli government or Pfizer or President Biden or the Main Stream Media or anyone else. Certainly no one on this board.

 

 

That might have been me.

And I agree that for problems of COVID-scale magnitude, our individual actions can't change the overall trajectory of the problem.  Same with climate change, global hunger, nuclear arms race, other similarly scaled issues. 

Collective action can effect big scaled change -- collective action eliminated smallpox, sharply bent the incidence of polio and a handful of other miserable diseases, vastly improved treatment and odds of surviving a large number of other diseases.  Humans have held the technological capability of destroying the earth entirely since the 1940s and yet  have managed, through a combination of public policy and dumb luck to have lurched on for going on 80 years without doing so.

Some folks are, by disposition and skill set, gifted at translating individual effort toward collective work, through science, politics, activism, writing, art. 

A lot of us have trouble doing so.  The scale is too big, the work is too Sisyphean, the time is too long, the payoff is too invisible.  It is overwhelming.

I've posted this before: Ruth Messinger reverts often to the idea that we cannot retreat into the luxury of being overwhelmed.  We all experience moments when we're too overwhelmed to do much beyond getting up in the morning and slogging through the motions; that's part of being human.  But over the course of months, years, a lifetime, it is incumbent upon us -- for the sake of our own selves, our families, our communities, the strangers in our midst, ethics, in her worldview God -- to figure out some small way to leave the earth a teeny-tiny bit better than how we found it.  We are not expected to complete the work, but neither may we refrain from picking it up and starting.

 

But none of that big-scale challenge is where you seem to be *in this moment.*

Where our individual actions definitely CAN make a difference is here, at this level.  The other thread you started, about finding "productive" ways to fill your time and absorb your energy, is excellent.

COVID sucks.  There is no redeeming silver lining.  None of the small bits of light it has forced upon us -- a rethinking of what most matters, a better appreciation of real life contact over flickering screens, a recognition that more types of work can be accomplished more remotely than we once knew, better tech skills, emergent businesses able to adapt to and flourish in unexpected opportunities, completed craft projects, newly constructed chicken famrs and gardens and fire pits -- none of those things are worth the costs we bore and are continuing to bear.

And yet, it is also true that we have learned things.  I learned to ZOOM.  My octogenarian mother learned to ZOOM.  My octogenarian mother's octogenarian book group learned (I won't lie: painfully, and late) to ZOOM. We learned to live off deliveries, to project movies outside, to play scattergories online, to do the daily NYT spelling bee puzzle competitively across friend groups, to carry on civic group board meetings virtually, to "attend" author lectures and poetry readings on line, to convert some old work to virtual and pick up new activities outdoors / spaced / ventilated.

None of which -- to your point -- changed the trajectory of the virus.

But it very much DID change the experience of living through it.  Our individual actions very much DID affect our ability to ENDURE this terrible horrible no good very bad time.

 

Also: Therapy helps.  I speak from experience. An awful lot of us have spent time in that hole.  Almost always, the hole starts with, I am not in a hole. I do not need help.

 

 

That said,

You absolutely have a right to be frustrated. 

Also to express it here on this board.

I am, myself, at the moment, pretty d@mned irritated at where we are with Delta, with how some policymakers and many of my fellow Americans are approaching public policies, with what imminent school re-opening is looking like.  And I express that on this board on occasion.

I would only encourage you to find OTHER places, besides these boards, to express yourself.

Because however valuable these boards are -- and they are -- there is no substitute for real life connections.  Folks here are smart, funny, perceptive, up on current developments, wise beyond measure. I've learned SOOOOOOO much here.  Nonetheless, it's still only an imaginary space populated by virtual and mostly anonymous strangers. For your own sake: find real ones, as well.

Awesome post. 

 

[Susan in TX]

5 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

I wasn't going to be back on this thread because I want to stay positive, so I am not answering any other questions, but could not resist this one.

I  felt comfortable singing when our positivity was 2 percent and cases were very low. But now our numbers are up to 40 with a positivity of 24 percent. Only 1/3 of our population is vaccinated. Singing is a high risk activity with a HIGH method of transmission. The CMDA has been recommending that singing not be done in churches. Not sure if that is their current stance, though I am guessing with the higher rates it is. 

