Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)

Another poor decision with a bad outcome:

A small-town Alabama police chief who died of COVID-19 loved the community he served and regretted his decision against getting vaccinated, his widow said.

Buddy Crabtree, a 10-year veteran of the Ider Police Department in northeastern Alabama, died Saturday of the illness caused by the new coronavirus, news outlets reported. He was often seen inside schools in the town of about 650 people. [snip]

Crabtree’s battle with Covid-19 was a surprise to many since he seemed healthy and kept busy. Crabtree said her husband went to Highlands Medical Center in Scottsboro on Oct. 9 and was flown to Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 10 days later.

She said her husband said he would’ve got a vaccine, which health officials say prevents nearly all serious cases of COVID-19 and deaths, if he knew how hard he would have to fight to live.  [snip]

“He actually said, ‘If I get better, I’ll take all three, I don’t ever want to go through this again,’” she said.

What does it take for people who would otherwise have been vaccinated against the flu, mmr, chickenpox, shingles, etc., etc., to get the safe, effective COVID vaccine?  Crabtree was 65;  85.4% of the population 65 and older has been fully vaccinated.  At this point, it's simply a wilful disregard for your safety and that of the people around you -- and for what??

Get. The. Damn. Vaccine.

Who's Paying The Hospital Bills For Covidiots? Take A Guess

 

The Kaiser Family Foundation tells us that over 280,000 COVID hospitalizations between June and August of this year were preventable by vaccination.  They estimate the cost of those hospitalizations was over $5 billion. But, hey, don't worry! Their costs are largely going to be paid by us vaccinated folks:

While real-time data on the cost of all COVID-19 hospitalizations are not publicly available, various sources point to an average hospitalization cost of around $20,000. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that Medicare fee-for-service COVID-19 hospitalizations average $24,033. Another study of Medicare fee-for-service enrollees found an average COVID-19 hospitalization cost $21,752. A FAIR Health Similarly, our analysis of pre-pandemic private insurance claims for pneumonia hospitalizations with complications averaged $20,292 (though the cost for hospitalizations requiring a ventilator are much higher).

Our analysis of HHS and CDC data indicates there were 32,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations in June, 68,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations in July, and another 187,000 preventable COVID-19 hospitalizations among unvaccinated adults in the U.S. in August, for a total of 287,000 across the three months...

If each of these preventable hospitalizations cost roughly $20,000, on average, that would mean these largely avoidable hospitalizations have already cost billions of dollars since the beginning of June.

They conclude:

The monetary cost of treating unvaccinated people for COVID-19 is borne not only by patients but also by society more broadly, including taxpayer-funded public programs and private insurance premiums paid by workers, businesses, and individual purchasers.

Only a small share of the cost of a COVID-19 hospitalization is paid directly by patients themselves. In our analysis of privately insured patients hospitalized with pneumonia, the typical out-of-pocket payment was about $1,300. Out-of-pocket costs may be higher for people based on their health insurance plan and how the COVID-19 hospitalization costs are billed. That is a significant amount for most patients to pay, but it is far less than the amount covered by public and private insurance coverage.

Kaiser doesn't have data on how many of the hospitalized unvaccinated have grievances about "society's freeloaders," socialist healthcare, gubment spending, not being entitled to an ICU bed when they goddamn need it, the stolen 2020 election, invasions of brown people, critical race theory, etc., but we'd bet a Venn diagram would show significant overlap.  That just makes this preventable misery all the more infuriating.

Polls: Americans Support Vaccine Mandates

 

CNN/SSRS poll conducted before the Biden vaccine mandate announcement:

... More than half of Americans now say they support requiring vaccinations for office workers returning to the workplace (54%), students attending in-person classes (55%) and patrons attending sporting events or concerts (55%), although fewer (41%) support requiring vaccinations for a shopper to enter a grocery store.

Support for these mandates has risen across the board since April, growing 6 percentage points with regard to students, 8 points regarding office workers and event attendees, and 15 points regarding grocery shoppers.

