Coronavirus - Overall
-
Bulgaria, EU’s least vaccinated nation, faces deadly surge
By STEPHEN McGRATH
September 9, 2021Bulgaria, EU’s least vaccinated nation, faces deadly surge
By STEPHEN McGRATH
September 9, 2021
Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse holds a container of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the state hospital in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Despite one of the European Union's highest death rates from COVID-19, and as the country faces a rapid surge of infections due to the Delta variant, people in the Balkan nation are proving the most hesitant in the 27-country bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse holds a container of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the state hospital in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. Despite one of the European Union's highest death rates from COVID-19, and as the country faces a rapid surge of infections due to the Delta variant, people in the Balkan nation are proving the most hesitant in the 27-country bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria’s northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit’s chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: “They don’t believe in vaccines.”
Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Only 20% of adults in Bulgaria, which has a population of 7 million, have so far been fully vaccinated. That puts it last in the EU, which has an average of 69 % fully vaccinated.
“We are open every day,” Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse who has worked at the hospital for 35 years, told The Associated Press. “But people who want to be vaccinated are very few.”
Krasimira Nikolova, a 52-year-old restaurant worker, has chosen not to get vaccinated, saying she has doubts over the vaccines’ effectiveness, even though the shots have been shown to be highly effective in preventing serious illness and deaths.
“I don’t believe vaccines work,” she told the AP. “I already had the virus. I don’t believe it’s so dangerous.”
But Sibila Marinova, manager of Veliko Tarnovo’s intensive care unit, says the full COVID-19 ICU ward in her hospital shows that’s simply not true.
“100% of the ICU patients are unvaccinated,” she told the AP, adding that staff shortages are only piling on more pressure.
And she said she’s angry that so many Bulgarians are refusing to get jabbed.
Bulgaria has access to all four of the vaccines approved by the EU — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. But since the start of the pandemic, more than 19,000 people in Bulgaria have died of COVID-19, the EU’s third-highest death rate, behind only the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the last week, an average of 41 people have died each day.
In response, the government imposed tighter restrictions Tuesday. Restaurants and cafes must close at 11 p.m. and their tables are limited to six people. Nightclubs have been shuttered and cinemas and theaters are limited to half capacity. Outdoors sports arenas are limited to 30% capacity.
“The low vaccination rate forces us to impose these measures,” Health Minister Stoycho Katsarov said.
Despite being in a vulnerable age group, 71-year-old retiree Zhelyazko Marinov doesn’t want to get vaccinated.
“I think I’m healthy enough and have a good natural immunity,” he said, adding that he could be persuaded to get vaccinated if he couldn’t travel without a vaccine certificate.
Mariya Sharkova, a public health law specialist, believes that Bulgaria’s worryingly low vaccine uptake is the result of residents’ low trust in official institutions, along with fake news about the shots, political instability and a weak national vaccination campaign.
“In Bulgaria, we don’t have good health literacy,” she told the AP. “Many people choose to believe conspiracy theories and fake news.”
Only vaccines that are mandatory in Bulgaria — such as measles, mumps and rubella — have a high uptake. Sharkova said some blame has to lie with the government’s vaccination program.
“They didn’t build any strategy on how to fight vaccine hesitancy,” she said. “We didn’t have any real information campaign for the vaccines. The ministry of health relies mainly on announcements on the ministry’s website, and I don’t think anyone actually goes on and reads it.”
“The best policy for such hesitant countries and populations as ours are mandatory vaccines,” said Sharkova, who is dismayed that national TV channels often invite vaccine-skeptic doctors to be on their programs.
But making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory could risk further polarizing the issue, she said.
Hriska Zhelyazkova, a 67-year-old military officer from the coastal city of Burgas, says she distrusts vaccines because “they were created so quickly” -- apparently unaware that years of research laid the groundwork for the vaccine shots, which now have been used in hundreds of millions of people with exceedingly rare serious side effects.
Still, she said she may get vaccinated if authorities slap tougher restrictions on unvaccinated people.
Back at the Veliko Tarnovo hospital, pro-vaccination drawings colored by children hang on the walls. “You are our superheroes,” one caption read.
