[Pestilence] https://youhavetoliveyour.life/

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pestilence] https://youhavetoliveyour.life/

(Thread IKs: PoundSand)

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

Potato Salad posted:

Is it your position that depression and mental illness did not worsen through the advent of COVID?

personally my mental health skyrocketed post-COVID because I was allowed to work from home. never been happier than I was in 2021

# ? Jan 28, 2024 18:34

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# ? May 24, 2024 13:39

Fur20: Nov 14, 2007; すご▞い！
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね！

Pingui posted:

I don't know why anyone would expect a different result for people with higher education, which makes me eye it suspiciously.

because iirc, previously, studies have indicated that having a university-level education may be somewhat protective against the long-term cognitive defects of covid

narrator voice "it wasnt"

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:20

Baddog: May 12, 2001

Fur20 posted:

because iirc, previously, studies have indicated that having a university-level education may be somewhat protective against the long-term cognitive defects of covid

narrator voice "it wasnt"

Only because more educated people were (for a time) not licking doorknobs completely willy loving nilly, so perhaps less viral load when infected.

Think that's all out the window now.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:25

Why Am I So Tired: Sep 28, 2021

Thinking about how the NYTimes said Obama's superspreader party during the Delta wave was low risk because all of the guests were sophisticated.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:26

mags: May 30, 2008; I am a congenital optimist.

Baddog posted:

Only because more educated people were (for a time) not licking doorknobs completely willy loving nilly, so perhaps less viral load when infected.

Think that's all out the window now.

my undergrad research was on doorknob licking culture and i would like it if you did not slander the community thank you

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:29

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

they didnt do a longitudinal study so all this means is that dumber people are more likely to get covid in the first place and as a very smart person i of course will take all necessary precautions such as washing my hands :words:

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:32

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

NeonPunk posted:

gently caress yeah! I'm just three hours away and I can easily recruit some folks with trucks and trailers to help me haul them away

Oh shoot. You just saved me some time and money. No point in getting some masks with old and brittle rubber straps

Honestly, replacing those straps is pretty simple and you can buy the elastic in rolls or recycle it from old masks and staples are staples. Granted I wouldn�t want to do it to like 350k at once but it is an option if you don�t have to pay for labor.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:47

Salt Fish: Sep 11, 2003; Cybernetic Crumb

Why Am I So Tired posted:

Thinking about how the NYTimes said Obama's superspreader party during the Delta wave was low risk because all of the guests were sophisticated.

Remember when the first breakthrough cases were dismissed because it was during "bear week"?

# ? Jan 28, 2024 19:48

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

Thoguh posted:

It did, but using isolation and mental illness in the same sentence like that is exactly how minimizers use it to focus on how the real problem with COVID is that people did anything about it because not going to brunch makes people sad and the solution isn't to improve air quality at brunch, the solution is to ignore the negative impacts of the plague that is still going around.

No, I'm not particularly salty right now about that specific line of thought that is pushed everywhere, no.

I don't think that the letter that points out that more Americans died to covid than World War II is trying to minimize anything. What the poster is contending is not, I believe, there. I think they are misreading it. I thought it was pretty clear the letter was saying that covid has aggravated a number of social problems that we cannot ignore.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:13

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

I wonder if I still get those emails and I wonder what literally the next line that the poster cut off mid-sentence is

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:15

Animal-Mother: Feb 14, 2012; RABBIT RABBIT
RABBIT RABBIT

Baddog posted:

Only because more educated people were (for a time) not licking doorknobs completely willy loving nilly, so perhaps less viral load when infected.

Think that's all out the window now.

Before the season was suspended reporters asked an NBA player what he thought about Corona possibly being a problem and he licked all the microphones.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:43

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

We deliberately destroyed the concept of public health for an entire generation; what's up with that?

(or the original title, My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?)

quote:

The response has been almost like clockwork, at nearly every medical visit in the past few weeks. �It�s time for the flu shot,� I�ll say to my patients, �plus the updated Covid vaccine.� And that�s when the groans start.

