Take It From Them: Americans Hospitalized With Covid Regret Not Getting the Vaccine
Covid-19 case rates are spiking as the Delta variant spreads through the nation. Several with severe cases are imploring others to learn from their mistake and get inoculated

By RYAN BORT

Conservative radio host Phil Valentine spent months preaching vaccine skepticism to his followers in Nashville. It seems like many of them listened. Tennessee has experienced a dramatic spike in the Covid-19 cases as the Delta variant has swept the nation, with the case rate ballooning over 220 percent over the past two weeks, according to The New York Times.

Among the newly infected is Valentine.

Valentine's station, 99.7 WTN, announced on Friday that the host contracted Covid and that he is in "serious condition" in the critical care unit. The experience has led Valentine to reconsider his stance on the vaccine. "If he had to do it over again, he would be more adamantly pro-vaccination, and that is what he will bring in his message when he gets back to that microphone which we hope is sooner rather than later," his brother Mark recently told News4 Nashville.

Fauci Says 'Things Are Going to Get Worse' and Unvaccinated Are 'Severely Vulnerable'

Valentine's hospitalization is another needless tragedy in a pandemic that should have been all but snuffed out months ago. Thankfully, he's had plenty of support. Since the announcement last week, friends and fans have expressed their well wishes on Twitter, and his family has kept followers updated on Facebook. "Phil & his family would like for all of you to know that he loves ya'll and appreciates your concern, thoughts & prayers more than you will ever know," 99.7 posted July 22nd. "Please continue to pray for his recovery and PLEASE GO GET VACCINATED!"

If and when Valentine recovers, he would do well to work to undo some of the damage he has done. This would include apologizing to the people whom he told were "probably safer not getting [the vaccine]," as he wrote in a December blog post. Valentine also parodied the Beatles "Taxman" with "Vaxman," singing: "Let me tell you how it will be / And I don't care if you agree / 'Cause I'm the Vaxman / Yeah, I'm the Vaxman / If you don't like me coming round / Be thankful I don't hold you down."

The degree to which right-wing influencers like Valentine are responsible for the vaccine hesitancy fueling the Covid resurgence can't be overstated. Local radio hosts, cable news talking heads, and Republicans in Congress have duped tens of millions of Americans into failing to protect themselves and others from the disease. These unvaccinated millions are now coming down with severe cases of Covid at an alarming rate. Like Valentine, many of them are expressing regret that they neglected to get the vaccine.

There are plenty of Americans who are unable to get vaccinated, such as children, but even more have willfully abstained amidst an onslaught of misinformation. Here are some recent reported examples of unvaccinated Americans and their families who were hospitalized with Covid and now regret forgoing the vaccine:

Michael Freedy, a 38-year-old father of five from Las Vegas, died last Thursday morning from complications arising from Covid. He sent his finaceé Jessica DuPreeze a text message while he was in the hospital: "I should have gotten the damn vaccine." DuPreeze told CNN on Monday that she and their eldest child got the vaccine the day Freedy was diagnosed, and that she thinks Freedy would still be alive if he'd been vaccinated. "It at least would have lessened the symptoms and he could have fought longer and had a better chance," she said.

Williams Hughes was hospitalized in Arkansas after coming down with Covid. He spoke with CNN on July 22nd with a breathing tube attached to his nose. "It's made me wish that I'd gotten the vaccine," he said. "The vaccine might not have kept me from getting Covid, but it may have decreased greatly the pain and suffering I had to go through to get the point where I am now." Hughes concluded his appearance with a plea. "Please, just go get the vaccine," he said, holding back tears. "If you don't do it for yourself, do it for your family. Because I almost left my wife and my daughter here to fend for themselves because I didn't go get one."

Aimee Matzen, 44, was hospitalized in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after testing positive for Covid. Louisiana has the highest seven-day average of new cases per capita in the nation. "The fact that I am here now, I am furious with myself," Matzen, who had been struggling to breathe, told CNN. "Because I was not vaccinated."

