And our governor does nothing about it. He even banned municipalities from enacting their own mandatory masks rules. I am truly terrified, even thought about leaving my job and start some travel assignments, just to get out of here.
Almost no one is wearing masks in public establishments. Restaurants and attractions are at full capacity. We had 21,000 new cases of Covid 19 yesterday alone. ?
I am not looking forward to working on a Covid unit again. I know it's about to happen, but inside of me, I don't think I have the strength to go through it again.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
4 hours ago, BostonFNP said:
I was talking with a “pro-disease” patient yesterday who lives in Florida the majority of the year; I’ve been his PCP for almost 10 years and we have a good relationship so I wanted to have an open and honest conversation with him about Delta and returning to Florida in four weeks as he has significant comorbidities.
A few things really hit me for this person I’ve known for a long time:
1. He has really been radicalized in the last 24 months. By that I mean that he gets his information only from one source (which tells him to disbelieve every other source and that anything objective is fake), believes that there is a vast international conspiracy, and that he is unable to think rationally because rational thought is most often contradictory to his new doctrine.
2. He believes covid is real and serious (has seen friends die) but also that it’s numbers are exaggerated and that delta is a ploy for the 2022 and 2024 election cycle.
3. He genuinely believes that vaccinations and masks are an assault on his freedom that he is willing to fight and die for.
So I changed tactics and instead talked about vaccines in the light of something that is important to him: taxes and the economy. I showed him the math of the situation in Florida right now: 10,398 people hospitalized with covid at an average cost of $64,500 per hospital stay makes a current cost of $671 million dollars. That money is coming out of our pockets one way or another. He was skeptical about the numbers (even after I told him they came straight from DeSantis) but the argument made more sense to him then a healthcare argument.
It really is: there doesn't seem to be a way to combat it anymore because it is so disconnected from reality.
I think what I was most impressed with as I was reflecting back on the conversation was that he didn't get here by choice. This was a process that happened to him, and in some ways, you can't blame him because he now exists in this world where he is only hearing the the conspiracy theory.
I think the most interesting part of the exchange was when he was telling me how the liberals wanted covid to last through the 2024 election so they could "steal" another presidential victory. So I asked him why, if the liberals wanted covid to last for another 3 years, the liberals were the ones getting vaccinated, because that seems counterintuitive. He stumbled for a bit trying to explain it then settled on that the vaccines actually cause covid to infect the non-vaccinated which makes covid last longer. I think even he didn't think this made any sense, and had no response to the idea that getting the vaccine would actually stop that plan.
It's not really a thing. It gets thrown around for a few reasons: 1. highlights that being against the covid vaccine (and masks and social distance) is the same as working for the disease, and 2. highlights that most of these people are not traditional antivaxxers because their problem is more political than anything else.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
50 minutes ago, JKL33 said:
I'm behind -- what does this mean?
I read it as an alternative way of describing the people who aren't concerned with the level of disease in the country and who believe that herd immunity can be achieved when enough people develop immunity from infection. They are confident that the survival rate of the illness is the most important data point while feeding their reluctance to vaccinate with deeply flawed analysis and opinion about covid vaccines.
The news for us here in Florida isn't good. It's worse that 2020 ever was. Currently we've reached a record number of hospitalizations for the third day in a row.
Locally our ERs are so overwhelmed emergencies are taking one to two hours to being seen and ambulance drop off to patient being seen well over two hours and three hours has been documented.
Elective surgeries in some hospitals are canceled again.
It's a made an already bad situation staffing wise here disastrous. They are overing $500 bonus to work an overtime shift.
They good news is that even though it's too late vaccination rates are increasing and 85% of us in my county over the age of 65 are vaccinated.
There is so much covid out there breakthrough infections are occurring. I have a friend that got it but had no symptoms and was vaccinated but his best friend whom he took the hospital was unvaccinated. He only got tested because his friend was positive and hospitalized.
The vaccinated are spreading it and are catching it, but clearly the advantage is to the vaccinated.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Like you, it's very heavy on my mind. I'ms added to read about people fighting over something as simple as masks making a comeback.
The case positivity rate in Florida last week was 18.1%. It is going to be a bumpy ride in Florida. All those people concerned about "experimental" vaccines now have a front row seat in the control group for the biggest real-world relative risk reduction trial we've ever seen.
Unfortunately, there's a concentration of that level of crazy thinking in your state but it is wide spread among conservative populations across the country. Wasilla is grand central crazy in Alaska politics, but everywhere there is a concentration of this Trump brand of conservative politics there is extreme ideology and all the tools used to manipulate cult members. Social media and the nature of modern media elevates that messaging...often in unhelpful ways. IMV
It's not really a thing. It gets thrown around for a few reasons: 1. highlights that being against the covid vaccine (and masks and social distance) is the same as working for the disease, and 2. highlights that most of these people are not traditional antivaxxers because their problem is more political than anything else.
Ah.
I personally believe this is a misstep and that missteps such as this matter.
- Because if those are the messages being sent they aren't being received by anyone who doesn't already see things that way. It isn't like this clever relabeling is a bona fide educational campaign, where it is expected that the masses will hear it and say, "Ohhhh. Now I get it."
- Because too many of us have bought into the idea that whomever is the loudest, the most vile or the snarkiest wins, without ever caring about whether they've actually won anything. It simply another strategy in which people get to feel like a smarty-pants while everyone loses. It actually is the same beast that produces the same results regardless who's doing it.
I want to know what clinician is going to have a successful one-on-one with a patient by saying, "So...I hear you're pro-disease! Is that right--you're working for the disease?"
toomuchbaloney
16,026 Posts
This radicalization is very dangerous.