What do you think about with current News and Opinions?

Beerman, BSN · Mar 8, 2022

4 hours ago, subee said:

This article has nothing to do whether vaccines are effective. It is about us giving up even trying to get people vaxxed anymore because rhe right will use the fact that vaxxed people can still get Omicron as a pretext that vaccines are useless. We are free to roam now because of vaccines, not in spite if it. Are you saying that Florida's policies are based on logic rather than political ideology?

No, it's because the right is exercising some common sense. In my state of 6 million people, there are 265 covid positive patients in the hospital. 58% are unvaccinated. The freedom of choice issue aside, mandates do not make sense right now.

Beerman, BSN · Mar 8, 2022

16 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Oil production companies are sitting on a hoard of undrilled leases. There's room for them to increase production.

Do you have a source for this? Or, are you simply parroting the lies of the Biden Administration?

"This represents a fundamental misunderstanding as to how this process works," American Petroleum Institute (API) president and CEO Mike Sommers told FOX Business when asked about Psaki's comments. "Once you lease land there is a whole process that you have to go through. First you have to actually discover whether actually there is oil and gas in that land. Second of all, you have to get a permit to actually develop that land.".........

"Energy Workforce and Technology Council CEO Leslie Beyer similarly said "some permits are viable and some are not," as a reason for why many are sitting unused. The federal leasing moratorium also isn't helpful in the current energy environment, she said. "

"Energy industry representatives told FOX Business at CERAWeek Monday that the U.S. is effectively at its capacity for oil and gas production under the current regulatory framework. They said that it would take at least months or even years of investment in extraction and infrastructure to significantly increase output and potentially backfill Europe's energy needs, which are currently filled by Russia. "

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/energy-industry-psaki-oil-and-gas-leases-ceraweek

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 8, 2022

11 hours ago, Beerman said:

No, it's because the right is exercising some common sense. In my state of 6 million people, there are 265 covid positive patients in the hospital. 58% are unvaccinated. The freedom of choice issue aside, mandates do not make sense right now.

I agree. If we were in a time of widespread infection and crisis perhaps I would feel differently.

Here in Florida where we only report once a week on Friday, in our state of 20 million there were 2,080 in the hospital. A drop of over 30% in one week. Our total number of cases dropped 45% from the week prior. Granted some cases might be falling under the radar with home tests widely available.

Also we still had 1,207 deaths last week.

Florida, as I stated before is a state without vaccine or mask mandates for customers going into a restaurants and bars, and I believe most large employers including the one I work for that has 23,000 spread throughout central Florida. The other large hospital employer here with 26,000 doesn't have a mandate either. Most companies are ending their stay at home orders for workers and have reopened their offices.

We are at the height of our "season" and it appears to be a good one. Traffic everywhere, beaches crowded, downtown restaurants and bars packed with people without wearing a mask and not having to be vaccinated to be served. They say all across the state Spring break hot spots have no rooms available to be booked.

The point being that with all this going on our rates of infection and hospitalizations seem to be similar to most other states, dropping significantly, including those that had more strict mandates.

I do think there are a lot of people that feel burned because it does seem that every time we let our guard down a new wave happens. We've had four here in Florida with Delta during the Summer being the worst for hospitalizations and Omicron being the worst for overall cases. Many people are still cautious and have concerns.

I'm sure there's another wave just around the corner.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Mar 8, 2022

22 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Its not really an "outlier" in this current era for public health workers to receive threats of violence alongside the harassment from angry conservatives. It's another example of gullible people influenced by angry propaganda and then deciding to take some action on those feelings of anger. There has been widespread reporting on it.

The pandemic has pushed more than 250 public health officials out the door - CNN The pandemic has pushed more than 250 public health officials out the door - CNT. This article was published in 11/21. It's gotten worst as time goes by. People in less populated districts like the woman in my district probably never get reported on a national level.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 8, 2022

31 minutes ago, subee said:

The pandemic has pushed more than 250 public health officials out the door - CNN The pandemic has pushed more than 250 public health officials out the door - CNT. This article was published in 11/21. It's gotten worst as time goes by. People in less populated districts like the woman in my district probably never get reported on a national level.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/health/public-health-officials-quit/index.html

I guess you can say health care officials are leaving in "droves" if 250 people if the total number of health care officials is small, but I don't know that figure.

The same situation has happened in nursing as nurses have burned out.

I don't want to minimize their experience of being harassed by an ignorant public and even more ignorant elected officials. It's a problem.

I presume the article I posted above is what you're talking about.

