I would *love* to know how many deaths are omicron, and how many delta (which is still out there a little). But I'm fairly sure that our public health agencies are still not gathering much useful data if any, even two years in.
“We did not die any more” is a little too strong (although ’we’ haven’t died of anything, since I haven’t died of anything and thus ‘we’ haven’t either).
Here in the Chicago area the hospital beds are full, the ERs have overflow and those of the staff who were not fired because they refused the vaccine are desperately overworked. Why?
For one thing, while the unvaccinated survive infection to a much greater extent than they did, many of them still do end up in the hospital (such as a close friend of mine; for a week in his case, and he while in his 60's has no other co-morbidities) in much greater proportion than the vaccinated. The hospitals - especially in those urban areas with a lot of poor people who were already in poor health and who are disproportionately refusing the vaccination - already were close to being full from people with the usual assortment of disease and injuries. After all, unused beds and the space and equipment allocated to them cost money to maintain, so the system is not set up to maintain a lot of spare capacity. Add on top of that some healthcare workers who get sick, some who move on to hospitals in areas that will pay more and some who got fired because they refused the vaccine and you have some terrible situations out there.
I would *love* to know how many deaths are omicron, and how many delta (which is still out there a little).
It would be more useful to know, rather than the raw numbers (which have use in context), the rates of death given a case for each of the original, Delta, and Omicron variants (better would be rates given infection, but those data aren't available), and those rates broken out by death from a variant or from other cause with the variant virus merely present, along with the intermediate categories.
As for hospitals "overwhelmed" (my term), it would be useful to be able to compare staff firings for being unvaccinated or staff departures for better jobs (other hospitals or outside health care) with "overwhelmed."
The regional medical center gets close to overloaded about this time most years. RSV (makes little kids sick), influenza, people who ignored things during the holiday and can no longer ignore them . . . That's the average January. Add in something else and it sounds more like a very bad flu year, "the hospitals are overwhelmed." Granted, we had more local hospitals in small towns before the 2020 financial bloodbath, and they took some of the cases that now have to come to larger regional facilities. Even so, I remember flue seasons that had Regional General sending people out of the region because of the lack of space.
The causes differ, but the situations are similar.
God was not ending humanity via corona in 2020. I would be the first one to know and warn you humans, if that was the case. I said this explicitly in 2020 and early at that, FEbruary to March/APril.
However, if humans choose of their own free will to exit the stage via a bio weapon injection... the angels and devils won't interfere too much with that free will choice.
I would *love* to know how many deaths are omicron, and how many delta (which is still out there a little). But I'm fairly sure that our public health agencies are still not gathering much useful data if any, even two years in.
ReplyDelete“We did not die any more” is a little too strong (although ’we’ haven’t died of anything, since I haven’t died of anything and thus ‘we’ haven’t either).
ReplyDeleteHere in the Chicago area the hospital beds are full, the ERs have overflow and those of the staff who were not fired because they refused the vaccine are desperately overworked. Why?
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, while the unvaccinated survive infection to a much greater extent than they did, many of them still do end up in the hospital (such as a close friend of mine; for a week in his case, and he while in his 60's has no other co-morbidities) in much greater proportion than the vaccinated. The hospitals - especially in those urban areas with a lot of poor people who were already in poor health and who are disproportionately refusing the vaccination - already were close to being full from people with the usual assortment of disease and injuries. After all, unused beds and the space and equipment allocated to them cost money to maintain, so the system is not set up to maintain a lot of spare capacity. Add on top of that some healthcare workers who get sick, some who move on to hospitals in areas that will pay more and some who got fired because they refused the vaccine and you have some terrible situations out there.
I would *love* to know how many deaths are omicron, and how many delta (which is still out there a little).
ReplyDeleteIt would be more useful to know, rather than the raw numbers (which have use in context), the rates of death given a case for each of the original, Delta, and Omicron variants (better would be rates given infection, but those data aren't available), and those rates broken out by death from a variant or from other cause with the variant virus merely present, along with the intermediate categories.
As for hospitals "overwhelmed" (my term), it would be useful to be able to compare staff firings for being unvaccinated or staff departures for better jobs (other hospitals or outside health care) with "overwhelmed."
Eric Hines
The regional medical center gets close to overloaded about this time most years. RSV (makes little kids sick), influenza, people who ignored things during the holiday and can no longer ignore them . . . That's the average January. Add in something else and it sounds more like a very bad flu year, "the hospitals are overwhelmed." Granted, we had more local hospitals in small towns before the 2020 financial bloodbath, and they took some of the cases that now have to come to larger regional facilities. Even so, I remember flue seasons that had Regional General sending people out of the region because of the lack of space.
ReplyDeleteThe causes differ, but the situations are similar.
LittelRed1
God was not ending humanity via corona in 2020. I would be the first one to know and warn you humans, if that was the case. I said this explicitly in 2020 and early at that, FEbruary to March/APril.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if humans choose of their own free will to exit the stage via a bio weapon injection... the angels and devils won't interfere too much with that free will choice.