Doctor - I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated

amother

OP ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 7:41 am

Op-Ed: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

By Anita SircarAug. 17, 2021 9:28 AM PT
My patient sat at the edge of his bed gasping for air while he tried to tell me his story, pausing to catch his breath after each word. The plastic tubes delivering oxygen through his nose hardly seemed adequate to stop his chest from heaving. He looked exhausted.

He had tested positive for the coronavirus 10 days ago. He was under 50, mildly hypertensive but otherwise in good health. Eight days earlier he started coughing and having severe fatigue. His doctor started him on antibiotics. It did not work.

Fearing his symptoms were worsening, he started taking some hydroxychloroquine he had found on the internet. It did not work.

He was now experiencing shortness of breath while doing routine daily activities such as walking from his bedroom to the bathroom or putting on his shoes. He was a shell of his former self. He eventually made his way to a facility where he could receive monoclonal antibodies, a lab-produced transfusion that substitutes for the body’s own antibodies. It did not work.

He finally ended up in the ER with dangerously low oxygen levels, exceedingly high inflammatory markers and patchy areas of infection all over his lungs. Nothing had helped. He was getting worse. He could not breathe. His wife and two young children were at home, all infected with the virus. He and his wife had decided not to get vaccinated.

Last year, a case like this would have flattened me. I would have wrestled with the sadness and how unfair life was. Battled with the angst of how unlucky he was. This year, I struggled to find sympathy. It was August 2021, not 2020. The vaccine had been widely available for months in the U.S., free to anyone who wanted it, even offered in drugstores and supermarkets. Cutting-edge, revolutionary, mind-blowing, lifesaving vaccines were available where people shopped for groceries, and they still didn’t want them.

Outside his hospital door, I took a deep breath — battening down my anger and frustration — and went in. I had been working the COVID-19 units for 17 months straight, all day, every day. I had cared for hundreds of COVID patients. We all had, without being able to take breaks long enough to help us recover from this unending ordeal. Compassion fatigue was setting in. For those of us who hadn’t left after the hardest year of our professional lives, even hope was now in short supply.

Shouting through my N95 mask and the noise of the HEPA filter, I introduced myself. I calmly asked him why he decided not to get vaccinated.

“Well, I’m not an anti-vaxxer or anything. I was just waiting for the FDA to approve the vaccine first. I didn’t want to take anything experimental. I didn’t want to be the government’s guinea pig, and I don’t trust that it’s safe,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I can pretty much guarantee we would have never met had you gotten vaccinated, because you would have never been hospitalized. All of our COVID units are full and every single patient in them is unvaccinated. Numbers don’t lie. The vaccines work.”

This was a common excuse people gave for not getting vaccinated, fearing the vaccine because the Food and Drug Administration had granted it only emergency use authorization so far, not permanent approval. Yet the treatments he had turned to — antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies and hydroxychloroquine — were considered experimental, with mixed evidence to support their use.

The only proven lifesaver we’ve had in this pandemic is a vaccine that many people don’t want. A vaccine we give away to other countries because supply overwhelms demand in the U.S. A vaccine people in other countries stand in line for hours to receive, if they can get it at all.

“Well,” I said, “I am going to treat you with remdesivir, which only recently received FDA approval.” I explained that it had been under an EUA for most of last year and had not been studied or administered as widely as COVID-19 vaccines. That more than 353 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the U.S. along with more than 4.7 billion doses worldwide without any overwhelming, catastrophic side effects. “Not nearly as many doses of remdesivir have been given or studied in people and its long-term side effects are still unknown,” I said. “Do you still want me to give it to you?”

“Yes” he responded, “Whatever it takes to save my life.”

It did not work.

My patient died nine days later of a stroke. We, the care team, reconciled this loss by telling ourselves: He made a personal choice not to get vaccinated, not to protect himself or his family. We did everything we could with what we had to save him. This year, this tragedy, this unnecessary, entirely preventable loss, was on him.

The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated. On those who are eligible to get vaccinated but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, “Vaccination is a deeply personal choice.” But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice affected the world as a whole as it does right now. When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die — when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.

If you believe the pandemic is almost over and I can ride it out, without getting vaccinated, you could not be more wrong. This virus will find you.

If you believe I’ll just wait until the FDA approves the vaccine first, you may not live to see the day.

If you believe if I get infected I’ll just go to the hospital and get treated, there is no guarantee we can save your life, nor even a promise we’ll have a bed for you.

If you believe I’m pregnant and I don’t want the vaccine to affect me, my baby or my future fertility, it matters little if you’re not alive to see your newborn.

If you believe I won’t get my children vaccinated because I don’t know what the long-term effects will be, it matters little if they don’t live long enough for you to find out.

If you believe I’ll just let everyone else get vaccinated around me so I don’t have to, there are 93 million eligible, unvaccinated people in the “herd” who think the same way you do and are getting in the way of ending this pandemic.

If you believe vaccinated people are getting infected anyway, so what’s the point?, the vaccine was built to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from severe illness. Instead of fatal pneumonia, those with breakthrough infections have a short, bad cold, so the vaccine has already proved itself. The vaccinated are not dying of COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated countless times during this pandemic, adapting to survive. Stacked up against a human race that has resisted change every step of the way — including wearing masks, social distancing, quarantining and now refusing lifesaving vaccines — it is easy to see who will win this war if human behavior fails to change quickly.

The most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your loved ones and the world is to GET VACCINATED.

And it will work.

