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Monday, December 6, 2021

Cult of Covid: Mass Formation


Silverfiddle Rant!

“In a world of propaganda, the truth is always a conspiracy”
 - Herbert Hildebrandt 


In a world becoming increasingly unhinged, I place my faith in God and thank Him for family and good friends.

Still, I have had my doubts.  I see it.  Others see it.  Why are so many supposed experts and elites spewing such nonsense, and why do they appear to be obfuscating and propagandizing instead of providing clear facts and sometimes telling us simply that they don't know?  

CDC Director Rachel Walensky tearfully wailing about "impending doom" (that ended up not happening). 

Why are good, smart and rational people acting so irrationally? Covid kills, it is real, but we understand it now, how it is transmitted, what it does to people based upon their health and age, and we have drugs to help those who get sick from it.  Those fanning the flames of hysteria fail to put covid in context.

Child Abuse

We know Covid is less dangerous to those 18 and under than the seasonal flu, yet the government allowed the teachers unions to mau mau them into mandating vaccines for children, forcing them to wear masks, and conducting performative school shutdowns.  This is government-sanctioned child abuse on a mass scale, propelled by the largest collective case of Munchausen by Proxy in human history. 

As I've already said, The Lord is my consolation, but I am human, and finding other people--good, smart, highly-educated people--who are also alarmed by this societal mass hysteria comforts me.

Disproportionate Response

Prof. Mattias Desmet is a professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, and he also has a degree in math and statistics.  He noticed early on that the covid data did not match the out-of-all-proportions response by governments around the world.  

Here in the US, 75% of Covid deaths are in people above 65 years old, yet government destroyed jobs, livelihoods and academic careers of students and working age people.   And governments today continue hounding this cohort and fomenting pogrom-like frenzies against them while refusing to publish clear statistical information on just how few people with no comorbidities are in danger of death.

Desmet posits this is a Mass Formation, aka Mass Hypnosis.  He lists four conditions that make a society ripe for this:
1. Lack of Social Bonds.  
2. Lack of meaning in life
3. Free-Floating, Inchoate Anxiety
4. Free-Floating Frustration and Anger
All that is left is the spark.  In this case, covid: 
This has now happened. The anxiety and lonely isolation many felt before the pandemic and during the pandemic found their perfect “object of anxiety” and is solidly locked on to the pandemic and vaccine narrative…they cannot be tolerant or allow dissent or different voices and don’t want to even hear any questioning.  (Quoted in Dr Herd)
All the free-floating anxiety and anger, now turning into panic, becomes attached to the Object. Sudden connection through this heroic struggle together against the Object creates a new solidarity, a social bond that has been lacking, which in turn, creates meaning. People then feel that they can control their psychological discontent by participating in the strategy, even if it’s utterly absurd.. (Paraphrased by Barbara With)
So, those who succumb to this find a comforting solidarity with other like-minded souls and a new purpose in life.  They also collectively focus their bile and anger at those who refuse to join the collective.

Dr Desmet estimates that in a mass formation...
30% of people are deeply hypnotized

40% are not but go along with the crowd — if this 40% stop hearing dissenting voices of reason they will unite with the hypnotized to go along

30% that cannot be hypnotized; we must keep speaking out
I haven't done his explanation justice here.  Please go listen to the fascinating interview with him at Peak Prosperity.  You can also watch the video there, or you can read the transcript.  If you are a podcast listener, you can search for the podcast by entering 'peak prosperity podcast'  


* - Final Note: Mass Formation is a concept that can be applied to many phenomena including political movements.  Some will be tempted to cite 'MAGA' or 'Trumpism,' and its manifestations in 'Stop the Steal,' and the Jan 6th Capitol incident and I would not disagree.  However, this is pale deflection.  

The Covid Mass Formation is orders of magnitude more dangerous because it is impacting billions of lives across the globe and threatens to reorder western societies along a more totalitarian model.  MAGA enjoys the support of no major media outlets, no governments and no major institutions.  Covid Hysteria is stoked daily by governments, press and institutions across the globe.