In the past, the flu shot elicited the most resistance. The patients at my New York City practice would take their other vaccinations without a second thought but balk at the flu shot � because their sister is allergic to eggs or because they�re sure that the flu shot always gives them the flu or because they just don�t do flu shots. Now, though, a majority of my patients respond along the lines of, �Fine to do the flu shot� � sheepishly pause, then say � �but not the Covid.�

When I ask my patients if they have any concerns or questions about the Covid vaccine, hardly any do. Practically no one asks me about safety data or how effective it is at preventing viral transmission, hospitalization and death. Almost no one asks me about current case counts or masking or Paxlovid. There�s just a vague hedge or an abashed, �I don�t know, I just don�t.� As I try to suss out what�s on my patients� minds, I can feel their slight sense of surprise that there is no specific issue causing their discomfort about getting the updated Covid vaccine. It�s as though they have a communal case of the heebie-jeebies.

Health professionals everywhere are hearing this kind of hesitance among patients as Covid cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise during the winter. As of early January, the average number of Americans dying weekly from Covid was over 1,700. And yet the Jan. 19 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicated that only 21.8 percent of adults 18 and older have received the latest Covid vaccine � less than half of the percentage of those who have gotten the flu vaccine.

Improving this situation isn�t easy, and it will require health care providers wading into awkward conversations that are less about facts and more about emotions. But if we don�t, we will be tolerating a level of preventable death that we�d find unacceptable in any other realm of health care.

It is possible to acknowledge pandemic fatigue without throwing in the towel. Our community�s long-term health and lives depend on it.

When my patients express their hesitance to get the updated vaccine, I�ll explain how the Covid virus has mutated, so that�s why we�ve altered the vaccine, just as we do for the flu shot every year. I�ll point out that in the first two years of Covid vaccination, an estimated three million lives in the United States have been saved and an estimated 18 million hospitalizations prevented. These facts rarely have much effect. There are, of course, practical barriers to the vaccine � cost, access, feeling crummy the next day � but that�s not what most of my patients are bringing up.

Their hesitation is all the more distressing, because, as New Yorkers, they had front-row seats to the vicious first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, losing family members and friends. The line of refrigerated morgue trucks parked behind my hospital is a sight not easily forgotten. Moreover, these patients are not anti-vaxxers; they take their shingles vaccines and tetanus shots with hardly a shrug. Nearly all received the initial Covid vaccine series and fully remember the urgency of getting those hard-to-find vaccination slots in the early days. Nor do they seem to be science deniers; they embrace standard medical treatments for most of their other health conditions.

Each time I�m faced with a patient hedging on the Covid shot, I have to decide whether to put aside the many other pressing medical issues competing for our limited time to go down the vaccine-hesitancy road. These discussions are notoriously messy and lengthy and rarely change minds. Part of me just wants to move on, as my patients � and indeed the entire country � seem to want to do. Pandemic fatigue has even emerged as its own field of study.

But something in me doesn�t feel ready to let it go. The specificity of their Covid refusal � especially compared with flu refusal � piques my curiosity and consternation. So many of my patients have medical problems that put them at high risk for complications of Covid, such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, kidney disease, asthma. Yet here they are, one after another, rejecting a medical intervention that most have safely received before and substantially improves outcomes. And they can�t really articulate a specific reason, even to themselves. Shrugging this off seems wrong.

So I clear the deck, push myself away from the computer, make full eye contact and begin again. I might start with, �Tell me what�s on your mind� or �What makes you feel differently about the Covid vaccine versus the flu shot?� I try to step into the gray zone of their responses and explore those awkward feelings.

When they say, �I�ve had enough Covid vaccinations already,� I�ll probe where the sense of �enough� comes from. I might ask, �Do you ever feel this way about your diabetes medicines or your mammograms?� We�ll explore how they come to conclusions about which treatments they accept and try to separate vague discomfort from specific concerns.

A review of the facts is less about starting a lecture and more about examining emotional responses. We talk openly about what they are hearing in their communities � that the pandemic is over, that the new boosters are more experimental than the old ones, that some number of vaccinations is too many.

It can be a revelation to some patients when they realize that they may be reacting to a sense of the waters being muddied rather than specific information or misinformation.

I do want my patients to maintain a healthy skepticism about any proposed intervention to the body, whether it comes from their doctor or from social media. I�ll happily pull up information from medical reference sites like UpToDate to review the pros and cons of a treatment with them. I�ll always respect their choice to disagree with my recommendations, but I do want to understand why.