Quote

Every three years, NACCHO conducts a census of the country's local health departments, known as the National Profile of Local Health Departments. As part of the current ongoing survey, they ask why people have left their jobs. "We largely found that they were due to just extensive pressure -- elected official interference with public health measures, and really kind of efforts to diminish the authority of public health officials during the pandemic," Freeman said.

This is a bit different than the conversation that their lives were being threatened.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Mar 8, 2022

15 minutes ago, Tweety said:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/health/public-health-officials-quit/index.html

I guess you can say health care officials are leaving in "droves" if 250 people if the total number of health care officials is small, but I don't know that figure.

The same situation has happened in nursing as nurses have burned out.

I don't want to minimize their experience of being harassed by an ignorant public and even more ignorant elected officials. It's a problem.

I presume the article I posted above is what you're talking about.

This is a bit different than the conversation that their lives were being threatened.

health workers fighting COVID-19 are threatened with violence, forced out of jobs

In the battle against COVID-19, public health workers make up an invisible army on the front lines.  But that army is under assault when it’s needed most.

Protesters demonstrate during a rally against Pennsylvania's coronavirus stay-at-home order at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Friday, May 15, 2020.Matt Rourke / AP file

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June 12, 2020, 10:39 AM EDT

By The Associated Press

Emily Brown was stretched thin.

As the director of the Rio Grande County Public Health Department in rural Colorado, she was working 12- and 14-hour days, struggling to respond to the pandemic with only five full-time employees for more than 11,000 residents. Case counts were rising.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

She was already at odds with county commissioners, who were pushing to loosen public health restrictions in late May, against her advice. She had previously clashed with them over data releases and control and had haggled over a variance regarding reopening businesses.

But she reasoned that standing up for public health principles was worth it, even if she risked losing the job that allowed her to live close to her hometown and help her parents with their farm.

Then came the facebook post: a photo of her and other health officials with comments about their weight and references to “armed citizens” and “bodies swinging from trees.”

Protestors swarm Michigan Capitol over stay-at-home order

April 16, 202004:34

The commissioners had asked her to meet with them the next day. She intended to ask them for more support. Instead, she was fired.

“They finally were tired of me not going along the line they wanted me to go along,” she said.

In the battle against COVID-19, public health workers spread across states, cities and small towns make up an invisible army on the front lines.  But that army, which has suffered neglect for decades, is under assault when it’s needed most.

Officials who usually work behind the scenes managing tasks like immunizations and water quality inspections have found themselves center stage. Elected officials and members of the public who are frustrated with the lockdowns and safety restrictions have at times turned public health workers into politicized punching bags, battering them with countless angry calls and even physical threats.

On Thursday, Ohio’s state health director, who had armed protesters come to her house, resigned. The health officer for Orange County, California, quit Monday after weeks of criticism and personal threats from residents and other public officials over an order requiring face coverings in public.

Ohio health director Amy Acton, praised by some for coronavirus response, stepping down

As the pressure and scrutiny rise, many more health officials have chosen to leave or have been pushed out of their jobs. A review by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press finds at least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April across 13 states.

From North Carolina to California, they have left their posts because of a mix of backlash and stressful, nonstop work, all while dealing with chronic staffing and funding shortages.

Some health officials have not been up to the job during the biggest health crisis in a century. Others previously had plans to leave or cited their own health issues.

But Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said the majority of what she calls an  “alarming” exodus resulted from increasing pressure as states reopen. Three of those 27 were members of her board and well known in the public health community — Rio Grande County’s Brown; Detroit’s senior public health adviser, Dr. Kanzoni Asabigi; and the head of North Carolina’s Gaston County Department of Health and Human Services, Chris Dobbins.

Asabigi’s sudden retirement, considering his stature in the public health community, shocked Freeman. She also was upset to hear about the departure of Dobbins, who was chosen as health director of the year for North Carolina in 2017. Asabigi and Dobbins did not reply to requests for comment.

“They just don’t leave like that,” Freeman said.

Public health officials are “really getting tired of the ongoing pressures and the blame game,” Freeman said. She warned that more departures could be expected in the coming days and weeks as political pressure trickles down from the federal to the state to the local level.

From the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, federal public health officials have complained of being sidelined or politicized. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been marginalized; a government whistleblower said he faced retaliation because he opposed a White House directive to allow widespread access to the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment.

In Hawaii, Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard called on the governor to fire his top public health officials, saying she believed they were too slow on testing, contact tracing and travel restrictions. In Wisconsin, several Republican lawmakers have repeatedly demanded that the state’s health services secretary resign, and the state’s conservative Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that she had exceeded her authority by extending a stay-at-home order.

