Covid-19 #37: Mississippi Worming

[The Anti-Targ]

If I've been duped into thinking less of Joe Rogan for falsified anti-vax and pro-ivermectin views then I am shamefaced at being taken in by such a ruse.

Though all ire about ivermectin should be directed to any scientists who falsified data and bore false witness to the efficacy of ivermectin. Such people should be named and shamed and barred from having their name put to any published work for several years.

Also I read tales of intelligence agencies and special branches of law enforcement becoming concerned that anti-vaxx terrorism is now a potential threat that cannot be dismissed out of hand. Is it true that a vaccination centre in Poland was subject to an arson attack?

[Fragile Bird]

Wow. An Australian I know says the Rupert Murdoch media have published a story about the first Aboriginal person who died of Covid-19 with a description of his criminal record.

There are a lot of things I might expect in a story about a person who died of Covid-19, like where the person worked, where their friends thought they picked up the infection, whether family members are also sick, and so on. But not a history of their criminal record. I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet.

[HoodedCrow]

Republicans collect ruined people, because there is no odium. Criminal tendencies are a hiring point.

[HoodedCrow]

The corollary is that you must take up the maximum amount of Murdoch space belittling people of color. It doesn’t matter who. If they are female and colored there are bonus points. Routine misogyny goes without saying. 

[Zorral]

"Covid Medical Bills Are About to Get Bigger
As some insurers focus on encouraging vaccination, temporary waivers that kept patient costs low are expiring."

 Paywalled.  Since this is important info, affecting all of us, I've c&p the thing here. Due to the forum's formatting, of course the embedded links don't come through, though.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/upshot/covid-medical-bills.html?

Quote

 

Americans will most likely pay significantly more for Covid medical care during this new wave of cases — whether that’s a routine coronavirus test or a lengthy hospitalization.

Earlier in the pandemic, most major health insurers voluntarily waived costs associated with a Covid treatment. Patients didn’t have to pay their normal co-payments or deductibles for emergency room visits or hospital stays.

Most Covid tests were free, too.

The landscape has since changed, as the pandemic persists into its second year. Federal law still requires insurers to cover testing at no cost to the patient when there is a medical reason for seeking care, such as exposure to the disease or a display of symptoms. But more of the tests sought now don’t meet the definition of “medical reason” and are instead for monitoring.

And insurers are now treating Covid more like any other disease, no longer fully covering the costs of care. Some businesses, like Delta Air Lines, are planning to charge unvaccinated employees higher rates for insurance, citing in part the high hospitalization costs for Covid cases.

“Insurers are confronting the question about whether the costs of Covid treatment should fall on everyone, or just the individuals who have chosen not to get a vaccine,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation who has researched how insurers are covering Covid treatment.

The federal rules that make coronavirus testing free include exemptions for routine workplace and school testing, which has become more common as students head back to the classroom and as companies mandate regular testing for unvaccinated workers.

Because insurers are not required to cover that regular testing, some patients have already received testing bills as high as $200 for routine screenings, according to documents that patients have submitted to a New York Times project tracking the costs of Covid testing and treatment. If you’ve received a bill, you can submit it here.

Some of the highest bills, however, will probably involve Covid patients who need extensive hospital care now that most insurers no longer fully cover those bills. Seventy-two percent of large health plans are no longer making Covid treatment free for patients, a recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

This includes Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, the largest health plan in a state experiencing one of the country’s worst outbreaks. On Wednesday, Florida Blue began requiring patients to pay their normal deductibles and co-payments for Covid treatment. Toni Woods, a spokeswoman, said the plan was now focused on encouraging vaccinations.

“When the Covid-19 pandemic began last year, we implemented several emergency provisions to temporarily help our members,” she said in a statement. “Medical diagnostic testing for Covid-19 as well as vaccinations continue to be available to members at $0 cost share.”

Oscar Health, which sells coverage in Florida and 14 other states, also ended free Covid treatment this week. It cited the widespread availability of the vaccine as a key reason.

