Sun
Jul 16 2023
09:29 am

A perfect example of the idiocracy we must suffer.

From the Brevard County Republican Executive Committee (BREC),

"Whereas We the People of the State of Florida were told that COVID-19 presented a grave danger to ourselves, our families, and our communities. We were then subsequently told to and in many cases mandated to take the experimental COVID-19 injections for the following reasons: That it would prevent transmission and thus stop the spread of COVID-19. That doing so would protect our families, ourselves, and the public. Doing so would allow us to keep our jobs and/or benefits to be able to support our families. By doing so we were doing our patriotic duty for our country, state, and communities. We didn’t have a choice because of President Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates. Whereas strong and credible evidence has recently been revealed that COVID-19 and COVID-19 injections are biological and technological weapons..."

The BREC proposal passed in a landslide vote.

"Members of the Brevard County leadership committee adopted a resolution, calling on the governor to make the COVID-19 vaccines illegal. Other GOP chapters in Seminole, Lake, St. John's, Santa Rosa, Hillsborough and Lee Counties have passed similar resolutions."

Healthcare providers in Florida must be cringing by hearing what some of their patients believe annd want to push on society.

fischbobber's picture

Today's covid numbers

From my earlier postings-

"Houston, we have a problem. Reported covid cases, an indicator more of the severity of the current rate of infection more than anything else, but, a number that has been trending downward for the better part of a year, have shot up from 52 to 130 in the period of one week. It is concerning for many reasons. First, the report, incomplete as it now is since you can no longer quick click to historical data, rendering it impossible for someone who isn't computer savvy to get to it, like me, was delayed by 24 hours, moving it out of today's news cycle and essentially burying it for 24 hours, or in this case, until Monday. Since Scott Barker is the primary reporter of covid in Knoxville, his Friday summation is the go to for updated covid information. Mayor Jacobs oversees, by law, the Department that was responsible for this information being delayed. Should this delay prove to be intentional, and this spike be something more than an anomaly, it is vital to remember that Glenn Jacobs has all the final says that Dr. Buchanan used to have and all the oversight powers of the former Board of Health. People that think there was no method to this madness were wrong. Glenn Jacobs is, from a bureaucratic standpoint, Knox County's Chief Medical officer. He can do more damage by not doing that job in a pandemic surge, than someone who actually attempts to do something, and does it poorly.
Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, thus far in the pandemic, about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. Preventions and treatments of covid have gotten to the point though, where if being properly utilized, high rate of vaccines, real monitoring for outbreaks, education, ongoing updating of public HVAC systems (not only for breathing clean air, but as emnergency shelters during heat emergencies) and the like, you know the stuff responsible normal adults do when holding office, hospitalizations are virtually non-existant or at least less than ten consistently fora town our size. We have had twelve for the last couple of weeks, after getting below ten for a while, I think (I have to do this from memory, the Mayor cut off my data). We don't know yet if this spike will affect hospitalizations or not. Responsible government would indicate a plan be in place in the event there was another covid outbreak. I wonder what it is?"

bizgrrl's picture

I wonder where the Knox

I wonder where the Knox County Health Dept. gets their data. The website says they are reporting cases reported to them. Who is reporting cases to them? I think there are probably more cases than reported by KCHD.

I keep having acquaintances tell me about people they know getting COVID-19. Some in another state. One (approx. 40 years old) has long covid and can't work. It's been 4 months for that person.

Be careful out there.

fischbobber's picture

County data

I believe County data comes from the state (although I've seen numbers taken from the CDC.

barker's picture

Case Counts

The official case count is of little value now that home tests are widely used.

Healthcare providers and labs report positive test results to the state Department of Health, where they are entered into a shared database. Cases are sorted by county of residence, so frequently cases that are initially reported as a Knox County case are actually from other counties. For example, a person from Lenoir City could get tested at their doctor's office in Farragut. It's initially reported as a Knox County case (since the doctor is in Knox County) and only after review is it assigned to Loudon County (the county of residence).

It cannot be emphasized enough that the official case count reported by KCHD is nowhere close to the actual number of cases. That's because of the prevalence of home testing. Home test results are not reported to the state and thus are not included in the official count.

