Unemployed due to SCOTUS

[Gern Blansten]

Yes. I’m simply saying vaccination rates among American children for things like DPT, MMR, etc is 95-98%. Very few qualify for exemptions. And those vaccines are mandatory for kids to attend school. They have been, without COVID-style public outcry, for decades. Mandating a COVID vaccine for the parts of the world that have access shouldn’t be some life-ending alien invasion that people are making it out to be. Mandatory vaccination has been around for a long time.

I agree that it should not be, but this is brand new and many are hesitant. I do not think that the vaccines you mentioned achieved those high rates in their first year of inception. I believe polio was pretty quickly adopted, but did have some significant pushback as well.

Here is an excerpt from a story about a vaccine mishap ("The Cutter incident") that occurred with the polio vaccine back in 1955 that caused some hesitancy even back then, a time when science was very trusted by the public to combat a terrible disease.

The years-long campaign of information and donations to the polio eradication effort made anxious Americans feel they were invested in a solution, Stewart says. So confident was the public in the research leading up to the polio vaccine that by the time the Salk vaccine was ready for experimental testing in 1954, the parents of 600,000 children volunteered their own offspring as research subjects.When the results of those studies showed the vaccine to be safe and effective in 1955, church bells rang. Loudspeakers in stores, offices and factories blared the news. People crowded around radios. "There was jubilation," says Stewart. People couldn't wait to sign their kids up for a shot.
Then tragedy struck. One of the six labs manufacturing the vaccine, Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, Calif., made a terrible mistake. The correct list of ingredients for the Salk vaccine called for polio virus that had been inactivated, but in the Cutter facility, the process of killing the virus proved defective. As a result, batches of the company's vaccine went out that mistakenly contained active polio virus. Of the 200,000 children who received the defective vaccine, 40,000 got polio from it; 200 were left with varying degrees of paralysis, and 10 died.

There have been issues with the J&J vaccine with blood clots and issues of purported myocarditis with the mRNA vaccines. Although quite rare, if your loved one is the one who has the bad reaction, that is a real problem because the cases reported are quite severe. As I have stated earlier, we know only a limited amount of information about the virus at this point. Long term effects of the vaccine are still undetermined as well. I believe they will be found to be mostly safe with only rare long term effects. But the number injured by the vaccine is not zero. I believe that this is why there is hesitancy.
Everyone is looking at this through a lens that suggests that adoption of things is immediate and should be 100% instantaneously. Even though it seems like forever, this novel virus is brand new in the grand scheme of things. The polio vaccine trials began in 1954 and the results were released in 1955 leading to widespread vaccinations that same year. Polio was declared "eradicated in the Americas" in 1994, likely several years earlier in the US.
We find ourselves on the early side of this pandemic. This is a process of distribution and acceptance of this medical treatment. If we found a cure for cancer tomorrow, it does not mean that not a single other person would ever die of cancer. It means that is the beginning of the long process to eradicate the disease. The length of any process can vary. But it is a process and not instantaneous. I believe that the process is moving forward and progress is being made, but I have no illusions that dealing with this pandemic is something that can be done as quickly as some here believe. There are too many factors at play in our global society.
I could not imagine the inner turmoil of someone who watched a member(s) of their family suffer through the above "Cutter incident" and was then hesitant to receive the vaccine that they were told was safe. Meanwhile, all I hear is that "vaccines are safe and always have been." I enjoy studying the history of medicine and things are not always as clear cut as some would suggest.
The polio vaccine was able to recover from that tragic setback and was adopted widely. However, it was a process that took time.
The main point is, we are in a compressed timeline that feels like forever, but we are just at the beginning. Have patience with yourselves, your colleagues, your patients as the process evolves to beat this virus into submission (or at least until it mutates to a weak and meaningless virus that is no big deal) Don't destroy the patient physician relationship and demonize others because they are not at the exact same point in the process of understanding as you may be. This is not a quick fix.
Meanwhile, encourage people to get vaccinated in a civilized and understanding manner without judgment.

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[vector2]

Both of those graphs come directly from a weekly technical briefing released by the government in the UK. I previously posted and sourced the second. Feel free to check the "written record" above. This is the same UK data you were literally just touting for showing booster efficacy. Nice consistency.

Has anyone here actually contested that the data shows waning efficacy over time for the 1st and 2nd shots? Nope.

But what you did was bring up "Canadian and Danish" studies which are currently being used as misinformation to suggest negative efficacy or immune suppression, you ran with that and downplayed all the methodologic problems and the fact that the authors of those preprint studies disagree with you.....and now you're acting as if you never brought them up.

If you want to retract your prior nonsense and just leave it as "the 1st and 2nd shot efficacy wanes over time but a 3rd shot provides (for the time being) some protection on the order of 50-70% against omicron infection and very good protection (~90%) against omicron hospitalization and death" then no one will disagree with that statement.

 

[BobLoblaw78]

This is what kills me. There’s probably 5-6 vaccines or titers you’ve had to prove since undergrad let alone to get/maintain your hospital credentialing. What’s changed?

The politically instilled cognitive dissonance is so thick anymore I’ve lost faith in humanity at large.

Take this as a discussion starter:

Are vaccines for Hepatitis B, MMR, Varicella, Polio, DTaP, Meningococcal equivalent to COVID vaccine for omicron? Someone keeps spouting false equivalency and it may apply here.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

I've been a longtime follower of this forum to learn anesthesia tips\tricks over the years. I never post, but I feel compelled to now after seeing all the back and forth on this topic. Most of us on this forum are highly educated, we've been through college, medical school, residency, years of clinical practice, and we all share a lot in common. We should have some respect for each other's experience, opinions and analysis of what we are seeing during these unprecedented times rather than just assume any disagreement one way or the other has to be either politically motivated or just plain stupidity.

If you say anything on this forum with an absolute like never use etomidate or always cancel an elective case if blood sugar >400, you will always find people who disagree. Usually we welcome disagreement as it teaches us another way of looking at something. So we should expect similar disagreement on the topic of ALWAYS get the vaccine.

The original topic of this thread was over MANDATORY vaccination of healthcare workers. Frankly I'm surprised there is not more of a defense of our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle. If we are not going to defend ourselves than who else is? Why is it acceptable for the government to mandate vaccination for employment. Before you say we can just change jobs, how many hospitals do not take medicare/medicaid dollars? We are talking about our livelihoods here that we have trained 8+ years for post college. And while the vaccine clearly has some benefit it does not prevent transmission of the virus and it has no long term safety data. Many who are opposed to vaccination are in a very low risk group for severe illness and/or hospitalization so the vaccine has very limited benefit to them, some known risk like feeling lousy for a day and some unknown risk (?long term safety). It is easy to be passive about accepting this mandate now this as the vaccine overall is likely harmless and its "for the public good." However what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time.

