# My doctors office threw me out of the office today



## Kmac15 (May 19, 2007)

I have a cold. I took a Covid test at home and it was negative. I got my cold from our granddaughter that goes to daycare. She has had two test done and both negative T is time for my routine blood test so I thought I was doing the prudent thing and wore a mask and used sanitizer when I went into the office. My doctor has an in-house lab so I get my blood drawn at the office. 
when I checked in they gave me the normal form to fill out that ask questions like have you had a fever, headache, sore throat, cough? I am honest and tell them I did a negative test yesterday but due to the COLD I have a sore throat and cough. 
a few minutes later I have a woman come into the waiting room and tells me I have to leave.i am not allowed to go to the back lab or stay in the lobby. Almost pushing me out the door. I explained again it is a common cold. And I need the lab work for myap next week. Was informed I couldn’t be seen for two weeks so no I no longer have an appointment next week. 
she was so abrupt and angry that I just left and started crying on my way to the car. I HAVE A COLD


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## Forcast (Apr 15, 2014)

Happens more than you think


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

I can understand them being cautious, but no need to be rude. I wonder why they didn't offer to test you if they were so concerned.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

This isn't terribly surprising. If you are sick the Dr won't see you 🙄
Thought they'd all had the jab 🤔

Whenever they start asking me the covid questions I says yes pretty much I have all the listed symptoms. Part are side effects from my meds and part sinuses. As long as my temperature is normal they let me in. If I had covid and didn't have a fever I'd never know. 
My one time having covid in 2020 I didn't have fever 🤷


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## Kmac15 (May 19, 2007)

I have to wonder how people with allergies, sinusitis, pneumonia,bronchitis, a cold are getting the treatment they need?


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

You might try another doctor/clinic. We got a new "walk-in" clinic a few years ago and I love it. No appointment needed.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Kmac15 said:


> I have to wonder how people with allergies, sinusitis, pneumonia,bronchitis, a cold are getting the treatment they need?


They aren't. Our medical system has gone to hell in a hand basket. 
I'm a transplant patient and I can't get in to see the Drs I need to see. Going to wait to see a dermatologist until I'm in Mexico. Wish I could see a kidney Dr in Mexico but my US insurance won't work that way for my meds and they are expensive


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## frogmammy (Dec 8, 2004)

Have you actually checked the prices in Mexico?

Mon


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## doc- (Jun 26, 2015)

OTOH-- some pts can be a real PITA-- One time, I was seeing pts and my office manager interupted me.."There's a guy out at the desk and he claims he's invisible."...I told her to tell him to go away because I can't see him now.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Kmac15 said:


> I have to wonder how people with allergies, sinusitis, pneumonia,bronchitis, a cold are getting the treatment they need?


They aren't. I posted in another thread about hubby trying to get a strep test. Doctor and mini clinic refused to see him. The only place he could have gone was the emergency room.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

TxMex, are you on Medicare?


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

frogmammy said:


> Have you actually checked the prices in Mexico?
> 
> Mon


Yes. I was living there full time until I had to return to the US to get on the transplant list. Mexico does not allow non-citizens to get transplants. So even though I'm a permanent resident I couldn't get a transplant. I do not blame them at all. They'd have most of the people waiting on a transplant in the US down there and the cartels would be killing people for their organs.
Some medical is very affordable. Usually Drs visits and labs are very reasonable. I can go see the equivalent of a nurse practitioner for something routine for 30-50 pesos. Less than $3. A specialist in a fancy hospital can cost up to $30. I've had surgery in Mexico and far prefer it to surgery in the US 
Some medications are very expensive in Mexico. The 2 anti rejection/immune suppressants that I was on would cost $7-800 per month to purchase in Mexico. I quit taking one of those pills and I'm now on a monthly IV medication. It's not available in Mexico at all. My copay in the US is nearly $500 a month. 
I have prescription coverage that covers the rest of my medications.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Danaus29 said:


> They aren't. I posted in another thread about hubby trying to get a strep test. Doctor and mini clinic refused to see him. The only place he could have gone was the emergency room.


That’s exactly what Fauci’s handlers and benefactors want. Force anyone who might even have a chance of having a cold, flu or Covid to go to the emergency room; the most crowded and least sanitary outlet for medical care. It’s the same reason they shut down all the small retailers, but gave the big-box stores a pass to stay open.

Remember, way back in 2021 (I’m not even sure how old I was back then), when your ability to go to any particular place was often predicated on whether or not you’d taken the shot they charged us all so much money to try to force us to take? Now that they’ve conned most of us into taking it, those who earned a slot as a more-equal are finding out that their status was only temporary, and they’re less-equals again. 

If you’ve taken the fear-shot, they need you out there shedding those spike proteins amongst us untouchables for them.

I’m reverting back to my 2021 position: anyone who took the shot needs to self-quarantine for the next 2 - 768 months; we’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back out.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

The newest government minted oxymoron - "Health Care"


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

TxMex said:


> They aren't. Our medical system has gone to hell in a hand basket.
> I'm a transplant patient and I can't get in to see the Drs I need to see. Going to wait to see a dermatologist until I'm in Mexico. Wish I could see a kidney Dr in Mexico but my US insurance won't work that way for my meds and they are expensive


If you will notice, EVERYTHING that the government gets involved in goes to hell. ("The least governed are the best governed.")

The beginning of the end:
--------------------------------------------------------------
_On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Medicare Law as part of the Social Security Act Amendments. This established both Medicare, the health insurance program for Americans over 65, and Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans._
-------------------------------------------------------------
And it has been going downhill ever since.

My now deceased father-in-law was a well-respected Family Practitioner in our mid-size town back in those days. He worked in a local hospital/clinic, but he also used to make house calls---yes, doctors used to actually drive to sick folks' houses and take care of them!!!

