Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates

And I notice no links

 

Plus there was an underestimation initially in relation to how contagious it was.

But don’t you love the fact that it seems to be the SAME people refusing to wear masks who bring this up over and over

 

Ok I’ll give you points for the chart but not for interpretation
Soooo of all the patients who got covid 95% are unvaccinated but of the 5% who WERE vaccinated only 15% went to hospital and of those 15% 13% died

looks pretty good to me

 

If you remember the goings on in the past year and a half concerning this pandemic you don't need links to remind you of the debacles.

 

Huh?

I'll give you points for creativity in interpretation, but you just shot your reputation for logic all to Hell.


As the chart clearly shows, 5% of all cases are with vaccinated. That's all confirmed cases, not just hospitalized ones.

15% of hospitalized covid patients are fully vaccinated.

13% of COVID deaths are with fully vaccinated individuals.

See now, that wasn't hard, was it?

 

Dairyair, I think @557 has a point. I don't agree with him 100% on this (I don't think it was a deliberate lie) but I do agree with most of what he's saying.

I'm a doctor so I was always allowed to buy whatever I wanted; the only thing is, I had to upload a picture of my hospital badge to some vendors, or a copy of my medical license to some other vendors. So, yes, the CDC recommended to vendors, to restrict the sale of N95s and N100s to healthcare workers. Even Amazon, I was able to buy N100s from them, but had to first create a business account with my personal corporation that I use for tax purposes for my medical practice, plus a copy of my medical license.

I do believe that AT FIRST this was justified, because God knows how much we needed these masks, at a time when there were no vaccines and we were catching the bull by the horns. Not even my hospital had enough to buy, which is why I had to look around and buy a personal supply for me and for my wife (who is also a doctor).

Where 557 is correct, is that the CDC took WAY TOO LONG to reverse this policy. Domestically made N95 masks were no longer in short supply; my hospital had boxes and boxes with hundreds, thousands of masks, high quality American made 3M Aura N95s... our Infection Control department was passing these masks to all employees by the handful; my friends in other hospitals said their shortages were over as well; I didn't know of any healthcare worker not finding a sizable and sufficient number at that point, unlike the previous situation, but America's main vendors continued to restrict the sales because, I assume, the CDC did not take back their recommendation soon enough.

Was it intentional? I think it was an oversight; one of those communication problems between different sectors of the same organization.

557 sustains that they had to know about the in-stock domestically made N95s because the CDC through their branch NIOSH is the entity that certifies N95s. I think, not necessarily. You know, a maker sends to NIOSH 10 masks for them to test... they test them, they pass, they certify them... it doesn't necessarily filter up to knowing how many masks that maker is capable of manufacturing, how that maker inserts itself in the market and the distribution networks, and it doesn't necessarily go all the way to the higher-ups at the CDC that decide upon these recommendations. That a manufacturer is able to make a quality mask that passes NIOSH tests, doesn't necessarily mean that the manufacturer is also able to flood the market with the product. I can imagine that technicians at NIOSH go about their business, submit the masks to a flow of particulates, verify the rate of filtration, it is above 95%, voilà, the mask is certified. That seems like a totally different line of work than that of surveying the market and making decisions about the supply chain.

I don't believe in a deliberate lie or evil intention. Just bad policy, lack of communication, lack of efficiency, and yes, it does concern me that the CDC has failed like that, because as soon as the short supply was over, the CDC should have sponsored all sorts of advertising campaigns for the population to wear better masks, and to be allowed to buy them without proving the status of healthcare worker, from mass-marketing companies like Amazon, Walmart, Costco, etc.

It is true that Americans who actually care for better masks beyond flimsy surgical masks and useless cloth masks, had to resort to KN95s made in China, when 60% to 70% of them are counterfeit and don't filter anything. It's absolutely certain that many Americans caught the virus because they were wearing underperforming masks (including counterfeit ones), and many of them may have died, at a time when we did already have high quality American-made N95s that the public had no access to, at a time when healthcare workers were no longer short in masks. That's very unforgivable, in my opinion. I always strongly lamented the absence of a CDC-lead advertising campaign and sponsoring of public access to these masks.

Do I think that priority for healthcare workers was justified when there was a shortage? Absolutely! But as soon as the shortage was reversed, the American public deserved access to these masks.

 

There was something missing from his posts/links that I could not get.

When did mask supplies fill the needs of the healthcare industry? Maybe the CDC was slow in making the change in policy or incompetent.
But as a non healthcare person, I never knew that answer as you seem to know.