Daryl Barker, a 31-year-old from Missouri who was hospitalized after contracting Covid in early July, cited his conservative values as the reason he was "strongly" against getting the vaccine. "That little boy out there is the reason to have a vaccine," he said, citing his son, who camped outside the hospital with Barker's wife. "Being 31 years old, I'm that little boy's hero. I'm supposed to be the strongest person he knows," he Barker said, tubes protruding from his nose. "Right now he could come in here at take me."

Texas man Joshua Garza, 43, became so sick from Covid that he required a double lung transplant to survive. He declined to get vaccinated when he had a chance earlier in the year. "If I knew what I know now I would have definitely went through with the vaccination," he said following the transplant in May.

Kathy Kurilla died in May after spending a month in the hospital following a Covid diagnosis. Her husband of 29 years, Joe, spoke with CNN last week. Kurilla was not vaccinated (she came down with Covid at a time when the vaccine was not widely available), and Joe urged anyone hesitated to inoculate themselves to learn from his experience. "I wish I could have you sit there with me in the hospital room with my wife having the tubes up her nose and seeing seven different medications being pumped into her," he said. "I think you would change your mind in a heartbeat."

The New York Times recently spoke to multiple families advocating for the vaccine after their unvaccinated loved ones were hospitalized with Covid. Utah woman Mindy Greene, whose 42-year-old husband Russ is currently hospitalized, says she prevented her family from getting vaccinated in part because of what she saw on social media. "I will always regret that I listened to the misinformation being put out there," she said. "They're creating fear."

The Covid case rate is rising dramatically among the unvaccinated, but the majority of those who have yet to get a shot still aren't convinced. A recent Associated Press poll found that 35 percent of unvaccinated Americans say they will probably remain unvaccinated, while another 45 percent said they definitely will not get the shot. Despite evidence the vaccine offers strong protection against the Delta variant, 64 percent of unvaccinated Americans believe the vaccine does not offer protection against Covid variants.

A Kaiser Health analysis of state data published last Friday found that, the vast majority of Covid cases (between 94.1 and 99.85 percent), hospitalizations (between 95.02 and 99.93), and deaths (between 96.91 and 99.91) are among the unvaccinated.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-covid-cases-in-us-soar-700-week-over-week-since-july-1-cdc-says/ar-AANihzE?ocid=UCPNC1&bncnt=BroadcastNews_TopStories&pc=U531

Since July 1, there's been a 700% increase in the week-over-week average of COVID-19 infections in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


The information was presented Friday at CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting during a discussion of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for immunocompromised patients.

"There's no doubt we're seeing a surge in cases now," said Dr. William Moss, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.


The United States was at a low point in new cases in late June, with an average of about 10,000 a day. Today the average is closer to 125,000 a day, he said

"That's when people in this country became really optimistic. The combination of the delta variant, susceptibility due to relatively low vaccination coverage, some relaxing of our public health measures, these all came together and we're seeing this wave," Moss said.

The delta variant is nearly twice as contagious as previous variants and there is some evidence of increased illness severity compared with previous strains in unvaccinated people, CDC epidemiologist Heather Scobie said at Friday's meeting.

Full vaccinated people infected with the delta variant can spread the virus to others but appear to be infectious for a shorter period of time than unvaccinated people infected with the variant, she said.

In the first 12 days of August, the United States reported more coronavirus cases than it did in all of July, according a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

That's 1.33 million cases. At this month's average rate, the country would report some 3.4 million cases, making it the fourth-worst month of the entire pandemic.

"There's bad news and there's less bad news," is how Andrew Noymer, a professor of population health at the University of California, Irvine, put it.

Because older people, who are at higher risk for severe disease and death, are now highly vaccinated, "100,000 cases today is less dire than 100,000 in December of 2020," he said.

That means cases are more concentrated in younger people, who are less likely to be vaccinated. Younger people are less likely to become severely ill "but this isn't a nothing burger," Noymer said. Hospitalizations are still high.

He looked up the numbers in his county a year ago and there were 722 people hospitalized for COVID-19. This week there are 497 hospitalizations in Orange County.

"We have a vaccine that works wonderfully now," he said, "so our peak shouldn't be five-sevenths as big as the previous summer." 