Another aspect of this debate is that some of the problems we are facing may actually be exacerbated by vaccine mandates. I'm talking about full hospitals, cancelling of elective surgeries, etc. Lots of hospital employees have quit/retired/got fired due to vaccine mandates. Now many hospitals physically have beds available to put patients in but no people to staff those beds so the hospital is "FULL" and elective cases are cancelled and this is all attributed to a COVID surge. This is not to minimize COVID itself. There has been a COVID surge as well but it has been exacerbated by a personnel shortage. I don't know what the answer is to all these problems, but I think it's more complicated than just forcing mass vaccination.

 

[DrOwnage]

Thread Summary.

 

[GassYous]

I've been a longtime follower of this forum to learn anesthesia tips\tricks over the years. I never post, but I feel compelled to now after seeing all the back and forth on this topic. Most of us on this forum are highly educated, we've been through college, medical school, residency, years of clinical practice, and we all share a lot in common. We should have some respect for each other's experience, opinions and analysis of what we are seeing during these unprecedented times rather than just assume any disagreement one way or the other has to be either politically motivated or just plain stupidity.

If you say anything on this forum with an absolute like never use etomidate or always cancel an elective case if blood sugar >400, you will always find people who disagree. Usually we welcome disagreement as it teaches us another way of looking at something. So we should expect similar disagreement on the topic of ALWAYS get the vaccine.

The original topic of this thread was over MANDATORY vaccination of healthcare workers. Frankly I'm surprised there is not more of a defense of our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle. If we are not going to defend ourselves than who else is? Why is it acceptable for the government to mandate vaccination for employment. Before you say we can just change jobs, how many hospitals do not take medicare/medicaid dollars? We are talking about our livelihoods here that we have trained 8+ years for post college. And while the vaccine clearly has some benefit it does not prevent transmission of the virus and it has no long term safety data. Many who are opposed to vaccination are in a very low risk group for severe illness and/or hospitalization so the vaccine has very limited benefit to them, some known risk like feeling lousy for a day and some unknown risk (?long term safety). It is easy to be passive about accepting this mandate now this as the vaccine overall is likely harmless and its "for the public good." However what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time.

Another aspect of this debate is that some of the problems we are facing may actually be exacerbated by vaccine mandates. I'm talking about full hospitals, cancelling of elective surgeries, etc. Lots of hospital employees have quit/retired/got fired due to vaccine mandates. Now many hospitals physically have beds available to put patients in but no people to staff those beds so the hospital is "FULL" and elective cases are cancelled and this is all attributed to a COVID surge. This is not to minimize COVID itself. There has been a COVID surge as well but it has been exacerbated by a personnel shortage. I don't know what the answer is to all these problems, but I think it's more complicated than just forcing mass vaccination.

There's case law upholding the state's authority to enforce compulsory vaccination going back more than 100 years.

 

[Gern Blansten]

I've been a longtime follower of this forum to learn anesthesia tips\tricks over the years. I never post, but I feel compelled to now after seeing all the back and forth on this topic. Most of us on this forum are highly educated, we've been through college, medical school, residency, years of clinical practice, and we all share a lot in common. We should have some respect for each other's experience, opinions and analysis of what we are seeing during these unprecedented times rather than just assume any disagreement one way or the other has to be either politically motivated or just plain stupidity.

If you say anything on this forum with an absolute like never use etomidate or always cancel an elective case if blood sugar >400, you will always find people who disagree. Usually we welcome disagreement as it teaches us another way of looking at something. So we should expect similar disagreement on the topic of ALWAYS get the vaccine.

The original topic of this thread was over MANDATORY vaccination of healthcare workers. Frankly I'm surprised there is not more of a defense of our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle. If we are not going to defend ourselves than who else is? Why is it acceptable for the government to mandate vaccination for employment. Before you say we can just change jobs, how many hospitals do not take medicare/medicaid dollars? We are talking about our livelihoods here that we have trained 8+ years for post college. And while the vaccine clearly has some benefit it does not prevent transmission of the virus and it has no long term safety data. Many who are opposed to vaccination are in a very low risk group for severe illness and/or hospitalization so the vaccine has very limited benefit to them, some known risk like feeling lousy for a day and some unknown risk (?long term safety). It is easy to be passive about accepting this mandate now this as the vaccine overall is likely harmless and its "for the public good." However what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time.

Another aspect of this debate is that some of the problems we are facing may actually be exacerbated by vaccine mandates. I'm talking about full hospitals, cancelling of elective surgeries, etc. Lots of hospital employees have quit/retired/got fired due to vaccine mandates. Now many hospitals physically have beds available to put patients in but no people to staff those beds so the hospital is "FULL" and elective cases are cancelled and this is all attributed to a COVID surge. This is not to minimize COVID itself. There has been a COVID surge as well but it has been exacerbated by a personnel shortage. I don't know what the answer is to all these problems, but I think it's more complicated than just forcing mass vaccination.

That is a very reasonable and unassuming point of view. Prepare to be attacked.

 

[Onefellswoop87]

I've been a longtime follower of this forum to learn anesthesia tips\tricks over the years. I never post, but I feel compelled to now after seeing all the back and forth on this topic. Most of us on this forum are highly educated, we've been through college, medical school, residency, years of clinical practice, and we all share a lot in common. We should have some respect for each other's experience, opinions and analysis of what we are seeing during these unprecedented times rather than just assume any disagreement one way or the other has to be either politically motivated or just plain stupidity.

If you say anything on this forum with an absolute like never use etomidate or always cancel an elective case if blood sugar >400, you will always find people who disagree. Usually we welcome disagreement as it teaches us another way of looking at something. So we should expect similar disagreement on the topic of ALWAYS get the vaccine.

