What do you get when you cross a wave of illness with an exodus of nurses and caregivers? We may be about to find out. The experience in Israel, where they vaccinated early and widely, shows the Pfizer vaccine starts petering out around six months. A Japanese preprint study says that with a few common mutations, the delta variant could escape the Pfizer vaccine neutralizing antibodies. And now, several hospitals are mandating vaccination and Biden is requiring nursing home employees to be vaccinated. I'm not in the health care industry, but from what I've heard, a lot of nursing homes would have to shut their doors in the face of such a requirement. Alex Berenson, on the other hand, thinks the hospital mandates, at least, will go bye-bye if nurses sit tight. Let's hope so.
Vaccine Mandates
The FDA's approval of the Pfizer vaccine is likely to increase the mandates--which seems to be the only purpose of the approval. The acting commissioner of the FDA was their "watchdog" during the opioid epidemic, which should offer a clue about how much the FDA cares about your health. Opioids aren't the only problem drugs the FDA greenlighted:
Seventy-one of the 222 drugs approved in the first decade of the millennium were withdrawn, required a "black box" warning on side effects or warranted a safety announcement about new risks, Dr. Joseph Ross, an associate professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues reported in JAMA on Tuesday. The study included safety actions through Feb. 28....
It took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for these safety concerns to come to light, the study found, and issues were more common among psychiatric drugs, biologic drugs, drugs that were granted "accelerated approval" and drugs that were approved near the regulatory deadline for approval.
Europe is less like a corrupt banana republic than we are in approving drugs. The British Medical Journal blasted the FDA's decision for its haste, lack of data, the vaccine's waning efficacy, problems with the studies (unblinding of the control group, for one thing) and urged the FDA to "slow down and get the science right."
The increase in vaccine mandates from the FDA's approval may lead to job losses, nursing home closures and even more nurse shortages.
Nursing Homes
Surely, though, they won't let nursing homes close and make Grandma--oh, wait. They sent COVID patients to nursing homes in New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They cleared COVID patients out of the hospital and into care homes in the UK. Even Sweden acknowledged it didn't take care of its elderly. Biden's mandate requires nursing homes' employees to be vaccinated to get federal funds like Medicare and Medicaid, but employees are noping out of vaccinations. If you have a family member at a nursing home that relies on those funds, it might be time to start looking for alternatives. If your family member is ON Medicaid--I don't know what to tell you: taking care of someone at that stage can be a full-time job. But it's better to start making a plan now than later.
Job Loss
What to do if your employer wants you to get a COVID vaccine but you don't want to? Mentally prepare yourself to find another job. I've been through many, many layoffs and the hardest part is mental, not the material privations that follow. If you work at a small company, you might talk about facts with the decision maker, but if you're at a big corporation, forget it. Sit tight, don't give your employer any reason to discipline you. If enough employees refuse, your employer might reverse course. An employee without health insurance at a very small or flaky outfit should ask for proof of workers' compensation coverage before getting an experimental vaccine (yes--the clinical trials are still in progress). The manufacturers are immune from liability, but you can file a workers' comp claim if your employer requires a vaccination that ends up harming you.
Nursing Shortage--Don't Get Sick
There's already a nursing shortage: many of them retired or left and now there is or soon will be, depending on where you are in the US, a wave of delta cases. Don't get sick. Get a vitamin D test and start supplementing now: unless you're a lifeguard, you're not likely to get enough sunlight and unless you start now, your level won't be optimal going into winter. Your level should be 60-70 ng/mL. Also, cut the carbs and lose the COVID-19 pounds and high blood sugar. Almost all of the "young, healthy" people with severe COVID I keep hearing about turn out to be obese. I'm not trying to be mean or suggest any of these people deserved to get sick--I'm acknowledging that too much excess weight is a risk.
Vitamin D and limiting carbs are a few of several strategies we use at the Inner Circle, and hardly anyone in our group of mostly retirement-age people has mentioned getting a bad case of COVID. (I don't get any consideration for sending people there.) Dr. Davis has YouTube videos and books if you want more details of our health strategies. People talking about wearing a mask or juicing or 5G aren't serious.
Think about a surgery center if you need an operation but have time to plan it. And think about avoiding surgery by postponing your ski trip--or an illness by postponing your cruise.
Begin Stocking Up
I don't have any insight into supply chains, but this might not be a good time to be caught short. Find a farm that sells to the public in case stores run short as they did last year. Stock up on supplements and medicines, too--and don't go crazy with toilet paper.
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| Photo from Pexels.com |
Protect Yourself!
Proceed as if you are going to be exposed to the delta variant, keeping in mind that masks don't stop aerosol spread and vaccine protection wanes with time. Not everyone who was vaccinated will get booster shots. If your area hasn't had a big wave or two of COVID, it's likely to get one soon.
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