Being slow to change public policy doesn't equal to lying to the public. Perhaps just being overly cautious.

My main question that could not be answered I guess, is Why? Why would the CDC lie?
And so my entire position with 557 was to find out why he/she thought they would deliberately lie. Because, to me, that is what is point was all about.
The CDC deliberately lying. I didn't buy that.

 

I didn't, either. I've had some debates with 557 about that too, saying that I prefer to bet on incompetence (which is upsetting enough; I'm not giving the CDC a pass on this), lack of agility, lack of communication between parts of the agency, than on a deliberate lie. I also don't see what the incentive would be, for the agency to lie. I said that to 557; the politicians know that the previous administration was punished by the voters for their mismanagement; why would they deliberately want to do the same, and risk being punished by the voters too, in the mid-terms and 2024?

You know, my recollection of when things reversed is not very precise... things started getting progressively better. At first we were rationing N95s in the hospital to the Covid-19 unit and only providing regular medical grade facemasks (ASTM 2 or 3) to the other employees; we at least gave them extenders to enhance the seal on the regular masks, and for the few N95s we had, we contracted with a company that cleaned and sterilized them so that we could reuse them. Progressively they became more and more available, until we were flooded with them. It's hard to pinpoint, because it was gradual. And there is another factor that clouds my recollection: like I said, I had smartly secured my own supply for me and for my wife since the beginning of the pandemic, so I didn't necessarily pay a lot of attention to how many were being distributed to the other employees. We were allowed to wear our own as a way to ease the shortage, and I had a big supply of very good ones (3M 1860) that I took from home to work, reused a little, and discarded, so I actually declined to take the ones the hospital had, saying "give them to someone else who doesn't have his or her own." They got used to my standard response when they tried to bring masks to me, so they stopped bringing them. So, it's hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment in time when the tide changed for the other employees who didn't have their own stock. Maybe about 6 to 9 months ago? In any case, it was several months ago, and only very recently the CDC reversed the recommendation, so there is no doubt that they took too long to do so, in my mind.

I think I'd be able to get you a precise moment with some effort, because I think the divisor of waters was when we cancelled the contract with the cleaning/sterilizing business, because we had enough brand new ones to be able to discard them after a single use, without needing to reuse them. We had collection boxes and the employees needed to bag and label the masks with their names; they were then sent out to the contractor, and returned to the employees, cleaned and sterilized. I remember that I got in my mailbox a message saying that those collection boxes were being taken away as we no longer needed to reuse masks. If I have a moment at work, and if I didn't delete it, I could try to browse back and locate this email; then I'd be able to give you a precise date... but it won't be easy to locate an email from months ago (my mailbox at work gets like 100 emails per day), and I get pretty busy during the workday, to be able to spare enough time to go looking for an old email message.

I'll ask around if anybody remembers the approximate date when the cleaning/sterilizing contract was cancelled, and will let you know if I find out.

 

@dairyair Just a curious detail. Why was I so well-equipped that I didn't participate much in the struggles other hospital employees faced? It's thanks to my MD/PhD training. The added expertise in Virology was instrumental. I remember that very early in the pandemic, while the virus hadn't even been spotted in the United States yet, before people even woke up to the problem here, I looked at the reports of the new virus coming from other virologists in China, and thought, "uh-oh, this one has a high potential to cause the proverbial s...t to hit the fan... So, we have basically another SARS virus like the SARS-1 and the MERS but with a lower lethality rate so it won't peter out like the MERS (if you are a virus and you kill too many of your hosts, you die when they die). And it seems to have a longish asymptomatic incubation period so it will be able to go undetected for a while for each carrier who will then spread it to others, so it will be hard to control at the border and will get in and seed many cities... and it has a high R-naught number so it will infect people exponentially... it's airborne... maybe it's in aerosol too... and it seems to cause severe viral pneumonia that progresses rapidly to respiratory failure. OK, wife, this is bad, and it's coming. One way to be safe is to have an abundant stock of high quality respirators, if this thing spreads massively to the United States. Let's buy as many as we can for us before they disappear; Italy is getting in trouble; we'll be next."