I will delete off-topic comments.  If you want to fit this model to any phenomena you deplore, do it on your own platform.


More Links







Philosopher's Stone - A little out there, but I reject nothing out of hand anymore

85 comments:

  1. The left (government, media, etc., those in control) typically do not have the faith in God that you and I do.
    That right there leads to fear and pessimism.
    Of course, the ungodly are correct in their fear and pessimism.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beyond America, the left is not less religious than the right. Maybe what you say would be true of an American athiest, but I think I am less pessimistic than you.

      Delete
  2. I haven't yet given Desmet a hearing (I do intend to), but I've read mass hypnosis theories before and I've never liked them. Most disagreement can be explained by a combination of different values and presuppositions and choices of emphasis, and honest mistakes. Rarely (but not never) do I find the need to attribute malice or exotic psychological states.

    "why do [so many supposed experts and elites] appear to be obfuscating and propagandizing instead of providing clear facts and sometimes telling us simply that they don't know?"

    because they want to set policy and encourage compliance. They're not dispassionately disseminating data and expressing opinion, they're trying to persuade people, including stupid and uninterested people, to follow rules which they have decided are best. Like I've said a few times, I don't like it but I don't think that there's no place for it in the world: as a grown-up I can reluctantly concede that there are occassions where that is justified. We could make arguments about whether this is one of those occassions, as well as arguments about whether those policies are reasonable, but we needn't be mystified about why public experts are dumbing things down / sexing up their dossiers etc.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am more in the Stockholm Syndrome camp. Fauci is our captor and as time goes on his power only increases to control us. We were first promised it would be two weeks and then we would be free. Later on the time frame became more extended.

    “People always say, ‘Well, why didn’t you run away?’” Stan told producers. “I just felt that it wasn’t an option at that time .... I really felt that I’d be hurt, and other people would be hurt if I went against them.”

    Stan’s captors, Cameron and Janice Hooker, had convinced her of that. Obedience was key to survival for Stan, who was shackled by “invisible chains,” criminal behavioral analyst Laura Richards told “Snapped Notorious.” “Oftentimes victims will do anything to survive, and the threat of someone else being harmed that they care about can keep them controlled.”

    We are told we are to submit because "it is he right thing to do" - to do otherwise threatens ourselves as well as others now.

    Just look at the internment camps in Austrailia to see how this ends. Total submission.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They say they have our best interests at heart.
      I do not believe they are that altruistic given the immense power their position affords them.

      Delete
  4. I'm not big on either mass hypnosis or Stockholm, so much as people just get worn down by endless repetition and simply quit fighting it. The government and media have been preaching fear endlessly since Sept 11, 2001 and the truism applies that a lie endlessly repeated becomes the truth. When you have heard nothing else since you were a child, then what you heal becomes reality.

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  5. I'd like to point out that the 'leaders' and media are getting a big thrill out of their new found power.
    Does anybody have an example of this kind of power being returned to the people peacefully once in place?

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  6. Shocking to me is the utter absence of information available like me who have chosen to ride out their Covid-19 infection at home. What can I do for myself, without consulting a doctor, without admitting myself to a hospital? Wear a mask when I go out (when I feel up to going out), get vaxxed for an illness I already have and seems like would get even if vaxxed anyway?

    How do I get this crap out of my lungs? Anyone?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed. Our government is in very short supply of useful information.

      I hope you recover quickly

      Delete
    2. As you say, name one illness, just one other than Covid, which doctors will not even attempt to treat, will not even provide symptomatic relief.

      If you test positive for Covid you are told to stay home and "self isolate," period. You are not told to see a doctor, or go to a clinic. You are not offered options for self treatment. You are simply told to go home.

      What other illness is treated in such a fashion?

      Delete
    3. Treat it like you would a regular flu. Stay hydrated, use paracetamol, ibuprufen etc. as required, and sooth your throat with honey. I am not a doctor, but I recommend against spending lots of time lying horizontally, sit upright or stand as much as you can.
      Get well soon.

