@Hyolobrika So people can’t tell the difference between the control group and the people who have the vaccine is what I’m hearing
Conspiracy theorists seem to think the vaccine will cause some severe adverse affects starting within a year or two from now, continuing through the next four or five years until all side effects are made manifest. I don’t know what their basis for all of this is but it’s their general thinking and very interesting
For my part I don’t think the conspiracy theorists are entirely correct, but I do believe the elites may actually be slightly afraid of adverse affects from the vaccines, driving them to try and remove the control group. I don’t think they think the effects will be as severe as the conspiracy theorists do, or else they wouldn’t get vaxxed (the exception is when it comes to fertility, if that goes down they would view that is no great loss), they just don’t want to be blamed for the vaccines’ negative consequences later on down the road.
The actual [CNN quote](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/02/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html) reads (emphasis mine):
> More than 80% of Americans 16 and older have *some level of immunity* against the coronavirus, *mostly through vaccination*, a survey of blood donations indicates.
Two things are important here:
- the poster conveniently edited out the "some level" qualifier, implying a higher degree of immunity than the study claims
- that isn't the prevalence of immunity among the unvaccinated, but among the whole population
From the same article:
> By May, 83.3% of samples had antibodies to the virus, most of them from vaccination.
> Roughly 62% of the total US population has received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose, according to CDC data, and about 52.7% is fully vaccinated.
> More than 39 million Americans have been diagnosed with coronavirus infection since the pandemic started in 2020.
If the US population is 328 million, that 39 million diagnosed represents about 12%. So we could estimate the population breakdown with a couple simplifying assumptions.
- 62% have some immunity from at least one dose of vaccine
- 12% have some immunity from a diagnosed infection
- 17% have no immunity
- 9% have some immunity from some other cause
What might that "other cause" be? Well...
> The survey, led by the CDC, also indicates that about twice as many people have been infected with the virus as have been officially counted.
Far from "no point in the vaccines", they account for about three quarters of partially- or fully-immune Americans, with diagnosed and undiagnosed infections making up the remainder in about equal proportions.
Empirically, it doesn't seem to be - just yesterday the news reported another major regional hospital reached capacity in its ICU and has to use alternative means to care for new critical patients. I guess it might've been enough before the delta variant, or if vaccination rates were uniform across a wider area, because there wouldn't be low-adoption areas acting as reservoirs, which would make it harder for the virus to keep circulating.
@khird @Hyolobrika Are these individuals in the ICUs sick with #COVID, or something else?
@khird @Hyolobrika Also, are they near capacity because they’re filling up all the space in the hospitals, or because workers are quitting? Workers in pretty much all sectors seem to be quitting, so that could massively limit capacity.
The hospital in question is considering opening an additional COVID unit to deal with the influx, so that suggests to me:
- they have staff, or think they can find staff, to operate another such unit, and
- they think increasing capacity to treat COVID is going to free up enough ICU beds to make it worthwhile.
I wouldn't know if they're doing that here - but in any case if their response is to add beds, it implies that it's beds rather than staff that is currently the limiting factor in treating everybody.
The story's been in a lot of outlets, but here's one. The hospital's wording isn't quoted verbatim, and it's a statement made directly to the newspaper so I don't think it's likely available elsewhere online.
> To deal with the influx in patients, the hospital is considering opening a fourth COVID unit and altering some ICU rooms so they can house two patients