Vaccinated people can get it and can spread it, even when asymptomatic. Choir could be another superspreader event. And it can be serious for people that have been vaccinated, just look at the woman who posted on the other thread. She nearly died. And moderate Covid may still be too much for some people. I do not want to contribute to their deaths. I am one of the younger members of the choir and I am in my mid to late fifties. Nope, will not kill some of those wonderful people. 

Ok, back to happy movies. 🙂

First I want to say that I respect your choices so I am not trying to convince you to change your mind. 

BUT I do wonder what the statistical possibility is for asymptomatic spread by the vaccinated? My educated guess is that it is very small.  Do we even have any proof that Covid has been spread by the vaccinated? 

AND if others are choosing to participate in the choir anyway, does your participation increase their risk in any meaningful way?

Just some things to think about.

Susan in TX

[Susan in TX]

9 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Delta has changed the game for children and pregnant women.

What is the evidence for this?

Susan in TX

[Matryoshka]

6 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

First I want to say that I respect your choices so I am not trying to convince you to change your mind. 

BUT I do wonder what the statistical possibility is for asymptomatic spread by the vaccinated? My educated guess is that it is very small.  Do we even have any proof that Covid has been spread by the vaccinated? 

AND if others are choosing to participate in the choir anyway, does your participation increase their risk in any meaningful way?

Just some things to think about.

Susan in TX

Yes, Provincetown. And stuff out of Israel. Again, this is a new Delta problem. Original Covid didn't seem to be spread much by vaxed people, but it seems like that's no longer so unusual with Delta.  Which really sucks.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Matryoshka

[ktgrok]

4 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

First I want to say that I respect your choices so I am not trying to convince you to change your mind. 

BUT I do wonder what the statistical possibility is for asymptomatic spread by the vaccinated? My educated guess is that it is very small.  Do we even have any proof that Covid has been spread by the vaccinated? 

AND if others are choosing to participate in the choir anyway, does your participation increase their risk in any meaningful way?

Just some things to think about.

Susan in TX

yes, we have lots of proof of vaccinated people spreading it, unfortunately. Less often, but yes, they can and do spread it. Now, in an area with little transmission, doing a low risk activity with other vaccinated people the risk is low. Doing a high risk activity in an area of high positivity with a lot of unvaccinated people...that risk is not low. 

[ktgrok]

I just want to first offer Texas Proud hugs, and say, yup. I am angry and sad and upset about it too. I get that. And in fact, I am willing to say I am NOT fine. Not at all. I'm dealing with depression and anxiety. I nearly had a panic attack the other day, in fact - had to stop exercising because my heart rate was so dang high from anxiety!

Maybe that is why people don't feel the need to point out to me I'm sounding depressed - because I full admit I am? 

And I'm totally with you that the worst part is not being able to DO ANYTHING to fix it, because everyone else around is refusing to believe there is anything to fix. It is MADDENING. I think if it wasn't making me crazy it would mean something was wrong with me, honestly. 

[Susan in TX]

Just now, ktgrok said:

yes, we have lots of proof of vaccinated people spreading it, unfortunately. 

Where is the proof? Are there studies? How exactly do we know this is happening and to what extent?

Susan in TX

[ktgrok]

5 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Where is the proof? Are there studies? How exactly do we know this is happening and to what extent?

Susan in TX

In a few places now there have been studies showing this, in the Provincetown one, at a wedding, and others I think. 

We also have proof that if infected, a vaccinated person has the same level of viral load in the first several days of infection as an unvaccinated person. Now, their viral load drops faster, but for a time, they seem to be just as infectious. Less likely to catch it, and likely infectious for a shorter period of time, but at least in the first few days - with Delta specifically - they are just as contagious. (with earlier variants that was not the case)

[TexasProud]

4 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Where is the proof? Are there studies? How exactly do we know this is happening and to what extent?

Susan in TX

Did you read the news story from the local Louisiana news station about the children that I linked? 

