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As far as the hospital it remains about 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated. The percentage of vaccinated patients seems to be slowly creeping up daily. I am hearing from my friends all over the country that the same is true. You no longer hear about 1% vaccinated anymore in the hospital. A slow but surely increasing prevalence of the vaccinated in the hospitals. The vaccinated inpatients tend to be older and vaccinated at the beginning in DEC or JAN. The unvaccinated are younger usually 40-60 almost always with obesity or diabetes. Unlike the last wave, the majority of these patients are in and out in a day or two. I am not saying there are not sick people there are. Just not nearly as many as before. This too is confirmed by my friends. The critically ill are few but are almost entirely made up of the unvaccinated. We have had but 2 vaccinated in the ICU this whole time. The stories you are hearing of crashed hospitals in the big cities are happening because large numbers of non-critical patients are being admitted and discharged with continued large numbers coming into the ER. The other factor is staffing. Nurses have become depressed and are leaving in droves. And the ancillary staff in many places has been decimated by employees leaving because of the vaccine mandates. There is more at work than patient numbers by the panic porn that is all over the MSM.
The vaccines are clearly not working as promised. Large numbers of vaccinated patients are getting sick. I remember when I did the guest post back in December about the Pfizer trials. I was and am gravely concerned about the medical establishment in the guise of the Editors of NEJM referring to these miraculous vaccines, perfect in every way, as a triumph. There are lots of things in medicine the past decades that are indeed miracles. But calling something a triumph before a shot was in the first arm betrayed to me a certain level of hubris and I knew in my heart at that very moment that Nemesis, Hubriss best friend, would soon be making a visit.
And THIS is truly a gem:
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The same kind of positive reinforcement cycle is what generates a mob. All it takes is a few loud people to incite it by declaring someone or something a target. A portion of the crowd goes along enthusiastically. The rest keep silent and conform in outward behavior even as they are troubled within; to each, it looks like he or she is the only one who disagrees. Writ large to the totalitarian state, the support of a majority of the population is unnecessary. The appearance of support will suffice.
The mechanisms that generate the illusion of unanimity operate within science, medicine, and journalism as well as among the general public. Some conform enthusiastically to the orthodoxy; others complain in whispers to sympathetic colleagues. Those who voice dissent publicly become radioactive. The consequences of their apostasy (excommunication from funding, ridicule in the media, shunning by colleagues who must “distance themselves,” etc.) serve to silence other potential dissidents, who prudently keep their views to themselves.
Notice that here I have not yet said what I personally think about vaccine safety, efficacy, or necessity (be patient); nonetheless, what I have said is enough for anyone to distance themselves from me to keep safe. If I’m not an anti-vaxxer myself, I certainly have their cooties.
Someone on an online forum that I co-host related an incident. His children had a play date scheduled at their friend’s house. A parent called him to ask if his family had been vaccinated. Politely, he said no, and his children were immediately disinvited.
While this parent doubtless believed he was being scientific in canceling the invitation, I doubt science was really the reason. Even the most Covid-orthodox person understands that the non-symptomatic children of non-symptomatic parents pose negligible risk of infection; furthermore, since vaccine believers presumably trust that the vaccine provides protection, rationally speaking they have little to fear from the unvaccinated. The risk is vanishingly small, but the moral indignation is huge.
Many if not most people get the vaccine in an altruistic civic spirit, not because they personally fear getting Covid, but because they believe they are contributing to herd immunity and protecting others. By extension, those who refuse the vaccine are shirking their civic duty; hence the epithets “filth” and “assholes.” They become the identifiable representatives of social decay, ready for surgical removal from the body politic like cancer cells all conveniently located in the same tumor.
Sheds new light on Gilead's link to this, doesn't it?