The U.S. numbers parallel what was seen in the United Kingdom and in Israel when the extremely transmissible delta variant hit those nations, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

"The only small comfort is that in areas of higher vaccination in our country, hospitalizations are not following the trend of cases to the same degree as in prior surges without vaccination," she said.

Immunity moving forward
CDC staff also presented data giving insight into the evolving pandemic. The available data shows the persistence of protective antibodies eight months after an infection and six months after the second shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines and eight months after a single Johnson & Johnson shot.

That's not because natural infection is more protective but simply because vaccinations only began in December so there is very little data.

It appears vaccine effectiveness against infection with COVID-19 does wane over time, but how much and in whom isn't yet entirely clear.

Even so, protection against severe illness remains very high. For Pfizer, it is 97% and for Moderna it's 93%, CDC said.

There is some data emerging from Israel of more breakthrough infections among people vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in January and February than in recent months.

There was a more than two-fold increased risk for breakthrough infections between people vaccinated in January versus those vaccinated in April, Israeli data showed.

The older the person, the more chance they would have an infection.

Scobie emphasized an infection is different from becoming severely ill or dying.

As of Aug. 2, among more than 164 million fully vaccinated people in the United States, there were 7,101 hospitalizations and 1,507 deaths.

Such severe or deadly breakthrough infections in vaccinated people were much more likely to occur in older people. CDC reported that 74% of those cases were in people over 65.

It's not clear if that's because people over 65 were first in line to be vaccinated and therefore their immunity might be waning over time, or if because of their age their immune systems are less robust.

Among people 18 and over, approximately 32% of all vaccinated breakthrough cases were in immunocompromised individuals, compared with approximately 11% of unvaccinated cases.

The CDC's advisory committee will meet again Aug. 24 to discuss incoming data about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, enduring immunity and the possible need for booster doses.

The pandemic, said Noymer, appears far from over.

"We should say we're in the throes of a pandemic, not that we're in the middle of it," he said. "The middle of something implies that we're halfway there, and I don't know that that's true."



This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New COVID cases in US soar 700% week-over-week since July 1, CDC says

I have begun seeing that there is a Lambda version of Covid-19 now making the rounds in South America. On checking this morning, I discovered that it is now confirmed in the US.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-lambda-variant-a-new-little-understood-version-of-the-coronavirus-has-arrived-in-dallas/ar-AANiawz?ocid=uxbndlbing

Covid isn't too bad in our area, but my husband has two nieces who live in Mississippi.  One niece and her husband were both admitted to the hospital.  She recovered but her husband died 3 weeks ago.  I'm pretty sure they were not vaccinated.  So sad.  All our immediate family are vaccinated and still wearing masks where necessary. Larry and I went to the grocery store a few days ago and there was only one person wearing a mask besides us.

My sister, niece, and her husband all vaccinated, were exposed to Delta and their doctor says if they get the variant, it will be milder, and less severe because of the vaccinations.

"Kadin Lane Stropes, an intensive-care nurse at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, said every ICU bed there was full on Sunday morning — all but one of the patients sick with COVID-19.

Stropes is seeing people in their 20s and 30s seriously ill with the virus. Many of her COVID-positive patients say they wish they'd gotten vaccinated right before they get intubated.

"People are dying," she wrote in a social media post after getting off work. "It's heartbreaking watching a 10-year-old girl FaceTime her intubated dad, and ask when he's gonna be able to wake up and you don't have an answer."

Mat-Su this week became the latest hospital in Alaska's urban center to report prolonged operations at capacity. The reason: surging COVID-19 cases that take time and extra staffing, combined with worker shortages and the usually busy summer season in the ER.

The state was reporting 126 people hospitalized with the virus through Sunday including 68 in Anchorage and 14 at Mat-Su Regional. Earlier this month, the hospital near Wasilla had enough room to provide beds for rural patients when Anchorage hospitals were too crowded.

Now Mat-Su is also full, seeing numerous complicated COVID-19 patients, nine of them on ventilators, state data shows.

"That creates substantial stress on our hospital capacity and our ability to respond," said Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.

Anchorage hospitals are already full and, with similarly crowded hospitals in Washington and Oregon, the ability to send patients out of state is extremely compromised, Kosin said. The association is looking into ways to juggle staffing shortages.