The original topic of this thread was over MANDATORY vaccination of healthcare workers. Frankly I'm surprised there is not more of a defense of our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle. If we are not going to defend ourselves than who else is? Why is it acceptable for the government to mandate vaccination for employment. Before you say we can just change jobs, how many hospitals do not take medicare/medicaid dollars? We are talking about our livelihoods here that we have trained 8+ years for post college. And while the vaccine clearly has some benefit it does not prevent transmission of the virus and it has no long term safety data. Many who are opposed to vaccination are in a very low risk group for severe illness and/or hospitalization so the vaccine has very limited benefit to them, some known risk like feeling lousy for a day and some unknown risk (?long term safety). It is easy to be passive about accepting this mandate now this as the vaccine overall is likely harmless and its "for the public good." However what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time.

Another aspect of this debate is that some of the problems we are facing may actually be exacerbated by vaccine mandates. I'm talking about full hospitals, cancelling of elective surgeries, etc. Lots of hospital employees have quit/retired/got fired due to vaccine mandates. Now many hospitals physically have beds available to put patients in but no people to staff those beds so the hospital is "FULL" and elective cases are cancelled and this is all attributed to a COVID surge. This is not to minimize COVID itself. There has been a COVID surge as well but it has been exacerbated by a personnel shortage. I don't know what the answer is to all these problems, but I think it's more complicated than just forcing mass vaccination.

That is a very reasonable and unassuming point of view. Prepare to be attacked.

Call it unfortunate but I don't view some of his/her post as reasonable. Why should I defend "our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle?" I think that is an uniquely uninformed and dangerous position to take. Outside of very rare exceptions (myocarditis after 1st dose, anaphylaxis to 1st dose, etc.), I cannot find a generalized position to not be vaccinated.

I've brought up here and other times talking to people in-person, but why does one's "personal decision" equal to "freedom from consequences?" Don't want to get vaccinated? Deal with the consequences. It's a free country means the government isn't going to jail you or strip liberties, but you don't have a legal absolute right to work.

The slippery slope argument of "what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time." just doesn't hold water. If you want to travel back in time to the first time government or private entities mandated vaccines or other conditions of employment, I might buy it then, but go talk to George Washington before his requirement for smallpox inoculation for troops at time of the Revolutionary War. Yes, I understand that's not a one to one comparison for COVID, but I believe it works well for the argument of "what will the mean and totalitarian government require of us poor unvaccinated persons?"

Maybe I'm rare, but I don't recall an attending in residency ever saying in a black and white fashion "dont ever use etomidate," but my choice to use a single dose of etomidate doesn't increase the risk of everyone in the room getting adrenal suppression. It's fine to have an academic discussion about the merits of etomidate and about how efficacious the vaccines are, but I don't understand your comparison between we can have discussions about other stuff but why not about a deadly pandemic and how we should sympathize with those who don't vaccinate? That's not a principled stance I'm gonna take.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

That is a very reasonable and unassuming point of view. Prepare to be attacked.

Reasonable is very subjective.

 

[Gern Blansten]

There's case law upholding the state's authority to enforce compulsory vaccination going back more than 100 years.

There is case law to support a lot of things that are controversial and not universally agreed upon.

 

[thinkorswim]

There is case law to support a lot of things that are controversial and not universally agreed upon.

I don’t think anything is ever universally agreed upon, but just because you feel something is unfair, it’s still the law at the end of the day. I don’t agree with taxes, but I still pay them because it’s the law.

We’ve been through all of this vaccination mandate hysteria over a century ago with smallpox. At the end of the day, it was ruled that one man’s liberty isn’t more important than the health of the general public.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[pgg]

There are some here who believe that the disease could have been eradicated one year after the vaccines were available.

No one has said this. No one.

And yet you keep pretending that your opposition in this thread believe this.

What has been said is that the pandemic could be effectively over as a social and economic catastrophe if every eligible person was vaccinated, and they're right. The hospitals wouldn't be overrun. Omicron would still be spreading, but the severity of disease would be milder and less resource draining. We could actually be in a world where COVID really was "just the flu" ... something managed and mitigated with vaccination to the point that society could function normally again.

The unvaccinated are a shrinking minority in this country, and they are the overwhelming majority of critically ill COVID patients.


And I have no idea why you brought up the concept of ERADICATION, in smallpox terms. No one ever said anything about eradicating a coronavirus - it's ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that coronaviruses have animal reservoirs.

Why are you conjuring these arguments that no one is making?


I'm not going to offer excuses or any defense of healthcare workers who won't get vaccinated. (Except maybe one - she had Guillain–Barré when she was younger.) Even with staff shortages as bad as they are, they shouldn't be allowed to work in the hospital. I know a handful of them and they're not bad people. They're just being foolish. They're solid clinicians. People I enjoy working with. I used to ask them why but I don't any more. It's always ridiculous, sometimes misinformation, sometimes nonsense (a "religious" exemption), sometimes it's just an odd principled ****-you-I-won't-do-what-you-tell-me.


I'm not a vaccine zealot. I refused the anthrax vaccine about 18 years ago when the Marine Corps wanted to give it to me before going to Afghanistan. It was a vaccine that was validated to prevent cutaneous anthrax from soil exposure in agricultural workers, and the military was hoping it would work against inhaled weaponized anthrax, obviously without any data. It was a multi shot series, and a miserable one at that, and we all knew that the Taliban didn't have a biological weapons program, so I said no. Obviously there wasn't a global pandemic of anthrax going on, either. I think I had sane reasons to decline getting a vaccine.

But the COVID-19 vaccines? Any healthcare worker who refuses the COVID vaccine is foolish and should be gently and respectfully educated/counseled before being sent home on unpaid leave. GTFO.


From a legal standpoint, I'd rather that the courts had simply upheld the right of individual hospitals to mandate vaccination as a condition of employment. I'm not real thrilled with handing Medicare another reason to withhold payment for noncompliance with one of their policies. Slippery slope arguments are often bunk, but sometimes the slope actually is slippery,

 

[dhb]

At the end of the day, it was ruled that one man’s liberty isn’t more important than the health of the general public

One vaccine prevents disease the other one does not.

 

[dhb]

No one has said this. No one.

And yet you keep pretending that your opposition in this thread believe this.

What has been said is that the pandemic could be effectively over as a social and economic catastrophe if every eligible person was vaccinated, and they're right. The hospitals wouldn't be overrun. Omicron would still be spreading, but the severity of disease would be milder and less resource draining. We could actually be in a world where COVID really was "just the flu" ... something managed and mitigated with vaccination to the point that society could function normally again.

The unvaccinated are a shrinking minority in this country, and they are the overwhelming majority of critically ill COVID patients.


And I have no idea why you brought up the concept of ERADICATION, in smallpox terms. No one ever said anything about eradicating a coronavirus - it's ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that coronaviruses have animal reservoirs.