I went online and secured several boxes of high quality 3M 1860 respirators; filled a closet in my home with boxes and boxes of them. Then the s... did hit the fan... the 3M 1860 went sold out, but I continued to buy other good masks, carefully researching the CDC list of NIOSH-approved makers, and going directly to their websites, avoiding middle-men that could be passing out counterfeit ones. So I got several other alternatives and supplemented my stock of 3M 1860s with other very good masks like the Halyard Fluidshield Surgical N95s, like European FFP2 masks, and I even found 3M N100s. I did get some Chinese N95s but only from the most reliable makers endorsed by the CDC and the FDA, and I bought directly from them (I emailed them and became a registered medical buyer).

So my wife and I never experienced any shortage.

Another thing I did, is that I bought a good supply of ASTM level 3 facemasks, and manufactured myself at home, several braces made of neoprene rubber sheets. These masks, abundantly available and cheap, can filter as well as an N95 mask (they contain the same blown melt internal layer that N95s have), if a perfect seal can be achieved with a neoprene brace, effectively making of them, home-made N95s. In a study, an ASTM level 3 facemask + a neoprene brace achieved 98% filtration. This is the brace:



So, to preserve our stock of high quality N95s for professional use, in the community (if we had to go grocery shopping, etc.) we had our ASTM level 3s with our home-made braces.

Since ASTM level 3s were not restricted to healthcare workers, I bought several boxes of them and sent to my son and his (then) fiancée (now wife), and to my daughter and her husband, and made for them and sent them neoprene braces too.

I was extremely prudent and I anticipated the problem. My wife (who is a medical doctor but not a virologist) at the time said "aren't you over-reacting? Do we need these many masks?" I said, "trust me, this virus is bad; what's the worse that can happen? If we buy too many and don't need them, we can always use the purchases as a write-off in our tax return; they are valid for 5 years, we'll eventually use them. Or else we can donate any excess to charity or to our hospital's Volunteer Service. But I have a bad feeling about this virus; better safe than sorry." She agreed, and we bought the masks.

 

@CenterField and @dairyair,

The reason I can’t swallow the incompetence excuse is based on the aforementioned details and others. Such as the CDC issuing guidance for healthcare to stop reusing and disinfecting masks in the spring of 2021. Why did they do this if they had no idea of the supply situation?

Also, it isn’t just a couple individuals in a basement lab dealing with 26 not 10 submitted samples that know about manufacturer certifications. The application process is long and involves CDC employees who go over quality control plans submitted by applicants. You can’t have a quality control plan without knowing manufacturing capacity. Also the application must include information on product tracking through the supply chain. You can’t have a supply chain tracking plan without some idea of the expected market. Furthermore, before approval is granted, a site audit is done to confirm the samples were manufactured on the actual production line and that quality control sampling and testing conforms to the plan in the application. I’m not sure how this could happen without some hint at production capacity. Also, periodic “field audits” of the product are done. This involves CDC employees buying masks from a retailer and testing them in the NIOSH lab to ensure quality control is working and the product is as advertised. It seems to me purchasing product in the market would be a pretty good indicator of availability.

Finally, it’s very hard for me to believe the CDC/NIH would go out of their way in print and in public interviews etc. for a year explicitly stating there WAS a shortage when there wasn’t if they were too incompetent to keep tabs on the supply of masks. It may be believable if the shortage angle hadn’t been pushed consistently even when questioned.

Another reason I think they are/were lying is the slow change in the excuse for not recommending N95 masks. Now that the cat is out of the bag and it’s obvious (to people paying attention) there is a surplus, the new excuse is becoming that people won’t wear them. LOL. In March of 2020 people had to be told NOT to wear them because they were VOLUNTARILY buying and wearing them, but now in late 2021 when they are a dime a dozen the new excuse for recommending against them is that people WON’T wear them anyway. It’s not logical.

The last piece of evidence is the dishonesty of the head of the NIH. If disinformation can come from him, why not the CDC?

I wish it was incompetence. I really do. I don’t want to have to deal with the implications of it being intentional any more than the two of you do. But the evidence is just too overwhelming in support of it being disinformation as opposed to misinformation. Do I think there are stupid people in public health? Yep. But not that many that are that stupid over such a long period of time. The CDC still isn’t recommending N95 masks. Nope. There’s no way the folks at the CDC are that stupid.

 

You crazy prepper!

I know the gut feeling. I had to go to Omaha mid February. On the way home I drove by the UNMC facility where they had some of the cruise ship passengers in isolation units the federal government contracts there. It started the wheels turning. By the time I was halfway home what you describe sunk in. I stopped at Sam’s Club and picked up a few things we were short of and didn’t shop or appear in public again until late July or early August 2020. Being prepared can be good for physical and mental health. I’m so thankful I’d been preparing for something like this for years. It was more than worth it just not having to deal with the craziness. Unfortunately you had to but the masks sure made it safer and less stressful!