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With the increased public scrutiny, security details — like those seen on a federal level for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert — have been assigned to top state health officials, including Georgia’s Dr. Kathleen Toomey after she was threatened. Ohio’s Dr. Amy Acton, who also had a security detail assigned after armed protesters showed up at her home, resigned Thursday.

In Orange County, in late May, nearly 100 people attended a county supervisors meeting, waiting hours to speak against an order requiring face coverings. One person suggested that the order might make it necessary to invoke Second Amendment rights to bear arms, while another read aloud the home address of the order’s author, the county’s chief health officer, Dr. Nichole Quick, as well as the name of her boyfriend.

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Quick, attending by phone, left the meeting. In a statement, the sheriff’s office later said Quick had expressed concern for her safety following “several threatening statements both in public comment and online.” She was given personal protection by the sheriff.

But Monday, after yet another public meeting that included criticism from members of the board of supervisors, Quick resigned. She could not be reached for comment. Earlier, the county’s deputy director of public health services, David Souleles, retired abruptly.

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An official in another California county also has been given a security detail, said Kat DeBurgh, the executive director of the Health Officers Association of California, declining to name the county or official because the threats have not been made public.

Many local health leaders, accustomed to relative anonymity as they work to protect the public’s health, have been shocked by the growing threats, said Theresa Anselmo, the executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials.

After polling local health directors across the state at a meeting last month, Anselmo found about 80 percent said they or their personal property had been threatened since the pandemic began. About 80 percent also said they’d encountered threats to pull funding from their department or other forms of political pressure.

It’s just appalling that in this country that spends as much as we do on health care that we’re facing these really difficult ethical dilemmas: Do I stay in my job and risk threats, or do I leave because it’s not worth it?

To Anselmo, the ugly politics and threats are a result of the politicization of the pandemic from the start. So far in Colorado, six top local health officials have retired, resigned or been fired. A handful of state and local health department staff members have left as well, she said.

“It’s just appalling that in this country that spends as much as we do on health care that we’re facing these really difficult ethical dilemmas: Do I stay in my job and risk threats, or do I leave because it’s not worth it?” Anselmo asked.

In California, senior health officials from seven counties, including Quick and Souleles, have resigned or retired since March 15. Dr. Charity Dean, the second in command at the state Department of Public Health, submitted her resignation June 4. Burnout seems to be contributing to many of those decisions, DeBurgh said.

In addition to the harm to current officers, DeBurgh is worried about the impact these events will have on recruiting people into public health leadership.

“It’s disheartening to see people who disagree with the order go from attacking the order to attacking the officer to questioning their motivation, expertise and patriotism,” said DeBurgh. “That’s not something that should ever happen.”

Some of the online abuse has been going on for years, said Bill Snook, a spokesperson for the health department in Kansas City, Missouri. He has seen instances in which people took a health inspector’s name and made a meme out of it, or said a health worker should be strung up or killed. He said opponents of vaccinations, known as anti-vaxxers, have called staffers “baby killers.”

Anti-vaccine groups take dangerous online harassment into the real world

The pandemic, though, has brought such behavior to another level.

In Ohio, the Delaware General Health District has had two lockdowns since the pandemic began — one after an angry individual came to the health department. Fortunately, the doors were locked, said Dustin Kent, program manager for the department’s residential services unit.

Angry calls over contact tracing continue to pour in, Kent said.

In Colorado, the Tri-County Health Department, which serves Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties near Denver, has also been getting hundreds of calls and emails from frustrated citizens, deputy director Jennifer Ludwig said.

Some have been angry their businesses could not open and blamed the health department for depriving them of their livelihood. Others were furious with neighbors who were not wearing masks outside. It’s a constant wave of “confusion and angst and anxiety and anger,” she said.

Then in April and May, rocks were thrown at one of their office’s windows — three separate times. The office was tagged with obscene graffiti. The department also received an email calling members of the department “tyrants,” adding “you’re about to start a hot-shooting ... civil war.” Health department workers decamped to another office.

Although the police determined there was no imminent threat, Ludwig stressed how proud she was of her staff, who weathered the pressure while working round-the-clock.

“It does wear on you, but at the same time, we know what we need to do to keep moving to keep our community safe,” she said. “Despite the complaints, the grievances, the threats, the vandalism — the staff have really excelled and stood up.”

The threats didn’t end there, however: Someone asked on the health department’s facebook page how many people would like to know the home addresses of the Tri-County Health Department leadership. “You want to make this a war??? No problem,” the poster wrote.