But, once again, the cohort refusing to protect themselves and their fellow Americans is largely Republican:

CNN Poll: 73% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine while 27% have not.

88% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and 60% of Republicans have done so.

35% of Republicans say they will not get vaccinated, compared to 25% of independents and 8% of Dems.

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) September 13, 2021

 

A Politico/ Morning Consult poll shows a similar -- or even higher -- level of support for the President's mandate (click to enlarge):

Public health should never be a partisan issue, and it generally ceases to be one for an unvaccinated covidiot when they have to be intubated in an ICU bed (that should be occupied by, say, a cardiac patient who died because he couldn't find an ICU bed in 43 hospitals packed with unvaccinated covidiots).

Get. The. Damn. Vaccine.

Alabama Covidiots Kill Heart Patient

Hospitals in states populated with "freedumb" loving Covidiots who wind up in intensive care units (ICUs) are having to turn away other, vaccinated patients with life threatening conditions. More than 10 states are experiencing crisis conditions as their hospital facilities are filled with unvaccinated COVID patients.

The tragic case of a critically ill heart patient in Alabama illustrates the impact that unvaccinated COVID patients are having on health care providers: 

"When Ray DeMonia was having a cardiac emergency last month, his Alabama family waited anxiously for a nearby hospital with available space in its intensive care unit.

But in a state where coronavirus infections and unvaccinated patients have overwhelmed hospitals in recent months, finding an available ICU bed was an ordeal. It was so difficult, his family wrote this month, that the hospital in his hometown of Cullman, Ala., contacted 43 others in three states — and all were unable to give him the care he needed.

DeMonia, who was eventually transferred to a Mississippi hospital about 200 miles away, died at 73 on Sept. 1 — three days shy of his birthday."

Only 40% of Alabamians are fully vaccinated, making it among the worst, even among Trumpian red states whose residents have made vaccinations, mask-wearing and other health measures a political cudgel against the Biden Administration. They saw that the former guy's deadly mismanagement and demagoguery of the virus was a major reason in his defeat, and would like to do the same to the Biden Administration, even at the cost of family members.

There's been some discussion of giving unvaccinated COVID patients lower priority over patients like Mr. DeMonia. While that's unlikely to happen on a large scale, it demonstrates the frustration in dealing with Covidiots who seem to have their near death epiphany -- if at all -- intubated on a ventilator, when a safe and free vaccine could have saved them and people like Mr. DeMonia.

(photo: Getty Images)

Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)

 

Have regrets?  Well, maybe this "freedumb defender" didn't:

After close to a month in a hospital and grueling weeks on a ventilator, prominent Texas anti-mask “freedom” rally organizer Caleb Wallace died Saturday of COVID-19 complications. [snip]

Wallace, of San Angelo, had been at the local Shannon Medical Center since July 30. He had been unconscious, ventilated and heavily sedated in the ICU there since Aug. 8, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported. [snip]

[Wife] Jessica Wallace told the newspaper that her husband initially refused to be tested and took unproven home remedies for the virus, including high doses of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, and ivermectin — a deworming treatment commonly given to livestock. Poison control centers are being swamped with calls from people suffering ill effects from ivermectin, and the Food and Drug Administration has issued alerts against ingesting the drug.

“He was so hard-headed,” Jessica Wallace told the Standard-Times. “He didn’t want to see a doctor, because he didn’t want to be part of the statistics with COVID tests.”

There's no indication he expressed any regrets for his choices, which resulted in his death and his leaving his wife and three children (with a fourth on the way) to fend for themselves.  He also took up an ICU bed for nearly a month, being treated for a virus he could have avoided by getting vaccinated and following medical guidance on masking.

A quote from the late Mr. Wallace:

“Show me the science that masks work,” Wallace wrote on San Angelo’s Facebook page late last year. “Show me the evidence that school closures work. Show me the evidence that lock-downs work.”