      Delete
    4. I assume you're not running a fever now.
      Try using adult Robitussin. There are different kinds so look at the ingredients and use the one with Acetaminophen, Pain reliever/Fever reducer, Dextromethorphan, Cough suppressant and Guaifenesin which is an expectorant.
      The Guaifenesin is the most important part because it will help clear your lungs quicker by thinning the mucus and make it easier to cough up. Or you might try Other OTC remedies which separately only contain the Guaifenesin by itself and the Acetaminophen by itself.

      The latter is what I would do. Regardless, It's going to take a while to get completely over it. There is one form of mucinex that only contains Guaifenesin. That is always what I use for colds and flu. Scroll on down toward the bottom of the link and read the product information. You can get it at Walgreens, CVS or Walmart. Most pharmacies keep it in stock.

      Delete
    5. Yeah, I've been using guaifenesin to make a pretty nasty productive cough... Got a spit bottle the Wuhan lab would be proud of... And I've been using a prescription strength Albuterol inhaler steroid meant for asthma that is keeping me breathing... I've only blacked out from oxygen deprivation once... Don't recommend... My lungs just hurt. Before I got the steroid from an asthmatic friend I coughed until my abdominal muscles cramped and seized up... So I'm rubbing in the BenGay too...

      This disease sucks y'all.

      Delete
    6. Be very careful of the Albuterol. Don't overuse it, you're body can become used to it and it will become less effective and if you stop using it -per say, cold turkey- you can have a return of congestive symptoms similar to what happens to people that overuse nasal sprays.

      I'm very familiar with a wide range of drugs and their side effects do to the slow slide -over 20 years- of my first wife's deterioration and eventual death.

      If you know someone with an nebulizer and albuteral solution it seems to work better than a inhaler. If you're already congested, the albuteral doesn't get as deep in your lungs as it does with a nebulizer.

      Again, don't overuse it. Albuteral still can have long term effects whether the delivery system is an inhaler or a nebulizer.

      I'm afraid that you're still going to have sore lungs and chest, it's from forced coughing. I have experienced it myself from a case of pneumonia. The soreness continued for almost a month after the other symptoms were gone and my lungs were clear.

      Delete
    7. My breathing is better today. Deep coughs produce white phlegm, blowing my nose as necessary is producing a an cherry-pie filling looking blood and phlegm mix but at least that's not in my lungs. I'm glad my abdominal muscles aren't seizing up on me again. Still feel beat up and bruised from that.

      Delete
    8. Excellent, long may that continue. Cramped abdominals hurt.

      Delete
    9. TC,
      Talk about the tortures of the damned!

      How is your appetite?

      Delete
    10. Been forcing myself to eat because other than super-sweet things I have no sense of taste. I feel like I have a burnt place on the tip of my tongue, kinda feels like a thrush infection like when I was a very young kid. My diet has been mostly centered around sweet and sour things I can taste. Had a turkey cobb salad with bleu cheese dressing that almost tasted normal, well as normal as bleu cheese tartiness gets. Frosted mini-wheats cereal with raspberries and blackberries has been my staple. Eating the heck out of vitamin supplements C, D, E, Zinc.

      I want meats and sausages so bad but I haven't been able to taste them.

      Delete
    11. Breads and batter fried stuff taste like dirt :(

      I did make myself eat a PB&J sandwich but the bread was unbearable.

      Delete
    12. So on the bright side you can win the chilli-eating contest like Homer in that episode of the Simpsons!
      Hang in there, and hope it starts coming back soon.

      Are crunchy things like carrots any fun? If you need calories, sugary soft drinks might be a good way to get them in this situation.

      Delete
  7. I’d suggest, Silverfiddle, you’re once again overhyping the COVID response (at least the present day mandates) while undermining the severity of COVID itself.

