CDC: Coronavirus Deaths Increase 40 Percent in One Week




Coronavirus deaths have increased 40 percent in one week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters Wednesday.

While Joe Biden said Donald Trump was responsible for U.S. coronavirus deaths in 2020, the death rate in the past week has increased 40 percent, or per the CDC’s moving seven-day average, 1,633 deaths per day.


An estimated 339,000 individuals have died from the Chinese coronavirus under Biden’s watch.

For perspective, the CDC estimated about 358,000 people died in 2019 from stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes combined.

Deaths are not the only metric increasing. Hospitalizations have also ticked up 33 percent, according to Walensky. Tuesday’s hospitalization numbers exceeded the greatest number since the pandemic began, 62 million.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/st...virus-deaths-increase-40-percent-in-one-week/

The CDC contributed the rise in deaths to the omicron variant.

“The magnitude of this increase is largely related to the Omicron variant, which now represents about 90% of the COVID-19 cases in the country,” Reuter’s reported Walensky said.


Biden promised the nation in August he would lead the “democracies of the world” in “controlling this virus.”

“And the democracies of the world are looking to America to lead again — in two ways. First, to demonstrate we can control this virus at home,” Biden said.




In September, Biden said his top priority as president was “getting COVID under control.”

“That’s why I’ve made getting COVID under control my top priority from my first day as President,” Biden claimed.

 

How can that be possible?

Shooter assured us it was just a mild flu!

Thinskin

 

Under Crime Boss's watch..with a vaccine...handy for all to have access to....cuz it's free.

 

Mathematically, it is possible ... if you have 100.000 cases and 500 in hospitals and in second case 20.000 cases and 300 in hospitals, the hospitalized number increases in absolute value ... LOL ... why don't people learn about maths, percentages at school ? ... For instance, Romania had 9785 cases today of covid and 36 deaths, but in 4th wave we had days with 10.000 cases and 400 deaths ... so the death rate is 1/10 of the one in Delta wave ... probably this omicron will infect us all and slowly, this pandemic will become a "flundemic" ...

 

Still waiting to die.
Thinskin has assured us if we don't get vaccinated and hide in our closets WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!
Still waiting .......

 

Who's hiding?

Vaccinated and boostered I am on holiday!

Suffer schieter!

Thinskin

 

It is possible in fact inevitable becasue treasonous conservative/Republican Trump cult followers refuse to get vaccinated. Even after Trump suddenly turned pro vaccine and booster shots. Because after down playing COVID 19 lying about it and politicizing it he can't put the genie back in the bottle. Going against science and the vaccine is now the new culture war.

 

Biden ignores questions on failing COVID-19 policies
Biden has frequently avoided or ignored press questions in the past



In a now familiar move, President Biden refused to answer questions shouted to him by reporters during his latest public appearance.

On Thursday, Biden announced his latest plan to distribute free high-quality masks to the American people following the rise in cases caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. This followed the White House’s previous plan to also mail out 500 million at-home coronavirus tests to Americans within the next few weeks.

(CNN)

When Biden finished his announcement, a reporter shouted "Mr. President, do you have a message for vaccinated Americans who are wondering why they should continue to restrict their activities given your health officials say most Americans will get COVID at some point?"

Biden dodged the question saying, "Folks, we’ll talk about that later. Come on, let’s go."

Rather than leave the press as he’s been known to do at public events, Biden stayed and repeatedly ignored several questions regarding his administration’s COVID-19 policies.

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/sta...iden-ignores-questions-failing-covid-policies



joe Biden: AP (AP Newsroom)

As the press was ushered out, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell was heard saying "Maybe a press conference soon, Mr. President? We’d look forward to that."

Biden responded saying "Me too."

The Biden administration has been criticized numerous times for its latest COVID-19 policies, since Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign originally promised to "shut down" the virus. In a Thursday interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, she was unable to answer whether it’s time for the administration to pursue a new COVID strategy.