Why are you conjuring these arguments that no one is making?


I'm not going to offer excuses or any defense of healthcare workers who won't get vaccinated. (Except maybe one - she had Guillain–Barré when she was younger.) Even with staff shortages as bad as they are, they shouldn't be allowed to work in the hospital. I know a handful of them and they're not bad people. They're just being foolish. They're solid clinicians. People I enjoy working with. I used to ask them why but I don't any more. It's always ridiculous, sometimes misinformation, sometimes nonsense (a "religious" exemption), sometimes it's just an odd principled ****-you-I-won't-do-what-you-tell-me.


I'm not a vaccine zealot. I refused the anthrax vaccine about 18 years ago when the Marine Corps wanted to give it to me before going to Afghanistan. It was a vaccine that was validated to prevent cutaneous anthrax from soil exposure in agricultural workers, and the military was hoping it would work against inhaled weaponized anthrax, obviously without any data. It was a multi shot series, and a miserable one at that, and we all knew that the Taliban didn't have a biological weapons program, so I said no. Obviously there wasn't a global pandemic of anthrax going on, either. I think I had sane reasons to decline getting a vaccine.

But the COVID-19 vaccines? Any healthcare worker who refuses the COVID vaccine is foolish and should be gently and respectfully educated/counseled before being sent home on unpaid leave. GTFO.


From a legal standpoint, I'd rather that the courts had simply upheld the right of individual hospitals to mandate vaccination as a condition of employment. I'm not real thrilled with handing Medicare another reason to withhold payment for noncompliance with one of their policies. Slippery slope arguments are often bunk, but sometimes the slope actually is slippery,

I've yet to see a transmission from infected patient to OR worker who was wearing a mask. The reverse is probably true but harder to assert.
Why in this context would you impose a therapy on everyone that only benefits a subset of the population that is unhealthy and which should take whatever measures they deem appropriate to protect themselves?
Healthcare system breakdowns seem to be much more of a problem in the US compared to other countries but once again obesity is not ARDS's best freind.

 

[Gern Blansten]

No one has said this. No one.

And yet you keep pretending that your opposition in this thread believe this.

What has been said is that the pandemic could be effectively over as a social and economic catastrophe if every eligible person was vaccinated, and they're right. The hospitals wouldn't be overrun. Omicron would still be spreading, but the severity of disease would be milder and less resource draining. We could actually be in a world where COVID really was "just the flu" ... something managed and mitigated with vaccination to the point that society could function normally again.

They are coming from a position that 100% vaccination was achievable in a global pandemic. My position is that I do not think it is (not in one year). Therefore, I think the timelines may have changed somewhat, but I think the spikes would have still occurred, maybe just not quite as high and not with as many deaths. But the virus is going to spread. All we can do is mitigate it a bit. I think that some people think it can be mitigated into submission. I have a different opinion and that is why I am much less angry at the ones who are not at the same place I am on the vaccination issue.

 

[Gern Blansten]

I don’t think anything is ever universally agreed upon, but just because you feel something is unfair, it’s still the law at the end of the day. I don’t agree with taxes, but I still pay them because it’s the law.

We’ve been through all of this vaccination mandate hysteria over a century ago with smallpox. At the end of the day, it was ruled that one man’s liberty isn’t more important than the health of the general public.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Jenner discovered the first version of the smallpox vaccine (cowpox) in the years 1796-1801. The supreme court decision that you linked was from 1905 based on a law requiring compulsory vaccines for smallpox enacted in 1902. The World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox on May 8th, 1980. So, doing the math, 104 years to make the vaccine compulsory and another 78 years until it was declared eradicated.

The post above (that produced not a single response) where I mentioned the story of the polio vaccine and this one show that this is a long process. Many on here believe that everything somehow just magically happens instantaneously and we can defeat this virus. In the absolute best of circumstances, this is not a fast process. That is why I believe that anger at the patients is misplaced. This virus will run its course. We will increase the portion of society that is vaccinated gradually over time. I believe we will have better therapeutics, better and more effective vaccines, and that the virus will attenuate itself as it mutates to weaker forms. I believe we are far more advanced and we can accelerate the process significantly from the experience with smallpox (~182 years) and polio (~40 years), but it is not an instant solution, even if everyone did everything exactly as they were instructed (a major part of the issue is that the instructions have been a moving target throughout the first two years of the pandemic). There are some here who believe that the disease could have been eradicated one year after the vaccines were available. It is those who think that is the case who are the most angry and placing blame on everyone who is not at the same place of understanding as they are. I think that history will tell you that you cannot vaccinate a virus into submission in 1 year. The smallpox vaccines got better over the next century (I believe it changed in ~1800) and aided in decreasing the incidence. The polio virus similarly improved after the initial tragedy. We are still in the infancy of this novel coronavirus and still on vaccine number one (technically we have three, but two are basically the same and no one wants the third)
Again, study the history of vaccines and disease eradication.
If people want to be mad, they should be mad at the individuals who funded, created, and then released this scourge of a virus into the world. [ducks and prepares for the oncoming attack ]

On a different note. We have all heard of smallpox, but what was the great pox?

Spoiler:
Syphilis

 

[GassYous]

They are coming from a position that 100% vaccination was achievable in a global pandemic. My position is that I do not think it is (not in one year). Therefore, I think the timelines may have changed somewhat, but I think the spikes would have still occurred, maybe just not quite as high and not with as many deaths. But the virus is going to spread. All we can do is mitigate it a bit. I think that some people think it can be mitigated into submission. I have a different opinion and that is why I am much less angry at the ones who are not at the same place I am on the vaccination issue.

A lot of the things you are saying are made up by you and I'm not sure where you're getting these assumptions from. You're trying to make it like you're the only reasonable person on here. No one was saying the virus is able to be completely eliminated or that 100% vaccination is achievable. It is very frustrating to read your posts.

 

[pgg]

They are coming from a position that 100% vaccination was achievable in a global pandemic.

100% was never necessary. The only percentages I remember ever being thrown around were speculation that herd immunity might kick in between 60% and 80% or thereabouts.

But anyway, high levels of vaccination were achievable HERE and could have dramatically reduced the impact on hospitals HERE and the economy HERE.

You're right, high levels of vaccination are a long way off in most of the world. Possibly never. India, Africa, South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Not happening soon.