“We started waiving cost sharing for Covid-19 treatment at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, when there were few options available for those who fell ill with the virus,” said Jackie Khan, an Oscar spokeswoman. “We believe that the Covid vaccine is our best way to beat this pandemic, and we are committed to covering it and testing at $0 for our members.”

The new policies generally apply to all patients, including the vaccinated; people who get sick with a breakthrough infection; and children under 12, who are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

“If you have a small kid who gets Covid at school and ends up at the I.C.U., that family is going to now be stuck with the bill even though that patient did not have the ability to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan who researches Covid care costs.

The average Covid hospitalization costs approximately $40,000, researchers have found. A lengthy hospital stay — one that requires time in the intensive care unit, or a transfer by air ambulance — can cost many multiples more. Most insured patients won’t pay that entire bill; they will face whatever share they owe through deductibles and co-payments.

Dr. Chua and his colleagues published research this summer finding that, among patients who had to pay a share of their Covid hospitalization, the average costs were $3,800.

“There were some patients where it was $10,000 and others where it was $500,” he said. “It gives you some semblance of what things will now look like without the waivers.”

Surprise bills for routine Covid testing could be smaller but more common, as schools and workplaces increasingly rely on regular screening to prevent coronavirus from spreading.

At many workplaces, unvaccinated workers must submit to monitoring at least weekly. Some employers, including the federal government, plan to fully cover the costs of those tests. But others, including some hotels and universities, will ask unvaccinated workers to bear some or all of the testing costs.

Rebecca Riley recently received a $200 bill from a laboratory with an unfamiliar name. When she called to inquire about the charge, she learned it was a fee for a Covid test. Her son, a high school student, is regularly tested at his Los Angeles-area high school.

“I didn’t expect to get any bills,” she said. “I feel stupid, but I’d heard the tests were free.”

Ms. Riley contacted her insurer about the charge, and it agreed to pay the full amount. But she now worries about future surprise testing bills. “I really feel for the families that won’t be able to pay,” she said.

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

At this point, if insurers are not forcing the willfully unvaxxed to pay for the medical costs they are creating when they inevitably get the virus.

Then they are complicit in enabling them, not to mention unfairly shifting their burden onto the rest of us that are vaccinated and trying to avoid spreading the virus.

They should pay their share for the carnage they are willfully contributing to.

Eta: I would support making them wear mandatory scarlet UV's across their chests for good measure, announcing to the innocent public their unvaxxed status.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Though all ire about ivermectin should be directed to any scientists who falsified data and bore false witness to the efficacy of ivermectin. Such people should be named and shamed and barred from having their name put to any published work for several years.

No. Ire should also be directed toward "news" media personalities and talking heads who have been pushing this nonsense. If people are still pushing this bullshit after the study was debunked and the CDC, WHO, and Merck  all made statements telling people not to take it, that's on them. 

I'm getting to the point where I'm beyond caring. Give them the goddamn horse pills and get it over with already.  

5 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

At this point, if insurers are not forcing the willfully unvaxxed to pay for the medical costs they are creating when they inevitably get the virus.

Then they are complicit in enabling them, not to mention unfairly shifting their burden onto the rest of us that are vaccinated and trying to avoid spreading the virus.

They should pay their share for the carnage they are willfully contributing to.

They won't have any medical costs because they won't be able to get into a hospital.

Going forward, the reaction from life insurance companies will be interesting.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

There will be more of this.

"We cannot support anyone who has proactively worked to make this pandemic worse by spreading misinformation, politicizing and DISCOURAGING the wears of masks and actively dissuading people from receiving life-saving vaccinations," Lee wrote to Owens over email. "My team has worked overtime, to exhaustion, unpaid and underpaid this past year, spending our own capital to make sure our community remains protected. It would be unfair to them … to serve you."

[Zorral]

32 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I'm getting to the point where I'm beyond caring. Give them the goddamn horse pills and get it over with already.  