"The reason Mat-Su has our attention right now is because of the fair and school starting," he said.

A number of Anchorage doctors urged broader masking and vaccine uptake during a special session of the Anchorage Assembly on Friday.

"We are on the verge of a hospital system collapse," said Dr. Andrea Caballero, an infectious disease specialist who sees patients at Providence Alaska Medical Center.

Emergency room physicians and people who treat the city's sickest patients in the ICU described nurses and respiratory therapists pushed beyond their ability to cope.

Normally, emergency doctors start to get disturbed when patients have to wait 90 minutes or two hours, Dr. Ivan Ramirez said. "We're seeing four and five hours now."

Dr. Javid Kamali talked about holding the hand of a dying patient whose unvaccinated son couldn't visit -- "These images, we can't unsee them" — and the mortally ill 40-year-old father whose teenagers were vaccinated, though he was not.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Benjamin Westley contracted COVID-19, he said Friday, blaming a combination of waning vaccine efficacy, the highly contagious delta variant and low rates of masking indoors. Now he's one of numerous health-care workers who can't work because of the virus, fueling more staffing shortages that in turn can compromise patient care, Westley said.

The doctors urged the Assembly and the municipality's chief medical officer, Dr. Michael Savitt, to display leadership on preventative measures like masking and vaccinations. The Anchorage Health Department in mid-August recommended masks in indoor public spaces.

Savitt said there's no doubt hospitals are overwhelmed. He said the long-term solution is vaccination and the short-term solution is "proper mask usage" but said he wasn't yet recommending the assembly take any action.

Alaska reported 1,050 new resident COVID-19 cases and 60 nonresident cases over a three-day weekend period ending Monday and no deaths."

"Greer Gehler says she loves her job at Providence Alaska Medical Center. But, like others in her field, Gehler is coping with burnout and exhaustion as COVID-19 patients fill Alaska's hospitals.

"In the emergency room, we know the look in somebody's eyes when they can't breathe," Gehler says. "And then, if they're still conscious, explaining to them that you're going to sedate them, you're going to paralyze them, and you're going to put a tube down their throat to breathe for them, and that they may never wake up again — hopefully they will, but you don't know. That's the look that you'll never forget."'

"The state reported 221 new COVID-19 cases in residents for Sunday, 310 for Saturday, and 519 for Friday, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services dashboard. The statewide portion of positive tests out of total performed over a 7-day rolling average was 7.1%.

Alaska ranks 32nd among U.S. states for vaccinations based on the share of the eligible population that has received at least one dose, according to the CDC's data tracker.

Currently 53.8% of eligible Alaskans 12 and older are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while nearly 60% have received at least one dose, state health officials say."

My doctor said last week that the COVID rise hasn't been very bad here, yet. I expect that to change as we start seeing more and more illegal border crossers migrate up this way and the influx of Afghan refugees which PA will be taking in. Since our governor has given the okay, many people have unmasked. I see more people than not without masks now unless required to wear them by a store, office, bank, etc. There are still a good many places around here requiring they be worn, at least by their employees.

A viral post circulating online is making the far-reaching claim that six infectious diseases that have been eradicated are now spreading again and that "illegal immigrants" and "refugees" are the reason they are making a comeback.

"Amy Rowland, the spokesperson for the CDC's Global Health Division, also told PolitiFact immigrants and refugees are not to blame for the outbreaks.

"No, it is not immigrants or refugees causing these outbreaks," Rowland said. "It has to do with travel and people who are not vaccinated or under-vaccinated. It has nothing to do with illegal immigrants."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jun/10/facebook-posts/no-illegal-immigrants-and-refugees-are-not-causing/

"Safer to be unvaccinated against COVID-19? In several ways, that's False
IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
The chances of contracting COVID-19 and dying from it are much greater for unvaccinated people.

There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines have caused deaths."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/04/viral-image/covid-19-its-safer-be-unvaccinated-several-ways-s-/

"Fauci just told us that they found a variant that evades the test."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/04/facebook-posts/fauci-did-not-say-there-was-covid-19-variant-can-e/



"Deaths among unvaccinated people: On July 16, even as the delta variant of the virus began spreading, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that over 97% of new hospitalizations were in patients who are unvaccinated.