Lurie Children's hospital registered nurse Carolyn Ruyle prepares a dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Lurie Children's hospital Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Chicago. Health officials hailed shots for kids ages 5 to 11 as a major breakthrough after more than 18 months of illness, hospitalizations, deaths and disrupted education. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)


"It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day," Harris said. "Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down. And so right now we know we still have a number of people that, that is in the millions of Americans who have not been vaccinated, and could be vaccinated, and we are urging them to get vaccinated because it will save their life."

 

This might help. What makes treasonous conservative/Republicans so dangerous is they can't get laid.,

Odds and Ends

The mystery behind the mask. Still nothing on the calendar for Valentine’s Day? Try wearing a mask. A study from researchers at Cardiff University suggests that people are more likely to find someone attractive if they are wearing a mask than if they went maskless. The study further found that the common blue surgical mask made the wearer appear the most attractive, achieving higher ratings than plain cloth masks.

“The results run counter to the pre-pandemic research where it was thought masks made people think about disease and the person should be avoided,” researcher Michael Lewis told the Guardian. “The pandemic has changed our psychology in how we perceive the wearers of masks. When we see someone wearing a mask we no longer think ‘that person has a disease, I need to stay away.’”

Foreign Policy Morning Brief

 

The ends they will go to trying to get the citizens under control .........

If you don't wear a mask you won't get laid.
Really?
Choose .............

 

'We’re about to catch on fire': Inside a Texas hospital battling omicron and staffing shortages

Texas Tribune
January 17, 2022



AFP photo of a coronavirus patient.


Earl Sprunger sits in his hospital bed, struggling to speak. He anxiously strokes his long, scraggly goatee every time he winces in pain. He’d hoped to shave it off before coming to the hospital, but there wasn’t time.

The 67-year-old originally showed up here, at Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital, when an existing stomach issue flared up so badly he couldn’t stand. He tested positive for COVID and was admitted.

“These other problems I already had, but I didn’t know it was that bad. [My surgeon] believes COVID brought them on, like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Sprunger has been here, in the hospital’s respiratory unit, for a week now, with only his nurses and a Christian YouTube channel for company. His daughter, a mail carrier, has been nervous to visit. Sprunger, a retired veteran, is working on getting his strength back, taking slow, supervised walks around the room with the help of a walker.

All 32 beds in this unit are full with COVID patients right now, and the hospital has reopened the overflow unit. Almost all of the patients, like Sprunger, are unvaccinated.

“I don't do vaccines too much really,” he said. “Years ago, they gave me the vaccine for flu or whatever it was. It gave me the flu bad, real bad…so it makes me leery about that stuff now.”

Sprunger says there haven’t been enough studies about the coronavirus vaccines and he’s worried about the side effects. His brother, who got vaccinated and boosted, is hospitalized in Michigan right now, he says, and Sprunger believes the vaccine made him worse, not better.

If unvaccinated people do get sick from this new, highly contagious COVID variant, Sprunger says they can just do what he did.

“If you get it, go to the hospital,” he said. “They'll get you through it.”

That’s hard for nurse and unit manager Kristen McLaury to hear, considering just how many of her patients haven’t gotten through it.

McLaury treated one of the hospital’s first COVID patients and hasn’t stopped since. She now runs the respiratory unit, where she and her nurses have watched otherwise healthy young people gasping for breath. They’ve put countless people on oxygen, or taken them off life-support. They’ve had to comfort grieving families, and facilitate video calls so no one had to die alone.

She’s risked her own life on the frontlines for nearly two years, and now, watching these hospital beds fill up again, she just feels defeated. In Montgomery County, a conservative, wealthy suburban county northwest of Houston, only 53 percent of its more than 600,000 residents are vaccinated, which is among the lowest rates for Texas counties with populations exceeding 500,000. Less than 16 percent of residents have received a booster shot.

“I work 60 hours a week and I don't see my child, I don't see my husband, so that I can come and care for you while you yell at me because you're upset that you have a disease that I told you how to prevent in the first place,” McLaury said.