We in medicine are fairly good at responding to specific concerns; we easily marshal facts and numbers because this is the arena in which we are most comfortable. It�s tempting to shy away from the queasier realm of free-floating discomfort, but we can�t. The good news is that this can be a constructive and collaborative moment in the relationship between patients and medical professionals. In my experience, when we talk directly about the awkward gray zone that seems to suffuse vaccine hesitancy, there�s a certain shared humbling. We are all profoundly disconcerted by states of ambiguity.

In deconstructing these uncertainties, I get a sense of many patients feeling a stronger sense of control. They don�t immediately yank up their sleeves for the jab, but there�s a clear shift in attitude. They are much more willing to engage in a conversation about the realities of the Covid vaccine and how it compares with the flu vaccine or getting the Covid infection.

To me, that�s progress. Some do go on to get vaccinated; many don�t. But at least we are able to consider the Covid vaccination the way we�d consider any other medical intervention.

As time-consuming and exhausting as these conversations can be, we have a communal duty to try to unmuddy the waters � all of us. If you�ve been hesitating about getting your updated Covid vaccination, you might want to put your heebie-jeebies front and center on the exam table at your next medical visit. They�re due for a checkup.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:44

ColdBlooded: Jul 15, 2001; Ask me how to run a good team into the ground.

Insanite posted:

bumming ppl out by accurately describing reality is a lockdown

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:46

Salt Fish: Sep 11, 2003; Cybernetic Crumb

In fairness covid vaccines actually suck. Having to get 2,3,4 a year and not only does it completely wreck you for 2 days you aren't even immune to covid afterwards! I've had probably 10-15 different vaccines in my life and never had side effects like the mRNA covid ones. I absolutely dread it. Twice now I've been reading about covid while suffering through a 102 degree vaccine fever and oops the variant you just got vaccinated against is extinct now.

I've had maybe 7? of these now and gently caress me if I'm not going to get 20 or 30 more before I die, but can you really blame people for having a negative view?

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:50

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

Precambrian Video Games posted:

We deliberately destroyed the concept of public health for an entire generation; what's up with that?

(or the original title, My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?)

it's very funny that this entire screed doesn't even mention "oops we propagandized everyone that the disease itself is mild and nbd now and just a cold" as a reason why they might no longer want a medical intervention done to them about it

it's just ~feelings~

feelings which, you know, have no origin, no underlying or historical causes, they simply emerge from the ether within brains much as life emerges from sterile abiotic material whole-cloth

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:51

silicone thrills: Jan 9, 2008; I paint things

Salt Fish posted:

In fairness covid vaccines actually suck. Having to get 2,3,4 a year and not only does it completely wreck you for 2 days you aren't even immune to covid afterwards! I've had probably 10-15 different vaccines in my life and never had side effects like the mRNA covid ones. I absolutely dread it. Twice now I've been reading about covid while suffering through a 102 degree vaccine fever and oops the variant you just got vaccinated against is extinct now.

I've had maybe 7? of these now and gently caress me if I'm not going to get 20 or 30 more before I die, but can you really blame people for having a negative view?

I stopped after number 3 because each time i got one the side effects were getting worse for me and that was with switching it up on brands.

flu shot never did this poo poo to me. never gave me hives. never gave me horrible fevers, uncontrollable shivering, auditory hallucinations, vertigo, etc.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 20:57

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

i had pretty close to zero side effects from novavax so ill be doing that from now on as long as they keep offering it

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:00

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud: Apr 7, 2003

The AFC championship game is being held four blocks from my employer�s main office, excited to see how many people are out next week. (Again)

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:02

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

lol

webcams for christ posted:

https://x.com/birgitc/status/1750805223583498399

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:08

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

mawarannahr posted:

lol

look at these dumb euros, don't you know this is why you can't give people sick time off

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:09

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Cup Runneth Over posted:

personally my mental health skyrocketed post-COVID because I was allowed to work from home. never been happier than I was in 2021

Yeah fun times. The summer of 2020 everyone was suddenly home and nothing was open so you ended up seeing people in their back yards and parks. Felt like I was a kid again over to my friend's house.

E: and that expanded UI was some sweet poo poo.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:09

jetz0r: May 10, 2003; Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. This is not a figment of the imagination, but a fact. Tomorrow we will lead the world, Allah willing.

The Oldest Man posted:

i had pretty close to zero side effects from novavax so ill be doing that from now on as long as they keep offering it

yeah, no other vaccine does more than a sore arm to me, even when I got 6 shots at once. But the mrna shots kicked my loving rear end for a day. Novavax barely even made my arm sore.

