How has the Pandemic affected you as a cancer patient/survivor
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I'm with Wrenn. I feel like a hardhearted witch when my compassion-o-meter barely twitches at the news of unvaxxed people who are very sick with covid. GoFundMe? I don't think so.
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sbelizabeth,
I really, really struggle with the compassion issue but not the Go Fund Me issue. That’s a big no on Go Fund Me, but the compassion thing is a lot harder for me. I guess my compassion goes to the friends and family of those unvaccinated folks who passed away from COVID, even if they supported their anti-vaxx stance. It’s definitely presented an ethical dilemma for me and major compassion fatigue.
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I just won't go to a doctor's office where they don't have a strong covid protocol with everyone vaccinated and masked. I loved that my new MO walked into my appointment room with an N95 mask and face shield in June. I'm not sure how long that will continue with their office, but everyone was masked. They also had a mask and hand sanitizer station, with contactless check-in.
My husband has Multiple Myeloma, and his first two doses of Moderna didn't take. So he just got a third dose. Fingers crossed that he gets some immunity this time. We pretty much isolate at home most of the time.0 -
Well, the big Covid news today is Colin Powell, who was dealing with multiple myeloma and passed away from covid complications despite being fully vaccinated.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/18/politics/colin-powe...
I have seen a lot of tweets from Covid "influencers" such as Andy Slavitt, who was on WH covid response team, tweeting things like "Some like General Powell do everything they can to protect themselves & others but all of it can be negatived by people who refuse to a thing".
https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/14502124669993...
I am frustrated that it has to take a high profile death like Colin Powell to finally shine some light on immunocompromised people. We have been "screaming" about this for months, but the "fully vaccinated healthy" people (including some experts who advocate "live with covid") have obviously moved on and thought covid is over once they are vaccinated regardless of the transmission level. They seem to believe as long as people like us wear masks (while they go massless), we would have been fine, or we don't matter since we are "one foot out of the door".
Anyway, I hope WH covid response team, CDC and public health officials can learn from this. I sure hope Andy learned a lesson since he famously tweeted "If you're vaccinated, the most important thing you can do right now is go live your best life & make up for lost time. There are far greater threats in your life than the Delta variant." on June 23, 2021.
https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/14078924258890...
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Chowdog, it seems that Colin Powell had his first two doses of Pfizer and was about to get his third when he was hit with Covid. He also had Parkinson's. It's just extremely sad. My doctor says that Moderna has the best immune response of the vaccines.
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Princess, yes, it was extremely sad and i feel it could have been preventible if the U.S has promoted collectivism over individual responsibility with vaccine and mask.
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Chowdog I totally agree. It's a real mess. The ones most at risk need to look out for themselves, unfortunately.
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Oh but Chowdog, don't forget immunocompromised people aren't a priority anyway according to the anti mask/vax crowd. That was always one of their main reasons for not masking up themselves and not caring about any number of people hospitalized for it - that dreaded, "did they have underlying conditions?" For me underlying condition has come to include most in the pro Covid crowd. My question is, was he/she an asshole? They expect us to protect ourselves from them without providing any help themselves and wanting to spread it for their sought after natural immunity ... talk about abusive.
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Always,
totally agree!
My other beef is with some twitter public health & infectious disease experts. Those people should know better, but they never cared about immunocompromised people until the death of Colin Powell. All of sudden, every one of them is tweeting things like "get vaccinated for immunocompromised people". Where have they been in the past 18/19 months? Where were they when CDC dropped mask mandate in May? For example, today, I saw at least 3 covid "celebrity" experts (the media go to people) tweeting about cancer patients. Well, one of them back in Jan, advocated a "lottery" vaccination system. He wrote an oped on NYT saying the vaccine priority system was too complicated, and we should just go by age plus a lottery system once we vaccinate anybody over 55. I wrote to him and asked him to advocate for young women living with mBC. I was very professional in my email and offered some advice about why we were slow at vaccination and how we could improve the system. Guess what, I got a condescending (in my opinion) response saying "while your group is highly worthy of consideration, I've just come to believe that group by group prioritization is not feasible....". Another expert, back in July/Aug (the Delta wave), was still advocating fully vaccinated people to go maskless unless you are immunocompromised or living with someone who are immunocompromised. Today, he is tweeting "vaccines along aren't enough, they rely on the rest of us...".