As the unit manager, it’s McLaury’s job to keep morale up among the other nurses, a herculean task right now. Like every hospital across the country, they’re facing a nursing shortage, an increase in employee infections and a potentially terminal case of staff burnout.

As the omicron variant surges, Texas is on track to soon surpass its previous COVID hospitalization record, set in January 2021. Then, at least, there was the hope of vaccines on the horizon. Now, nurses like McLaury don’t see much hope at all.

From behind her Houston Astros mask and face shield, she begins to cry.

“It’s real, and maybe it might not be you [in the hospital], but it might be somebody else,” she said. “That compassion, I think, is just gone. The world has become so selfish.”

In the emergency room, a logjam
On a Friday afternoon in mid-January, the emergency room at Houston Methodist The Woodlands is starting to fill up. Plastic sheeting divides the waiting area to encourage social distancing. HGTV plays quietly in the background as a nurse hooks a patient onto an IV drip.

Around the corner, a hallway has been converted into a makeshift triage area for overflow patients. It’s empty now, but last week, administrators say, they were using every seat.

It’s been non-stop at the ER since omicron first emerged in the area. They’re seeing the usual emergency room needs — broken arms, heart attacks, flu symptoms — as well as lots of people presenting with this new, highly transmissible COVID strain.

So far, omicron seems to be leading to fewer and shorter hospitalizations than previous coronavirus variants, and vaccines seem to be providing significant protection against serious illness. Not as many of the hospital’s intensive care unit beds are being taken up by COVID patients at this point.

But with so many people testing positive, and such a low vaccination rate in the county, the emergency room is seeing an increase in COVID cases that require hospitalization.

All of this leaves the emergency room with a serious logjam. Patients are waiting a long time in the lobby because the emergency room beds are currently occupied by patients waiting to be admitted to the hospital — not just for COVID, but for surgeries and medical care.

Unfortunately, right now, all those longer-term beds are tied up, due in part to an influx of unvaccinated COVID patients.

“Patients stay in the lobby for my entire shift,” said Meredith Moore, an emergency room nurse. “12 hours. It’s frustrating. It's hard for them…and they get angry. It’s justified. But who receives that anger? Me.”

Moore has been a nurse for nine years and joined the emergency department here since soon after the hospital opened in 2017. She’s young and energetic, with expressive eyes that communicate exactly what she’s thinking — even behind a mask.

Before the pandemic, Moore loved the fast-paced environment and the feeling of helping people who really needed it. She was especially good at controlling her emotions, a requisite for this job.

“In the ER, you have a patient die on you and you have to go into your next room, and you have to act like nothing is wrong,” she said. “That has gotten more difficult as this has gone on.”

Last week, for the first time, she broke down and cried in the emergency room.

“I had five ambulances that had to have a bed…I had a patient that was circling the drain…I don’t have a nurse to take care of that patient,” she said. “That was the first time in two years I really felt helpless, because if one thing falls, if one person starts coding, it’s all over. It all goes up in flames.”

“I don't think that people [know] unless you're on this side,” she said. “I tell my family all the time. I'm glad you don't know. But that's a heavy burden to carry.”

There’s some relief coming for Houston Methodist The Woodlands — a long-planned hospital expansion is opening this week, with many of those beds expected to be filled by patients already awaiting care.

More beds will help. But nurses say they also need more staff. Of the 26,000 employees that work across the entire Houston Methodist system, 1,500 employees tested positive for omicron in one week, according to the hospital’s chief medical officer, Jason Knight. That’s burdening an already thinned-out staff to the breaking point.

"We’re coding"
Moore remembers the early days of the pandemic, when she and her fellow nurses were lauded as “health care heroes.” Back then, it felt like the whole community was standing in solidarity with the doctors, nurses and hospital staff who were risking their lives to treat this terrifying new virus.

When the first COVID patients arrived at the hospital, she swallowed her fear and suited up to treat them. She isolated herself from friends and family who were scared to interact with her and kept to that routine for months.