My position is that I do not think it is (not in one year). Therefore, I think the timelines may have changed somewhat, but I think the spikes would have still occurred, maybe just not quite as high and not with as many deaths. But the virus is going to spread. All we can do is mitigate it a bit. I think that some people think it can be mitigated into submission. I have a different opinion and that is why I am much less angry at the ones who are not at the same place I am on the vaccination issue.

We could've mitigated it a LOT. And we could've done it without lengthy business shutdowns, or travel bans. All we had to do was get most everyone vaccinated.

I freely confess - I'm tired of the unvaccinated excuses. They're the reason hospitals are overrun. They're the reason other people are getting delayed or degraded care for other health problems. My favorite example that I share from personal experience is just so silly and trivial, yet awful, and it encapsulates the whole surreal absurdity of it all: a woman who ran over her foot with a lawn mower sat in an ER hallway for more than a day. Toes missing, open fracture, pain. Hungry too, because she was kept NPO because there was a chance she could get squeezed into an OR for a washout. All because the ER and the ER lobby and the hallways were full of coughing wheezing febrile look-what-the-cat-drug-in unvaccinated COVID patients. Ortho was going to do a bedside hallway washout and send her home, but we found an OR slot and a bed for her. A day after she presented. How ****ed up is that?

If you want to shrug and blow if off and go "meh! whaddaya gonna do? nothing coulda been done!" ... well, I just can't agree.

 

[pgg]

There are some here who believe that the disease could have been eradicated one year after the vaccines were available.

Who? Name one person. Quote him or her.

I'll wait.

Eradication has a very specific meaning. A disease with an animal reservoir or vector, or a disease for which humans are not required for its life cycle, are not candidates for eradication.

No one here has ever suggested that eradication of COVID was a goal or even a possibility.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

I appreciate the back and forth and bringing case law into this discussion. Since Jacobson v MA was brought up, there are some important differences. This was 1905 and infectious diseases were the leading cause of death and had few treatment options. Smallpox had a 30% fatality rate. The vaccine provided immunity. The case law suggested the state had the authority to enforce a mandate. The penalty for Jacobson not following the vaccine mandate was $5 (in today's dollars this would be more like $100).

Today we have a virus with a <1% fatality rate. We have alternative treatment options. The vaccine does not provide immunity. The federal government is doing the mandating, not an individual state. The mandate does not apply to all citizens, only certain populations (healthcare workers). The penalty for not following the mandate is loss of a job in a career that we have spent years training for.

 

[GassYous]

It's amazing how people purporting to be healthcare professionals attempt to spread misinformation on a forum of doctors. There are no alternative treatment options that work. The vaccine helps mitigate symptoms, helps decrease spread and helps decrease mortality. It has minimal side effects and is very safe. The federal government can make any decisions that they want concerning public health. Christ.

 

[STLINI]

Has anyone here actually contested that the data shows waning efficacy over time for the 1st and 2nd shots? Nope.

But what you did was bring up "Canadian and Danish" studies which are currently being used as misinformation to suggest negative efficacy or immune suppression, you ran with that and downplayed all the methodologic problems and the fact that the authors of those preprint studies disagree with you.....and now you're acting as if you never brought them up.

If you want to retract your prior nonsense and just leave it as "the 1st and 2nd shot efficacy wanes over time but a 3rd shot provides (for the time being) some protection on the order of 50-70% against omicron infection and very good protection (~90%) against omicron hospitalization and death" then no one will disagree with that statement.

Sigh. As I said in my very first post referencing those studies I find it very hard to believe a vaccine can provide negative efficacy as it seems quite mechanistically implausible. As I said at least twice previously, I brought those studies up as evidence that relevant efficacy against infection for Dose 1/2 is basically zero. A concept now so controversial that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said "the two doses offer very limited protection, if any."

Feel free to keep ranting about misinformation. I might suggest a good glass of whiskey would be a better use of your time.

 

[IMGASMD]

I wish we have a thumbs down button.

 

[IMGASMD]

It's amazing how people purporting to be healthcare professionals attempt to spread misinformation on a forum of doctors. There are no alternative treatment options that work. The vaccine helps mitigate symptoms, helps decrease spread and helps decrease mortality. It has minimal side effects and is very safe. The federal government can make any decisions that they want concerning public health. Christ.

~“Treatments” of COVID ~
have entered the conversation.


I wish those of you who are given any credence to “choice” of vaccine had seen a “real” COVID ICU, let along a COVID ICU of the NE in early months of 2020. Those who quit or took early retirement, I certainly don’t blame them.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

It's amazing how people purporting to be healthcare professionals attempt to spread misinformation on a forum of doctors. There are no alternative treatment options that work. The vaccine helps mitigate symptoms, helps decrease spread and helps decrease mortality. It has minimal side effects and is very safe. The federal government can make any decisions that they want concerning public health. Christ.

Sorry for triggering you by saying we have alternative treatments. I actually agree with you that none of them are very good. I never said anything about how well they work. But you can’t deny that the Covid treatment document at any hospital has lots of medications on it, some of which I'm sure you'd ask for if you or a relative were unfortunate enough to need them.

My point was in 1905 most medical treatment was home remedies and there were few hospitals let alone ICUs. So the fact that we have some supportive care and treatments is a difference from that time period, even if those treatments aren't a panacea.

If you feel the need to impugn my character by saying I’m only purporting to be a healthcare professional then I must be making a valid point that you are having a hard time debating with actual facts.

 

[chessknt]

I appreciate the back and forth and bringing case law into this discussion. Since Jacobson v MA was brought up, there are some important differences. This was 1905 and infectious diseases were the leading cause of death and had few treatment options. Smallpox had a 30% fatality rate. The vaccine provided immunity. The case law suggested the state had the authority to enforce a mandate. The penalty for Jacobson not following the vaccine mandate was $5 (in today's dollars this would be more like $100).

Today we have a virus with a <1% fatality rate. We have alternative treatment options. The vaccine does not provide immunity. The federal government is doing the mandating, not an individual state. The mandate does not apply to all citizens, only certain populations (healthcare workers). The penalty for not following the mandate is loss of a job in a career that we have spent years training for.

No the penalty of being so stupid or delusional that you think the vaccine is dangerous or not beneficial is losing your job. I think it is an amazing decision. Get all these closet nutcases out of the hospital. They’re still free to sell penis enlargement pills and and micro biome horse**** with the same level of certainty of vaccine harms. Maybe if more of that 8 years was spent learning how to critique and read scientific literature they would have realized how flawed their position was.

