Comments by "Meh Pluribus Unum" (@pluribus_unum) on "How Surging Covid Cases, Hospitalizations Are Impacting Healthcare Workers" video.

  1. The real reason there is a sharp rise in hospitalizations is because the Omicron variant is much, much more infectious than any previous strain. You are 14x more likely to die from COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated. The more unvaccinated people there are, the more mutations the virus is capable of. In fact, Omicron is the direct result of a large population of unvaccinated contracting the virus and it performing an astounding number of mutations in the people of the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Portugal, where it actually first appeared. South Africa is suffering like Spain did in the flu epidemic of the 1920s because they had the first massive surge that the global media was able to report on because of good testing data out of the country. The high testing in South Africa combined with low vaccination rates meant the surge's occurrence was well documented in the testing and hospitalization data and journalists ran with the story, often profiting off of an anxious -- sometimes xenophobic -- audience.
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  2. For the sake of the healthcare workers and all people needing medical care for any reason. Get vaccinated. Get boosted.
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  3.  @monarch-black  - The US Omicron surge hasn't even started its climb in earnest, and it's going to be steeper than any before it. Even though Omicron is less lethal, it's far more easily spread. This is going to be another huge burden and trauma for the healthcare workers and all the people sickened and possibly disabled or killed by COVID-19. Do your part take common sense precautions like masking, distancing and testing and get vaccinated unless you can't for health or religious reasons.
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  4.  @Gary-jj5sx  - I prefer cremation, but if you prefer taxidermy, you do you.
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  5.  @joetheunknown8413  - No, the 14x is an average that includes the groups with the highest death rate, the elderly and immune compromised. The study you cite for the "natural immunity" protection is not a peer-reviewed study, is older research, and isn't supported by any other studies. Natural immunity alone actually fades significantly faster. Again, vaccination and booster is only slightly less protection than vaccine, booster and breakthrough infection antibodies. Only infection protection is significantly less than vaccination and booster protection, as noted above.
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  6.  @joetheunknown8413  - I said older, the non-peer reviewed or corroborated is the problematic part, but it is also older, if not old.
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