Yes.
Excerpt:
Texas doesn’t have statewide guidelines for critical care and triage, which means that caregivers are left to their own local organizing. But tough times like the ones brought on by low vaccination rates and the delta variant require a re-examination of priors. This fourth wave of Covid hospitalizations differs from all the others, because almost everyone who is severely ill is also unvaccinated. In Texas, more than 12,800 people are in the hospital because of Covid-19, and between 93 and 98 percent of them are unvaccinated.
It’s tempting to blame this wave not on the virus but on the people who didn’t get their shots. “This has been bubbling up—this anger, this frustration, this fear, this worry. Every day, we’re seeing the ascent of the curve. Now it’s the steepest it’s ever been,” Fine says. “So I and the other leaders of the task force, we decided, you know, these numbers are not looking good. These questions are coming up."
If you're doing triage it can make sense because vaccinated people have a better chance of surviving and resources are better spent there. In the same way that younger people would receive treatment first under triage.
From a culpability point though, this is dangerous territory. Like in a shootout, you treat the people regardless of who shot who, who was the theif, etc. In the same way you should treat people regardless of weather they got the vaccine.
So long as it's done strictly from a triage point of view, and not a personal responsibility thing, it makes sense.
The readiness of the media to debate this matter is in and of itself indicative of them preparing us to be ok with letting people die. I think it is acceptable from a purely triage POV, but that's not what is going to be the takeaway, the takeaway is going to be that we can enlightenly tell ourselves some people for personal responsibility reasons, deserve to die more often than others.
Yeah self indulgent libs will see it that way. They're trying to find an "easy" way out. This entire scenario is a result of decades of systemic neglect, and can't be undone quickly. Mandating the vaccine might cause some chuds to bomb buildings or something, so they're trying to push American personal responsibility nonsense against the chuds and use it against them. I don't think it will work.
The short-term solution here is to mandate vaccines. We tried the Choose Your Own Adventure route, but that didn't work -- we're back to pushing up against hospital capacity and it's killing people. Ideally it would be paired with paid time off from work or another stimulus payment, but the immediate goal is vaccination.
Most cops will throw away their badge in protest
Don't threaten me with a good time
"The only people left who are police are the ones who care about pubic safety!"
:angery:
You'd have to do it in a few waves, and you'd have to take into account the varying reasons people haven't gotten vaccinated. Something like:
- Wave 1: This would be designed for people who struggle to find time to get vaccinated and people who are worried about potential side effects costing them hours at work/their job. Here, you'd basically try to make it so convenient that there's no justifiable reason to refuse. You set up vaccination sites at grocery stores, maybe you order businesses to close on certain days for a period to allow time for employees to get vaccinated, you'd ideally do another stimulus check. Can you rig up a van to keep vaccines cool? Run one of those out to homeless encampments, or roll it down blocks like an ice cream truck.
- Wave 2: This would be designed for people who fell through the cracks during Wave 1 plus people who don't want to get the vaccine, but aren't going to go down kicking and screaming if it becomes mandatory. You start requiring proof of vaccination to enter any large public building -- grocery stores, banks, transit hubs, private offices. If someone doesn't have proof of vaccination, you either take down their driver's license, or (if they don't have a license) you give them a notice informing them of the mandate and telling them they'll be fined if not vaccinated within 90 days. Cross-check the information you took down from licenses with vaccination lists if possible, and send the same notice out to people not on the list.
- Wave 3: This would be designed primarily for hardcore holdouts. Start issuing fines (which could be adjusted to income) for each week they remain unvaccinated. You'd be working with a much smaller population of unvaccinated people at this point (after Waves 1 and 2), which would make this administratively easier. If the income is high enough, don't even rely on them paying -- just garnish their wages/bank account. Refund any fines upon proof of vaccination.
At that point, assess the vaccination rate and see if anything further is necessary. But I'd bet the combination of it being (even) easier to get and increased pressure (up to taking money out of people's pockets) on holdouts would produce some big results.
Good comment. The fining thing is rough, but there does need to be something really unpleasant there at the end to motivate any hold outs.
If we tied another stimulus check in with getting vaccinated in Wave 1, I think you'd have the vast majority of people lining up. Want another $3k? get the shot.
I could see them trying to do a "if we get to a certain rate of vaccination, we will do another stimulus" that way it is not just restricting needed money. though the shaming and thus further sequestering wouldnt cease because of this; and the dems wouldnt dare give us money. Fines just feels like a recipe for disaster given our government and culture
Good question. Imo the best way to do it is to not actually mandate vaccines but mandate having the vaccine to be able to do things. Concerts, restaurants, schools, bars, government buildings, etc.