 

[GassYous]

No the penalty of being so stupid or delusional that you think the vaccine is dangerous or not beneficial is losing your job. I think it is an amazing decision. Get all these closet nutcases out of the hospital. They’re still free to sell penis enlargement pills and and micro biome horse**** with the same level of certainty of vaccine harms. Maybe if more of that 8 years was spent learning how to critique and read scientific literature they would have realized how flawed their position was.

Can you say more about these penis enlargement pills

 

[vector2]

Sigh. As I said in my very first post referencing those studies I find it very hard to believe a vaccine can provide negative efficacy as it seems quite mechanistically implausible. As I said at least twice previously, I brought those studies up as evidence that relevant efficacy against infection for Dose 1/2 is basically zero. A concept now so controversial that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said "the two doses offer very limited protection, if any."

Feel free to keep ranting about misinformation. I might suggest a good glass of whiskey would be a better use of your time.

Shall we look at your first post referencing those studies so you can quit gaslighting everyone?

"
Well said. The question now is whether the ROI for continuously shaming, coercing, and othering these people is worth it. We're driving deep fractures in society for very little benefit at this point in my opinion. We've had universal access to vaccines for a year. Boosters are available seemingly on every street corner. Most of the COVID patients admitted right now are there because they made the poor decision to remain unvaccinated. My hospital is currently pushed to our limit with these folks currently. But there are still far more people admitted with complications of other poor decisions. At what point does not being vaccinated against COVID become one of a multitude of bad decisions we tacitly accept? We don't try to exclude people from society for not managing their diabetes, being obese, smoking, not taking their Lipitor or any other number of things that put them in the hospital.

I understand that COVID is an infectious disease and diabetes isn't. Unfortunately the current versions of the vaccines do not meaningfully impact transmission. Booster poster child Israel is currently experiencing record numbers of cases, and decided a 4th shot doesn't likely make sense. There are papers out of Canada and Denmark suggesting negative efficacy against Omicron with regards to infection. My vaccine protects ME against severe disease. It has very little broader societal benefit. Yet we have cities and states that won't allow an unvaccinated 6 year old into a restaurant. This is insanity. Does anyone really think this will be viewed positively by history?

Our society seems to be coming apart at the seams, we have more than enough things to argue and scream at each other about. This subject just isn't worth it any longer."


Feel free to show where in that first post you clarified your skepticism of the results of those preprint studies vis a vis negative efficacy. Because from here, you didn't do that, and if no one had proceeded to call you out on the stream of BS you're writing that bolded statement of yours would've just stood as is.

 

[nimbus]

Speaking of animal reservoirs…

Hongkongers launch hamster rescue mission after Covid cull declared

Thousands sign petitions and many offer to house pets, as officials say more than 2,000 imported hamsters must be killed

www.theguardian.com

 

[nimbus]

Strong kid

 

[nimbus]

Tweeting for beds. Apparently it works.

 

[nimbus]

Not clear what the issue is in this case. Maybe the doctors decided it was futile to keep him on the vent.



Court Battle Over a Ventilator Takes a Patient From Minnesota to Texas

 

[RadOncDoc21]

Meat Loaf was anti-vaccine mandate, reportedly seriously ill with COVID before death

The late rocker Meat Loaf was outspokenly anti-vaccine mandate and anti-mask before his COVID-related death.

nypost.com

I’m not sure if this was already posted, sad news to hear but I personally feel his death could have been avoided. It’s tragic to see people make fatal mistakes based on misinformation. What makes it worse is that in today’a society, people are easily influenced by celebrities.

Can we agree that we do need to do a better job at education and truly eliminating politics out of everything?

 

[Mad Jack]

I've been a longtime follower of this forum to learn anesthesia tips\tricks over the years. I never post, but I feel compelled to now after seeing all the back and forth on this topic. Most of us on this forum are highly educated, we've been through college, medical school, residency, years of clinical practice, and we all share a lot in common. We should have some respect for each other's experience, opinions and analysis of what we are seeing during these unprecedented times rather than just assume any disagreement one way or the other has to be either politically motivated or just plain stupidity.

If you say anything on this forum with an absolute like never use etomidate or always cancel an elective case if blood sugar >400, you will always find people who disagree. Usually we welcome disagreement as it teaches us another way of looking at something. So we should expect similar disagreement on the topic of ALWAYS get the vaccine.

The original topic of this thread was over MANDATORY vaccination of healthcare workers. Frankly I'm surprised there is not more of a defense of our unvaccinated colleagues in healthcare just on principle. If we are not going to defend ourselves than who else is? Why is it acceptable for the government to mandate vaccination for employment. Before you say we can just change jobs, how many hospitals do not take medicare/medicaid dollars? We are talking about our livelihoods here that we have trained 8+ years for post college. And while the vaccine clearly has some benefit it does not prevent transmission of the virus and it has no long term safety data. Many who are opposed to vaccination are in a very low risk group for severe illness and/or hospitalization so the vaccine has very limited benefit to them, some known risk like feeling lousy for a day and some unknown risk (?long term safety). It is easy to be passive about accepting this mandate now this as the vaccine overall is likely harmless and its "for the public good." However what will the next thing be that is required of us by the government as a condition of employment? It may be more onerous the next time.

Another aspect of this debate is that some of the problems we are facing may actually be exacerbated by vaccine mandates. I'm talking about full hospitals, cancelling of elective surgeries, etc. Lots of hospital employees have quit/retired/got fired due to vaccine mandates. Now many hospitals physically have beds available to put patients in but no people to staff those beds so the hospital is "FULL" and elective cases are cancelled and this is all attributed to a COVID surge. This is not to minimize COVID itself. There has been a COVID surge as well but it has been exacerbated by a personnel shortage. I don't know what the answer is to all these problems, but I think it's more complicated than just forcing mass vaccination.

We lost less than 1% of employees to vaccine mandates. Given that normal turnover is typically higher than this, that is a negligible number. To say it exacerbated things is like saying that throwing a burning cigarette directly into a forest fire has exacerbated things

 

[nimbus]

Meat Loaf was anti-vaccine mandate, reportedly seriously ill with COVID before death

The late rocker Meat Loaf was outspokenly anti-vaccine mandate and anti-mask before his COVID-related death.

nypost.com

I’m not sure if this was already posted, sad news to hear but I personally feel his death could have been avoided. It’s tragic to see people make fatal mistakes based on misinformation. What makes it worse is that in today’a society, people are easily influenced by celebrities.