And she wasn’t alone: across the country, doctors and nurses put on masks, picked up extra shifts, figured out emergency childcare and lived in the agonizing fear of bringing infection home to their families. They reassured each other — this was terrible, but it was temporary.

But now, almost two years later, health care providers have yet to take off their masks. It’s untenable, doctors and nurses say, to continue at this pace, without a break, for much longer.

And no longer does it feel like the community is doing everything they can to stand with them. Only 57 percent of Texans have received both vaccine shots, and less than 20 percent have followed up with a booster. Several nurses described the pain of treating patients all day and then seeing people without masks at the grocery store or hearing about “COVID fatigue” from friends and family.

“I actually had a patient that was sick and tested positive, and I gave him the whole COVID lecture,” said Dr. Knight. “I saw that person in H-E-B the next day.”

After nearly two years on the frontlines, health care workers’ empathy is thinning.

“You’re so opposed to this vaccination, but then you want to come in here and you expect me to be your waitress and…take care of your every want and need,” said emergency room nurse Seanna Davignon.

Davingon has been a nurse for 12 years. Before joining the emergency room staff, she worked with cancer patients in oncology.

“It's very frustrating when I see patients who legitimately are fighting for their lives,” she said. “There are people who want to live … and are doing everything they can to not get COVID and still end up with COVID.”

As she spoke, an announcement came over the hospital PA system, reminding nurses to distribute lunch trays to their patients. Before COVID, there were dietary staff members who did that. But to minimize exposure, that’s just another task that now falls to the nurses.

Davignon is looking for opportunities outside of nursing. She has her MBA, and it’s always been her plan to try to move into health care operations. But COVID has hastened her departure.

She’d like to come home from work and hug her children immediately, without having to change out of potentially infected clothes first. She’d like to not be asked, every shift, if she can take on overtime. She’d like a job that doesn’t require her to drink to decompress.

Houston Methodist saw 21% staff turnover last year, double its typical rate, according to chief nursing officer Kerri Guerrro. She said nurses are leaving to stay home with their kids, retiring early, taking jobs outside of health care or taking higher-paying travel nursing jobs.

This hospital is better positioned than most to weather these departures. They had staffed up in anticipation of the new expansion, and have gotten some short-term “angel nurses,” as they call them, through a state-funded program.

But these shortages are affecting the entire health care system. The Texas Department of State Health Services reports that the state is downmore than 3000 hospital beds at a time when they are needed more than ever.

The federal government has deployed nurses to hard-hit areas, including sending thousands to Texas in response to the omicron wave. Harris County announced last week that it was allocating more than $40 million to help hospitals staff up amid shortages. Lawmakers in San Antonio have called for Gov. Greg Abbott to send more relief nurses to the area.

These short-term solutions have created a bit of a shell game, where, in some cases, nurses are lured away from hospital positions for these higher-paying travel gigs, leaving vacancies that then must be filled by state and federally funded travel nurses.

Meredith Moore recently decided to leave Houston Methodist The Woodlands for a travel nursing job. She says the hospital has been extremely supportive and a wonderful place to work, and she hopes to return one day. But right now, she just has to get out of the emergency room setting.

After she cried at work the other day, she said her supervisor asked her how they could help.

“I said, you can't give me anything that I need,” she said. “I need more ambulances. I need more nurses. I need this [new expansion] open immediately. I need all these things that you cannot give me.”

That was a bad day, Moore said. But what she wants people — needs people — to understand is that there are more bad days coming, for health care workers and the people they treat.

A good emergency room nurse, she said, can anticipate that someone is going to code before they do. That’s why, she says, she and her fellow ER nurses can tell what’s coming. And it’s not good.

“We’re coding,” she said. “We’re about to catch on fire…and what then?”

Disclosure: H-E-B has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.



https://www.rawstory.com/were-about...ital-battling-omicron-and-staffing-shortages/

 

Hospital Utilization | HHS Protect Public Data Hub

 

NOTE: COVID-19 ICU bed utilization values include both confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19..