But Minekova, the vaccination nurse, isn’t optimistic about the future.
“Somehow, I think it’s too late,” she said. “The right moment has been missed. I don’t see a way right now to solve this.”
-
-
I thought I had a handle on this but I'm more confused that ever
Help please
Person A who is non-vaccinated 'gives' COVID-19 to Person B who is also non-vaccinated
Person A who is non-vaccinated 'gives' COVID-19 to Person C who is vaccinated
Person C who is vaccinated 'gives' COVID-19 to Person D who is vaccinated
Person C who is vaccinated 'gives' COVID-19 to Persons A & B who are both non-vaccinated
-
Are the scenarios presented above possible/correct?
-
Are the viral loads from non-vaccinated people more dangerous or the same as the viral loads from vaccinated people?
The UK Government is aiming for herd strength through vaccination, somewhere in the region of 80-85% of all those eligible for vaccination being double jabbed.
- If there is no difference in the viral load from non-vaccinated and vaccinated 'givers' then why are we worried about the non-vaccinated and anti-vaxxers?
If the double dose of vaccine provides ME with increased resistance to COVID-19
-
Why the fuck should I be worried about those not choosing to be vaccinated?
-
Why are the non-vaccinated holding the Government to ransom? If they become ill and possibly die of COVID-19 quite frankly SO WHAT.
-
-
@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Piranhas are in the sea now? Fuck you piranhas, fuck off!
-
@mikethesnow said in Coronavirus - Overall:
If they become ill and possibly die of COVID-19 quite frankly SO WHAT
because the health system will try to save them. And that will take resources we don't have. Because governments spend health budgets on middle class welfare. So other people die too.
And the families of the dead people will be sad. And that makes bad headlines, and bad headlines make bad opinion polls. And bad opinion polls get you rolled.
As far as i can tell, that's the Australian version anyway
-
@mariner4life but it's only the people that die form covid make the headlines, well, in a count of people that died from covid today...
Maybe they could add all those that died form Cancer and other reasons, but fuck those natural causes deaths, unless they can find a link to covid that helped them die.
-
because of the date the other day, and the significant American anniversary, i've seen a lot of social media shit out of the States along the lines of "why is it for something that killed 3,000 people it's never forget, and for something that has killed 600,000 it's that doesn't exist" as a sort of a gotcha at the "deniers"
Nice preppy little sound (text) bite i guess.
Covid killed a fair whack of people in the US it's true. But it's dwarfed by the amount of people killed in that country by heart disease. last year 1,900 people a day dies of heart disease in the States.
Where are the snappy "put down the fork you fat fuck" social media posts?
-
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Where are the snappy "put down the fork you fat fuck" social media posts?
I know that you know the answer to that and I can assume that it is rhetorical.
However - you are applying logic and reason to social media which is likely to lead to frustration (at best).
-
I have three friends and a close relative who all got infected months after getting double-dosed with the Pfizer miracle. I have been vaxxed twice. I am fairly certain Covid won’t kill me. I’ve been exercising (resistance training & cardio) every other day for the past 35 years and have an excellent BMI for a Senior. So I’m not scared of Rona. But the anecdotal evidence suggests to me the vaccine simply isn’t very effective, or at best kindasortamaybe a little bit barely effective. Great for the shareholders; maybe not so great for people putting faith that the vaxx will protect them. Being careful about what I wish for, I’d be lying if I said a part of me doesn’t want to submit and contract infection so that I get REAL immunity and stop living under a sword of Damocles. I got my 2nd dose three months ago and I’m still being gaslit to wear a dehumanizing mask. This isn’t a crisis; it’s a bloody farce.