 

Wow, it was naïve of me to suppose that the certification only involved lab tests by some technicians. Yes, of course, manufacture inspection was to be expected. And I did know that the CDC and the FDA keep tabs on subsequent production and decertify PPE that falls below standards once approved. So, yes, I should have thought of that. You make good points, as usual. I stand corrected on that. Your point about the warning to stop reusing/sterilizing is well-taken. The only reason to stop doing that, is when supplies are sufficient (like my hospital did) so obviously they had to know that stocks were up, when they issued that guidance. I now see your point better.

 

It would be interesting to know approximately when your hospital went from shortage to surplus. Most people don’t like anecdotal evidence but I find it quite valuable in validating other evidence like the timing of recommendations to stop reusing masks.

 

I can try to find out but I'm extremely busy today and out of town tomorrow and Thursday; the answer may take a while to find.

 

In order for anyone or entity to lie, there must be a reason for said liar to do so.

Only psychopath types lie for no reason. So until there's a legit reason, I won't adhere to they lied.
Lying is to gain an advantage or cover up a mistake. Maybe they made a mistake somewhere? I don't know.

But they are in the business of public safety, so I doubt it's a lie to cover something up. Just my 2cents.

 

Anybody who wants N95s made right here in the USA can have them, now. Literally by the several hundreds. I just got another ad in my mailbox talking of American-made NIOSH-Certified N95s available in 500-packs, 100-packs and 10-packs, for as little as $1.98 per mask. Now, even on Amazon you can find them. Just google them, you should be able to find several vendors.

I had no time whatsoever to explore the answer to when the tipping point happened. Worked like crazy today. Super busy day.

 

I guess I’ve seen so much misinformation/disinformation out of these folks I don’t discount the pathological theory.

I’m confused where this idea came from that a lie isn’t a lie unless we can pinpoint the “reason” or motivation. A lie is a statement that is made that is not true, made with the knowledge it isn’t true. Motivation is completely irrelevant. I have made a very strong case it’s impossible the CDC didn’t know the US mask supply throughout the pandemic. If it’s not strong enough to convince you I accept that. But diving into motives which you have already labeled conspiracy theory territory isn’t really productive in my opinion. The advice was dead wrong and it made a lot of people dead. I care only that people understand you can’t depend on these institutions to give you the best advice on your health and safety. I’m not interested in why they chose to be untrustworthy. It won’t bring anyone back to life or protect anyone going forward.

I do not work at the CDC. I can show with solid evidence much of their advice has been contrary to all known evidence. But I can’t know what the motives are. All I can do is present solid evidence they do know the bad advice they give is incorrect.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to inform people of many very basic ways to control and prevent disease. I would not classify them as being in the business of public safety at this point.

 

While I do agree with you that they lied and they issued bad and conflicting advice, I wouldn't dismiss them entirely. Lately, comments about the CDC here by other members, give the impression that everything they say is wrong and/or can't be trusted.

The CDC still has hundreds of pages of good advice, and still sponsors well-done research, and publishes results that are consistent with good science. I'd propose the idea that career scientists at the CDC remain more competent than not, and it's the political operators there who screw up.

Yes, the CDC lies, and I've agreed with you on this in many posts, and posted on my own deploring some of their lies and questioning their wrong advice.

But now we're getting to a situation where if I post a very good study sponsored by the CDC and published on their website, someone immediately says "it's from the CDC, we can't trust it." Not necessarily. A lot of what they publish we CAN trust. A paper there on their website must be gauged on its own merits (or lack thereof), not on the fact that it is reproduced on the CDC site.

Of course, it's their own fault that they've squandered public confidence. But there is also a growing anti-science movement in America and sometimes valid points made by the CDC are ignored or mocked not only because of the squandered confidence, but ALSO because of an anti-science stance. Present company excluded, of course. I know that you are very pro-science. But at times I think that even if the CDC hadn't lied and hadn't issued conflicting, politically-driven recommendations, the anti-science types would still doubt them.

I wouldn't want other members here to automatically have the knee-jerk of saying "CDC source? Must be BS!" because I still think that the majority of what we see on their website is actually true and accurate.

The lies and blunders were high profile enough that they became very visible. But it definitely doesn't mean that everything they say is wrong.