As far as pregnant women, I posted this earlier on one of the threads:

https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/variants-effect-on-pregnant-women-to-be-discussed-by-area-health-experts-at-1030-a-m/

Plus, now I now someone personally in ICU, just had a 2 pound premie.  They had to induce I believe to try and save both of their lives. Again, the old version of Covid did not seem to affect pregnant women. Delta is a game changer. 

If you want statistical studies, you will have to wait. Since Delta has just really become dominant over the last couple of months, they are just now gathering data. But these local reports concern me greatly. If I were pregnant or had a child, I would be taking this much more seriously now. 

[whitestavern]

7 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

Where is the proof? Are there studies? How exactly do we know this is happening and to what extent?

Susan in TX

I read about a cruise ship the other day with I believe 6 people infected. All vaxxed except a few children who had been tested 3x before boarding. Plus Provincetown. I mean we know vaxxed can get it and they’ve measured similar levels of viral load so to me they’re making pretty good assumptions. Maybe there are cases we aren’t hearing about that confirm this. 

[freesia]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

In a few places now there have been studies showing this, in the Provincetown one, at a wedding, and others I think. 

We also have proof that if infected, a vaccinated person has the same level of viral load in the first several days of infection as an unvaccinated person. Now, their viral load drops faster, but for a time, they seem to be just as infectious. Less likely to catch it, and likely infectious for a shorter period of time, but at least in the first few days - with Delta specifically - they are just as contagious. (with earlier variants that was not the case)

Tbh I think the Provincetown outbreak is an outlier and we can't extrapolate from it.  It was a large crowded festival weekend.  With how easily Delta spreads, it's possible that only a handful of unvaccinated people could have spread it to a number of people.  And were the vaccinated people intimate?  There are a lot of variables which could have been in play in that situation. I'm not saying vaccinated people don't spread it at all, but I don't think that's a good example. 

[TexasProud]

Don't need therapy. It is useless.  But really, I am happy and upbeat in my real world. Had a great in person meeting with my mentor. Will have my writing group Zoom meeting tonight. It is a great day! 

[TechWife]

5 hours ago, KSera said:

Such a good show, thanks for sharing the clip.  One of the few good things to come from this awful pandemic for us is that my husband and I watched the entire series together, having never seen it before.  It was someone sharing a different clip from it (Josh and Leo’s poingnant “man in a hole” conversation) early on that prompted me to want to watch.  I’m sad that we have finished it.

🙁 I had been noticing lately that you were sounding like you were doing better, but sounds like recent developments have tipped you back into catastrophizing mode. I’m sorry you are struggling. Did you find someone to work with? ((Hugs))

I’ve  watched He West Wing all the way through three times since Feb. 2020. I had never watched it before, either. It’s a show full of hope in unexpected ways. 

[freesia]

1 minute ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Yeah, echoing this. @TexasProud, it's okay to admit that we're not fine. 

Honestly, we shouldn't be "okay." We're at the start of a surge during a pandemic. Everyone has to find their own way to get through it but anger and grief are a normal response to what's happening in the world. 

 

Me, too @TexasProud.  I feel like I've been "okay" for so long and now I am just tired and frustrated and am struggling to get on top of it.  I have been making things work for so long and each decision is hard.  And this month, dh has been sick for most of the weeks and every decision had to be made and carried out by me.  I feel like I am doing "all the things."  I've got a dd to get off to university in another country and need to navigate the mine field of this new surge.  Things are "ok" here, but I was enjoying "great" and "getting even better."

But, pps are right.  We need to and can have hope.  When we loose hope, we need to get help to see the hope.

[Wheres Toto]

35 minutes ago, Susan in TX said:

First I want to say that I respect your choices so I am not trying to convince you to change your mind. 

BUT I do wonder what the statistical possibility is for asymptomatic spread by the vaccinated? My educated guess is that it is very small.  Do we even have any proof that Covid has been spread by the vaccinated? 

AND if others are choosing to participate in the choir anyway, does your participation increase their risk in any meaningful way?

Just some things to think about.

Susan in TX

Your information seems to be about 2 months out of date.  A lot has changed since Delta hit. 

[TexasProud]

5 minutes ago, freesia said:

 

But, pps are right.  We need to and can have hope.  When we loose hope, we need to get help to see the hope.