Breakthrough cases: The CDC's latest data on breakthrough cases — people who become infected with COVID-19 after being vaccinated — says that as of July 26, of the more than 163 million people who had been fully vaccinated, 6,587 were hospitalized or died in the 49 states and territories that report their data to the CDC. Of the 1,263 deaths, 309 were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19. "

The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation drilled down to infection rates, finding that among 25 states that report breakthrough cases publicly, the infection rate is well below 1%, ranging from 0.01% in Connecticut to 0.29% in Alaska. The CDC has found evidence suggesting that, although it's rare for vaccinated people to become infected, those who do can spread the virus as readily as unvaccinated people who get infected. "

Lately I have been seeing ads to get whooping cough vaccinations. Haven't heard anything of that in many, many years. It was very common when I was little. Though no one in my family got it I do remember some of the neighborhood kids had it.

MarsGal, the same about whooping cough for me. It was really awful for those who did get it--you could cough constantly for weeks.

If you keep up with your tetanus shots, you may have been immunized.  They often put whooping cough and diphtheria in with the tetanus.

DPT or Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, commonly known as Whooping cough, are becoming issues as many ignorant people are not vaccinated. Or have not had their children vaccinated against these illnesses. Because they believe the vaccinations themselves are harmful, more than a disease itself. This puts people with autoimmune diseases, the elderly, or those unable to be vaccinated at risk.

Rising rates of Whooping Cough have the CDC urging adult booster shots for these reasons.

Unfortunately I developed an allergy to the tetanus boosters, so the doctor won't give me any except if it is really necessary. My Mom was hospitalized when she was a child went she got Diptheria. I'll have to check about the Diptheria shots.

 

Unvaccinated and Unmasked Calif. Teacher Spread COVID Delta Variant to Elementary School Students

The teacher infected their students after they read aloud to them without wearing a mask or any type of face covering, despite requirements from the school to do so while indoors

An unvaccinated California teacher passed along the Delta variant of COVID-19 to a group of their elementary school students, as well as others, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Earlier this year, the educator from Marin County — who has not been identified by name — became symptomatic on May 19, experiencing side effects such as "cough, subjective fever, and headache."

Initially attributing the symptoms they were experiencing to allergies, the teacher continued to work. During that time, they read aloud to their students without wearing a mask or any type of face covering, despite requirements from the school to do so while indoors, the CDC said.

The teacher later took a COVID test two days later, where they subsequently obtained a positive test result.

On May 23, positive cases of COVID-19 were then reported among the teacher's class of 24, as well as through other staff members, parents, and siblings in close contact with those affected. Each of the infected students at the educational institution were too young to have been vaccinated, per the CDC.

Counting the teacher, a total of 27 cases were identified, the CDC said, with twelve of the teacher's pupils testing positive for the virus alongside six students in a different grade and eight parents and siblings of the students. Among the 27 cases, 22 individuals reported symptoms, with the most common being fever, cough, headache, and sore throat.

According to the CDC, all school staff members were vaccinated against COVID with the exception of the teacher in question and one other educator on staff.

"This outbreak of COVID-19 that originated with an unvaccinated teacher highlights the importance of vaccinating school staff members who are in close indoor contact with children ineligible for vaccination as schools reopen," the CDC stated in their report.

"The outbreak's attack rate highlights the Delta variant's increased transmissibility and potential for rapid spread, especially in unvaccinated populations such as schoolchildren too young for vaccination," the health organization added.

The CDC also noted ways to help combat the ongoing pandemic in schools include the utilization of "proper masking, routine testing, ventilation, and staying home while symptomatic."



By Nicholas Rice August 29, 2021 01:30 PM

13-Year-Old Mississippi Girl Dies of COVID After Governor Tate Reeves Called Mask Guidance 'Foolish'

Eighth grader Mkayla Robinson, 13, tested positive for COVID-19 and died hours later on Saturday morning, one day after Governor Tate Reeves downplayed the pandemic

An eighth-grade girl in Raleigh, Mississippi died Saturday morning, hours after she tested positive for COVID-19.