That's all to say that case counts are not a reliable indicator of the community's disease burden. Public health officials emphasize a greater importance should be placed on hospitalizations and deaths to gauge the severity of the situation.

fischbobber's picture

The problem with the new methodology

When this new methodology was introduced, the incidence of covid was in extreme decline. So now, new cases is more of a"Heads up guys, pay attention!" , something's getting ready to happen statistic. Those of us that followed this on a daily basis got to the point where hospitalizations and deaths at given dates in the future could be predicted on daily case counts. And Scott is 100% correct.

(Except for the little value part. I have no idea what this surge will end up looking like. We should be able to determine what this number actually tells us now by the end of this surge, if indeed, it tells us anything at all. I've never seen this number jump like this and I don't even really want to speculate at this point.)

To the point at hand, actual cases. Should this number prove meaningful, and water samples of wastewater from the communities above and downriver from us indicate it is, it would indicate a surge of a pretty good degree is upon us. Obviously absenteeism and lost production (money) will be significant. People like restauranteers and companies needing customer contact will suffer. That's why I boycott all these restaurants that sponsor campaign events disguised as Meet and Greets by the Mayor. They are simply off the book donations by business owners too stupid to be looking after their own long term interests. Those sorts of people wouldn't think twice about infecting customers if it meant keeping employees home if they're sick. I also pick my crowds. Look for places the right is screaming "Woke" about for crowds with higher vaccinations rates. It's a side effect of Jacobs culture war.

To the real issue at hand, what's going to happen with our hospitals in this surge (I'm using that term at the moment because, as Scott noted, at this point nobody can derive much, beyond indicating number of cases for a severe enough reaction to go to the doctor). Should this spike not result in an increase in hospitalizations for covid, it would indicate that, as a community, we have hope that the worst is behind us. If it does make it to our hospitals, they will be forced to cut back medical care for those who need it in our community. We don't have the staffing. If it hits the hospitals hard, the system could fail. We came perilously close to that a couple times, when hospitals were more fully staffed than we are today, Until we can establish a correlation between case counts and hospitalizations, as we did with the old case count numbers, it's going to be hard to predict from my seat. None of the signs look good, but that, in and of itself, does not necessarily mean that a medical infrastructure collapse is inevitable. It is a pretty good sign that we probably ought to fix this sooner, rather than later.

As to the cult and the propaganda campaign that weaponized covid against the community to begin with? My unscientific research indicates it's still going strong. The heads up piece I posted here was also posted on reddit, note that I haven't forecast gloom and doom, necessarily, but stuck to facts and conclusions drawn from those facts, and frankly, it's hard to tell much at all without sufficient data which we no longer get, thanks to the leadership of Glenn Jacobs. 51% of the peoplke reading on reddit downvoted it, after an initial positive return. Why do those people even bother reading it? If I'm wrong about this, rather than attack the position now, why not trust what your cult leader has been lying to you about and wait the three weeks to say "I told you it was nothing."? These people aren't going away. This is getting worse.

Back in year 1 of covid, there were several people in town that got pretty good at reading these numbers and forecasting hospitalizations and deaths as a result of any given daily numbers. You could literally predict covid deaths based on attendance at mass infection events, like the contentious Board of Health and County Commission hearings. The carpetbagging woman from south knoxville who explained why she moved here and that the only reason there wasn't a bigger turnout from her friends that week because they were all sick with covid, except for the one who died from it, made me laugh out loud. She also made me realize how futile trying to act in the public interest can be.

From a citizen's standpoint, we are on new ground, as far as what should we do to protect ourselves. Obviously get fully vaccinated and boosted. Pay attention to crowds and use common sense. It doesn't look like you will have the same opportunities to protect yourself this go round, simply because we don't have access to needed information to make informed decisions. Masks are probably a good idea to combat non-aerosol infection, N-95s work well on preventing aerosol transmission as well. Regular masking and social distancing is the best quickest option to make the biggest dent in this the fastest. It is a volunteer effort though, and there aren't many Volunteers left in East Tennessee. I miss the old days for that reason.

bizgrrl's picture

"Public health officials

"Public health officials emphasize a greater importance should be placed on hospitalizations and deaths to gauge the severity of the situation."