I have hope. A paper I finished and turned in was all about the hope we have as Christians. I do.  I am just venting on here. Promise.

[KSera]

11 minutes ago, freesia said:

Tbh I think the Provincetown outbreak is an outlier and we can't extrapolate from it.  It was a large crowded festival weekend.  With how easily Delta spreads, it's possible that only a handful of unvaccinated people could have spread it to a number of people.  And were the vaccinated people intimate?  There are a lot of variables which could have been in play in that situation. I'm not saying vaccinated people don't spread it at all, but I don't think that's a good example. 

I agree with this. I keep saying this, and haven't gone looking for the info yet, but I'd really like to know how much of the new CDC spread data is all based on Provincetown, because if that's it, that's not a good situation to extrapolate widely based on. I mean, it shows us that the vaccine is clearly not bulletproof against delta, but I don't think it gives us a good real world estimate of just how much breakthrough and spread we might expect among the vaccinated.

[SKL]

38 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Um, if they're at capacity in the pediatric ICU, I think we can conclude they have severe disease. They don't put kids in ICU beds for funsies.

Also, that article was from May, so pre-Delta hitting the US. We're talking Delta- it's a whole 'nother beast than the other variants.  Much more contagious,  and hitting kids much harder (which may or may not be just because so many more are getting it with Delta, but either way, ICUs full of kids = bad) 

I still would like to know how many of those kids were in the hospital for other reasons and tested for Covid.  Because I know at least some hospitals are testing every person for Covid.  Symptomatic or not.  Children's ICU beds are full, I understand that, but how many children's ICU beds are there per population, and are there still the same # of available children's ICU beds now as normal, or have they switched resources away from kids' ICU to accommodate increase in adults needing ICU beds?  Or put another way, what is the raw number and % of child population who is in the children's ICU for no reason other than severe Covid effects?

To me, the statement that the kids' ICU is at capacity really tells me very little.  Other than there is an intent to alarm.  Give me more info and let me decide if there is a legitimate need to be alarmed for all kids.  (Because let's be honest, our media thrive on blowing things up for ratings and clicks.)

[ktgrok]

4 minutes ago, KSera said:

I agree with this. I keep saying this, and haven't gone looking for the info yet, but I'd really like to know how much of the new CDC spread data is all based on Provincetown, because if that's it, that's not a good situation to extrapolate widely based on. I mean, it shows us that the vaccine is clearly not bulletproof against delta, but I don't think it gives us a good real world estimate of just how much breakthrough and spread we might expect among the vaccinated.

I don't have the link handy, but I saw documented cases of spread by vaccinated people before that study. Also, we have documentation that they have similar viral loads early in the disease course - why wouldn't they be able to spread it?

1 minute ago, SKL said:

I still would like to know how many of those kids were in the hospital for other reasons and tested for Covid.  Because I know at least some hospitals are testing every person for Covid.  Symptomatic or not.  Children's ICU beds are full, I understand that, but how many children's ICU beds are there per population, and are there still the same # of available children's ICU beds now as normal, or have they switched resources away from kids' ICU to accommodate increase in adults needing ICU beds?  Or put another way, what is the raw number and % of child population who is in the children's ICU for no reason other than severe Covid effects?

To me, the statement that the kids' ICU is at capacity really tells me very little.  Other than there is an intent to alarm.  Give me more info and let me decide if there is a legitimate need to be alarmed for all kids.  (Because let's be honest, our media thrive on blowing things up for ratings and clicks.)

You think doctors are just pretending they are seeing way more kids with covid getting sicker? For media ratings?

[Susan in TX]

Related to spread by the vaccinated I found this https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w

"...Ct values obtained with SARS-CoV-2 qualitative RT-PCR diagnostic tests might provide a crude correlation to the amount of virus present in a sample and can also be affected by factors other than viral load.††† Although the assay used in this investigation was not validated to provide quantitative results, there was no significant difference between the Ct values of samples collected from breakthrough cases and the other cases. This might mean that the viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 is also similar. However, microbiological studies are required to confirm these findings."