Can we agree that we do need to do a better job at education and truly eliminating politics out of everything?

I liked him in Rocky Horror

 

[STLINI]

Shall we look at your first post referencing those studies so you can quit gaslighting everyone?

"
Well said. The question now is whether the ROI for continuously shaming, coercing, and othering these people is worth it. We're driving deep fractures in society for very little benefit at this point in my opinion. We've had universal access to vaccines for a year. Boosters are available seemingly on every street corner. Most of the COVID patients admitted right now are there because they made the poor decision to remain unvaccinated. My hospital is currently pushed to our limit with these folks currently. But there are still far more people admitted with complications of other poor decisions. At what point does not being vaccinated against COVID become one of a multitude of bad decisions we tacitly accept? We don't try to exclude people from society for not managing their diabetes, being obese, smoking, not taking their Lipitor or any other number of things that put them in the hospital.

I understand that COVID is an infectious disease and diabetes isn't. Unfortunately the current versions of the vaccines do not meaningfully impact transmission. Booster poster child Israel is currently experiencing record numbers of cases, and decided a 4th shot doesn't likely make sense. There are papers out of Canada and Denmark suggesting negative efficacy against Omicron with regards to infection. My vaccine protects ME against severe disease. It has very little broader societal benefit. Yet we have cities and states that won't allow an unvaccinated 6 year old into a restaurant. This is insanity. Does anyone really think this will be viewed positively by history?

Our society seems to be coming apart at the seams, we have more than enough things to argue and scream at each other about. This subject just isn't worth it any longer."


Feel free to show where in that first post you clarified your skepticism of the results of those preprint studies vis a vis negative efficacy. Because from here, you didn't do that, and if no one had proceeded to call you out on the stream of BS you're writing that bolded statement of yours would've just stood as is.

"There are now studies from at least 3 continents showing 2 doses of Pfizer provides negative efficacy with regards to infection. I find this....mechanistically puzzling and hard to believe..."

Turns out you're right. It was my SECOND post, posted in response to someone asking for the studies. Which was also posted before you posted anything "calling out" my "stream of BS." Unbelievable oversight on my behalf.

Does that correction make you feel better?

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

We lost less than 1% of employees to vaccine mandates. Given that normal turnover is typically higher than this, that is a negligible number. To say it exacerbated things is like saying that throwing a burning cigarette directly into a forest fire has exacerbated things

You’re lucky you only lost <1%. Some hospitals and regions lost more than this and then employees start playing musical chairs hence the shortages and high salaries for travel RNs.

Also even if you only lose a small number initially it still creates ill will between hospital and employee which causes problems down the road

 

[Splenda88]

Nothing wil convince these unvaccinated people to get the vaccine.

As a hospitalist, I don't even care to ask why they did not get vaccinated. It's really frustrating!

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

No the penalty of being so stupid or delusional that you think the vaccine is dangerous or not beneficial is losing your job. I think it is an amazing decision. Get all these closet nutcases out of the hospital. They’re still free to sell penis enlargement pills and and micro biome horse**** with the same level of certainty of vaccine harms. Maybe if more of that 8 years was spent learning how to critique and read scientific literature they would have realized how flawed their position was.

If I’m stupid it’s for thinking there could be some kind of thoughtful back and forth. I suppose more time in training might have gotten me to your level of sound reasoning.

Did someone say penis? Ha

 

[Mad Jack]

You’re lucky you only lost <1%. Some hospitals and regions lost more than this and then employees start playing musical chairs hence the shortages and high salaries for travel RNs.

Also even if you only lose a small number initially it still creates ill will between hospital and employee which causes problems down the road

Ill will on the part of whom? The rest of us were like "good riddance" because we've already had multiple outbreaks caused by spending hours working alongside antivaxxers that came up positive and passed it along. If anything it built up goodwill because it showed they were prioritizing the health and safety of the rest of us over people that lack common sense

 

[Southpaw]

You’re lucky you only lost <1%. Some hospitals and regions lost more than this and then employees start playing musical chairs hence the shortages and high salaries for travel RNs.

Also even if you only lose a small number initially it still creates ill will between hospital and employee which causes problems down the road

There is currently a free market for healthcare in America. There are also some very deep pockets on the anti-mandate side. Nothing that I know of prevents a group from opening a hospital with the advertisement that employees don’t need to be vaccinated. And they can see what happens.

Years spent training is irrelevant in my mind. I don’t feel bad or guilty about the poor choices people make. If you work in healthcare, the job ultimately is taking care of people’s health. If your employer, likely a private business, decides to mandate charting by certain deadlines, revising charts in a timely manner, maintaining board certification, practicing with skill and achieving good outcomes, or requiring vaccination, that is their right. Don’t like it? Find employment elsewhere. I find it hilarious the people who have a problem with this, all over vaccination, because those people typically defended the rights of private business. Now it isn’t working as they wanted so they want to take their ball and go home. Great. Good riddance.

Additionally, most health systems have seen very very little attrition due to vaccine requirements. In my experience the people that left needed to leave and I haven’t missed them or their mindset on healthcare.

If we find out 10 years from now that the vaccine ends up killing everyone who got it, then I’ll happy go because the world populated only with people who remained unvaccinated won’t be worth living in.

 

[chessknt]

If I’m stupid it’s for thinking there could be some kind of thoughtful back and forth. I suppose more time in training might have gotten me to your level of sound reasoning.

Did someone say penis? Ha

Don't play coy--you know it is stupid to have a 'back and forth' over vaccination based on evidence because the anti side has absolutely nothing going for them. It is like being pro genital mutilation at this point. But keep pretending that you are some noble knight coming to defense of your coworkers who refuse to make intelligent decisions. I myself have far more empathy for alcoholic surgeons and drug-addicted anesthesiologists--at least there is a biochemical reason for their problem instead of insurmountable ignorance.

 

[Mad Jack]

I liked him in Rocky Horror

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that a guy who played a guy who was duped into joining a dangerous movement resulting in his death for no good reason due to misplaced ideals died of contracting an illness because he believed in a dangerous movement with misplaced ideals?