My parents had the same experience, each mrna shot was getting worse for them, but the moth shot was just a normal vaccine again.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:11

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud: Apr 7, 2003

The Oldest Man posted:

look at these dumb euros, don't you know this is why you can't give people sick time off

https://www.thelocal.de/20231019/why-are-a-record-number-of-people-taking-sick-leave-in-germany

They�re zeroing in on a solution, more positivity!

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:19

DickParasite: Dec 2, 2004; Slippery Tilde

Potato Salad posted:

Is it your position that depression and mental illness did not worsen through the advent of COVID?

Suicide rates went down during the pandemic. I attribute that to the expanded social safety net. Certainly there are other metrics for mental health in the population, but by that indication it improved.

Of course the expanded social safety net has been removed and suicides are rising again. This is retroactively blamed on lockdowns.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:37

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

BOGO LOAD posted:

and my streak is over.

symptoms quickly overnight. have a 12:30est appointment with seasame care for pax. Testing audio/video in the browser and only the audio works sooooo here's hoping

get that pax quick as you can and you should be just fine after the initial sickness passes. it really is quite an effective drug

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:52

Jigsaw: Aug 14, 2008

The Oldest Man posted:

it's very funny that this entire screed doesn't even mention "oops we propagandized everyone that the disease itself is mild and nbd now and just a cold" as a reason why they might no longer want a medical intervention done to them about it

it's just ~feelings~

feelings which, you know, have no origin, no underlying or historical causes, they simply emerge from the ether within brains much as life emerges from sterile abiotic material whole-cloth

we have finally liberated ourselves from the shackles of cause-and-effect based reasoning. things happen. do they cause other things? are they caused by other things? who cares? just go with it, and eat Applebee�s

# ? Jan 28, 2024 21:56

Strep Vote: May 5, 2004; أنا أحب حليب الشوكولاتة

The Oldest Man posted:

i had pretty close to zero side effects from novavax so ill be doing that from now on as long as they keep offering it

Yeah, same. I know we're supposed to be all sciencey and stuff but those mrna vaxxes did real damage to me and I'll never have another covid mrna. Moth juice forever.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:08

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

Strep Vote posted:

Yeah, same. I know we're supposed to be all sciencey and stuff but those mrna vaxxes did real damage to me and I'll never have another covid mrna. Moth juice forever.

I'm wheeling the SAD signal out onto the roof right now

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:10

Pingui: Jun 4, 2006; WTF?

mawarannahr posted:

lol

Stuff from the report (auto-translated descriptions and slight reformatting; the link is indirect):

https://www.vfa.de/de/wirtschaft-politik/macroscope/macroscope-hoher-krankenstand-drueckt-deutschland-in-die-rezession posted:

(..)

Figure 2: Sickness absence by diagnosis over time
Bars: annual averages (upper bars: respiratory diseases and infections, lower bars: all other diagnoses)
Lines: monthly values (upper line: total, lower line: all diagnoses except respiratory diseases and infections - the latter correspond to the distance between the two lines)
(..)

Figure 3: Sick leave by month
dashed black line: average values, gray area 90 percent interval (2003�19)
(..)

Figure 4: Sick days in the quarter, on average per employee
Original data (dashed) and data adjusted for seasonal fluctuations (highlighted line)
(..)

Figure 5: Real gross domestic product � actual and without above-average sick leave
in billions of euros
(..)

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:31

Shiroc: May 16, 2009; Sorry I'm late

I think it maaaaaay have been a mistake to say that the vaccines were absolutely perfectly protective against infection with zero side effects and that anything suggesting otherwise is lunatic antivaxx.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:43

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

Shiroc posted:

I think it maaaaaay have been a mistake to say that the vaccines were absolutely perfectly protective against infection with zero side effects and that anything suggesting otherwise is lunatic antivaxx.

the "trying to get a wasted dose of the miracle shot should be a felony" to "its mild, ive already had two shots so im fully vaccinated" pipeline

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:45

Steely Dad: Jul 29, 2006

My kid�s school sent home a strep exposure notice, a thing they haven�t done for Covid in years. Luckily he had no symptoms.