But-but-but what about the horses?  Cruelty to animals! 

What I still cannot in any way parse is those who:

1) believe covid doesn't exist, is a hoax; 2) masking and vaccination are hoaxes to take over my freedum; 3) hospitals force people onto ventilators so they can make more money out of the hoax that is covid; 4) I get sick and go to a hospital, while insisting I am not sick; 5) In the hospital they give me covid, which doesn't exist.

I cannot get this.

[rotting sea cow]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

3) hospitals force people onto ventilators so they can make more money out of the hoax that is covid;

In Germany btw there is an investigation because some hospitals apparently inflated the number of COVID ICU patients. That high number was btw used to justify the last "emergency-brake" lockdown. I might misremembering some details and I cannot find the link right now

But I come to say. What in the sevens hells in happening in Israel? More than 20 thousands cases registered today. The death rate doesn't look too good either despite high vaccination rates in the risk populations.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

But-but-but what about the horses?

If it means controlling the covidiot population, we as a society must be willing to accept the loss of many beautiful, sexy, sexy horses.

My heart will go on. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

If it means controlling the covidiot population, we as a society must be willing to accept the loss of many of beautiful, sexy, sexy horses.

My heart will go on. 

Anti-vaxxers think they're the king of the world, but Covid is Rose hogging all the space on the raft.

[Which Tyler]

Trigger Warning: child mortality

 

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

But I come to say. What in the sevens hells in happening in Israel? More than 20 thousands cases registered today. The death rate doesn't look too good either despite high vaccination rates in the risk populations.

Crazy isn't it.

Quote

Data showed that of the serious cases being admitted to hospital, around 60 per cent of patients were people who had been fully vaccinated, though most were over 60 or with underlying health conditions.

Quote

 

The most cautionary tale for Canada could be observations that the rate of infection has been found to be higher in people vaccinated back in January, compared with people who were vaccinated in April, said Leshem.

"In simple words: That protection against infection is waning over time."

These results were observed in people who were double vaccinated, regardless of age or whether they were immunocompromised, he said.

 

It does seem to justify boosters, except Israel has been giving boosters for over a month now and it hasn't stopped the very poor trends.  Yet.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-covid-delta-variant-booster-1.6159472

If 60% of the hospital cases are fully vaccinated, I wonder what the percentage of fatalaties is.  Its fatality rate is less than half its previous peak (but cases have eclipsed its previous peak), so vaccination has improved things a lot.  But still, very poor numbers.

I do think there are way too many people unvaccinated in Israel.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

There will be more of this.

"We cannot support anyone who has proactively worked to make this pandemic worse by spreading misinformation, politicizing and DISCOURAGING the wears of masks and actively dissuading people from receiving life-saving vaccinations," Lee wrote to Owens over email. "My team has worked overtime, to exhaustion, unpaid and underpaid this past year, spending our own capital to make sure our community remains protected. It would be unfair to them … to serve you."

I like this bit

Quote

Last year, Owens tweeted that the "coronavirus is the greatest rigging of an American election that has ever taken place." 

She is right, but wrong about who did the rigging. If the White House response was big reason for Trump losing the election then it was a self-rigging, every mis-step the white house made was of its own volition. And it's not like all incumbent govts lost elections during this pandemic.

[IheartIheartTesla]

The new thing from conservatives appears to be this "natural immunity is better than the jab", therefore no need to mandate vaccines. While the former may be true (and is known to be true for some diseases, and not true for others); it still makes no sense to get COVID to prevent for future COVID variants. Also, natural immunity ebbs after a while, and the only recourse then is to get a booster. They also seem unwilling to accept that vaccinated folk have lower viral loads for some reason.

[lady narcissa]

There are deaths directly caused by Covid and then there are the deaths that happened because of Covid that will never feed into the official numbers but are caused by it none the less.  Case in point....today in Violence Court in Cook County, Illinois (which is the county Chicago is in) - a man appeared, charged with murdering a 16 year old.  He was previously - last August - charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm but prosecutors dropped the case "due to Covid".  If only they had pushed forward with the charges, he might have taken a plea deal and served some time and that 16 year old would still be alive today.  So many what ifs.