    This “ Mass Formation, aka Mass Hypnosis”, in my opinion, conflicts with the reality that we’ve been in a reopening mode for some time, even with multiple waves, Delta, and whatever’s the latest and greatest.

    Another conflict is the idea that’s all fine and dandy as it only attacks the elderly and a distant hint of having some mystery pill to snap them back to their feet.

    I’m not really recalling the teachers union who-doing us into the lockdowns and such as that came from the Trump admin on the advice of the CDC. And this “ Mass Formation, aka Mass Hypnosis” didn’t actually fester until Trump himself defied his very own recommendations and encouraged his goons to “liberate” blue states such as Michigan.

    So now we’re seeing Trump supporting states and districts spiking in fatalities.

    It’s an interesting irony to hear the anti-vexers and promoters taking on a “my body my choice” mantra when the simplest of things could save their neighbors lives. You don’t even hear Tucker or Deathsantis encouraging the low hanging fruit such as washing your hands, as if they don’t want the virus to go away at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The vaccine was supposed to grant the people who took it immunity and prevent the vaccinated from further spreading the disease. It did NONE of that. It was a failure that granted temporary "reduced symptoms" in return for unstudied/ unknown long term future health effects.

      Dr. Mengele, your next human study group is waiting in the lobby...

      Delete
    2. ...and no. Getting the vaccine will save NONE of "your neighbors lives" as the vaccine does not prevent Covid infection or spread.

      Delete
    3. Joe, you are omitting a common sense reality that invalidates this pro-COVID talking point.

      Fully vaccinated people are less likely to contract COVID than unvaccinated people. If they don’t contract the infection in the 1st place, reasonable deduction dictates they don't transmit the virus to others.

      The insistence otherwise is nothing other than either denial or snake oil selling.

      Delete
    4. Joe said... "It [the vaccine] was a failure that granted temporary "reduced symptoms"..."

      I think some of those people, myself included, who contracted Covid or the DELTA variant, were pretty pleased to suffer those "reduced symptoms" that included a greatly lower death rate.

      Even among those elderly ppl and folks with serious comorbidities, the death rate for those vaccinated has been lowered substantially.

      Isn't that a good thing coming from this "failure"? I think they, and their families would say yes, it is.

      Delete
    5. RJW,

      "Fully vaccinated people are less likely to contract COVID than unvaccinated people. If they don’t contract the infection in the 1st place, reasonable deduction dictates they don't transmit the virus to others."

      An asymptomatic carrier is still a carrier. The "best" thing you can say about the vaccinated is that they're all asymptomatic carriers.

      "We only spread the Covid that kills unvaccinated people huh huh"

      Yeah, eat that.

      Delete
    6. TC, uh, okay. An infected or asymptomatic carrier is indeed a carrier.

      I agree. I don't think anyone is arguing that fact.

      So far so good?

      Let's do some elementary troubleshooting?

      Fully vaccinated people are considerably less likely to become infected?

      Disagree? If so, why?

      Agree? Case closed.


      Delete
    7. Disagree. "Fully vaccinated people" (whatever that is) are (allegedly) less likely to present life-threatening symptoms in their infections. Until they do, of course.

      They're still carriers, they're still infected.

      Delete
    8. That is, if you'll forgive me, a silly answer to a silly question. Simplistic binary thinking isn't helping anyone understand anything about covid. I think vaccinated people are less likely to become infected, but I don't know how much less likely. I suggest we stick closely to the things we can directly measure, such as hospital admissions.

      Delete
    9. TC, the question isn't if fully vaccinated people are less likely to present life-threatening symptoms in their infections.

      The question that matters is if vaccinated people are considerably less likely to become infected.

      That's the problem with people living in Trumpland. When the answer doesn't suit their agenda, they just change the question.

      Delete
    10. The question hasn't changed. The answer has always been "get vaxxed and survive Covid" - the symptoms are allegedly less severe; you're going to get Covid anyway.

      So you wind up just like someone who didn't vax and rode out the infection.