-
@kid-chocolate said in Coronavirus - Overall:
I have three friends and a close relative who all got infected months after getting double-dosed with the Pfizer miracle. I have been vaxxed twice. I am fairly certain Covid won’t kill me. I’ve been exercising (resistance training & cardio) every other day for the past 35 years and have an excellent BMI for a Senior. So I’m not scared of Rona. But the anecdotal evidence suggests to me the vaccine simply isn’t very effective, or at best kindasortamaybe a little bit barely effective. Great for the shareholders; maybe not so great for people putting faith that the vaxx will protect them. Being careful about what I wish for, I’d be lying if I said a part of me doesn’t want to submit and contract infection so that I get REAL immunity and stop living under a sword of Damocles. I got my 2nd dose three months ago and I’m still being gaslit to wear a dehumanizing mask. This isn’t a crisis; it’s a bloody farce.
really? isn't that the one things that been pretty clear (maybe im wrong) but that while cases in countries with high vax rates have gone back up the hospitalisation rate has been nowhere near what it was pre-vax last year
-
The fact that CNN had a death-counter chryon every minute Trump was prez, then removed it for the new nutjob, suggests to me grubby politics, not science nor genuine concern. I doubt Covid is real, and is especially lethal to very-very old people and morbidly obese fatbodies. But the panic, paranoia and hysteria is the biggest psy-op I’ve ever seen.
-
Good article in the Atlantic yesterday saying half the ICU cases in the States were mild and should never have been hospitalized in the first place.
Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning
A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.Earlier:
The Most Reliable Pandemic Number Keeps Getting Worse
America reported a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the first week of 2021.By The COVID Tracking Project
-
@kid-chocolate ...but doesnt that suggest the vax may be even better than thought, if the number of ICU cases should be even less?
-
The numbers were inflated bc panicked people were scared to death by their administrative and cultural overlords. For many it was like getting a hangnail and calling an ambulance because they feared gangrene and arm amputation.
Adding: So much of this reminds me of Thomas Edison electrocuting Topsy the circus elephant in front of journalists at Coney Island to SCIENTIFICALLY PROVE that Tesla’s Alternating Current (AC) was significantly more dangerous than Tommy’s patented Direct Current (DC) and should not be used by humans, who are much more at risk of fatality than giant circus elephants. The media dutifully reported it as true. Hey, look, a dead elephant! They filmed it. I won’t dignify by posting the footage, but it’s on youtube.
-
@kid-chocolate said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Good article in the Atlantic yesterday saying half the ICU cases in the States were mild and should never have been hospitalized in the first place.
Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning
A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.That is categorically not what that article is saying.
I clicked on the link for that article, it is an interesting one.
For starters; it is not about ICU admissions at all, just hosptital admissions.
It is from a study for Veteran Affairs hospitals - article states that VA has a policy to test every inpatient for COVID. (So lots of "with covids" in their stats.)
most relevant paragraph:
But the study also demonstrates that hospitalization rates for COVID, as cited by journalists and policy makers, can be misleading, if not considered carefully. Clearly many patients right now are seriously ill. We also know that overcrowding of hospitals by COVID patients with even mild illness can have negative implications for patients in need of other care.
At the same time, this study suggests that COVID hospitalization tallies can’t be taken as a simple measure of the prevalence of severe or even moderate disease, because they might inflate the true numbers by a factor of two. “As we look to shift from cases to hospitalizations as a metric to drive policy and assess level of risk to a community or state or country,” Doron told me, referring to decisions about school closures, business restrictions, mask requirements, and so on, “we should refine the definition of hospitalization. Those patients who are there with rather than from COVID don’t belong in the metric.”
The study seems to show that as vaccination has increased the proportion of 'with' rather than 'from' has increased. (because the vaccinations seem to work ... so the metric has less value).
But also that even for unvaccinated the symptoms were also milder in 2021 compared to 2020.
But the study period stopped as the delta wave was about to become prevalent in America (June 2021)
-
@kid-chocolate said in Coronavirus - Overall:
But the anecdotal evidence suggests to me the vaccine simply isn’t very effective, or at best kindasortamaybe a little bit barely effective.
@rapido said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Don't rely on anecdotal evidence when there's real evidence that proves the efficacy of the vaccine. The results presented by @Rapido are being repeated across the globe.
The vaccine has a real and verified impact on the seriousness of the disease. Pre vaccination the current case rate in the UK would have seen the NHS overwhelmed and the country plunged back into a hard lockdown. Instead football grounds are full to capacity, pubs are packed and life is pretty much back to normal.