[Clueless Northman]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

It does seem to justify boosters, except Israel has been giving boosters for over a month now and it hasn't stopped the very poor trends.  Yet.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-covid-delta-variant-booster-1.6159472

If 60% of the hospital cases are fully vaccinated, I wonder what the percentage of fatalaties is.  Its fatality rate is less than half its previous peak (but cases have eclipsed its previous peak), so vaccination has improved things a lot.  But still, very poor numbers.

I do think there are way too many people unvaccinated in Israel.

We need to take into account the finer details: what % by age range. It probably turns out the most unvaccinated are the younger ones, who are less at risk of ending up in hospital. We also need to compare % of vaccinated vs unvaccinated, by age range, specially for 80+ and 70-80. There's no way the odds are similar, and when previously people took down Israeli numbers, they found out that the odds of ending up in hospital were 10-15 times higher for unvaccinated one of similar age.

About boosters, they talk about "rate of infections", which is close to irrelevant with vaccinated people. What matters is  the kind of infection, how severe it actually is. If 50% of vaccinated infections are asymptomatic, more than 45% are a common cold for a couple of days, and 0.1% require a short hospital stay, then I'm not sure everyone requires a booster shot right now, it's more a choice based on risk assessment. If the kind of infections show similar pattern in both vaccinated and unvaccinated, then boosters would indeed be very useful.

[Padraig]

13 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

If 50% of vaccinated infections are asymptomatic, more than 45% are a common cold for a couple of days, and 0.1% require a short hospital stay, then I'm not sure everyone requires a booster shot right now, it's more a choice based on risk assessment.

All that is fair.  And if most of the fully vaccinated people are over 60 or with underlying conditions, there may be a case for boosters for that demographic.  Especially if they were vaccinated early on and their immunity has wained

Not that we know whether boosters makes a major difference.  There is a suggestion that it is helping but there hasn't been time for proper research yet.

I imagine Israel is a little spooked by the huge numbers and has decided it is better to be safe than sorry.  Vaccines for all.

34 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The new thing from conservatives appears to be this "natural immunity is better than the jab", therefore no need to mandate vaccines.

I have seen more and more research that does suggest natural immunity is better than a vaccine for COVID.  But as you say, it doesn't really change the logic for vaccination.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

20 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The new thing from conservatives appears to be this "natural immunity is better than the jab", therefore no need to mandate vaccines. While the former may be true (and is known to be true for some diseases, and not true for others); it still makes no sense to get COVID to prevent for future COVID variants. Also, natural immunity ebbs after a while, and the only recourse then is to get a booster. They also seem unwilling to accept that vaccinated folk have lower viral loads for some reason.

Also the Jab gives you immunity with an infinitely smaller health risk.

It's not new; it just might be rearing its ugly head again. British conservatives were advocating for this back in the first half of 2020. There was also the Texas Lt. Gov. who suggested people should be willing to die for the economy. Never underestimate the ability of a reactionary conservative to replicate the worst aspects of 20th century Soviet-Marxist thought.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/older-people-would-rather-die-than-let-covid-19-lockdown-harm-us-economy-texas-official-dan-patrick

I'd say it has been demonstrated numerous times in the last 2 years that carrying on "business as usual" and dealing with the effects is not he best idea. The increase in the infection rate would cause a health care system collapse and death rates will go through the roof. See Italy and Spain in spring/summer of 2020 to get an idea. Last I heard, Tunisia's health care system has effectively collapsed.

If people had listened to these idiots when this thing started, national death rates all over the world would have one or two more zeroes added to them.

What will become a larger problem in the months ahead will be fatigue and exhaustion among health care professionals. I think we're already starting to see it. Add to this the harassment and intimidation these people are getting from some parts of society, and we're going to have a big problem... soon.