      Delete
    11. Aside from whatever question you want it to be, multiple studies and data proves that vaccines reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by more than 80%. That is just a fact.

      I get it that the indoctrinated pro-COVID crowd gladly jumped on “the infected can carry as much virus as others” bandwagon but vaccines have proven to reduce transmission by reducing infections in the first place.





      Delete
    12. he FDA took a grand total of 108 days to decide the Pfizer vaccine was safe, given the data shared with them by the pharmaceutical company. The same FDA is now saying they need 75 years to provide the public with the same data. This is not a confidence building position by a federal regulatory agency attempting to instill public confidence.

      Delete
    13. Operative words: To determine whether infectious virus titers differed in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, we performed plaque assays on an additional set of 48 samples with Ct <25, finding no difference in infectious virus titer between groups.

      Delete
    14. All samples in that comparison come from infected persons. That's not to say that the vaccinated people were not less likely to become infected in the first place.

      Delete
    15. The CDC doesn't even recognized that people who have had the virus and have natural immunity don't need the vaccination.

      Delete
    16. Where upon, he changes into a ballerina costume and dances off the bridge.

      I'll never be able to watch Star Trek again! ;^)

      Delete
    17. RJW,

      Aside from whatever question you want it to be, multiple studies and data proves that vaccines reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by more than 80%. That is just a fact.

      The contact tracing doesn't exist to make that 80% more than a laughable fail in any introductory statistics course.

      Unvaccinated people are getting infected "from the wild" which also includes vaccinated people running around as asymptomatic carriers.

      Your math is bunk.

      Delete
    18. Is this bunk? So much for "vaccination safety".

      Delete
    19. I can hardly wait for the day when Fauci announces that "fully vaccinated" means three doses instead of two. The number of "breakthrough" cases will get set to zero again and the fake Covid statistics game being played will go on ...

      Delete
    20. Covid statistics are the very definition of a hyper-reality.

      Delete
    21. Please look at this trends from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health...

      Cumulative (Jan 1, 2021 – Nov 2, 2021) 886,148 104,379 (12%) 8,858 per 100k 1,814 per 100k 4.88x higher incidence among unvaccinated and not fully vaccinated individuals

      30 days ending October 4, 2021 135,098 34,609 (26%) 1,633 per 100k 520 per 100k 3.1x higher incidence among unvaccinated and not fully vaccinated individuals

      30 days ending November 2, 2021 117,495 34,854 (30%) 1,407 per 100k 503 per 100k 2.8x higher incidence among unvaccinated and not fully vaccinated individuals

      Delete
    22. Joe, as important as the trees are, let's not overlook the forest. Your above statement of "Getting the vaccine will save NONE of "your neighbors lives" as the vaccine does not prevent Covid infection or spread" is specious on several fronts.

      You refuse to accept the reality that risk of transmission for those vaccinated individual are much lower than than those unvaccinated.

      From your very link:

      88 percent of reported COVID-19 cases were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.

      90 percent of reported hospitalizations with COVID-19 as the primary diagnosis/cause of admission were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.

      89 percent of COVID-19-related deaths were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.

      The data shows that the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective for preventing hospitalizations and deaths, even as more post-vaccination cases occur in the context of more transmissible variants and more residents getting vaccinated.

      Delete

    23. Joe,
      Is this bunk? So much for "vaccination safety".

      Well, ain't that just grand? A vaccine that isn't really a vaccine. Sheesh.

      Delete
    24. And all those numbers you just cited, Ron, are "cumulative" and started 6 months before the first person ever got "fully vaccinated" and so all cases were mistakenly being attributed to the non-vaccinated. The nearer term numbers which cover much shorter single month time periods demonstrate just how misleading those "cumulative" numbers you love to cite, are.

      Delete
    25. ...and ps, when the CDC changes the definition of "fully vaccinated" to 3 doses... all those breakthrough cases will become the next CDC statistician's unvaccinated failures in the "cumulative" count.