That way cops aren't enforcing vaccines, they're enforcing trespassing when an unvaxxed person won't leave after being told they can't be there. I think this gives the cops enough distance that they won't see themselves as forcing vaccination.
That way cops aren’t enforcing vaccines, they’re enforcing trespassing when an unvaxxed person won’t leave after being told they can’t be there. I think this gives the cops enough distance that they won’t see themselves as forcing vaccination.
We already went thru this with masks and cops have refused to do this. You're not gonna logic-gotcha the cops.
go the other way make it illegal for the venues to host the unvaccinated
So what happens when the unvaccinated won't leave? They'll call te cops and charge them with trespassing
I'm not trying to logic gotcha the cops. Just make it so they don't actually enforce vaccines just existing laws like trespassing.
You make a good point that a lot of cops didn't want to enforce mask mandates
Also, many insurers are no longer covering the cost of covid care. Probably a good idea to get the damn shot since this is the free market chuds love so much.
That's disgusting from the insurance companies. Vaccinated people can still end up in hospital, even at vastly reduced rates. And even if someone is antivaxx they shouldn't be punished in that way financially, if they survive
I agree it’s beyond fucked, these insurance companies should get the wall. Just another example of how this shit is starting to go really sdeways for anyone who is still holding out on getting vaccinated.
No. I know some libs irl who are getting so excited over denying healthcare to people it's disgusting. The answer to a overburned medical system is not to let some paients die, it's to increase capacity. Get the national guard out there or something instead.
Get the national guard out there or something instead.
That's already happening in certain areas of the USA. The thing is increasing capacity can only be done so much. Nurses take years to train, and to operate specialist medical equipment. The solution is not expanding non existent capacity, it's lockdowns until the reproduction number of Covid 19 is less than 1, with government support. And mandatory vaccination. It takes years to train someone to be an ICU nurse, but any old troop can hand out food packages like they did in China. But capitalists and Americans don't want that because it's "authoritarian" and individualism mindset.
Texas Governor Abbot cut off funds to hire travel nurses apparently.
Is cruelty just the point of American fascism at this point? It's like ISIS tier shit now
It certainly seems that way, but why? Whats the end goal of culling mainly the poor or those with poor access to healthcare?
You see that map of death penalties by state here on hexbear today? You see Texas on that map? I don't know exactly what the reason is, but it's the same for both of these things.
Texas just likes killing.
Krombopolous Texas
Death penalties are about punishing the poor and non-white who step out of line, to be an example. It's a fear tactic.
Letting poor people die from lack of treatment just creates disconnection and reduces trust in the healthcare systems.
Is the point maybe to revamp the healthcare system in an even more privatized way? Is that even possible?
I agree with you this is what's happening, I'm just trying to get to the bottom of why.
What a genocidal fool. The cruelty is the point at this stage, right?
I mean we should obviously be doing everything we can to expand capacity, but my understanding is that if anything it's going to shrink. Go read some threads on /r/nursing, they're burning the fuck out.
If your capacity to provide care isn't enough after doing everything you can to expand it you have to decide who to help first.
I'm not getting excited. I'm frustrated and pissed we're at the point this even has to be a conversation. This is "crumbling empire" level of incompetent.
As a matter of prioritizing patients who are most likely to actually survive, in a time when resources and hospital beds are limited, sure. The whole thing is still kinda scary to me purely because liberals are fucking assholes, so I can easily see this being weaponized into some libshit punitive nonsense.
the liberal bad approach would be to make it so treatment goes to those who can pay high prices
Some people just won't get vaccinated no matter what. One of the local companies around here was offering a 2000 DOLLAR BONUS to employees who provided their vaccination card, and from what I've heard from a friend who works there, not a single person who was unvaccinated by that time went and got vaccinated for it.
Shit, the Illuminati can inject 5G directly into my eyeballs for 2000 dollars.
The vaccinated and the ineligible (and kids whose parents won't let them get vaccinated, obviously) should be prioritized. Antivaxers can eat shit. Walking biohazards.
Don't be eager to deny healthcare to people as a punishment. That's pretty sick. This calls for increased healthcare capacity, not wishing death on people.
It's not about punishment, it's about prioritizing the people who won't go on to infect others with lethal diseases. Absolutely nobody in this thread is arguing against increasing capacity.
