Spyke

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It seems like everyone has Covid-19. Here’s why this wave is probably worse than official data suggests

Physician here. The best marker we have of covid prevalence is wastewater testing. With the availability of home kits (and no reporting) and people refusing to test when symptomatic, the old markers of positivity rates and number of positive tests aren't as valid. Even hospitalization numbers can fluctuate for multiple reasons. Municipal wastewater testing truly gives a sense of covid in a population.

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New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn

Physician here. Masks absolutely reduce transmission and the chance of contracting COVID.

Here is the definitive study on the subject.

Here is a video of a presentation by one of the authors along with some demonstrations and explanations.

TLDR: Here is the Abstract:
There is ample evidence that masking and social distancing are effective in reducing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. However, due to the complexity of airborne disease transmission, it is difficult to quantify their effectiveness, especially in the case of one-to-one exposure. Here, we introduce the concept of an upper bound for one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles and apply it to SARS-CoV-2. To calculate exposure and infection risk, we use a comprehensive database on respiratory particle size distribution; exhalation flow physics; leakage from face masks of various types and fits measured on human subjects; consideration of ambient particle shrinkage due to evaporation; and rehydration, inhalability, and deposition in the susceptible airways. We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. If only the susceptible wears a face mask with infectious speaking at a distance of 1.5 m, the upper bound drops very significantly; that is, with a surgical mask, the upper bound reaches 90% after 30 min, and, with an FFP2 mask, it remains at about 20% even after 1 h. When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1 h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%. We conclude that wearing appropriate masks in the community provides excellent protection for others and oneself, and makes social distancing less important.

ukraine

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Ukraine's supporters waiting for Wagner PMC troops to do literally anything in response to their leaders being publicly murdered.

There were many senior leaders on the flight: Prigozhin, Utkin (early founder, commander), Chekalov (economic & security leader), Makaryan, Propustin, Totmin, Matuseev (all various commanders). While this seems super dumb to have all these folks on the same flight at the same time, apparently they were. With this much senior leadership now suddenly gone, the Wagner group may be struggling to get their own house in order before they can take organizational action.

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Republicans Are No Longer a Political Party

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False equivalency. They. Are. Not. The. Same.
Do both parties have some issues in common? Sure. Does our system need reform? Absolutely. But just because there is some overlap in the Venn diagram that is our political system does not make them the same. At least the democrats are trying to govern.

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My ISP has taken total control of my network

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Arris makes good stuff. But that is just the cable modem. It will NOT provide any router protection for your home network. Your network topology should look like this:

ISP -> your cable modem -> your router -> everything else

Honestly, if you don't have need for many ethernet connections, just get a wifi router with good reviews and the arris cable modem. Make sure the cable modem you pick up has the right DOCSIS version for the speed you are getting or plan to upgrade to. Your ISP will be able to tell you what version they are on.

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Poll: 61% of voters disapprove of Supreme Court decision overturning Roe

Physician here. There are too many possible issues with pregnancy, social situations, etc. to ever effectively be able to navigate that decision tree via legislation. It is barbaric to force women through a non-viable pregnancy. It is barbaric to withhold medical care from a woman whose life is threatened by her pregnancy. It is barbaric to force women into a devastating social situation.

Society will never agree on where the line should be placed or what is morally correct. The decision needs to be in the hands of the mother and their medical team.

Finally, for those who believe in "natural consequences". No birth control is 100% effective. Not all sex is consensual. Non-viable pregnancies happen regardless of how careful you are. Bad outcomes aren't always the result of bad choices.

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Why Doctors and Pharmacists Are in Revolt

Physician here.
Medicine is one of the few professions in which capital is tied to labor (at least of the licensed independent clinicians). Hospitals, clinics, etc., can't run any test, provide any service, perform any surgery, without a physician (or other licenses clinicians) order.

Health systems rely on their physicians to drive clinical practice. Physicians are the experts after all. It's a mutually beneficial relationship, but at its core, it is a partnership. This partnership certainly has it's ups and downs. But this is what happens when the health system forgets that it is a partnership.

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Nursing Homes Must Boost Staffing Under First-Ever National Standards

This is great!

Right now there is a serious issue with discharging patients from the hospital environment into skilled care. Since COVID, many nursing homes don't take admissions over the weekend, limit admissions to long term care (as opposed to transitional care which is short term - and better reimbursed), and often have wait times. This has the effect of increasing the length of time a patient is in the hospital unnecessarily, thus decreasing hospital capacity.

Yes, the nursing homes have staffing issues, but they pay for shit. Many of them pay less than $20/hour. You need to goto school to get your CNA license which isn't free. You can get many other jobs for better pay without the investment of education.

Source: I am a hospitalist physician. I work with nursing homes a great deal and my wife used to work at one as a CNA.