You are the evidence that believing charlatans, existing to own the libs, and failing to take simple precautions to protect yourself and others can be fatal. 

(Image: April anti- COVID restriction rally in Texas with inset of Wallace;  Sergio Flores/ Getty Images)

Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)

 

This is a short New York Times opinion film by Alexander Stockman and Lucy King, "Dying in the Name of  Vaccine Freedom."  It explores why vaccine refusal and hesitancy have overwhelmed the Ozarks region in Arkansas (a state that now has no ICU beds available for COVID patients.) (Spoiler alert: "Freedumb" rhetoric, social and right- wing media misinformation, and Republican politicians are a toxic stew.). 

Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

We're going to largely avoid the apocalypse in Afghanistan today.  There'll be articles and op/eds and many, many books written about the 20 year war (or 20 one- year wars, as many have characterized it) and the chaotic, tragic endgame unfolding right now.  But we'll just indulge ourselves with this reminder from James Downie about the true origins of the disaster:

With Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country and Taliban forces entering Kabul on Sunday, the blame game is rampant in Washington. And much of the finger-pointing is coming from the perspectives most responsible for magnifying this catastrophe in the first place.  [snip]

... These failures, however, came at the end of a 20-year disaster; avoiding such a long error in the future means going back to the roots of the problem. Those roots can be found in the views expressed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on ABC’s “This Week,” views shared by many other centrist and interventionist politicians and media voices.

“The catastrophe that we’re watching unfold right now across Afghanistan did not have to happen,” Cheney told host Jonathan Karl. “This is not ending the war. What this is doing actually is perpetuating it. What we have done, and what we’re seeing in Afghanistan, is instead of keeping 2,500 forces on the ground, which with air power, working with the Afghans, we were able to keep the Taliban at bay.”

Cheney — like many who share her view — did not include a timeline for those 2,500 forces. Nor did she mention anything more specific than “working with the Afghans” to explain how, if those forces came home five or 10 or 20 years from now, the Taliban wouldn’t return to power just as quickly.  [snip]

Those interventionist politicians and establishment voices will also point to the very real dangers posed by the Taliban’s success. The country may once again become a haven for terrorists, they’ll argue. They’ll point to the rising standard of living, and the growth in education and human rights for Afghan women. They’ll ask how can we leave millions of Afghans, especially women, in danger.

Yet those dangers exist because, despite 20 years, billions of dollars, and 45,000 members of the Afghan military and police forces dead, along with more than 2,300 U.S. service members killed, the Afghan government, the United States and their allies never could create a stable, functioning state. And it has been clear for some time that such a task is impossible. Whatever the interventionists will argue, two decades of “nation-building” and counterinsurgency have been defined by corruption, incompetence and self-delusion. As we have seen in recent days, confronting that truth was always going to be ugly. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Has the Biden Administration, through a catastrophic intelligence failure and "self-delusion," botched the evacuation of Afghans who deserve our protection?  Absolutely.  But the overall failure of the "nation- building" model has many fathers, most of whom are now denying parentage.

Meanwhile, the Biden domestic agenda is in the capable hands of Speaker Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed a procedural vote this month that would set up future passage of two economic measures crucial to President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, a move Democratic leaders hope will win must-have votes from unhappy party moderates.

In a letter Sunday to Democratic lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested that the House will take a single vote that would clear an initial hurdle for both a budget resolution and a separate infrastructure bill. The budget blueprint would open the gate for Congress to later consider a separate, $3.5 trillion, 10-year bill for health, education and environment programs.  [snip]

By forcing the House to vote on moving both measures a step forward together, Democratic leaders hope to build pressure on moderates to join the rest of the party in edging its economic and social agenda toward eventual final passage.

Bolstering the social safety net, combating climate change and creating jobs rank atop Biden’s and Democrats’ priorities. A defeat, especially at this early stage, would be deeply wounding to the party’s legislative goals and a political blow ahead of next year’s elections for congressional control.