      Delete
    26. In the CDC numbers game it's always "heads we look good", "tails we look good". Whenever that stops happening, CDC changes the definitions to "make it so".

      Delete
    27. @ AoW - It's a "short-term treatment", not a "vaccine that grants immunity". CDC changed the definition of "vaccines" at least twice in the last two years to include mRNA and other viral genetic manipulations into the vaccine category/ It was probably to rob/re-program "government research funding" budgetary lines.

      Delete
    28. I wish I knew, AoW...

      Yes I watched the Beck interview earlier in the day. There's also a video... I'm not sure where I saw it, that showed Fauci and researchers plotting at a Conference to design mRNA vaccines but were afraid that they wouldn't be allowed to test them due to the health risks. I guess that they found there way around that problem...

      Delete
    29. This was Fauci in 2019... although the "whole conference" video is much more informative and incriminating than the clip linked.

      Delete
    30. ...it explains the human experimental path Fauci has embarked upon.

      Delete
    31. How does "fully vaccinated" even mean "going to need a booster in the future."

      The fully vaccinated rate is 0%. Change my mind.

      Delete
    32. If you ever have, when was the first time you corrected someone who'd called the 'flu jab a vaccine? I bet either you haven't, or if you do it's as part of the disastrous politicization of covid.

      Delete
    33. Jez,

      Every annual seasonal flu vaccine I've had targeted a specific strain. Only once on my lifetime have the authorities guessed the wrong strain to target.

      Covid "vaccines" are still aim big, miss big.

      Delete
  8. I'm sorry to say I don't visit as often as I used to, and rarely post because my browser has trouble posting here.

    I wrote on this at length over at Bunkerville's today and had not seen your post which is excellent. Living where I do, I LIVE in the midst of the exact representation of the condition Dr. Mesmet describes. He said that about a week into the lockdowns he began to sense something very different taking hold. I did too. I said so then. I saw real fear in many people around me. And something more bandwagonnish emerging.

    I am on a large online support group that draws nationwide. Wow - do I see this expressed in spades. These are women who put in 36-hour days to care for their dementia spouses, and desperately need help as we are all sinking into exhaustion caring for this awful disease. Still, caregivers were let go out of fear (I understand the caution), and then it became "no one gets through my front door unless they are vaccinated." The few who voiced "I know so many vaxed people who are catching covid" were virtually shunned. It's like living in 1984 and watching a lock stock narrative from which no deviation or critical examination by qualified people can be tolerated.

    I doubt at some level 'they' give a rat's ass about people getting vaxed. It's sufficient that it works as a stalking horse for a gambit on a bold totalitarian putsch. David Martin's research showed that there were no more life insurance payouts in 2020 than in 2019. Since those usually follow deaths, it raises a provocative question about how many MORE deaths than normal did Covid actually bring on. Or do only uninsured people get Covid? It was sure handy to create the situation surveillance capitalism (and political) beneficiaries have been slathering for.

    JC + 1. Yes, the latest UK data shows that vaccinated people are dying at a greater rate than the unvaccinated. I've seen 2 takes on these figures. One is 2-3X the rate per capita, and the other is more conservative with the vaxed still winning in the all cause mortality contest, age standardized and per capita. This eval was done by a mathematician and Professor of Risk Information Management.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Take a look at the way age is adjusted for. Those D_i/P_i fractions can get problematically small for some age groups. Eg, what's the population of vaccinated children under 5? How meaningful is it to divide by P_i for that group? Meanwhile, the unvaccinated cohort (which contains all the infants) is skewed (yes, skewed even though we're adjusting for age: try plugging some numbers in) by the generally elevated all-cause mortality for babies.

      I think a more intuitive way to get a fair impression of how well vaccines are working is to look at hospital admissions. IMHO, they work pretty well but they're not magic, that last caveat causing heartbreak and disappointment to children of all ages / levels of government.

      Delete
    2. Baysider,
      Still, caregivers were let go out of fear (I understand the caution), and then it became "no one gets through my front door unless they are vaccinated."