His name is Robert Paulson.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

Ill will on the part of whom? The rest of us were like "good riddance" because we've already had multiple outbreaks caused by spending hours working alongside antivaxxers that came up positive and passed it along. If anything it built up goodwill because it showed they were prioritizing the health and safety of the rest of us over people that lack common sense

That is a fair point - ill will cuts both ways as vaccinated can’t tolerate unvaccinated. But as has been said many times before if you are vaccinated it does not prevent you from spreading the disease so treating the unvaccinated like a leper doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

Don't play coy--you know it is stupid to have a 'back and forth' over vaccination based on evidence because the anti side has absolutely nothing going for them. It is like being pro genital mutilation at this point. But keep pretending that you are some noble knight coming to defense of your coworkers who refuse to make intelligent decisions. I myself have far more empathy for alcoholic surgeons and drug-addicted anesthesiologists--at least there is a biochemical reason for their problem instead of insurmountable ignorance.

I don’t understand the absolute hatred towards the unvaccinated. I agree that in some cases they are making a bad choice to remain unvaccinated and we can agree to disagree on this but I would argue it is their choice to make given the current risk/benefit of the deadliness of Covid currently and the vaccine we have today. I personally would much rather work alongside unvaccinated docs than alcoholic surgeons and drug addicted anesthesiologists and I think if you are being honest with yourself in a health emergency you’d rather have the unvaccinated take care of you than an alcoholic surgeon and drug addicted anesthesiologist. I have seen those conditions as you describe them and it is not pretty.

I think ignoring that there is another side to the argument is partly why a lot of people are remaining unvaccinated. They can’t trust the advice of someone who sees them as insurmountably ignorant and worse than a drug addict. If you can’t find it in you to try and understand their point of view it’s hard to convince them. Which is why we have resorted to mandates, shouting down and censorship of alternative viewpoints.

 

[chessknt]

I don’t understand the absolute hatred towards the unvaccinated. I agree that in some cases they are making a bad choice to remain unvaccinated and we can agree to disagree on this but I would argue it is their choice to make given the current risk/benefit of the deadliness of Covid currently and the vaccine we have today. I personally would much rather work alongside unvaccinated docs than alcoholic surgeons and drug addicted anesthesiologists and I think if you are being honest with yourself in a health emergency you’d rather have the unvaccinated take care of you than an alcoholic surgeon and drug addicted anesthesiologist. I have seen those conditions as you describe them and it is not pretty.

I think ignoring that there is another side to the argument is partly why a lot of people are remaining unvaccinated. They can’t trust the advice of someone who sees them as insurmountably ignorant and worse than a drug addict. If you can’t find it in you to try and understand their point of view it’s hard to convince them. Which is why we have resorted to mandates, shouting down and censorship of alternative viewpoints.

They can’t be convinced. I am increasingly suspicious you fall in to this group as well given your ardent defense of their ‘alternate viewpoint.’ Do you also support genital mutilation? Sexual slavery? Racial segregation in schools? I am sure there are people who have ‘alternate viewpoints’ on this too.

It has been a year and a half. It is terminal stage iv relapsing refractory ignorance at this point, have to let them go no reason to keep trying it only emotionally exhausts the remaining functional people who haven’t quit hospital medicine.

And yea no—unvaccinated docs can gtfo. I’d rather work with a higher census then have these clowns in the hospital ordering ivermectin and Welch’s grape juice or whatever Mariks flavor of the month is sustaining people on endless life support as they follow the Hogwarts guide to curing COVID published by the flccc.

 

[vector2]

"There are now studies from at least 3 continents showing 2 doses of Pfizer provides negative efficacy with regards to infection. I find this....mechanistically puzzling and hard to believe..."

Turns out you're right. It was my SECOND post, posted in response to someone asking for the studies. Which was also posted before you posted anything "calling out" my "stream of BS." Unbelievable oversight on my behalf.

Does that correction make you feel better?

The second post, in which you wrote:

"That said my understanding of the Pfizer vaccine at least is that for 7-14 days following the initial dose it actually INCREASES your risk of infection (by up to 140% in one European study.)"

....is the one supposed to make us think your posts aren't a stream of BS?

Lmao.

 

[LaryngoSpazz]

They can’t be convinced. I am increasingly suspicious you fall in to this group as well given your ardent defense of their ‘alternate viewpoint.’ Do you also support genital mutilation? Sexual slavery? Racial segregation in schools? I am sure there are people who have ‘alternate viewpoints’ on this too.

It has been a year and a half. It is terminal stage iv relapsing refractory ignorance at this point, have to let them go no reason to keep trying it only emotionally exhausts the remaining functional people who haven’t quit hospital medicine.

And yea no—unvaccinated docs can gtfo. I’d rather work with a higher census then have these clowns in the hospital ordering ivermectin and Welch’s grape juice or whatever Mariks flavor of the month is sustaining people on endless life support as they follow the Hogwarts guide to curing COVID published by the flccc.

I am vaccinated. You do realize that only 63% of the country is vaccinated though right? Being understanding of the other 37% is now akin to sexual slavery? You are setting a poor example for our specialty with your embarrassing posts.

While there’s obviously a lot more to unpack here I’m going to ignore your posts going forward as I’m sure most people reading are getting bored with this.

 

[gasdoc77]

I don’t understand the absolute hatred towards the unvaccinated. I agree that in some cases they are making a bad choice to remain unvaccinated and we can agree to disagree on this but I would argue it is their choice to make given the current risk/benefit of the deadliness of Covid currently and the vaccine we have today. I personally would much rather work alongside unvaccinated docs than alcoholic surgeons and drug addicted anesthesiologists and I think if you are being honest with yourself in a health emergency you’d rather have the unvaccinated take care of you than an alcoholic surgeon and drug addicted anesthesiologist. I have seen those conditions as you describe them and it is not pretty.

I think ignoring that there is another side to the argument is partly why a lot of people are remaining unvaccinated. They can’t trust the advice of someone who sees them as insurmountably ignorant and worse than a drug addict. If you can’t find it in you to try and understand their point of view it’s hard to convince them. Which is why we have resorted to mandates, shouting down and censorship of alternative viewpoints.

Don't waste your time, as you are largely arguing against the faithless. They view themselves as a (if not THE) supreme being, all knowing, when in actuality their venom is merely a desperate attempt to defend their fragile ego and precious world view. Forgive their ignorance and extend them the grace that they refuse to extend others.

 

[Neopolymath]

Don't waste your time, as you are largely arguing against the faithless. They view themselves as a (if not THE) supreme being, all knowing, when in actuality their venom is merely a desperate attempt to defend their fragile ego and precious world view. Forgive their ignorance and extend them the grace that they refuse to extend others.

This sounds like something someone would say while fervently defending crypto to the death in the other thread. It's hilarious.