“These bills will be the biggest and most consequential initiatives that any of us have ever undertaken in our official lives,” Pelosi wrote.

The Speaker has called the House back into session on August 23.

Well, well, well.  Remember this Christofascist loon and his Steve Bannon connection?  File this under "ye shall reap what you sow":

A right-wing Catholic cardinal who expressed skepticism of the coronavirus vaccines has been placed on a ventilator after his infection with the potentially deadly virus.  [snip]

The 73-year-old Burke lives in Rome but became ill while visiting Wisconsin, where he was raised and founded a church in 2008, according to Elizabeth Westhoff, a friend and his former press secretary. [snip]

The cardinal has expressed skepticism for social distancing and opposed mandatory vaccinations against COVID-19, which he called the "Wuhan virus" in a homily, and in May 2021 spread false claims that vaccines contained microchips that would allow governments to track recipients.

"It has been used by certain forces inimical to families and to the freedom of nations, to advance their evil agenda," Burke said in the December homily.

Oh, the schadenfreude!

Speaking of the pandemic of the unvaccinated:

COVID-19 hospitalizations for people in their 30s have reached a record high in the U.S. in the latest evidence that the dangerous delta variant of the disease poses formidable risks for younger age groups.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of 170,852 hospital admissions of those age 30 to 39 from the beginning of August 2020 to last Wednesday. The number of daily admissions, based on a seven-day average, jumped from 908 the week beginning July 29 to 1,113 the week starting Aug. 5. That’s a 22.6% bounce — and still climbing.

Hospitalizations for children suffering from COVID also hit a record high with 1,902 in hospitals across the nation on Saturday, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, Reuters reported. Children currently account for about 2.4% of all COVID hospitalizations in the U.S.

Not only are more children being affected in this wave of the disease, but they’re experiencing more serious symptoms, according to several reports. Children under 12 aren’t yet eligible for vaccinations, making them more vulnerable to the illness.

Get. The. Damn. Vaccine. 

Please make it a point to head over to Infidel 753's link round- up for the best, most comprehensive collection of links to posts from around the Internet.  Hopefully, if you're reading this, you've already made it a custom to check it out every week (as well as his essays on various topics). 

Regrets, They've Had A Few -- Founding Fathers Edition

A shot out of the past:

Five weeks had passed since the death of Benjamin Franklin’s son, and rumors were swirling. Four-year-old Francis “Franky” Franklin had died after being inoculated for smallpox, the rumor went, and now his pro-inoculation father was trying to hide it.

The gossip reached such a point that on Dec. 30, 1736, the grieving father, then 30, confronted it in the pages of his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette.

“Inasmuch as some People are, by that [rumor] ... deter’d from having that Operation perform’d on their Children,” he wrote, “I do hereby sincerely declare, that he was not inoculated, but receiv’d the Distemper in the common Way of Infection.”

It must have been hard to admit — Franklin had long advocated inoculation as a “safe and beneficial practice” — that his own son had gone unprotected.

“I intended to have my Child inoculated,” he explained, “as soon as he should have recovered sufficient Strength from a Flux [diarrhea] with which he had been long afflicted.”

More than five decades later, in his autobiography published posthumously, he said he had “long regretted bitterly, and still regret” that he had chosen to wait.  [snip]

Near the end of his life, as he was writing his autobiography, the blame theme continued. After saying he “long regretted bitterly" the circumstances of his son’s death, he added this warning:

“This I mention for the Sake of Parents, who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.”  (our emphasis)

So, all you patriots out there, take it from Ben Franklin: avoid the regrets and Get. The. Damn. Vaccine.

Get. The. Damn. Vaccine: Health Care Workers' Edition

 

This is Donna Cochrane, chief nursing officer at Liberty Regional Medical Center, Hinesville, Georgia, on August 9:

Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)

 

Two more covidiots who paid the ultimate price for downplaying the virus and refusing the vaccine.

Floriduh man:

Former South Florida talk show host Dick Farrel, known and beloved by fans for his over-the-top right-wing opinions, has died from complications from COVID-19.

