Thread by @FreedomFriesInc

(1) Thread: US Covid vaccination rates.

Dr Ranney works in emergency medicine, so she is on the frontlines of this pandemic. Listen to her comments below.

I was countering anti-vax lies for years before the Covid pandemic started, so this problem is nothing new to me...

https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1416132173770412036

(2) Many people seem to forget that this pandemic was declared a national emergency, and it will remain that way for at least another year, maybe two.

So trying to help people learn the facts about vaccines is way more important than it otherwise would be.

(3) In the current context, the idea that your view on vaccine safety has no impact on anyone else is quite a stretch.

Yes you can decline it for yourself. That's not the issue I have with the spreading of anti-vax lies. It's the people affected who can't make that decision.

(4) It's also in the interests of the community as a whole to help persuade as many people as you can to move from hesitant to saying yes.

Political interest groups are working hard 24/7 to move people from hesitant to saying no. The leaders have been vaccinated, by the way.

(5) If you doubt the safety of & need for Covid vaccines, then maybe you need to see more information about them, from reputable sources.

The numbers of MDs around the world who spread anti-vax lies are, thankfully, very few. A tiny, tiny number.

I trust my own family doctor.

(6) Along with my own family doctor, I trust the other doctors in the world who recommend Covid vaccination.

There is abundant information online from some of these doctors, in every format imaginable.

New variants mean the need is even greater now.

(7) At start of pandemic we didn't know how transmissible the virus was on surfaces, so we took greater care with those. Eye protection was needed.

Then there was enough scientific study of this NEW virus to confidently say that airborne spread was the main issue.

Now:

(8) The advice has been updated because of new information.

The currently spreading Delta Variant IS transmissible on surfaces, and with fleeting person to person proximity exposure.

We need to return to taking greater care, as we did at the start.

(9) We need to stay up to date with the official advice as it is periodically updated.

We need to again become more diligent with social distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, and protecting the most vulnerable.

Vaccination is an additional aid in this.

(10) For me personally the risk of complications from Covid right now is life-threatening enough to mean the vaccines would have to be extremely risky for me to decline them.

I am not alone.

Millions of people are in the same boat as I am.

(11) Who else is in the most vulnerable group?

>Everyone under 12 (this is new w Delta)
>Everyone over 65
>The sick, incl. cancer patients
>Everyone with diabetes, asthma, or certain other very COMMON disorders.

It's a BIG group.

(12) Anti-vax lies are being spread to people who are in the vulnerable group.

All I can do is try to persuade people with the facts that have been accepted by almost all MDs worldwide for >70 years.

You can believe them, or the tiny handful of anti-vax MDs.

(13) Along with the most vulnerable group that I mentioned above, anyone aged 12-64 is at greater risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and even death, than they were at the start of the pandemic.

Look at the stats. From the US & every other country Delta has spread to.

(14) As a developed country, and despite the enormous number of deaths to date, the US has been dodging a bullet. Your healthcare system including hospitals and ICU beds, has not been overwhelmed beyond some brief isolated incidents.

Remember India in March-April?

(15) It was easy to say India had such a catastrophe because it's a poorer country with a massive population etc.

The US healthcare system capacity isn't necessarily large enough to avoid a large number of otherwise preventable Delta variant deaths in the coming months.

(16) For an ICU bed to be able to save a life, it needs a ventilator, enough trained personnel to cover a 24 hour period, and a bunch of equipment and supplies.

The US will probably do OK with all of those except for the personnel. This workforce is already nearing burnout.

(17) Factors impacting the healthcare workforce worldwide:

>not enough foreign workers able to travel across borders to plug gaps
>those over 60 have been reluctant bc of their own risk levels
>some have died from Covid...

(18) Continued:

>some died because the distress and personal risk was too much to bear
>some died from a non-Covid cause after those services were displaced
>on top of all that, some are being underpaid while at great risk, and their leaving the field is understandable.

(19) The usual rate of incoming healthcare workers has slowed, due to multiple factors.

All up, these trends mean that every person who can avoid hospitalization is contributing to the saving of lives.

IMO saving lives should be top priority. It hasn't been.

(20) It's not possible to do things like, in a crisis, turn away patients because they chose to decline vaccination.

Most healthcare workers, esp. those in ICU, are compassionate people. They just want to save as many lives as they can.

Listen to what they're saying about it.

(21) I have always viewed this pandemic with the same seriousness my forbears in the UK viewed WWII.

There are a lot of similarities. No one in the UK wanted the war, of course. Yet >5 years of suffering was thrust upon them. They, too did not know when the war would end.

(22) They regularly had to make existential decisions without full information.

We tend to hear the stories of those who survived the war, and seldom the stories of those who were killed.

The pandemic is similar in this regard.

(23) Plenty of stories now from hospitalized Covid patients who regret not getting vaccinated. Some of these people then died, others were able to go home.

They all urge you to do what you can to decide to be vaccinated.

None of them say "I still think the vax is unsafe."

(24) The Covid vaccines are pretty much available everywhere in the US. If you are rural, the teams can probably come to you.

The vaccines are free. People are offering free transport. Anything they can do to help you make the decision.

(25) Every possible question about Covid vaccine safety and the need for the vaccine can be answered by MDs and others who are trained and skilled in answering them.

If you ask a non-medical person then you might not get accurate, up to date facts.

(26) I'm a layperson but I'm familiar with most of the common Q & As about vaccines, and I know where to find the facts beyond my own knowledge, so I can let you know that too.

We are never going to be able to reach everyone.

But saving one life makes it worth it.