Cont: The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread pt. 2

[newyorkguy]

As schools reopen in New York there have been problems with outbreaks of coronavirus. The latest is at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta, in central New York (near Cooperstown, baseball's Hall of Fame).

SUNY Oneonta will close for in-person instruction for the rest of the semester and send students home following a spike in coronavirus infections, the university said Thursday. Chancellor Jim Malatras initially put the college on a two-week “pause” period Aug. 30 in order to focus on testing while limiting the spread of COVID-19. At that point, there had been 105 positive COVID-19 tests since the start of the semester a week earlier. As of today, cases within the campus had grown to 389.

The primary source of the infection spread has been traced to a number of student parties in and around campus, state officials have said. As of late August, five students and three campus organizations had been suspended for their involvement. NBC News New York link

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the outbreak at SUNY Oneonta is "indicative of potential clusters" that will emerge as more public school systems open in the coming weeks. Also noteworthy about the Oneonta outbreak is the fact it is traced to students failing to follow guidelines, something teachers have warned is sure to happen.

Meantime, test results in New York City continue to be very encouraging. Below are the results from Wednesday. (Location - number tested - percentage positive.)

• New York City - 37,996 - 0.8%
• Bronx - 5,696 - 1.0%
• Brooklyn - 10,442 - 1.2%
• Manhattan - 10,431 - 0.3%
• Queens - 8,540 - 0.8%
• Staten Island - 2,887 - 0.6%

The 0.3% result in Manhattan is really good to see. Despite being densely populated, Manhattan has really led the way. I have friends and family that live in Manhattan and back in March and April they were very anxious. They really took the precautions seriously and the results show that.

 

[Bob001]

.....
Bigger vaccine profiteers like Safeway and Costco all got their supplies already as is standard. They push it on the public sooner than they should, the vaccine manufacturers love it because those companies buy so much. Hospitals often get theirs, like I expect Kaiser will have vaccine now or soon.
.....

Profiteers? It looks like the prices at the big chains are pretty reasonable, probably less than a doctor's, and they will bill your insurance directly if you are covered. CVS, Target, Walgreens, Safeway etc. are everywhere, and they're open long hours. Do you think people shouldn't be able to get flu shots so conveniently?

Related question: What training do pharmacists get to give shots? I realize that it doesn't take an MD, but it's not something to learn from a video either.

 

[eerok]

Related question: What training do pharmacists get to give shots? I realize that it doesn't take an MD, but it's not something to learn from a video either.

Where I live, pharmacists routinely give flu shots, so it's nothing new.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I understand this is off-topic, but it's not a coincidence. It's a fairly common reaction.

From WebMD

This is from Men's Health dot com:

Great sources ... for crap.... including your poorly informed doctor who like many of them believe the same myth.

Placebo controlled trials with influenza vaccine show that almost no one experiences symptoms from the vaccine (except a mildly sore arm).

Been there, done that. The last time I had a flu vaccine was in 2009, the year after I'd had Type E influenza. For a couple days after I got vaccinated I felt like crap. My doctor told me it was a fairly common reaction, not to worry.

Type E? You want to correct that before I waste my time looking for it?

I'll go find the flu vaccine studies.

BTW, a lot of medical sources repeat this myth because it's easier to tell people that than to explain and argue with their personal experience.


Edited to add, I'll have to look later, the search results are getting a gazillion results on new research on the quadrivalent, the high dose and other studies looking at side effects. They're not showing any but it's a lot of sifting.

Anyway, the study I'm looking for gave flu shots, saline and meningococcal vaccines and except for the mild sore arm, the flu shots didn't make anyone sicker than the saline did.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Profiteers? It looks like the prices at the big chains are pretty reasonable, probably less than a doctor's, and they will bill your insurance directly if you are covered. CVS, Target, Walgreens, Safeway etc. are everywhere, and they're open long hours. Do you think people shouldn't be able to get flu shots so conveniently?

Related question: What training do pharmacists get to give shots? I realize that it doesn't take an MD, but it's not something to learn from a video either.

The prices are only reasonable because they bill the insurance providers and you don't see that charge.