      That is, more or less, what happened with Mr. AOW during those last few awful months with his kidney disease. We were isolated! His last several months were so miserable because Mr. AOW was the kind of person who needed a lot of socialization. Everything was canceled: Tuesday bingo at the American Legion, once-a-month stroke club meetings and coin club meetings, etc. Hell, we didn't even go out the door for doctors' appointments as everything was telemedicine -- until the day I had to call the ambulance. Then, I wasn't allowed into the hospital to see Mr. AOW until his COVID test came back. Those were two long days for him!

      Delete
    3. "...everything was telemedicine." I'm sorry that Mr. AOW suffered that experience. In my opinion, telemedicine is malpractice.

      How can a pulmonary doctor evaluate you without listening to your lungs? How can any doctor do so without listening to your heart? How can a neurologist do so without doing a set of tests to measure neuro function?

      My father was a doctor, and he stressed the importance of touch as a measure of communication with his patients. He said that a doctor learned more about his patient's general health by putting his hands on him than he ever did by using instruments.

      Delete
  9. See - this is the trouble. It posts, but not with my name! Baysider

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Baysider,
      I'm sorry that you are having that glitch with Blogger.

      The ways of Blogger are beyond strange at times.

      Delete
  10. Even if everything Silver posits is true, we are still faced with the following scenario, this one [shared by a Michigan ER doc] played out daily right now across ERs in Michigan...

    "On some shifts, the stress in the air is palpable. My colleagues and I know the patients are piling up, but there just are not enough nurses to properly triage everyone. A patient experiencing heart failure waits in an emergency room because inpatient rooms upstairs are all occupied. Patients who need surgery can’t be transferred because nearly every hospital within a two-hour drive is near or at capacity, too.

    Nurses in my emergency department work double duty, checking on admitted patients and tending to new ones streaming in seemingly every hour. They’ve done this shift after shift for at least a month with no end in sight. And they did it during the last surge, in the spring, and the one before that, last winter. One of the best emergency nurses I’ve ever worked with told me that she cries on her drive home after every shift."


    Is all of this false? Some will say yes. But for the medical people I count as friends and family, it is their experience too. It rings true.

    So what should we do?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, why are the hospital beds full?
      Do you think that it might have something to do with all those people that needed "elective" surgeries that were canceled because of the covid having their surgeries done and a rush for the hospitals to hurry and catch up?

      Let's face it, hospitals are a business too and it's advantageous for them to be as full as possible because of the bottom line. I know that people -in general- tend to think of hospitals as charities but they're not -for the most part-. Unused hospital space still costs money and the lights and all the ancillary equipment still need maintained.

      I'm also reminded that the supposed shortage of ventilators never occurred as many were in storage and in New York, they had actually had more than were needed and several thousand had been sold as surplus.

      So, "Is all of this false?, no; but the underling problems my not be what you think and could be the results of bad planning and policy.

      Delete
    2. Why are the beds full? The doctors say the reason is because overwhelming numbers of people are sick with Covid, needing hospitalization.

      A strong majority of those doctors also say that those people needing hospitalization due to complications from Covid, are unvaccinated.

      And yes, you're right in these are businesses.

      But triage is done to ID the most sick, at the moment. If Bill, Covid sick because he never got vazzed, comes in at 2pm struggling to breathe, he gets treated in the ER, for however long it takes. Then when George comes in with heart failure, if the Bills take up all the beds, what does the hospital do?

      Again, what should we do?

      And yes, typos... ugh.

      Delete
    3. My information is at least as good as yours and I've heard the hospitals are swamped with people that had to put off elective surgeries for the past year.

      Should we kick them out while they recover?

      I'm not big on rumors or what if's.

      Delete
    4. Warren... I'll share my link and you share yours. The doc in mine is easily searchable and verifiable as working in Michigan. Additionally, I have many friends who are part of the Christian Reformed Church who live in and around Grand Rapids. Regardless of their personal vax status, they all say the hospitals in that area are full of Covid patients. Not a typical cohort I'd expect to be lying. Especially since they come from both sides of the vax arguments.