Back in Colorado’s Rio Grande County, some members of the community have rallied in support of Brown with public comments and a letter to the editor of a local paper. Meanwhile, COVID-19 case counts have jumped from 14 to 49 as of Wednesday.

Brown is grappling with what she should do next: Dive back into another strenuous public health job in a pandemic or take a moment to recoup?

When she told her 6-year-old son she no longer had a job, he responded: “Good, now you can spend more time with us.”

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Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 8, 2022

As I predicted the oil ban will go into effect. But as McConnell said "what took you so long".

I think Europe is in a bad position as a whopping 50% of their energy comes from Russia. Russia supplies 10% of the world energy. Their ace in the hole so to speak.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/us-ban-russian-oil-imports-rcna19119

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 8, 2022

5 minutes ago, subee said:

health workers fighting COVID-19 are threatened with violence, forced out of jobs

I think the TOS asks us to link articles and not quote the entire article in a post.

I think when you first said that health care officials were leaving in droves, perhaps then would have been the time to clarify with a source.

But thanks for the article it does put into light how bad the situation is for them. Doubtful I could hang in there myself. I'd just say "f-bomb, if you don't care about your life, why should I, I'm outta here". Don't blame them.

Guests · Mar 8, 2022

5 hours ago, Beerman said:

Do you have a source for this? Or, are you simply parroting the lies of the Biden Administration?

"This represents a fundamental misunderstanding as to how this process works," American Petroleum Institute (API) president and CEO Mike Sommers told FOX Business when asked about Psaki's comments. "Once you lease land there is a whole process that you have to go through. First you have to actually discover whether actually there is oil and gas in that land. Second of all, you have to get a permit to actually develop that land.".........

"Energy Workforce and Technology Council CEO Leslie Beyer similarly said "some permits are viable and some are not," as a reason for why many are sitting unused. The federal leasing moratorium also isn't helpful in the current energy environment, she said. "

"Energy industry representatives told FOX Business at CERAWeek Monday that the U.S. is effectively at its capacity for oil and gas production under the current regulatory framework. They said that it would take at least months or even years of investment in extraction and infrastructure to significantly increase output and potentially backfill Europe's energy needs, which are currently filled by Russia. "

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/energy-industry-psaki-oil-and-gas-leases-ceraweek

Yeah...we know what the rhetoric from the petroleum industry includes. Yes, I do have a citation, did you just assume that Psaki was lying? But that document is not easily attached to this thread from a smart phone so you will have to either seek out the report from the Department of Interior from last fall titled; "Report on the Federal Gas Leasing Program" from the Department of the Interior or hope that this odd link works...

https://www.Google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/report-on-the-federal-oil-and-gas-leasing-program-doi-eo-14008.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiptumAhbf2AhX8JzQIHTFiBqcQFnoECAMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1Hhs--mr169S53TRBMqKIK

Guests · Mar 8, 2022

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60661611

Meanwhile, it just doesn't take that much public pressure for both business to change their practice...it certainly shouldn't take government mandates to get them to do the right thing.

Beerman, BSN · Mar 8, 2022

33 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Yeah...we know what the rhetoric from the petroleum industry includes. Yes, I do have a citation, did you just assume that Psaki was lying? But that document is not easily attached to this thread from a smart phone so you will have to either seek out the report from the Department of Interior from last fall titled; "Report on the Federal Gas Leasing Program" from the Department of the Interior or hope that this odd link works...

https://www.Google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/report-on-the-federal-oil-and-gas-leasing-program-doi-eo-14008.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiptumAhbf2AhX8JzQIHTFiBqcQFnoECAMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1Hhs--mr169S53TRBMqKIK

As my article mentions, it's not as simple as Psaki is implying.

The document you supplied does nothing to contradict what the petroleum industry is saying in response to Psaki.

Most of the issues we discuss here have more than one side. Whenever you are presented with another perspective or there something you don't agree with, you attribute it to rhetoric, propaganda, partisan ideology, biased media, etc..... Literally, 100% of the time. I find that makes your objectivity suspect.

Guests · Mar 8, 2022

15 minutes ago, Beerman said:

As my article mentions, it's not as simple as Psaki is implying.

The document you supplied does nothing to contradict what the petroleum industry is saying in response to Psaki.

Most of the issues we discuss here have more than one side. Whenever you are presented with another perspective or there something you don't agree with, you attribute it to rhetoric, propaganda, partisan ideology, biased media, etc..... Literally, 100% of the time. I find that makes your objectivity suspect.

You asked for the link to the data and I provided it.