I don't have a problem with pharmacies giving flu shots. The problem I have is with them starting much sooner than the CDC guidelines say flu vaccine should be given. They want to get out there and vaccinate all the customers they can so they start as early as they can.

Pharmacists have prescriptive authority in this state (not sure where else) so they can fill refills without getting a hold of the prescriber.

It wasn't hard for that to bleed over into giving flu shots and migraine injections. It doesn't take that much training.

You won't find them diagnosing anything or treating anyone who hasn't been diagnosed by a doctor. But giving vaccines is done all the time under standing orders so it's fine they give vaccines.

Personally, I like to work with pharmacists because they know medications better than most providers including me.

 

[newyorkguy]

...Related question: What training do pharmacists get to give shots? I realize that it doesn't take an MD, but it's not something to learn from a video either.

In New York State pharmacists have to be certified by the State Education Department. In order to be certified they have to 1) have a current NYS pharmacist's license; 2) provide certification for having passed an approved immunization course within the past three years; 3) show they are certified in CPR or Basic Life Support. Link to NYS Education page

I have read that the process is the same in most if not all states, and that all fifty allow this. The U.S. Health and Human Services Administration recently ruled that pharmacists can perform immunization on children ages 3-18. From the American Pharmacist Association website:

The American Pharmacists Association applauds today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which authorizes licensed pharmacists to provide all vaccines recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and approved or licensed by the FDA, to all children ages 3 to 18 during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of state laws and regulations to the contrary. HHS took this important step to increase access to lifesaving childhood vaccines and decrease the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks as children across the United States return to daycare, preschool and school. APA link

The societal benefit is supposed to be increasing the rate at which the population is immunized. Current rates by state for adult immunization for flu are estimated to range from a low of 34% to a high of 53%.

 

[gypsyjackson]

Related question: What training do pharmacists get to give shots? I realize that it doesn't take an MD, but it's not something to learn from a video either.

Not a pharmacist, but I had to learn how to give injections as part of expedition first aid, in case of anaphylactic shock in the jungle. I spent about an hour injecting adrenaline into oranges. At the end of the course, one of my colleagues was missing one of his vaccines so I asked if I could give him it. I was allowed to, under supervision of one of the expedition medics. So it doesn’t take that long to learn!

 

[alfaniner]

Not a pharmacist, but I had to learn how to give injections as part of expedition first aid, in case of anaphylactic shock in the jungle. I spent about an hour injecting adrenaline into oranges. At the end of the course, one of my colleagues was missing one of his vaccines so I asked if I could give him it. I was allowed to, under supervision of one of the expedition medics. So it doesn’t take that long to learn!

On a return from a hospital stay where I'd had to wean off blood thinners, I had to give myself injections to get back up to normal levels. Twice a day for five days. Now, I get blood drawn every few weeks so I'm used to getting stuck (jabbed), but I take great care not to look as the visual is a genuine phobia for me. That made this self-administered shot sequence particularly traumatic.

 

[Meadmaker]

One of the Covid 19 statistics web pages I use is this one:

https://ncov2019.live/data

Today, a new milestone was reached, as reported on that page. The United States regained its number 8 place in the world for per capita deaths. It had lost it to Brazil recently, but regained the number 8 spot by surpassing Sweden in deaths per million.

We should catch up to Italy within at most a couple of weeks. Brazil is lower than Italy, but its current pace should keep it rising faster than the US.

I think it's fair to say that the United States has had absolutely the worst record for managing the coronavirus among technologically advanced nations, with the possible exception of Belgium. Seven other nations have higher death rates, but we're catching up to most of them Places like Spain, Italy, and the UK got off to very bad starts, but they got it under control. The US just keeps going on.


Sweden got off to a bad start and refused lockdowns. They lost a lot of people, but at least they spared themselves the economic and emotional pain of the lockdowns, and now we have surpassed even them. I think the difference is that while they refused to lock down, they had a comprehensive strategy on educating people about the virus dangers and how to avoid them.

Here in the US, we suffered from the lockdowns, and we still have a high death rate.