Mkayla Robinson, 13, attended classes for most of the week at Raleigh Jr. High School after the school year began the week before on Friday, August 6, according to Mississippi Free Press. The Smith County Reformer reported that Robinson "died of complications from Covid-19" and a prayer rally was held Sunday morning.

Raleigh High School Band Director Paul Harrison paid tribute to Robinson, who was part of the junior high school's Lion Pride Band. "It is with great sadness, and a broken heart, that I announce the passing of one of my 8th grade band students," Harrison wrote on Facebook. "She was the perfect student. Every teacher loved her and wanted 30 more just like her. Please pray for Raleigh Junior High, the band, and especially the family as they deal with this."

Robinson's death came after the Smith County School District (SCSD) announced in June that they would not enforce masks, but would "allow" students and faculty to bring masks to school. In the first week of classes, 76 students and 11 educators tested positive for COVID-19.

"After much consideration for the welfare of our children, Smith County Schools will require all personnel and students to wear a mask," the SCSD announced Wednesday, reversing their policy.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also doubled down on his passive response to the CDC's latest mask guidance during a press conference just a day before Robinson's death. "I don't have any intention of issuing a statewide mask mandate for any category of Mississippians at this time. I don't know how I can say that differently other than the way I've said it repeatedly for a number of days and weeks and months," Reeves said Friday.

Although he mandated masks amid rising COVID cases last August, Reeves called the CDC's newest guidelines "foolish" and "harmful" during a press conference last month, according to 16 WAPT News. "It reeks of political panic, so as to appear that they are in control. It has nothing, let me say that again: It has nothing to do with rational science," Reeves said.

Governor Reeves also enlisted help from the federal government and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency last week, according to The Clarion Ledger. The move came as the state's largest hospital, University of Mississippi Medical Center, was forced to set up a field hospital in a parking garage to manage the overflow.

Meanwhile, Mississippi broke its own record for the largest increase of COVID-19 cases last week, The Clarion Ledger reported.



By Glenn GarnerAugust 15, 2021 06:10 PM

Do people believe everything Governors say?  New York did for a while till the people in Nursing Homes started dying off.

It's too bad everyone has been dumbed down and can no longer think for themselves.  Common sense and logic are gone.

 

Re: break thru cases. There is talk about the improperly given shot maybe the cause as seen MANY times on TV the arm is being "bunched."

The shot is then administered Sub Q instead of the muscle.
I have talked to nursing friends about this and they tell me this is how they were taught.

 I was taught (Yale Medical Center) 65 years ago to TIGHTEN the skin and this does 2 things 1) Needle goes right in instead of dimpling the skin so renders it pain free. 2) Bunching gives access to Sub Q NOT muscle.

More info/research needed

What is absolutely frightening to me is the young children having and dying from the disease, some as young as eight. And a new variant Lambda, in thirty countries now and seemingly resistant to vaccinations.

Would we be here now if politics hadn't become so monetized and divisive?

Covid is tearing Idaho apart...

From the Associated Press      https://tinyurl.com/2f7p9dfz

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

"The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated," Dr. Jason McElyea said.

The rise in people using ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug usually reserved for deworming horses or livestock, as a treatment or preventative for Covid-19 has emergency rooms "so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting" access to health facilities, an emergency room doctor in Oklahoma said.

This week, Dr. Jason McElyea told KFOR the overdoses are causing backlogs in rural hospitals, leaving both beds and ambulance services scarce.

"The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated," McElyea said.

"All of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don't have any, that's it," said McElyea. "If there's no ambulance to take the call, there's no ambulance to come to the call."

https://tinyurl.com/yp8put6v

US and COVID set another record.

More than 252,000 children were diagnosed with COVID-19 last week nationwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGubjepX9OY

Massive numbers of new COVID–19 infections, not vaccines, are the main driver of new coronavirus variants

Vaughn Cooper, University of Pittsburgh; Lee Harrison, University of Pittsburgh

When the coronavirus copies itself, there is a chance its RNA will mutate. But new variants must jump from one host to another, and the more infections there are, the better chance this will happen.