I get that. However, there are many of us who don't want to get Covid-19 and end up in the hospital or dead. Alas, it would be impossible to track cases, especially with the current attitude of many who don't want to have government involved.

Where is the data for hospitalizations? Are most of the deaths in senior living facilities?

fischbobber's picture

Hospitalizations and deaths

Hospitalizations and deaths are lagging statistics. That's the real problem with the new numbers, by the time we see hospitalizations and deaths rise, we're two-three weeks into the surge. If one wanted to be cautious, stay home or mask (n-95) for the next few weeks to see what happens.

I've been doing this a while and feel like several people in this town had a pretty good idea of what was going on and did a great job of keeping us informed, You, Scott, Allan Sims and Dr. Buchanan all did a great job keeping the public informed. And this community owes y'all a great debt and our gratitude. As bad as our response might look, it could have been worse without y'all. It's too early to say if this surge will show us how to derive future hospitalizations and deaths. I'm sure that there are people with a better idea than I, but I'm just as sure that Glenn Jacobs will do everything in his power to suppress that information.

I'm starting to think that Glenn Jacobs is trying to single-handedly destroy our medical infrastructure and destroy our hospital system in the name of freedom. I'm not thinking I'm going to be freer without access to healthcare. I worked my whole life to provide that access for me and my family. To me, freedom is not about letting Glenn Jacobs destroy something I've spent my whole life building.

Knox County data is here. (link...)

R. Neal's picture

Vaccinated people have mild

Vaccinated people have mild cases and ride them out. Not reported. But still spreaders.

Paxlovid is keeping others out of hospitals. I guess they are reported cases, because doctors, prescriptions, etc. But still spreaders.

I'd like to know more about confirmed cases, where they are coming from, how they got it, etc., to help determine best precautions.

I guess surveillance and contact tracing and whatnot are quaint, obsolete notions, though, because freedom and commerce.

fischbobber's picture

Determining precautions

Boy, did you ever hit the nail on the head. It wasn't enough for Jacobs to weaponize this disease for the first three years, now he's cut off access to that vital information we need to make our own informed healthcare decisions.

I guess, according to Jacobs, this is what freedom looks like. An autocratic nanny state where the government forces you to live by the standards they impose. Almost sounds like fascism.

fischbobber's picture

Boosters

I got my second bivalent booster yesterday, I expected to have a sore arm and be sluggish, as I was with my first one, a little over 10 months ago. I feel really good this morning. I'm somewhat surprised.

As someone who was involved in youth sports at a level that barely earned me a starting spot, some years, on some teams, I learned not to run my mouth on the field if I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I didn't want to jinx myself. This is my sixth covid vaccination/booster. One of my lifelong friends and his wife are both scientists. The wife has been working with genetic research (DNA and RNA stuff) her whole career. He developed a cancer drug that has made it to trial. (Thats considered a highly successful career in the scientist field). I've gone all in with the science. I just never wanted to jinx myself by telling folks I've never had covid.

Yup. Haven't had it and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the vaccination was the reason. Early on it worked because we got everyone (well, 60% of us, a significant majority) to get vaccinated. Mayor Jacobs launched a huge propaganda campaign, strictly to advance his political power, among his cult and was able to thwart the medical communities efforts, to some extent. That effort has led to the death of an extra thousand people over comparable communities that launched real mitigation and publiuc health measures for their own communities. (I used Dane Co. Wi. home of Madison) as the comparable. Slightly bigger population, liberal city, conservative county yada yada yada. Compare with any number of comparable communities and see for yourself.)

The point is this. I've lived a normal life ever since my first booster. Aside from donating way too much of my time to my unpaid work advocating for covid intervention and mitigation and the personal abuse I have subjected myself to as a result, my life has been as normal as it ever was. Yet, only 8% of our population in Knox County has even bothered to get the bivalent booster. Their first bivalent booster. I got mine because I wanted to play bridge tonight and go to the Motley Crew luncheon on Friday. I really like the people at that luncheon and didn't want to spread covid to them while I was there. They are my friends, at least they act like it, I'm sure a few think I'm crazy.

