Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #106

[SouthAussie]

I think it’s kind of spotty. Our daughter sent an anniversary and gift cards to us here in Oregon from Atlanta in September. Three weeks later we were about to ask to put a trace on it and it showed up. I can’t imagine where it was all that time!

The US has been having difficulties with keeping up with its postal service demands.

A friend of mine in the US has been waiting to ship some guitar parts to another friend here in Australia. No packages allowed to be sent overseas by the US postal service for a few months now.


The United States Postal Service has announced a temporary suspension on outgoing parcel services to 21 countries, including Australia, adding to delivery woes.

Americans have reported receiving their packages back in the mail, plastered with a ‘mail service suspended’ sticker and instructions to claim a refund.
US Postal Service suspends parcel deliveries to Australia | The New Daily

 

[indicolite22]

The puzzle of America's record Covid hospital rate

Professor David Larsen, an epidemiologist and global health expert at Syracuse University in New York, told the BBC that the US population is markedly different from that of both Europe and South Africa.

"We have an older population than South Africa. That's a big one," he said. "[The US] is kind of similar in age structure to Europe. But there's also a less healthy population than in Europe."

Dr Mark Cameron, an associate professor in the department of population and quantitative health sciences at Case Western University in Ohio, told the BBC that he believes the US is suffering from "a perfect storm" of Covid-19, comorbidities, uneven access to healthcare and hostility to vaccines, masks, and other preventative measures.

Doctors also warn that the high level of hospital admissions in the US and Canada may be due to the Delta variant being more prevalent in many areas.

 

[jjenny]

It's not really a puzzle. In US we have a lot of obesity and other comorbidities.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Not a problem. Southerners don't give a darn about tests, or masks, vaccines until they are sick themselves. I live in a southern state and witness this first hand every day. They aren't going to be requesting masks or tests or vaccines. They don't care about these things until they get invariably get infected themselves, begging for medical care. Only then do then do they suddenly care about mabs and antivirals when they are sick and spiraling downward when it's too late. Then they beg for everything else to save them from their folly. The south will continue to carry on with their lack of vaccines, lack of vaccine uptake, lack of masks. And that is not going to change any time too soon. They have made that perfectly clear where I live. jmo

Both of my kids live up North, and have been down to Florida to visit with their partners these past couple of weeks....
They felt safer in the airports and on the planes than walking around down here!

They just cannot believe the maskless everywhere......
And I am having to tell them of friends who I know have positive covid tests every single day..... No one has a single clue as to where they might have gotten it... contact tracing would be a total joke here.

 

[x_files]

Both of my kids live up North, and have been down to Florida to visit with their partners these past couple of weeks....
They felt safer in the airports and on the planes than walking around down here!

They just cannot believe the maskless everywhere......
And I am having to tell them of friends who I know have positive covid tests every single day..... No one has a single clue as to where they might have gotten it... contact tracing would be a total joke here.

Florida and Texas don't do contract tracing is that correct?
I wonder why they are allowed to opt-out? Wouldn't the Heath Dept decide this not politicians?

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I had incredibly slow mail service in November 2020-January 2021, but this past holiday season has been fine, including packages from outside the US. Last year (2020-2021) I had packages that were sent tracked airmail from Europe that took almost 3 months to arrive .

I still have some hope for USPS, but maybe I'm just optimistic

I know off topic ...but oh how I remember Priority Mail costing $3.95. Paid $14.95 for a book! But couldn't wait for the "who knows" delivery time of media mail.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Oh dear! One of the servers has Covid and is working today- serving food! She was coughing with her mask down around her chin this morning- coughing up a lung it sounded like and telling one of the residents "yes, I got all my vaxxes but I still got it *cough* *cough*" I wondered why she was off yesterday but NOW she is back! It's criminal!
She delivers the meals to the rooms too, so I decided no meals delivered today to me...thank goodness I have plenty of frozen meals.
I feel bad for all those sitting ducks in the dining room.

*I was getting my morning coffee to-go, fully double masked N95 & cloth, couldn't get out of there fast enough*

Tabitha..please keep telling us what is going on there... it is just important information for us all to stay on top of...for now and in the future. I think I "tense up" when I see a new post from you.... but DO NOT stop for heaven's sake.

 

[SouthAussie]

Both of my kids live up North, and have been down to Florida to visit with their partners these past couple of weeks....
They felt safer in the airports and on the planes than walking around down here!

They just cannot believe the maskless everywhere......
And I am having to tell them of friends who I know have positive covid tests every single day..... No one has a single clue as to where they might have gotten it... contact tracing would be a total joke here.

We are all way past contact tracing effectively. imo

There are far too many cases for this to be able to logistically happen.

Even here, where our contact tracing has been really good, and with QR code check-in allowing a semi automated system. Now that we have let the virus in and cases are rapidly rising, the most people seem to get is a text message saying they have been to a venue where there is a confirmed positive case. Please isolate and get tested.