When really bad things happen to nations, I'm inclined to blame the leadership of those nations, but I suppose not everyone will agree.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Are you sure about that? I read in the Sweden thread that the economy still took a hit, even though they didn't formally lock down.

 

[Aridas]

Are you sure about that? I read in the Sweden thread that the economy still took a hit, even though they didn't formally lock down.

South Korea also officially entered a recession, at last check. Either way, Meadmaker is correct that "they spared themselves the economic and emotional pain of the lockdowns." That's not saying much about the general economic or emotional state of things, regardless, so even if you were so inclined, there's not much reason to directly dispute it.

 

[Meadmaker]

Are you sure about that? I read in the Sweden thread that the economy still took a hit, even though they didn't formally lock down.

Every economy took a hit. Some took a bigger hit than others.

Our economy took a very big hit, and we had a very high death rate. Sweden's economy took a smaller hit, and they had a very high death rate compared to the most of the world, but the United States caught up today, and is zooming ahead in the death rate.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Covid hit is extra hard since we were already in a recession when Covid hit us.

 

[Aridas]

Covid hit is extra hard since we were already in a recession when Covid hit us.

Beyond that, the economy had pretty much been being propped up like it needed life-support for the sake of Trump's ego and propaganda. Time after time throughout Trump's Presidency, we've had officials warning about the tools meant to keep the economy relatively stable and not dropping too much being used at completely inappropriate timings. Heck, there was even a report about Trump being pointedly warned about how wrong it was to do so and him making it perfectly clear that he didn't care, so long as it could be propped up at least until the next guy came along, and then it completely didn't matter.

 

[Meadmaker]

Covid hit is extra hard since we were already in a recession when Covid hit us.

We were?

 

[Aridas]

We were?

Yes and no. Officially, they're saying that the recession started in February, which isn't exactly before COVID, but is long before the lockdowns and most of the impact of COVID.

There were important sectors of the economy that weren't doing so well before then, though, such as manufacturing, and generally troubling signs and indications of problems to come, but not an official overall recession.

 

[xjx388]

Not a pharmacist, but I had to learn how to give injections as part of expedition first aid, in case of anaphylactic shock in the jungle. I spent about an hour injecting adrenaline into oranges. At the end of the course, one of my colleagues was missing one of his vaccines so I asked if I could give him it. I was allowed to, under supervision of one of the expedition medics. So it doesn’t take that long to learn!

Anyone can give injections, really. In professional settings, the doctor, pharmacist, etc can delegate those duties to anyone they feel comfortable delegating those duties to; it's their liability. In the real world, non-certified caregivers give injections (daughter giving mother injections, etc) all the time. Patients can inject themselves. It just takes a little training.

ETA: Just remembered, we have several male patients who inject their own penises with erectile dysfunction meds. The thought of injecting my own penis is a bit off-putting but there ya go.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Anyone can give injections, really. In professional settings, the doctor, pharmacist, etc can delegate those duties to anyone they feel comfortable delegating those duties to; it's their liability. In the real world, non-certified caregivers give injections (daughter giving mother injections, etc) all the time. Patients can inject themselves. It just takes a little training.

ETA: Just remembered, we have several male patients who inject their own penises with erectile dysfunction meds. The thought of injecting my own penis is a bit off-putting but there ya go.

I don't know about your state, sounds pretty sloppy.

In WA State said employee you delegate injections to has to have a certification for that procedure.

It's a whole different situation when one teaches a patient how to inject themselves. But they can't inject anyone else. A family member can also be trained to inject another family member.


ETA: It's very easy to give an injection, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong said person needs to be aware of.

For example some healthcare workers aren't aware of a vaccine being less effective if given in the gluteal muscle instead of the deltoid.

 

[gypsyjackson]

ETA: Just remembered, we have several male patients who inject their own penises with erectile dysfunction meds. The thought of injecting my own penis is a bit off-putting but there ya go.

Do you work at the White House?

 

[Bob001]

....
ETA: Just remembered, we have several male patients who inject their own penises with erectile dysfunction meds. The thought of injecting my own penis is a bit off-putting but there ya go.

Didn't Viagra etc. make treatments like that obsolete? It can't be anybody's first choice.