26 thoughts on “C-19 Chat Post – November 22 2021”

  1. Scott Gottlieb just said this: “We’re in a different situation than Germany right now because we’ve endured a lot of prior waves of infection.”

    In June he said the same thing – well, in slightly different words – about the U.K. and why we were better situated than the U.K. to prevent a Delta wave.

    Last November, he said – using almost identical words – the same thing about why the emerging winter wave wouldn’t impact us as much.

    All I can say is, speak to me in a month, Scott.

    When will he stop predicting the future? He’s not the only one. It’s as if all these experts must predict that the pandemic is coming to a close soon and the U.S. is a unique place, or else they won’t get TV appearances.

    1. What I just realized may not have shown is that the tweet by Dr Boucher was shared by Gottlieb. It’s why I saw it.

      I have no confidence in him remaining

  2. Vicki, thanks for posting tweet about Dr. Helen Boucher wanting to lift mask mandates in schools. I find this so odd, especially at this time. I’ve also lost faith in our public health leaders and experts.

    1. This comment to the post may be a bit too general, but it is spot on:
      Canada’s mitigation efforts went far beyond what America will tolerate. Americans would rather watch the virus rage in the long term than be temporarily inconvenienced in the short term.

  3. Dr. Helen Boucher is not the only advocate for lifting mask mandates in schools by any stretch. Yesterday, Vicki posted an NPR article about another doctor that believes it’s time to eventually lift masks in schools as well.

    So I would assume there is a growing number of the medical community with the same idea. I would be curious though if there is any actual “science” to back up lifting mask mandates in schools.

  4. 55% of ALL ICU beds in the Netherlands are taken up by Covid-19 patients. The situation is not only critical, it’s gotten to the point where decisions have to be made nationally about shutting down, however painful that will be as it would likely include the entire holiday period. The vaccination rate is 85% of all adults, but that was not enough to prevent what’s happening now. All elective hospital services are postponed. Non-Covid patients are having to be transported to other regions or countries, or not treated at all. Triage has begun. What the Dutch call “code black” may be a week away, at most, and that’s when all hospitals in the country will be in full triage mode. Priority will be given to younger patients, healthcare workers and those who are likely to have a short stay in the ICU.

    Cases in the UK resumed their increase last week, and the pace is now accelerating.

    Cases are picking up everywhere, on every continent except South America.

    My hope is that with boosters we can defeat this, as Israel is doing, sort of. But, I’m not overly optimistic.

  5. 6,800 new cases in Massachusetts in the past 3 days; 708 hospitalizations; 17 deaths. Hospitalizations are rising fast – net hospitalization increase of around 180 in the past 12 days. Given the lag between cases and hospitalizations of about a week – and with cases growing rapidly recently – expect to see hospitalizations hit 800 later this week, and 900 by the first week of December.

      1. I wish we kept more detailed accounts. We know last week that just over 3700 cases were from schools. How many of these cases were from exposure to our children?

  6. interesting, parochial statement from the White House (Jeff Zients): “No, we are not headed in that direction [lockdowns, like the ones being implemented in several Western European countries]. We have the tools to accelerate the path out of this pandemic — widely available vaccinations, booster shots, kid shots, therapeutics, including monoclonal antibodies to help those who contract the virus,” he said at a Covid-19 task force briefing. “We can curb the spread of the virus without having to in any way shut down our economy.”

    If someone read this, say, an alien from another planet, with no prior knowledge of the pandemic’s history or path, he or she would think, wow, the U.S. really has its ducks in a row and Western Europe doesn’t. It’s got tools that Western Europe doesn’t. It must have done so well to combat this virus, while Western Europe must have suffered more.

    Well, the truth is the U.S. has fared worse than ANY other Western European country in terms of death rate (deaths per million inhabitants). And, all those tools Zients mentions, well, Europe has all those, too, and it has made much better use of several of them, including vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. Furthermore, one tool Zients didn’t mention, tests, and is crucial for so many reasons, the U.S. has in short supply with poor access, compared to its Western European allies.

    1. The thoughts you concluded with ran through my head as I read. Joshua…..our denial has us primed for far more serious trouble than I thought possible in what we tout as the greatest country on earth

  7. I’m not in favor of lockdowns. But, the kinds of measures being taken in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands will help to relieve pressure on the hospitals and reduce morbidity and mortality. Our European friends have made these choices. We have not. That’s fine. But it’s not because they don’t have tools and we do.

    I will be drafting a personal note to Jeffrey Zients about his rather condescending remark that also smacks of ignorance. I will delve into several other public health areas where we have the tools, but don’t use them at all or not as well as we ought to, while our European friends do to a much better degree, with much better outcomes resulting in life expectancy figures that are many years higher than the U.S.:

    – Infant mortality
    – Maternal mortality
    – HIV morbidity and mortality
    – Opioid overdoses
    – Obesity (indirectly leads to morbidity and mortality)
    – Gun violence (morbidity and mortality)

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