In recent weeks, the idea that vaccinations are leading to more dangerous strains of the coronavirus has gotten some attention. And to be fair, one could imagine that a virus will try to evolve in a way that avoids a vaccine meant to stop it.

But this interpretation is incorrect. As Vaughn Cooper and Lee Harrison, an evolutionary biologist and an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, explain: "Most viruses in an infected person are genetically identical to the strain that started the infection. It is much more likely that one of these copies – not a rare mutation – gets passed on to someone else."

The more infections there are, though, the more chances a person will pass a random mutation to someone else. So it is the huge number of new infections that is leading to new variants, not vaccines. In fact, the authors explain that vaccines are the best tool available to prevent dangerous new strains of the coronavirus from emerging in the first place.

"Kali was perfectly fine, and then she was gone," her mother was quoted saying. "It took her so fast."

The preschooler at Bacliff's Kenneth E. Little Elementary School had enjoyed a pleasant evening with her family less than 12 hours before becoming the youngest child to die of the virus in Galveston County.

Kali had just started preschool last month—and she loved it, telling her mother that she "can't wait to go to school."

The rambunctious 4-year-old passed away just one day after her mother, brother, and 5-month-old sister learned they were infected. The family is currently quarantined at home."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/it-took-her-so-fast-4-year-old-texas-preschooler-dies-of-covid-within-hours-of-first-symptoms/ar-AAOjvUp?ocid=msedgntp

From Twitter,


"A common talking point from vaccine skeptics is that vaccinated people can still contract the virus. While every vaccine has breakthrough infections, these pale in comparison to the chances of an unvaccinated person getting infected. What's more, a vaccinated person has a much higher chance of survival than an unvaccinated person.

TikToker hill_deeee, whose real name is Hillary, combatted some of this disinformation in a recent video, when someone claimed that 99 percent of people survive the virus, regardless of vaccination status."

Hillary, whose father passed from COVID, broke down the numbers:

"330 million people in the United States, right? Divide that by the 41 million COVID cases that we've had, and that gives you a one in eight chance of getting COVID in the United States. ... Of those 41 million people, you've had 670 thousand or so deaths. That's a one in 61. ... One in 61 people who have gotten COVID in the United States have died."
She then set her sights on breakthrough infections.

"There are 173 million people who are fully vaccinated in the United States. Do you know how many breakthrough cases there have been? As of August 30, there's been 12,908. That gives you a one in 13,402 chances of catching COVID if you are fully vaccinated."
Using similar math, she pointed out that the chances of a fully vaccinated person with a breakthrough infection dying from COVID are one in 86,000+.

People praised the takedown of the all too common disinformation and encouraged others to get the shot.

According to the CDC, "An unvaccinated person is eleven times more likely to catch and perhaps die from Covid-19."

Alaska is now 3rd in the nation for highest case rate as the state reports nearly 900 cases and 1 death Friday
Alaska's surge — currently one of the worst in the country — is driven by the highly contagious delta variant, which has pushed up case counts, hospitalizations and deaths across most of the U.S. in recent months. But while other states have very recently begun to see plateauing case counts, Alaska continues to report pandemic-high counts that the state epidemiologist said this week show little sign of slowing.

Governor of State Leading Nation in Covid Death Rate Can't Name a Thing He'd Do Differently

"With all due respect, governor, your way is failing," CNN's Jake Tapper said. "Are you going to try to change anything to change this horrible statistic from what you're doing already?"

"One out of 320 Mississippi residents has died from Covid-19, making it the state with the highest rate of Covid deaths in the nation. But Governor Tate Reeves, who opposes President Biden's vaccine mandates, says he wouldn't do anything differently.

In an interview on State of the Union, host Jake Tapper confronted Reeves, who earlier described Biden mandating vaccines for workers in companies with more than 100 employees as "tyrannical" and in this interview called them "an attack by the president" and an attempt to "change the political narrative away from Afghanistan." Reeves has also refused to mandate masks in public schools in the state and has said the CDC's masking guidance is "foolish" and "harmful."'

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska, which led most U.S. states in coronavirus vaccinations months ago, took the drastic step on Wednesday of imposing crisis-care standards for its entire hospital system, declaring that a crushing surge in COVID-19 patients has forced rationing of strained medical resources.