On Facebook, Farrel advocated against getting the coronavirus vaccine and was skeptical of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and his recommendations concerning the coronavirus. Friends said after contracting the virus he changed his point of view. 

"COVID took one of my best friends! RIP Dick Farrel. He is the reason I took the shot. He texted me and told me to 'Get it!' He told me this virus is no joke and he said, "I wish I had gotten it!" said Farrel's close friend Amy Leigh Hair on her Facebook page...

Proof that covidiocy knows no national boundaries, here's an anti- vax U.K. shitweasel:

An anti-vaxxer who filmed himself downplaying Covid-19 before posting it on Facebook has died of the virus.

Solicitor Leslie Lawrenson, 58, died at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, nine days after he published a video on why coronavirus was “nothing to be afraid of.”

Mr Lawrenson, who reportedly had no underlying health conditions, had previously refused to take up the vaccine because he felt he “did not need it.”

Instead he put faith in his immune system and took his social media followers on his journey. 

Nine days.  The journey didn't last long, did it.

He later criticised the Government’s approach to the coronavirus restrictions, saying “these are things we have to suffer, it’s part of living”, before urging viewers to “trust” their own immune systems over vaccines.

As his condition worsened, Mr Lawrenson struggled to breath and said he felt pain “everywhere”, but stated he did not feel like he was in any real “danger.”

“I didn’t get the point where I would have had to be hospitalised,” he said.

“Things did get worse, but I am glad I got Covid-19.”

Reacting to his death, Mr Lawrenson’s partner, Amanda Mitchell, who also tested positive with Covid-19 said: “I feel incredibly foolish. Les died unnecessarily.

“Les made a terrible mistake and he’s paid the ultimate price for that.”

Regrets, they've had a few...

Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)

 

We didn't have to do much digging for the latest examples of people who opted not to get the COVID vaccine, but now regret that they didn't, because Philip Bump did all the leg work.  Here are a few regretful souls he found (our emphasis):

Shelly Wachter was wary of getting vaccinated against the coronavirus because of what she described as the “white noise” surrounding its safety. After she had knee replacement surgery in Omaha a few weeks ago, though, she contracted covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. She was hospitalized and treated with supplemental oxygen, an ordeal she described as “pretty terrifying” to the Lincoln Journal Star.

“Now, knowing what I do, I would get the shot,” Wachter said. Doing so, she said, “could have saved myself and my family so much by having gotten the vaccination.”  [snip]

People such as Quentin Bowen, a farmer also from Nebraska, who told the Journal Star that he “thought I had time” to get vaccinated — but didn’t before getting sick. He described having to tell his young children that he was going to the hospital as “about the hardest thing I’d done.”

Asked for what advice he’d offer those who hadn’t gotten a shot, he said, “Trust the science, forget the politics and the social media, and get vaccinated.”

Chris Ard of Alabama told a local television station that contracting pneumonia after his coronavirus infection “almost killed me.”

“I would recommend everybody get vaccinated,” he said. “Don’t wait because when it’s too late, it’s too late and there were times I was going through this that I regretted not getting vaccinated.”  [snip]  

... Blake Bargatze, 24, contracted the virus in Florida. He ended up having a double-lung transplant.

“As soon as he got in the hospital, though, he said he wished he had gotten the vaccine,” his stepfather told a local news station.

Tennessee state Rep. David Byrd (R) had similar advice for his constituents. Byrd contracted the virus last November and has been battling covid ever since. That included two months on a ventilator in the intensive care unit and a liver transplant.

“I have never been against taking the Covid-19 vaccine, but I understand the concerns of those who are hesitant. To them, I would say Covid is real and it is very dangerous,” his statement said. “It is a disease that wants to kill us. Please take it seriously. Please consider getting vaccinated.”

Last year, Byrd voted in favor of a resolution that criticized the media for “sensationalism” about the virus.