 

[indicolite22]

It's not really a puzzle. In US we have a lot of obesity and other comorbidities.

Canada also has a higher hospital rate now than in previous waves. Maybe Delta is still partly to blame?

 

[LaborDayRN]

Who hasn't let out an exasperated "Is the pandemic finished yet?" or a "When can I just get on with my life?" over the past two years? I know I have.

The answer to those questions could be... very soon.

There is growing confidence that Omicron could be hurtling the UK into the pandemic endgame.

But what comes next? There will be no snap of the fingers to make the virus disappear. Instead, the new buzzword we'll have to get used to is "endemic" - which means that Covid is, without doubt, here to stay.

So, is a new Covid-era truly imminent and what will that actually mean for our lives?

"We're almost there, it is now the beginning of the end, at least in the UK," Prof Julian Hiscox, chairman in infection and global health at the University of Liverpool, tells me. "I think life in 2022 will be almost back to before the pandemic."

What's changing is our immunity. The new coronavirus first emerged two years ago in Wuhan, China, and we were vulnerable. It was a completely new virus that our immune systems had not experienced before and we had no drugs or vaccines to help.

The result was like taking a flamethrower into a fireworks factory. Covid spread explosively around the world - but that fire cannot burn at such high intensity forever.

There were two options - either we would extinguish Covid, as we did with Ebola in West Africa, or it would die down but be with us for the long term. It would join the swarm of endemic diseases - such as common colds, HIV, measles, malaria and tuberculosis - that are always there.


Endemic Covid: Is the pandemic entering its endgame?

 

[LaborDayRN]

Canada also has a higher hospital rate now than in previous waves. Maybe Delta is still partly to blame?

If we are following the curve that the UK did, IMO many of those hospitalized with serious (ICU) cases of Covid may very well be Delta.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I hear ya- but here's the thing: If you read that post about the son whose 85 year old mother contracted the virus (and his dad also contracted it later) They are triple vaxxed. This man is a prosecutor (retired) and and a journalist and he knows his way around hospital systems. He was unable to get treatment for his mother at the hospital system he trusted ( he didnt say the name of the system but I think he is referring to the University of Michigan)-- He was jerked around for over a week while his elderly mother was getting worse. He finally found her MAB treatment and she has survived. I will find the article and post it. My point is that yes, the refusal of the unvaxxed have left the vaxxed vulnerable and so when we who are vaxxed may need the anti viral pills and the MAB, where will we find them? maybe nowhere- and that is why I am saying the government has failed us. These treatments should be available, dammit.

My triple-vaxxed, 85-year-old mother caught COVID. Medical triage made her doctor useless.

The government and the health care systems have begged the population to get vaccinated. That the unvaxxed have left the vaxxed vulnerable is NOT the health care system or the government's fault.....but they keep trying trying trying. No wonder we are loosing so many nurses and probably doctors too.

The fall-out of the burn-out is going to hurt the entire health care industry....
I just wonder if more and more people who want to be in medicine are going to stay in research .... so they don't have to work with.............................. people!

 

[Simply Southern]

Yep. Elderly and immuno compromised vaxxed people are still very vulnerable. My point is, if everybody eligible was vaxxed, there would be more treatments available to vaxxed but vulnerable. Some states are even saving those treatments for un-vaxxed, which I find ludicrous.

I understand but these folks are NOT going to, so what else can we do, let them die, let the unvaccinated kids die, vaccinated healthcare worker? Does anyone have a suggestion, when companies have offered up to 1000. to vaccinate, third family die, they lose their job and home. Nope they ain't getting it. Time forget these folks, moo, they vetting way to much attention, and focus on the billions in Therapeutics and why we don't have them.


The guidelines set by NIH prioritizes unvaccinated.

The messages is get vaccinated, but those not vaccinated get prior treatment.

This is not a new smallpox was eradicated at gunpoint. The resistance was far greater. I guess they chose to leave out of our history books. It's been going on since 1879 !!!!
Moo...
This article is 10 years old, but the problem has not changed.
How The 'Pox' Epidemic Changed Vaccination Rules

"There were scenes of policemen holding down men in their night robes while vaccinators began their work on their arms," Willrich tells FreshAir's Terry Gross. "Inspectors were going room to room looking for children with smallpox. And when they found them, they were literally tearing babes from their mothers' arms to take them to the city pesthouse [which housed smallpox victims.]"

"There was one episode in Middlesboro, Ky., where the police and a group of vaccinators went into this African-American section of town, rounded up people outside this home, handcuffed the men and women and vaccinated them at gunpoint," says Willrich. "It's a shocking scene and very much at odds with our daily-held notions of American liberty."

People infected with small pox would also be quarantined against their will in large isolation hospitals called pest houses.