Say, there are 100 kids in a fraternity. One of them goes and steals something from a neighboring fraternity. It doesn't mean that all the other 99 kids there are also thieves (even if the thief is the president of that fraternity chapter). So, some CDC officials lie (usually, the higher-ups, politically appointed). It doesn't mean that all the 10,899 people who work for the CDC are liars.

By the way, I don't work for the CDC. I do have some acquaintances there, and as far as I know, they are not liars.

 

I’ve attempted to be very clear my intention is to help people be healthy, not destroy the CDC. In my discourse with @dairyair, @dagosa and others I’ve gone out of my way to address this point. I also routinely use the CDC as a source of information for myself and for sources here on PF. I agree there is still correct information to be had. But now I have to verify everything because I can’t take them at their word.

The problem is we shouldn’t have to verify every bit of information from the CDC. We went from “trust but verify” to “never trust without absolute verification”. That’s very difficult for people without an education in the subject matter to do. But at this point people do need to question whether they can trust the CDC. And most people won’t verify validity because of the serious appeal to authority issue we have. The masses are continuing to appeal to the authority of an organization known to be untrustworthy. The other problem is the consequences of the lies that were told. Too big for me to pass off as inconsequential (I know you aren’t doing that, but many do).

I would love nothing more than to re-instill trust in the CDC. But we can’t until we as a society hold them to account. I’m not seeing much of that. We have seen almost every private organization such as medical research centers etc. parrot the bad advice given by the CDC. There is a member here who tells me cloth masks are better than N95s because the CDC recommended against them and no other organization called them out for their disinformation. Other organizations can’t appeal to the authority of the CDC when the CDC is clearly in the wrong. It validates the disinformation from the CDC and further erodes trust in the entire scientific community (which outside of personal health for individuals is my next greatest concern). I get your fraternity analogy, but at some point everyone involved with and supporting an organization is complicit in the disinformation provided by that organization. If the whole fraternity bails the thief out of jail and keeps him as president without any criticism of his actions—even making excuses for his actions—we have a problem even though only one dude stole. Of course not everyone at the CDC is a liar. But at some point they share some responsibility just as good cops share responsibility with bad cops if they don’t actively work to change the situation.

I know this is a controversial subject that fires people up. But to be clear, my objective is the health of the individual first and “rehabilitation” of the CDC second. My criticism of the CDC isn’t meant to be destructive but constructive. But change can’t come if society denies the problem.

No, not everything the CDC says is wrong. But if one wants to be safe and healthy they better not assume the CDC is always correct. And if we want people to trust them going forward we have to clean out the trash.

 

You realize of course I’m not a mask “refuser” and I’m one of only a couple PF members who ISN’T anti mask? And you realize of course everything I posted is verifiably factual?

 

The cdc doesn’t need interpretation of its data. They do it much better then any of us. They provide a summary and footnotes and references. The only re interpretation I’ve seen, has been incorrect.

One thing that is avoided by deniers of the cdc. It works in conjunction with 171 medical research facilities and with information for studies provided for by thousands of hospitals and doctors.

it’s laughable if it wasn’t sad. You think the advice or recommendations of the cdc are wrong, then ask your own healthcare providers and any medical center in the US. If you think you're smarter then they are, look in the mirror. The guy in the other side has an agenda that has little to do with healthcare.

 

You correct the cdc by getting on line and checking their recommendations with the major medical facilities in the US. There are five major research and hospital facilities in Boston area alone. Get on the computer or phone and ask them instead of getting five people on line.

 

Not by the Mayo Clinic or Harvard Med or Mass General or UCLA or…….you’re own primary care. They are all part of the research the cdc does.

 

Neither the CDC or anyone else has any data showing cloth masks are superior to N95s for public use. Nobody has any such data. If it existed you could post the study/studies containing that data. Of course you can’t. It’s OK. I can’t stop you from denial of science if that’s what you have your heart set on. I do wish you would reconsider though. You would be much safer if you would.

Several PF members have made the implicit claim I’m smarter than the people at the CDC. But I’ve consistently corrected them. I’m not smarter, I’m just honest about the evidence.

 

no one said they ( non respirators) were more effective in a lab or in a hospital setting or where healthcare providers had to be with sick people. Why do you make up false reasons why n95 is not recommended. The people in most need, elderly or compromised or even those with facial hair…..can’t wear them for any length of time….dah.

so you have a stash and wear them all the time. If you haven’t, you’re unqualified to question Harvard Med. And yes, we have data supporting masking that are not respirators. ……n95 is a respirator.