That seems to be the key, whether or not a person has any concern whatsoever about the rest of the human race. Those that believe everyone should has the fundamental right to live get vaccinated for the benefit of their fellow man as well as themselves. They have weighed the risks and done what's right for them and for us. And I appreciate those folks. It's also only eight percent of us. At an eight percent participation rate, saying the vaccine doesn't work becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. A vaccine won't stop the advancement of a pathogen throughout society at eight percent. In fact, the protection it offers those who get it drops dramatically. That's just how vaccines work.

The Republican Party has begun a massive pushback campaign, once again, against the vaccine. They will lie, harass and intimidate people into not getting the vaccine and booster strictly to advance their own political agenda. Let me repeat that. To the detriment of the citizenry, knowing that their action will be responsible for the deaths, murders by the Republican Party against those bowing to their tactics strictly to advance their political agenda. That's the purpose of this propaganda campaign. Funny thing is, they're killing more of their own people than they are those that defy them. I've never seen a political movement dependent on the human sacrifice of its own participants before. For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would participate in a political movement like that. I don't see the upside. They might sacrifice my friend instead of me? I just don't get it.

I'll lay a tad low today and be back to normal, looks like tomorrow. I will continue to live a normal life, including grieving for those poor brainwashed souls who have convinced themselves that Glenn Jacobs lies are the truth. I really feel lucky I had him pegged as a liar and charlatan from the outset of his little attempt at a beer hall putsch here in our fair town. Get boostered. Live your life. Stand up with the truth to the Knox County governments propaganda and brainwashing campaign. Peace.

bizgrrl's picture

...COVID-19 cases in Florida

...COVID-19 cases in Florida increased by more than 23% in the most recent Weekly Situation Report, published July 21.

Cases rose from 7,741 for the week beginning June 30 to 9,547 for the following week and 9,942 for the week beginning July 14, the report shows.

The number of cases has increased for eight of the last 10 weeks...

bizgrrl's picture

According to the CDC,

According to the CDC, COVID-19 indicators, including hospital admissions, emergency department visits, test positivity and wastewater levels tracking are increasing nationally.
...
“U.S. COVID-19 rates are still near historic lows after 7 months of steady declines,” CDC spokesperson Kathleen Conley said in a statement to CBS News. “The U.S. has experienced increases in COVID-19 during the past three summers, so it’s not surprising to see an uptick.”

fischbobber's picture

This weeks covid numbers

The weeks numbers are in. Cases and hospitalizations are both up, but the jump was not as severe as last week. If these indicators hold true, the curve is flattening. It's too early to say we dodged a bullet, but I'll take a slowdown of the spread over an uncontrolled case saturation any day. Deaths remain steady. Vaccinations ticked up, a little. Our hospitalization numbers are still a ways away from telling us much, but this weeks rise would seems to indicate a higher incidence than the numbers from 2-3 weeks ago would indicate. It remains to be seen if hospitalizations are being driven by a more severe strain, which would send people to the hospital more quickly, or the saturation level of this surge. At any rate, these numbers don't look as alarming as last weeks. They would indicate the curve is flattening. If hospitalizations can stay down, we have a shot here. There, of course, is a flip side. If doctors are advising those who call in with covid to stay home, the won't get a covid test that would count against the case count. Still, a rise of 30 cases is better than a rise of 78 cases, no matter how one looks at it.

(link...)

fischbobber's picture

Today's covid numbers

(link...)

I apologize to all concerned. I underestimated the effect this covid surge would have on our hospital system. I figured a range of between 22 and 36 and went with the smaller number, primarily due to all the people screaming that covid was over. Our case number reflects more of a plateau than a drop or major increase. We are at the edge of having to cut back our hospital use. Prepare to postpone anything not immediately necessary. Staffing issues will be prevalent in the near future. That will likely look like overtime (and hopefully time off after to to recover from stress and exhaustion) if you're one of the workers assigned to handle this. At this point, with this plateau, not knowing how long a typical hospital stay is with covid, I'd say we could go to 50 patients. I believe that will put a major strain on our local medical infrastructure. I saw the thirty six though and thought, nah, we'll never get back there again. Better than 600, but we don't have the staffing capacity for 600 extra patients anymore. Remember, they had to call on the National Guard to keep our hospitals open then, it's not a state of emergency anymore. We'll just have to eat it and hope it doesn't get worse. Please get vaccinated There was an additional death last week and I'm worried I may have underestimated deaths as well.

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