History Does Repeat: Pandemic Vaccine Uproar Is Nothing New

The Anti-Vaccination Society of America was founded in 1879. Its public campaign against mandatory smallpox vaccination used wording about personal freedoms that might sound familiar today: "Liberty cannot be given, it must be taken."

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Yep. Elderly and immuno compromised vaxxed people are still very vulnerable. My point is, if everybody eligible was vaxxed, there would be more treatments available to vaxxed but vulnerable. Some states are even saving those treatments for un-vaxxed, which I find ludicrous.

So many ethical questions. And would the elderly get treated over the unvaxxed? Or would the unvaxxed trump over all?

Sophie's Choice in Spades.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Anti-viral pills just got approved and apparently they take months to make. Out of three antibodies that were in use, only one works. And we have a massive amounts of infected. Unfortunately it's a bad combination.

And if current predictions are correct---> UK coming to a peak, and US maybe in 3 weeks or so.................. then what happens to all the
superfast production of the pills, masks, and antibody treatment.
At some point we just simply have to go with the whirlwind tsunami flow rather than keep blaming.
Who could have predicted any of this?
Not to say there have not been mistakes, but geeez, there is no-win in total chaos.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Florida and Texas don't do contract tracing is that correct?
I wonder why they are allowed to opt-out? Wouldn't the Heath Dept decide this not politicians?

The Health Department? They are basically impotent in FL. They have stopped counting cases, they don't count people who die here if they also live in another state. DeSantis has blocked mask mandates in schools and businesses, blocked vaccination mandates for businesses, cruiselines etc. I must admit it seems simpler. But when "anything goes", anything goes.

 

[Simply Southern]

Where are these products and programs ??

May 2021 150 million for monoclonal antibody.


May 2021
Biden Administration to Invest $150 Million to Expand Access to COVID-19 Treatments in Underserved Communities

As part of the Biden Administration's ongoing efforts to promote health equity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is investing $150 million to increase access to COVID-19 monoclonal antibody therapeutic treatments for patients in vulnerable communities across the country.

This new effort will speed assistance to hard-hit communities to increase administration of monoclonal antibody treatments to prevent hospitalizations and deaths. Assistance may include additional staffing, infusion center capacity in traditional and non-traditional health care settings, and equipment to administer the intravenous infusion treatments. The effort will also increase awareness among health care providers and patients about the treatment options available, including where and how to access them.
JUNE 2021...7 months ago!!!
Biden Administration to Invest $3 Billion from American Rescue Plan as Part of COVID-19 Antiviral Development Strategy

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, the Biden Administration is investing more than $3 billion to accelerate the discovery, development and manufacturing of antiviral medicines as part of the Biden Administration’s whole-of-government strategy to develop the next generation of COVID-19 treatments.

Through collaboration within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), this plan – called the Antiviral Program for Pandemics – will respond to the urgent need for antivirals to treat COVID-19 by spurring the availability of medicines to prevent serious illness and save lives. It also will build sustainable platforms for discovery and development of antivirals for other viruses with pandemic potential, helping better prepare the nation to face future viral threats.

August 2021
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Availability of Up To $500 Million in Emergency Rural Health Care Funds Under the American Rescue Plan

***I live in the third poorest county in Virginia. I've not seen ANY funds from these programs hit out county. I volunteered and worked on many of the grant paper work for my area. I just checked our website..Nope we didn't get. Moo...

 

[jjenny]

And if current predictions are correct---> UK coming to a peak, and US maybe in 3 weeks or so.................. then what happens to all the
superfast production of the pills, masks, and antibody treatment.
At some point we just simply have to go with the whirlwind tsunami flow rather than keep blaming.
Who could have predicted any of this?
Not to say there have not been mistakes, but geeez, there is no-win in total chaos.

Lets wait to see if covid comes up with new variants. That clearly was the mistake by the government, to underestimate the possibilities of new variants.

 

[Simply Southern]

The Health Department? They are basically impotent in FL. They have stopped counting cases, they don't count people who die here if they also live in another state. DeSantis has blocked mask mandates in schools and businesses, blocked vaccination mandates for businesses, cruiselines etc. I must admit it seems simpler. But when "anything goes", anything goes.

My HD has held NOT ONE testing event. They received funding but never hired a "Testing Coordinator", a local foundation organized, rounded up volunteer nurses and Doctors, paid the entire cost, in the early days.

They all work from home and communicate thru FB. Yeap, won't talk to the paper or TV. Don't do any inspections of restaurant outbreaks, no contact tracing for the last 6 months.

Worthless, almost all Virginia state employees worked from home until a few months ago. Our Division of Motor Vechiles was closed for 20 months, New drivers were denied licenses for 18 months, some threaten to sue. The State of Virginia just closed up, rolled all agencies into call centers, and that was that.

Moo...

 

[x_files]

Lets wait to see if covid comes up with new variants. That clearly was the mistake by the government, to underestimate the possibilities of new variants.

Viruses esp. COVID mutant that's what they do, unfortunately.