Anita Sircar is an infectious-disease physician and clinical instructor of health sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine.

https://www.latimes.com/opinio.....-shot

amother

Heather ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 7:42 am

sounds like a dr who is sick herself

anyone who thinks this is ok watch out wait til you are judged without compassion for whatever foibles and/or behaviors you may have that are not sanctioned by your dr

as frum people would think we would get this

like whats next, oh too many kids oh no compassion for uterine prolapse or who knows what

the end does not justify the means

octopus ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 7:44 am

We already had a gigantic thread about this exact article.

trixx

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 7:57 am

octopus wrote:

We already had a gigantic thread about this exact article.

Yes. And also, be wary of this subtle conditioning.
We are rachamanim and we are not gd. Not a jews place to decide who to have compassion for. It's an entirely sick and anti Jewish rhetoric. There is zero excuse.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:03 am

I read it mostly ignoring the compassion part of the article rather on what was actually going on. The patient was treated with compassion and respect that he deserves.

It gave me another perspective on why vaccination is so important.

↑ octopus ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:06 am

Really? You thought the Dr was compassionate? Guilting the patient for not taking vaccine while on death's door? I don't think the doctor was compassionate. I once had a doctor tell me why didn't I come in sooner when I was dealing with a medical emergency. It really wasn't helpful.

#BestBubby ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:08 am

Vaccination does not stop a person from getting Covid or Spreading Covid - Per the CDC.

Many of the Unvaccinated already had Covid and have a much stronger immunity then the Vaxxed.

Nearly 13,000 Americans died after vaccination, tens of thousands more seriously injured (heart attacks, stroke, mycarditis, Bells Palsy, etc.)

no reason to coerce those who HAVE Covid immunity to take dangerous vaccine.

Vaccine Immunity only lasts a few months and needs constant boosters - each vaccine booster can cause permanent damage!

my_sunshine ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:11 am

Look at what's going on now in Israel... it's really not as simple as they are making it seem.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:12 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Doctors in Israel have reported that people that are admitted to the hospital that are vaccinated are generally out within a couple of days. While the unvaccinated are there for a week or 2.

Mishmish ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:13 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Once again, you are posting over and over the same misinformation and lies. I could link once again to all of the studies that disprove your baseless allegations. Or how about this? Please provide the studies that substantiate your claims.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:13 am

For those of you that are questioning why get vaccinated if I had covid here is a great article to read.

https://www.sciencenews.org/ar.....demic

amother

Opal

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:15 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Thank you Best Bubby for being a voice of reason on this forum.

Sparkle

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:39 am

Could you imagine a doctor thinking this to herself when treating an obese patients who gets diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes? I'm in school right now to be an RD. Do you know how much information there is about lifestyle changes to prevent Type 2 diabetes, even if there is a genetic predisposition to it? Should we hold every patient accountable for all their choices they make over their lifetime that is contrary to science?

amother

Pewter ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:42 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Doctors in Israel have reported that people that are admitted to the hospital that are vaccinated are generally out within a couple of days. While the unvaccinated are there for a week or 2.

Or more. Or out in a coffin.

Like the 38yo who was healthy, no preexisting conditions, strong, doing well. Until he got covid and died of it. He was unvaccinated. You know, because young, unvaccinated, healthy people with no background illnesses don't need the vaccine, because they're not at risk.

↑ my_sunshine

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:46 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Doctors in Israel have reported that people that are admitted to the hospital that are vaccinated are generally out within a couple of days. While the unvaccinated are there for a week or 2.

Link?

amother

NeonGreen ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:47 am

amother [ Pewter ] wrote:

Nonsense. The doctors who treat early outpatient covid, feel that with early treatment, it never progresses to the point of requiring hospitalization.

What's shameful is the campaign to dissuade people from seeking early treatment and to dissuade doctors from treating.

amother

↑ Pewter ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:49 am

amother [ NeonGreen ] wrote:

Link?

amother

↑ NeonGreen ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 8:51 am

amother [ Pewter ] wrote:

Link?

Check out FLCCC.net.

Eta. I became familiar with them through 2 family members who had covid, 1 over 80, 1 over 70 and each had additional health concerns (lung cancer, high blood pressure, etc). Each time they were under the care of FLCCC protocol and, exactly as predicted by their treating doctor, they were fine within less than 2 weeks with at home treatment.

amother

↑ NeonGreen ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 9:05 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

For those of you that are questioning why get vaccinated if I had covid here is a great article to read.

https://www.sciencenews.org/ar.....demic

It shows that the vaccine causes the body to produce antibodies, which is probably undisputed, but it doesn't show that people who had a prior infection, even without antibodies, no longer have long-lasting T-cell immunity.

In fact, several studies indicate that people with prior infection, overwhelmingly, will experience long-lasting, robust immunity.

The Israel study that recently looked at 7,700 new infections found that only 1 percent had had a prior covid infection, while 40% had been fully vaccinated.

It also doesn't address the additional risk of adverse events for people who get vaccinated after having natural immunity.

The article points to a study showing that the vaccine causes people to produce T-cell immunity, which is great, but of course begs the question as to why the vaccinated are getting reinfected at a much higher rate than those with prior immunity

southernbubby ↓

Sun, Aug 22 2021, 9:25 am

amother [ NeonGreen ] wrote:

I am a believer in early treatment and Florida does have places that are treating with monoclonal antibodies as well as the FLCCC clinics. I think that time will tell if one choice is better than the other or if both come out the same but I don't think that the government should try to prohibit these clinics.
I think that the problem is procrastination and possibly lack of insurance or money together with magical thinking that the virus goes away on it's own, which can happen.