I know of several instances when folks leave a hospital...they leave with some type of illness, and contract an illness while in the hospital...the suspected cases are a bit suspect.

 

Treasonous conservative/Republican Trump cult followers killed Meat Loaf.

‘Bat Out of Hell’ Superstar Meat Loaf Died From COVID, TMZ Reports

Meat Loaf has died at the age of 74, his family has announced. The theatrical rock superstar, whose Bat Out of Hell remains one of the bestselling albums ever, died surrounded by his family on Thursday night. Meat Loaf’s family said in a statement posted to Facebook: “We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man... From his heart to your souls… don’t ever stop rocking!” The cause of death has not been confirmed, but TMZ reported that the performer, whose real name was Michael Lee Aday, died after falling “seriously ill” with COVID-19. His illness reportedly forced him to cancel a business meeting this week for a planned reality-TV show named after his hit “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That).” Meat Loaf sold more than 65 million albums worldwide over his five-decade career.

Read it at TMZ


https://www.thedailybeast.com/meat-loaf-dies-at-74?ref=home

 

438,110 Dead: NYT Admits Joe Biden Failed to Shut Down the Virus



Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
WENDELL HUSEBØ24 Jan 2022



President Joe Biden failed on coronavirus preparedness, testing availability, and implementing mandates, the New York Times admitted Sunday.

While the establishment media often hyped Biden’s ability to shut down the virus and return the nation to normalcy, the Times wrote Biden has failed to accomplish his 2020 promise to do so.


“Since he was inaugurated on Jan. 20 last year, 438,110 people have died from the virus, a number that is still increasing by more than 10,000 people every week,” the Times revealed.

On the issue of preparedness, the Times slammed Biden for not anticipating future variants and the need to have the nation ready to combat the virus. Biden “continued to focus almost single-mindedly on vaccinations even after it became clear that the shots could not always prevent the spread of disease.”

“The White House bet the pandemic would follow a straight line, and was unprepared for the sharp turns it took,” the Times piece continued. “The administration did not anticipate the nature and severity of variants, even after clear warning signals from the rest of the world.”

The article knocked Biden for not focusing enough on testing before and during the omicron variant, which caused a considerable amount of damage to the labor market:

The administration lacked a sustained focus on testing, not moving to sharply increase the supply of at-home Covid tests until the fall, with Delta tearing through the country and Omicron on its way. The lack of foresight left Americans struggling to find tests that could quickly determine if they were infected.

The Times then thumped Biden for not “forcing Americans to get shots” and for his “cautious” approach to implementing mandates and vaccine passports:

The president tiptoed around an organized Republican revolt over masks, mandates, vaccine passports and even the vaccine itself, as he worried that pushing certain containment measures would only worsen an already intractable cultural and political divide in the country. The nation’s precarious economic health, and the political blowback that Mr. Biden and members of his party could face if it worsened, made him all the more cautious. So rather than forcing Americans to get shots, he spent months struggling to accomplish it through persuasion.

The article comes as health experts have begun to suggest omicron may be losing steam, a progression Biden and his experts would likely welcome. Polling indicates Biden has a 33 percent approval rating amid an economy impacted by the coronavirus.

The economy and jobs ranked as larger crises for Americans than coronavirus, but many of Biden’s coronavirus policies have negatively impacted the economy, such as massive spending, mandates, school closures, and vaccine passports.

 

Karma can be a real bitch.

David Perdue Gets COVID in Midst of Gubernatorial Campaign

It’s a case of déjà vu for David Perdue. The Georgia Republican, who is running for governor, has tested positive for COVID and has gone into quarantine a year after he had to isolate during the final days of his senatorial campaign because of a coronavirus exposure. Perdue’s positive test comes hours after he spoke at a lunch in Atlanta where many attendees were unmasked, according to the Associated Press. Perdue says he does not have symptoms and plans to campaign virtually until cleared to return to the trail.