After a few days, I developed a sore throat. Four negative RATs, so I decided to go to urgent care and get a strep test. �Do you want to take a Covid test, too? There�s a lot of that going around right now� said the PA from behind her baggy surgical. Luckily for me, when the NP came out in her surgical mask, she confirmed the strep test was negative. �Probably just some virus,� she shrugged.

Kid�s mom sends me a photo of him unmasked at an indoor arcade birthday party. Looks fun. Meanwhile I sit here wondering if the responsible thing to do is shove a RAT up my rear end to see if I can get a positive.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:56

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Steely Dad posted:

My kid�s school sent home a strep exposure notice, a thing they haven�t done for Covid in years. Luckily he had no symptoms.

After a few days, I developed a sore throat. Four negative RATs, so I decided to go to urgent care and get a strep test. �Do you want to take a Covid test, too? There�s a lot of that going around right now� said the PA from behind her baggy surgical. Luckily for me, when the NP came out in her surgical mask, she confirmed the strep test was negative. �Probably just some virus,� she shrugged.

Kid�s mom sends me a photo of him unmasked at an indoor arcade birthday party. Looks fun. Meanwhile I sit here wondering if the responsible thing to do is shove a RAT up my rear end to see if I can get a positive.

[Pestilence] the responsible thing to do is shove a RAT up my rear end

# ? Jan 28, 2024 22:58

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

Steely Dad posted:

My kid’s school sent home a strep exposure notice, a thing they haven’t done for Covid in years. Luckily he had no symptoms.

After a few days, I developed a sore throat. Four negative RATs, so I decided to go to urgent care and get a strep test. “Do you want to take a Covid test, too? There’s a lot of that going around right now” said the PA from behind her baggy surgical. Luckily for me, when the NP came out in her surgical mask, she confirmed the strep test was negative. “Probably just some virus,” she shrugged.

Kid’s mom sends me a photo of him unmasked at an indoor arcade birthday party. Looks fun. Meanwhile I sit here wondering if the responsible thing to do is shove a RAT up my rear end to see if I can get a positive.

My brother finally popped positive after 6 days of symptoms so it does really wildly varies.

Although I'm surprised that that they even offered a covid test and that they're aware that there's lots of Covid going around lately

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:02

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

Shiroc posted:

I think it maaaaaay have been a mistake to say that the vaccines were absolutely perfectly protective against infection with zero side effects and that anything suggesting otherwise is lunatic antivaxx.

In fairness whatever damage they did to you, getting covid while unvaccinated would almost certainly do more

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:02

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

Shiroc posted:

I think it maaaaaay have been a mistake to say that the vaccines were absolutely perfectly protective against infection with zero side effects and that anything suggesting otherwise is lunatic antivaxx.

"It's just the flu," I insist while telling you that it is incredibly important for you to get both your flu and COVID shots

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:05

Shiroc: May 16, 2009; Sorry I'm late

Cup Runneth Over posted:

In fairness whatever damage they did to you, getting covid while unvaccinated would almost certainly do more

I knew someone who's mother had anaphylaxis from them, but the message wasn't ever "there are risks but covid is much worse" it was always that there is absolutely none, zero, gently caress you for undermining the effort if you dare suggest otherwise.

I'm always marveling at being able to tell exactly when people stopped paying attention based on their current beliefs around covid, masks or vaccination. It's like looking at strata layers. "Oh that person is double masking." "That person thinks that vaccinated people cannot carry the virus."

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:09

Shiroc: May 16, 2009; Sorry I'm late

I even saw the Gandhi special about "viral remnants in the nose" recently.

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:13

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

The Oldest Man posted:

it's very funny that this entire screed doesn't even mention "oops we propagandized everyone that the disease itself is mild and nbd now and just a cold" as a reason why they might no longer want a medical intervention done to them about it

it's just ~feelings~

feelings which, you know, have no origin, no underlying or historical causes, they simply emerge from the ether within brains much as life emerges from sterile abiotic material whole-cloth

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:18

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# ? May 24, 2024 13:39

Strep Vote: May 5, 2004; أنا أحب حليب الشوكولاتة

Cup Runneth Over posted:

In fairness whatever damage they did to you, getting covid while unvaccinated would almost certainly do more

yeah, that's why I'm still so keen on avoiding it, if it treats me worse than the shot I'm gonna end up bedbound

# ? Jan 28, 2024 23:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pestilence] https://youhavetoliveyour.life/

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