You seemed quite excited about denying healthcare to a whole group of people. I may have misinterpreted
a whole group of people
A whole group of people who choose to risk infecting others with deadly diseases. They're a public health risk and shouldn't take up a single hospital bed that someone else could use.
No, I'm simultaneously saying that they should be deprioritized because they're a higher risk to other people and saying that your handwringing over the poor, poor antivaxers is unwarranted.
:ooooooooooooooh: Antivaxxers shouldn't face the consequences of their actions!!!!!
I'm hearing you say that antivaxers don't deserve healthcare and need to face consequences for the decisions they made, including death. I also see you practically bathing in the thought of their "personal responsibility" decision.
I agree with you that I'm these circumstances patients need to be triaged and difficult choices will be made. I don't think it's appropriate to revel in the thought of antivaxers eating shit, and you don't have to develop a liberal smirk about it.
Overall its not good that people are sick and dying, regardless of their choices.
The government sucks and is pushing things off onto personal responsibility, but its a matter of not endangering others. That's like saying we shouldn't do anything about people causing massive wildfires with their unnecessary gender reveal parties because that would be pushing personal responsibility.
There are of course many differences, but the main ones that I first think of is that peoe who start wildfires are already held a little bit responsible for that - they are fined at least - they are doing something against the law, unlike antivaxers (not that I agree with that, I think that it should be against the law not to be vaccinated).
And that in this case the other guy was almost happy that the antivaxers were going to die due to their own personal choices. Being happy about someone's deaths (when they're not cops or capitalists) is uncool.
The law sucks and it's liberal to use that as your yardstick for social problems
And, speaking as someone with autism, it's extremely fucked up to try to police someone based on the way you perceive their emotions, and to continually ascribe feeling to some expression they themselves said don't exist
Beyond that, I know an antivaxer who just died of covid literally yesterday and I can confidently say that nothing of value was lost. People who refuse to get vaccinated at this point are a huge danger to society — for example, my vaccinated grandma who's in the icu on a vent right now, or my severely immunocompromised wife, or my nieces who are starting public school in Florida this week — and the more of them that die, the smaller the chance they'll murder someone I care about or someone else who is willing to take steps to protect others.
I don't think they should get the death penalty for it, but when their antisocial actions push the medical system to the limit, they should absolutely be sent to the back of the line.
Triaging isn’t about who has the most severe reactions, it’s about who has the best chance of survival. If you don’t have enough healthcare supplies / workers then you have to start making those calls.
Thankfully they are very very unlikely to be on their death bed if they get covid.
That's more or less true for now — exceptions include my grandma — but we've seen that immunity severely wanes over time, so how much longer will it be true for?
It depends. If a smug doctor is doing to own the antivaxxers or whatever, yeah I also heavily disagree with giving vaccinated people treatment first. That's some lib tier personal responsibility nonsense.
But if triage is applied, and there's one ICU bed left (unfortunately a very real scenario), and two Covid patients arrive to the hospital, around the same age, weight, co-morbilites, sickness level, etc, and one of them is vaccinated and the other is not, the vaccinated person should receive the ICU bed ahead of the unvaccinated person, simply because the chance of survival is greater for the vaccinated person. Resources are better spent trying to save the person with a greater chance of survival. It's ugly, but that's what triage, and our reality right now, is.
This specifically is what I'm talking about. If there's an open bed for an asshole who won't get vaccinated then fine, but triaging is a separate thing all together.
Look at the hospital capacity rates in places like Florida and Texas. These aren't hypotheticals.
Governments outside of the USA government have done studies on the US made vaccines on their own Covid 19 variants and declared the vaccines safe. Does sub Saharan African governments declaring the Phizer and J and J vaccines safe and effective for our variants of Covid make you feel more at ease?
Rational is the wrong word. But there are understandable reasons. If someone was medically experimented on by SAIMR, and antivaxx as a result, I'd understand it. I'd try to convince them otherwise for the sake of the sake of their own health, but at the end of the day I can't hold it against them.
Thankfully this is a rare thing, and most of the antivaxxers in my country are white chuds that have no understandable reason to be antivaxx
I'm just trying to have an honest conversation. I don't think you're a chud or anything. I understand why people are antivaxx. Medical experimentation on minorities, stuff like SAIMR conducting medical experiments against Africans. The vaccines being American, and a general distrust against the USA. I'm trying to address this by saying that even anti US governments and institutions are saying that the US made vaccines are safe, and are making efforts to acquire them. And that people are desperate for vaccines over here. Despite all of the bad history with the USA and the medical community.