Governor Mike Dunleavy and health officials announced the move as the tally of newly confirmed cases statewide reached another single-day record of 1,224 patients amid a wave of infections driven by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant among the unvaccinated.

The Delta variant is "crippling our healthcare system. It's impacting everything from heart attacks to strokes to our children if they get in a bike accident," Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska's chief medical officer, said at a news conference with Dunleavy.

Idaho, another one of several largely rural states where COVID-19 cases have overwhelmed healthcare systems in recent weeks, activated its own crisis-care standards statewide last Thursday, citing a spike in hospitalizations that "has exhausted existing resources."

Alaska's health and social services commissioner, Adam Crum, announced that he signed an emergency addendum extending to the whole state standards of crisis care announced last week at the state's largest hospital, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.

The new document limits liability faced by providers for crisis-level medical care in all Alaska hospitals.

Moreover, it acknowledges the realities of rationed care statewide, with scarce medical supplies and staff prioritized in a way that denies normal levels of care to some patients for the sake of others, depending on how sick they are and their chances for recovery.

Some critically ill patients, for example, have had to be treated outside intensive care units where they would typically be admitted, Zink said.

"Care has shifted in Alaska's hospitals. The same standard of care that was previously there is no longer able to be given on a regular basis. This has been happening for weeks," Zink told reporters.

To cope with the COVID-19 influx, Alaska has signed an $87 million contract to enlist hundreds of healthcare workers from out of state, officials said.

About one-fifth of Alaska hospital patients are infected with COVID-19, according to state data. But that figure understates the burden placed on the system as a whole as it "squeezes out" capacity to treat victims of car accidents, strokes, heart attacks and other ailments, Dunleavy said.

Paradoxically, back in April, Alaska had ranked among the top states getting COVID-19 vaccines into the arms of residents, helped in large part by efforts of the state's pandemic-conscious indigenous population.

Alaska has since slipped below the national average, with just 58% of residents aged 12 and older fully vaccinated, according to the state database. The vaccination slump coincided with significant political resistance to public health requirements.

In May, voters in Anchorage, the state's largest city, elected a new mayor, Dave Bronson, who campaigned against health mandates and has repeatedly expressed his refusal to get vaccinated. Dunleavy has opposed any vaccine mandates.

At Wednesday's news conference, the Republican governor defended his positions, citing Alaska's third-lowest rate of COVID-19 deaths in the nation per capita.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, Alaska; Editing by Steve Gorman and Christopher Cushing)

Changing your mind about something as important as vaccination isn't a sign of weakness – being open to new information is the smart way to make choices

"Social psychologists know that, on the one hand, people are motivated to maintain consistency across their beliefs. Because people want their web of beliefs to be coherent, they tend to give a lot of weight to beliefs that are consistent with their overall worldview and to discount those that are contradictory. As a result, people will continue to hold on to a set of beliefs even in the face of mounting evidence that they should revise what they think.

Psychologists describe this unconscious strategy as a way for people to minimize any cognitive dissonance they experience – when things don't add up, it can be disturbing, so to avoid those uncomfortable feelings, they ignore what doesn't fit well with their existing beliefs as a way to maintain balance.

In the context of COVID-19, for example, someone who is predisposed to dislike the vaccine will give little weight to new evidence of vaccine effectiveness, because that evidence contradicts their current worldview.

Eventually, though, enough counterevidence can lead to what psychologists call a shift in coherence, in which people can come to believe that their initial viewpoint was wrong. But additional social forces such as the desire to appear consistent or to show solidarity with a community can still lead people to resist changing their beliefs and behavior."

https://tinyurl.com/5y9wyzv8

Alaska, already the state with the country's worst COVID-19 recent case rate, now also holds one of the country's highest rates of recently reported deaths.

The state reported another 21 deaths Monday after adding 44 virus-related fatalities — many from last month — to the total last week.

The delta variant and the state's sub-average vaccination rate are driving a rapid surge in new infections and taxing a hospital system made vulnerable by Alaska's isolation from other states and the challenges of caring for patients at farflung medical facilities in rural communities off the road system.