All I want to do is to scream at these people. These are experts people rely on. They also have close connection with the WH covid response team, CDC & FDA. Their opeds and tweets are shared a "million" times. however, all they seem to care about "performative" tweets, opeds and soundbites to get followers, likes and book/podcast deals, and they wonder why there is a trust issue in the U.S. and we can't seem to get covid under control.
rant over.
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TBH, I purposely haven't been paying attention to the performative homages. It would make me too angry. Seriously, what is wrong with people?
Your explanation makes sense with regards to what happened in May. It sounds like those people close to the WH are reactive. They were never about prevention for the future. They seem to only be able to think of prevention only when faced with the issue. So it has to get noticeably bad before taking action. I think social media and the influx of bad journalism has affected our society on the whole. The experts probably want to help, but concern over how they personally are perceived seems to be a greater priority. They are probably brainwashed for likes.
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Regarding one's “compassion meter" towards those who deliberately decide not to get the Covid19 vaccine and then become severely ill or die from the virus: I feel it's only human to develop a hard heart towards those who could have made different choices. We who got the vaccine have been pushed to the breaking point with the antivaxxers. It's called "enough". I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have compassion. Do I need to conjure up sympathy towards them to qualify me as a good person?
Since it is their life, then so be it. I could even frame it as people who are addicted to their own belief system. That addiction may kill them. But at some point, many loved ones of addicts must walk away to preserve their sanity, knowing it is only the addict who can save themselves.
Where I live, I now know of over 10 people who died this year from Covid and from their political background, I can surmise that probably none were vaccinated. But I didn't know these people personally, they are known in the community. And of course there are other Covid deaths around here of people I don't know. Now if one of my loved ones chose not to get vaccinated and then died of Covid, it would break my heart. But I cannot muster compassion for people I don't know to whom this happened. Especially the longer this goes on, the more proof that the vaccine is working and the more proof that it's the majority of the unvaccinated who are ending up dead, I mean, what are the antivaxxers waiting for?
I'm just being real here and honest.
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I have more sympathy, and less anger, toward those addicted to drugs or alcohol than the unvaccinated who get Covid. Addiction is a powerful, mysterious force. Yes, an individual has to make the choice to take that first drink too many or snort that first dose of cocaine or heroin or meth. Not long after that it's the booze or the drugs making the decisions.
I'm not likely to "catch" alcoholism or drug addiction from someone. Unvaccinated people aren't making that decision purely for themselves. They put us all at risk.
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sbelizabeth, that's it exactly. It's not just "My freedumb, my choice!" when that choice affects other people. It's more like drunk driving, which society rightly no longer tolerates.
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I have great sympathy for addicts especially when it's pain that started their path to addiction. I had chronic pain and needed opiates to relieve it. Fortunately I no longer need them.
I've read a virologist estimate that within 6 months, she expects everyone globally will have been exposed to COVID. That's a lot of death and suffering to come. 🥺
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Not sure if this site has been posted before - it does projections based on current patterns, worsening or improving mitigation ..
https://covid19.healthdata.org/global
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We need more PSA like this
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This is not a judgment to anyone here but it does make me a bit sad to see such intolerance for those who are unvaccinated for whatever the reason. Simply being unvaccinated does not mean the person is sick or a danger to anyone, they do have to be ill and Indifferent or careless to pose a risk. Wearing a mask, distancing and good hygiene are easy enough and not have potential issues that any vaccine or treatment could cause.
A few of my vaccinated friends go to restaurants, clubs and gatherings like they’re untouchable and I choose not to be in close contact with them because it’s their behavior that is potentially dangerous, not their vaccine status. But no one wants to acknowledge that because it’s easier for everyone to blame a virus as ageist, racist and evil, kept going my maga nut jobs, rather than taking responsibility for our own actions.
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"No, Vaccinated People Are Not 'Just as Likely' to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People
This has become a common refrain among the cautious—and it's wrong"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/...
There is a study from the UK just coming out in the past few weeks that waning immunity + delta do mean that vaccinated people can have breakthrough infections and transmission but that just means we need to increase the number of people vaccinated and dampen the cases. The fewer the number of possible hosts, the fewer the number of transmissions, the lower the number of infections among unvaccinated & breakthrough cases in vaccinated.
Whether vaccinated people should act like they're safe depends on the level of cases in their community. Fully vaccinated individuals in locations with low community case counts are probably reasonably safe.
Immuncompromised people however must take additional precautions & layer the safety tools: vaccine, masking, distancing, avoiding high risk situations, & probably avoiding high risk individuals. For me, an unvaccinated individual is high risk & masking is not always enough, esp if they're wearing cloth masks or poor quality surgical masks. Hygiene is not really the issue - covid is airborne. In all this time I don't think we've had any documented fomite transmission. What we have had though is evidence that not only is covid airborne, it can linger in the air.