It's been studied at length and there are at least 3 different options now. Pfizer’s was even approved by the FDA today.
Vaccine hoarding is a separate issue and fucked up.
Cool, then 4. We straight up should only have had 1, but that’s besides the point.
There’s been more than enough time to see that the vaccines are safe. Still being antivax at this point is fucking ridiculous.
Rational as in we don’t want to be the first subjects of testing - sure, after 100 millions of vaccinated people - nah, it’s not rational, it’s something else
There’s totally a fucked history there from shit like Tuskegee and the US needs to own that more.
Antivaxxers harm minorities and the working class disproportionately because they often cannot work remotely and have a greater chance of contracting Covid from working in public-facing jobs.
Being antivaxx is being anti-worker. Being antivaxx is being anti-minority.
I am not discrediting anyone who is antivaxx. They have already done that to themselves.
If I were a corporation making vaccines, I would make them work (cause they have to) and simultaneously promote some behavior which would make them ineffective without working-as-a-service, I.e. have unvaccinated pools of population to get new variants, be it in global south or anti-vaccine crowd at home :shrug-outta-hecks: seems what happens right now, curiously
Also, you do realize anti vaccine “movement” have long and not so proud tradition since their introduction basically
I don’t honestly think anti vaccine are pushed by central state tbh, but might be kinda let go
Triage is not fascist. It is a medical concept that has been used for centuries to ensure adequate use of resources and better survival. A doctor, GP, or hospital refusing to treat antivaxxers could be argued as fascist, but triaging them is not.
It's not a hypothetical, this is a very real scenario. The hospital in my city still has tent and shipping container wards up, a d ICU beds and oxygen are very scarce. Triage is being applied, older people are being sent home while younger people get the few available hospital beds. The same is true in areas of the USA. While vaccination is not widespread enough to be used a criteria for triage in my country, it is very widespread in the USA. If you're a doctor triaging patients in Florida (not a hypothetical, gunshot victims were being sent home), do you use vaccination status as a criteria? Other criteria, like age are already being used for triage. Stuff that people have no control of. Would adding vaccine status (something people have relative control of, not full control because anti vaccine propaganda, etc) really be immoral by that standard?
Wasn't there a thread here last week with an ER doc talking about this? Does anyone have a link to that?
Yeah someone even posted the gofundme for the gunshot victim here
It's a free shot. The victims hospitalized by these people's selfishness should be prioritized. The vaccinated also have a much higher survival rate and are a better use of limited medical resources.
I don't think it's fascist, I think it's realistic. Already had an uncle die from this shit. I don't give a fuck what someone's excuse is at this point.
I frankly also think it's beyond fucked up that chuds have been using marginalized groups of people as a shield against antivax criticism. Weird to see it repeated here.
It's more neoliberal personal responsibility bullshit. If the vaccine is so god damned important, MAKE IT A LAW. ffs this shit is driving me up a wall.
It should be a law and until that happens different parts of society need to start applying pressure. It's the side affect of weak neoliberal policies.
They're going to double down on hurting poc and poor people. They absolutely are not going to pressure people like boaters who refuse to get the shot.
That excuse shows up with every response to antivax behavior, whether it's vaccine passports or workplace requirements. It should be applied to everyone.
It should be applied to everyone.
"Should", but it won't.
We can say that about any public health policy. That's a related issue, but not enacting vaccine requirements is literally murdering people, especially marginalized people and the working class who have to deal with chuds.
I agree with this so long as you make sure to gain everyone’s trust, owning up to past mistakes but making up to it by potentially saving your life.
They need to have like a good doctor, or something, go on TV and talk to people about the shot. And I'm not talking Fauci, fuck that ghoul, like a family doctor or something, to level with people.
Versus a ghoul like Kamala trying to say "hey I'm hip, I'm cool, the vaccine is great too!" no one trusts the government and for good reason. That's why I'm suggesting a family doctor something. But knowing the USA they'll keep pushing Fauci out to plead with people.
This is just trying to punish people though which isn't productive or helpful. Medical supplies should go where they do the most good the morality of how the person got sick has nothing to do with it
You triage patients who have the highest likelihood of surviving. It isn't a first come first served issue and there is no right to remain on an ICU bed until your death or recovery. It means unvaccinated people may be moved to a step-down unit sooner.