      I'm en ER Doc in Michigan

      Delete
    5. Dave,
      Giving it's an opinion piece without any numbers, I'm going to have to assume that it is just that, an opinion.
      I'll give you a link from May of last year from the same source. THE NYT . -You can see the trouble coming down the road- The opinion being that these Covid patients are all unvaccinated and that's why certain hospitals are fill to capacity. Another thing you might consider is that "filled to capacity" doesn't mean that all the beds are filled, it means that they don't have enough resources including people, trained and untrained, to take care of an influx of patients who all have an infectious disease.

      If you have an interest, you might run a search on "hospital crowding due to elective surgery", without the quotation marks.
      Dave, I took care of my invalid first wife for over twenty years -we were married for over 43 years- and three consecutive months without a hospitalization constituted a good year. I'm very familiar with the way hospitals work and what goes on behind the scenes.

      Delete
    6. Warren said... "Another thing you might consider is that "filled to capacity" doesn't mean that all the beds are filled, it means that they don't have enough resources including people, trained and untrained, to take care of an influx of patients who all have an infectious disease."

      I'm guessing that's a fairly accurate statement. We can only fill a quantity of beds that we can care for. You're also correct that essentially hospitals are doing those elective elective surgeries again, taking up bed space.

      Two of my friends, both OR nurses, work in an isolated wing of their hospital, never have contact with the "other" side and maintain strict isolation protocols so as not to infect those surgical patients. That all comes with a high cost as it relates to bed space.

      You are also correct in that we seem to have an "influx of patients who all have an infectious disease."

      Which is the point I think, of the vaccine. The numbers of vaccinated people sick enough to be hospitalized is, according to published data, under 10% of those cases. The great majority of ppl hospitalized with Covid and Covid related problems, that influx if you will, is from unvaccinated people.

      Delete
  11. Yes, AOW, the ISOLATION is a killer for so many. I am sorry Mr. AOW was deprived of essential and joyful interactions that added meaning and companionship at the end of his life. With an apartment - and vacancies out the wazoo! - I had an endless stream of contractors and repair men to interact with. But Mr. B did not. He had just started a day program that gave me my first minutes to myself without having to be on alert - then the lockdowns. So many depended on these programs to just get errands done or take a nap and recover. Our lives drift toward "Mass Formation" entrapped in a world of dementia. That "hypnosis," as Mesmet calls it, is broken by punctuations of real life, interacting with normal people.

    We'll see if this browser recognizes me. It's not the one I normally use.
    Baysider

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  12. @ Baysider,
    Seems to work.
    Try to delete/dump your browser cache in whatever browser you were using. Sometimes they get "confused". ;^)

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    1. tnx, Warren. It's never worked in Brave and I HATE giving any airspace to Chrome, but I can post there.

      Delete
  13. Get a load of THIS!

    Fauci: "I would prefer, and we all would prefer that people would be voluntarily getting vaccinated, but if they're not gonna do that, sometimes you've got to do things that are unpopular, but that clearly supersede individual choices..."

    See the interview HERE.

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    Replies
    1. PS. "It's not about breaking the 4th wave. It's about breaking people."
      Baysider

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  14. I have to say that I agree with many of the opinions placed here; however, one facet of the Walinsky (Why are good, smart and rational people acting so irrationally?) issue comes from the Peter principle.

    This woman (prior to being elevated to head the CDC) was just a college professor -- not a doctor of medicine or a doctor of law. Therefore, when she was told to implement a eviction moratorium (d@mn the private property rights, full speed ahead), she did it. When she is told to put on a show that distracts from other actors in the Biden regime, she does it.

    If Ms. Walinsky were a practicing medical doctor, I believe we would get a completely different reaction at the top of the CDC (and, therefore, throughout the nation regarding COVID).

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