Susan in TX

 

[freesia]

1 minute ago, SKL said:

I still would like to know how many of those kids were in the hospital for other reasons and tested for Covid.  Because I know at least some hospitals are testing every person for Covid.  Symptomatic or not.  Children's ICU beds are full, I understand that, but how many children's ICU beds are there per population, and are there still the same # of available children's ICU beds now as normal, or have they switched resources away from kids' ICU to accommodate increase in adults needing ICU beds?  Or put another way, what is the raw number and % of child population who is in the children's ICU for no reason other than severe Covid effects?

To me, the statement that the kids' ICU is at capacity really tells me very little.  Other than there is an intent to alarm.  Give me more info and let me decide if there is a legitimate need to be alarmed for all kids.  (Because let's be honest, our media thrive on blowing things up for ratings and clicks.)

I would like to know this, too.  I am finding it really hard to find information with regard to children.  I have a 12 year old and a dh who wants to wait to get her vaccinated until there is FDA approval (everyone else is vaccinated.)  I want clear data to understand her actual risk (understanding there is no predicting variants).  What are the children in ICU for? What are there risk factors?  I guess I want to know how many normal weight, athletic, completely healthy children have been hospitalized with this.  I can't find any of that.  This is the dd who was hospitalized with a throat abscess from strep so I know it's never "no risk".  I just want some clear data.

[ktgrok]

Just now, freesia said:

I would like to know this, too.  I am finding it really hard to find information with regard to children.  I have a 12 year old and a dh who wants to wait to get her vaccinated until there is FDA approval (everyone else is vaccinated.)  I want clear data to understand her actual risk (understanding there is no predicting variants).  What are the children in ICU for? What are there risk factors?  I guess I want to know how many normal weight, athletic, completely healthy children have been hospitalized with this.  I can't find any of that.  This is the dd who was hospitalized with a throat abscess from strep so I know it's never "no risk".  I just want some clear data.

Well, at that particular children's hospital he said specifically that half the kids in the ICU had no preeexisting health problems.

 

[freesia]

3 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I don't have the link handy, but I saw documented cases of spread by vaccinated people before that study. Also, we have documentation that they have similar viral loads early in the disease course - why wouldn't they be able to spread it?

You think doctors are just pretending they are seeing way more kids with covid getting sicker? For media ratings?

No, but no one is being clear about how many children and what there risk factors are.  The articles I have seen with interviews have usually featured children with other risk factors.

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Well, at that particular children's hospital he said specifically that half the kids in the ICU had no preeexisting health problems.

1) We still don't know how many "half" is.

2) How are they defining "preexisting health problems"?  Before my friend's daughter died from a car accident, she was in the ICU and didn't have any "preexisting health problems."  There are lots of acute reasons for kids to be in the ICU.

3) And another question - how old are these children who are in the ICU only because of Covid effects and had no "preexisting health problems"?  How many are under 12?

I'm not denying that there's an increase in cases, and that in rare situations, Covid can make kids very sick.  But I still don't feel like the info provided here is sufficiently informative to conclude, e.g., that Delta hurts young kids (on a per case basis) more than original Covid.

[historically accurate]

3 minutes ago, freesia said:

No, but no one is being clear about how many children and what there risk factors are.  The articles I have seen with interviews have usually featured children with other risk factors.

This article doesn't have numbers for kids, but it does state that not one of the under 18s who needed to be hospitalized for Covid were vaccinated (part were under 12, part were just not vaccinated). 

 

Most of the children currently hospitalized were not vaccinated against COVID-19, many because they are too young for a shot.

But others who are 12 and older had not been inoculated either, hospital officials said.

None of the teens hospitalized with COVID-19 at Children’s Hospital over the last two weeks were vaccinated, Rye Burch said.

https://news.yahoo.com/sc-hospital-capacity-covid-19-171846096.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

Part of the reason children's wards are full of children is RSV (which is having a resurgence as people get together) and delayed vaccinations for measles/whooping cough/etc. 

A simultaneous uptick in cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which can be serious for infants and older adults, and a pandemic-driven drop in childhood immunization rates that has left more kids vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and whooping cough has created a perfect storm of disease for children, said Dr. Caughman Taylor, senior medical director at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital–Midlands.