Comments by "Darlene" (@darlene2709) on "Dr. Fauci pleads for increased vaccination rates: They are safe and highly effective" video.

  1. If the death rate was an Olympic sport, with over 600,000 deaths, the United States would win the gold medal.
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  2. Who needs pesky medical experts with degrees when we can rely on social media for medical advice? (sarcasm)
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  3. "It goes through the air," Mr Trump told the author on 7 February. "That's always tougher than the touch. You don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. "And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus."  From BBC News "Former President Donald Trump on Monday encouraged his supporters to get vaccinated but said he did not understand why Republicans were more skeptical of the shot—even as he again floated a conspiracy theory about Pfizer. Trump—who previously expressed skepticism about vaccines in general—said he doesn’t know why Republicans are hesitant to get inoculated, saying “I don’t know what that is exactly.” “I encourage people to take it, I do,” Trump said of Covid-19 vaccines, adding that he was immunized. Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump received the vaccine in January behind closed doors, unlike Joe Biden and other former presidents." From Forbes
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  4. @M Smithy Do the math. A 1% death rate without any health measures and vaccines would have meant over 3 million deaths in the United States.
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  5. Texas Anti-Mask 'Freedom Rally' Organizer Fighting For His Life With COVID-19. From Yahoo News. A Texas man who helped organize protests against pandemic restrictions is fighting for his life after being hospitalized for nearly a month with COVID-19, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported. His wife, Jessica Wallace, wrote Wednesday on Facebook that she had a “heartbreaking update” about her husband, Caleb. “He’s not doing good. It’s not looking in our favor,” she said. “His lungs are stiff due to the fibrosis. They called and said they’ve run out of options for him and asked if I would consent to a do not resuscitate. And it would be up to us when to stop treatments.”
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  6.  @williamh4172  That is the opposite of true. In the waning days of the campaign, President Donald Trump complained repeatedly about how the United States tracks the number of people who have died from COVID-19, claiming, “This country and its reporting systems are just not doing it right.” He went on to blame those reporting systems for inflating the number of deaths, pointing a finger at medical professionals, who he said benefit financially. All that feeds into the swirling political doubts that surround the pandemic, and raises questions about how deaths are reported and tallied. We asked experts to explain how it’s done and to discuss whether the current figure — an estimated 231,000 deaths since the pandemic began — is in the ballpark. Dismissing Conspiracy Theories, Profit Motives Trump’s recent assertions have fueled conspiracy theories on Facebook and elsewhere that doctors and hospitals are fudging numbers to get paid more. They’ve also triggered anger from the medical community. “The suggestion that doctors — in the midst of a public health crisis — are overcounting COVID-19 patients or lying to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided charge,” Dr. Susan R. Bailey, American Medical Association president, said in a press release. Hospitals are paid for COVID treatment the same as for any other care, though generally, the more serious the problem, the more hospitals are paid. So, treating a ventilator patient — with COVID-19 or any other illness — would mean higher payment to a hospital than treating one who didn’t require a ventilator, reflecting the extra cost. Experts say there is simply no evidence that physicians or hospitals are labeling patients as having COVID-19 simply to collect that additional payment. Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, wrote an opinion piece in September addressing what he called the “myths” surrounding the add-on payments. While many hospitals are struggling financially, he wrote, they are not inflating the number of cases — and there are serious disincentives to do so. “The COVID-19 code for Medicare claims is reserved for confirmed cases,” he wrote, and using it inappropriately can result in criminal penalties or a hospital being kicked out of the Medicare program. Public health officials and others also pushed back. Said Jeff Engel, senior adviser for COVID-19 at the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists: “Public health is charged with the duty to collect accurate, timely and complete data. We’re not incentivized to overcount or undercount for any political or funding reason.” And what about medical examiners? Are they part of a concerted effort to overcount deaths to reap financial rewards? “Medical examiners and coroners in the U.S. are not organized enough to have a conspiracy. There are 2,300 jurisdictions,” said Dr. Sally Aiken, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners. “That’s not happening.”
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