Read it at Associated Press


https://www.thedailybeast.com/david...st-of-georgia-gubernatorial-campaign?ref=home

 

If my doctor prescribed fentanyl for a cold these phony non fucks would be the first line to put us both in jail. But if they are treasonous conservative/Republicans and its COVID 19 well then of course they are special.

Kansas GOP lawmaker seeks legal cover as he faces investigation for prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19

Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
January 26, 2022



Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, appears after a committee hearing Wednesday at the Statehouse in Topeka regarding his proposed legislation allowing doctors like himself to prescribe drugs for off-label use to treat COVID-19. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)


Sen. Mark Steffen revealed Wednesday he is under investigation for prescribing ivermectin to COVID-19 patients, accused the chief medical director of the University of Kansas Health System of spreading propaganda, and challenged him to a public debate.

Steffen, a Republican and anesthesiologist from Hutchinson, introduced legislation that would give himself and other doctors the authority to treat COVID-19 patients with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine without fear of reprimand. He prevented Senate Bill 381 from being published until late Monday night, then complained that a hearing was postponed Tuesday morning because it gave “the media a 24-hour head start.”

About 60 individuals attended the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday to support Steffen and others who support his proposed bill. The model legislation, which also has been introduced in Tennessee, would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the off-label use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, even though health authorities say the drugs are ineffective in treating COVID-19 and could be harmful. Steffen said he intends to amend a provision in the bill that would grant doctors immunity from civil liability for any damages caused by the drugs.

The bill also would overturn any disciplinary action already taken against physicians for prescribing the drugs and block future discipline. Steffen said he has prescribed ivermectin to patients and has been under investigation by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for a year and a half.

“They clearly have no interest in resolving it,” Steffen said. “They’re using it to hold over to me to think they’re going to silence me as I serve as a state senator. And obviously, that’s not working out for them. None of it is patient-based complaints. It’s all what I’ve said in the public and what I said as a county commissioner. I stand by everything I said. And again, we’ve got board overreach that desperately needs to be put under control.”

Steffen walked away from reporters after the hearing when pressed for details about the investigation and his treatment of patients.

In remarks before the committee, Steffen referred to Steve Stites, chief medical officer of the KU Health System, as the “Fauci of Kansas.” Steffen said Stites spreads “propaganda” through his daily news briefings about COVID-19, and challenged Stites to join him in a public forum on the topic in Hays.


Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: [email protected]. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

https://www.rawstory.com/kansas-gop...scribing-ivermectin-for-19-seeks-legal-cover/

 

If stumblers doctor prescribed fentanyl to stumbler he'd be doing us a favor

 

Romney tests positive for coronavirus

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/591914-romney-tests-positive-for-coronavirus

 

This is supposed to be the United States of America not some shit hole country run by incompetents. These treasonous conservative/Republicans need to stop trying to make Trump dictator for life and do their fucking jobs.

Nearly 175K Patients Weren’t Told COVID Test Results Might Have Been Wrong

More than 174,000 people in Utah weren’t notified that their coronavirus test results were potentially incorrect, though state health officials had known for months that the hospital processing their tests might not have been complying with guidelines for accurate results. The Salt Lake Tribune reported Sunday that public officials knew about problems with testing at Timpanogos Regional Hospital as early as May 2020. Testing at the hospital’s lab was only suspended, over the use of “non-validated and non-verified instruments,” on Aug. 23. In that period, stretching more than three months, no patients were told about the possibility of false negatives or false positives, according to the Tribune. Though the hospital then drafted a letter about the risk of inaccuracy to be sent to just over 100,000 of the patients whose results had been flagged, it was never sent. Telling the affected people did nothing to aid “the public health imperative,” an official involved with the decision wrote at the time. “That goes to trust—100,000-plus people were trusting this entity with their health information,” a former state epidemiologist told the Tribune, “and if what they got back was wrong, they deserve to know the truth.”

Read it at The Salt Lake Tribune

https://www.thedailybeast.com/17400...nogos-hospital-might-have-been-wrong?ref=home