If unvaxed people were living like hermits and not coming into the hospital then I wouldn't care. But going around in my community, contributing to high case counts & then swamping the ICU is something that bothers me a lot.
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Well, it’s not meant to be. I understand your feelings on the subject, which are common in most people. I just see mostly blame, without much attempting to understand other’s views and that is disappointing. But, who cares really, minds can’t be changed, I see that and I’m not here for that. I do enjoy the conversation though, even when I don’t fully agree.
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I won’t be arguing about whether most people should be vaccinated or not, that’s a decision people have to make. Fortunately, many of us learned how to prevent getting sick while there was no vaccine. Now, we have one, that’s good too, even if you many need 2, 3, 4 annually for good protection, fine. This just isn’t an all or nothing situation, there are too many variables and unknowns but I’m encouraged that science can provide solutions for everyone.
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If someone has a legitimate medical reason for not being vaccinated, there is no blame. I’m fairly certain that most people understand that and don’t fault those folks in the least. Those who cannot be vaccinated should be hoping that everyone else will get vaccinated to help protect them. The blame goes to those who are not getting vaccinated because they are mis/uninformed or buy into the ridiculous conspiracy theories connected to the vaccine. The health and possibly life of your family, community and the world is at stake. When did we stop caring about the greater good?
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Moth, I missed your comment, sorry. I do agree that vaccinated people are less likely to spread it to others, that’s been studied and vaccines definitely do what they claim as far as limiting severity in covid symptoms. I just get irked at the general idea unvaccinated people as a group are crazy, selfish walking disease bags, it feels very much like a witch-hunt.
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Selfish? You bet! If you have no legit reason for not getting vaxxed that is exactly what you are. Crazy? A tad strong but clearly there’s a problem if you think the vaccine will magnetize you, place a tracker in you or scramble your DNA. You are are also suspect if you think this is a Bill Gates driven conspiracy or George Soros had anything to do with it. No witch hunt. This is a massive public health issue that needs all who can to roll up their sleeves for the common good. I think this is a time when civic duty should prevail. If people choose not to be vaccinated they certainly shouldn’t complain when they are denied entrance or use of certain facilities because they themselves made that choice. What part of pandemic are they not understanding?
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illimae - There's a difference between the unvaccinated and the anti-vaxxers. We've posted about this many times. It's the anti-vaxxers who are "crazy, selfish walking disease bags" when COVID catches them. It's unfortunate when the immunocompromised, young, or those without vaccine access are caught. About 12% of the eligible population here in QC remain unvaccinated. That's a big minority. But the need for the vaccine against this pandemic should be determined by experts, not us. That's why I'm for vaccine mandates. It's clear from hospital data that we need them.
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What serenity said. Please, please, please know that it is never those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons who are being “blamed”.
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There is a difference between those who cannot be vaccinated and those who can be but refuse to be vaccinated. It is those who can be but refuse that this discussion is about
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How about comparing vaccination rates to death rates? The higher the vax rate, the lower the death rate. You can even see the same result when you drill down to the state/province or county level. It's time for vaccine mandates.
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Kathindc and everyone, I’m not really talking about my situation today, I am referring to those who can be vaccinated but either don’t think it’s necessary for them or are waiting for more time for all possible effects of the vaccine (short and long term) to be documented.
But, if an unvaccinated person takes precautions, follows CDC guidance, is healthy with no symptoms and tests negative when appropriate, why do you think they need a shot?
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Well, first CDC guidance is to get vaccinated. People who think it isn't necessary for them are misinformed. People who are unsure about the side effects of the vaccine compared to the virus are misinformed.
The NPIs are layers to prevent transmission, but like vaccinations, they aren't 100% effective.
Delta is causing more severe disease than the original and other variants. People aren't as healthy as they think they are. Young people are dying. Many people are suffering from long-term effects from the disease even with a mild case.
I would think that as an unvaccinated person you would want more people around you vaccinated.
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illimae,
covid is most contagious a couple of days before symptoms appear and when symptoms first appear. unless the unvaccinated person has access to regular/daily testing, this person may unintentionally & unknowingly spread covid to other people. Also, vaccine is free, while at home rapid test costs $7/test and seems to be short on supply right now.
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2021/covid-19...
Also, what SerenitySTAT said: we need both NPIs and vaccine.
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