Bump provides other examples of people who had various, suspect reasons for not getting vaccinated, including some who suffered even more tragic consequences than those above.  Science and logic seem to have not played much of a part in many of the decisions, as one might expect given the quotes provided. Most were banking on getting through a years- long pandemic on wishful thinking that it wouldn't affect them, possibly bolstered by the deadly misinformation being spewed on a daily/ nightly basis by right- wing media. 

The good news, if there is any, is that the Delta variant surge and these "I regret not getting the vaccine" stories might be responsible for the significant uptick in vaccination rates, especially in states and counties that voted for the malignant former guy, and who remain in thrall to his anti- vaxx, anti- American messaging.  Where the stories are not cutting through the "white noise," we'll see Darwin's natural selection process playing out in real time.

BONUS:  There's always one more former "invincible" turned advocate.

Regrets, They've Had A Few

 

America's covidiots -- Trumpers, anti- vaxxers, hesitants -- are paying the price for their decisions not to get vaccinated against COVID, as one might expect (unless you're a covidiot).  Here are three.

Missouri

Daryl Barker was passionately against a COVID-19 vaccination, and so were his relatives. Then 10 of them got sick and Barker, at just 31, ended up in a Missouri intensive care unit fighting for his life.

It’s a scenario playing out time and again at Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach, where 22 people died from the virus in the first 23 days of July. Many other hospitals across Missouri are fighting the same battle, the result of the fast-spreading delta variant invading a state with one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, especially in rural areas.

Mississippi

A Mississippi man said he came close to dying after getting COVID-19. Now he’s hoping others will learn from his health journey after going from vaccine skeptic to a vaccine believer.

Bryan Thompson, 43, is married to Audrey. He has a 6-year-old son named Endymion. He works for an IT company from home. He says he’s otherwise a healthy man, but he is unvaccinated against COVID-19.

“I was unvaccinated, yeah, I myself was a little skeptical and I felt it got rushed, I wanted to just make sure it was safe. We were in a low-risk situation. It wasn’t like I was a front-line worker somewhere seeing hundreds of people a day” said Thompson. “So I figured if anyone can take a little bit of a risk it could be us because of our situation.”

That is until he got COVID-19. [snip]

Thompson said he had a fever, which led to pneumonia. He ended up in the hospital.

He said he recovered and was discharged, but once he got home things took a turn.

“During the night, [the] pain increased to a level I have never experienced,” he said. “[The] Worst pain I have ever felt in my life. My foot just... I can’t explain it. Like, screaming-out kind of pain.”

“The whole night he was in excruciating pain, yelling.. just could not get out of pain. I’ve never seen someone be in so much pain,” said his wife Audrey.

Audrey rushed him to the emergency room and that’s when doctors found several blood clots in his leg.

“It eventually got to the point where there was just no hope to save anything,” said Bryan. “I had to have my leg, it’s been amputated from right underneath my knee.”

Nevada

Two weeks ago, life was great for Jessica DuPreez. She was on vacation in San Diego with her fiancé Michael Freedy, (better known as Big Mike at the M Resort where he worked), and their five kids ages 17, 10, 7, 6 and 17 months.

Shortly after their vacation, Freedy went to the hospital for what he thought was a severe sunburn. He tested positive for COVID-19.

Thursday morning, Freedy died with DuPreez by his side.

“He is only 39. Our babies now don't have a dad. You can't say I am young and it won't affect me because it will,” DuPreez said.

Freedy was not vaccinated for COVID-19.

Freedy was not vaccinated for COVID-19.

“We wanted to wait just one year from the release to see what effects people had, but there was never any intention to not get it,” DuPreez said. That is a decision she said she will always regret and has now gotten the shot along with their oldest child.

Freedy sent her a text message while in the hospital it said, ““I should have gotten the damn vaccine.”

Yes, you all should have gotten the damn vaccine.  Instead, you, your loved ones and your community were made to suffer.  Was it worth it?

(h/t Raw Story for the leads)