He eventually retired because, he said, doctors were no longer allowed to take care of their patients.


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## Farmerga (May 6, 2010)

And so many would follow the government straight over a cliff.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

The clinic and specialists are looking at the bigger picture. A provider in a family care clinic will see fifteen to twenty patients a day. If the provider gets sick and can't work, more patients are affected than the one with the unspecified illness. There are more patients with "conditions" than there are people who feel sick. The patients with conditions need regular treatment, the person who is sick usually does not. 

They send patients to urgent care for symptoms. And the providers who work in clinics see the people who need long term care. It is really a form of triage. The urgent care will determine what you have, and refer you to a specialist or clear you to be seen at a clinic. The urgent care provider will wear more protective gear, and see you for just a few minutes. A provider at a family care clinic, well see you for twenty to forty minutes. It is a pain in the butt, but it insures that the largest number of patients get the care they need, with the least amount of risk to patients with preexisting conditions, and the providers. 

This is the new normal, the risk to providers and their staff is higher than it has ever been. And this will likely never go back to how it was pre-covid.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

The last time any doctor spent more than 10 minutes with me in an office setting was when my surgeon was discussing my upcoming surgery.

The last time I saw my gp, she wanted to chat while the nurse was drawing blood. I don't know what was said, my head was spinning, my ears were ringing and my vision was fuzzy.


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## 67drake (May 6, 2020)

Danaus29 said:


> I don't know what was said, my head was spinning, my ears were ringing and my vision was fuzzy.


That’s what happens to me every time I talk to insurance or car salesmen.


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## boatswain2PA (Feb 13, 2020)

Kmac15 said:


> I have to wonder how people with allergies, sinusitis, pneumonia,bronchitis, a cold are getting the treatment they need?


They are all coming to the ED. Many on Medicaid do this anyway, but with many primary care offices doing this stuff many reasonable patients are too.


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

Mostly, if you go to a clinic or hospital around here you will see a Nurse Practitioner or Physician's Assistant instead of a real MD.

Not sure if our urgent care clinic would see a Covid patient unless he/she was in serious (urgent) medical trouble.


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## B&L Chicken Ranch and Spa (Jan 4, 2019)

Kmac15 said:


> I have a cold. I took a Covid test at home and it was negative. I got my cold from our granddaughter that goes to daycare. She has had two test done and both negative T is time for my routine blood test so I thought I was doing the prudent thing and wore a mask and used sanitizer when I went into the office. My doctor has an in-house lab so I get my blood drawn at the office.
> when I checked in they gave me the normal form to fill out that ask questions like have you had a fever, headache, sore throat, cough? I am honest and tell them I did a negative test yesterday but due to the COLD I have a sore throat and cough.
> a few minutes later I have a woman come into the waiting room and tells me I have to leave.i am not allowed to go to the back lab or stay in the lobby. Almost pushing me out the door. I explained again it is a common cold. And I need the lab work for myap next week. Was informed I couldn’t be seen for two weeks so no I no longer have an appointment next week.
> she was so abrupt and angry that I just left and started crying on my way to the car. I HAVE A COLD



Covid has brought the NAZI out in many people.

There is this woke vegan at the coffee shop, was very sweet and nice until covid. 
I believe that she is now capable to murdering someone who does not mask up (with her bare hands). 
I do not go there anymore.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

B&L Chicken Ranch and Spa said:


> Covid has brought the NAZI out in many people.
> 
> There is this woke vegan at the coffee shop, was very sweet and nice until covid.
> I believe that she is now capable to murdering someone who does not mask up (with her bare hands).
> I do not go there anymore.


I thought we were past all that.


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## nodak3 (Feb 5, 2003)

Doctors are not past all that. They deal with covid daily. And are not going to do things that spread it. Here, most offices are doing triage. No walk ins, and you won't be seen for cold symptoms or flu or covid symptoms. The hospital has a walk in clinic and there are some urgent cares, but they are all clear that if you have covid symptoms you must call first so you can be sent to a special area and tested. That way they can get you appropriate help.

And yeah, if you need to be seen for something else but have possible covid symptoms you won't be seen, but may depending on what you need treatment for be sent to the er or to urgent care. 

It isn't at all discriminatory. It is just a way to see all people get seen and timely treatment while isolating those that possibly have contagious diseases. And colds kill some people every day. Maybe cancer patients, etc. The medical establishment is beginning to take ALL contagions more seriously. And we should applaud them and do the same.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

nodak3 said:


> Doctors are not past all that. They deal with covid daily. And are not going to do things that spread it. Here, most offices are doing triage. No walk ins, and you won't be seen for cold symptoms or flu or covid symptoms. The hospital has a walk in clinic and there are some urgent cares, but they are all clear that if you have covid symptoms you must call first so you can be sent to a special area and tested. That way they can get you appropriate help.
> 
> And yeah, if you need to be seen for something else but have possible covid symptoms you won't be seen, but may depending on what you need treatment for be sent to the er or to urgent care.
> 
> It isn't at all discriminatory. It is just a way to see all people get seen and timely treatment while isolating those that possibly have contagious diseases. And colds kill some people every day. Maybe cancer patients, etc. The medical establishment is beginning to take ALL contagions more seriously. And we should applaud them and do the same.


Thank you.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

NRA_guy said:


> Mostly, if you go to a clinic or hospital around here you will see a Nurse Practitioner or Physician's Assistant instead of a real MD.


And you should be glad of it. Most Nurse Practitioners have more actual school time than a MD, and ten to fifteen years more years of actual experience than a MD. There are two or three MD's in Tucson who send patients to my Nurse Practitioner, when they are stumped for a diagnosis. 

I don't know why anyone would go see a Physician's Assistant. They don't have as much training as a Registered Nurse. And all of their work must be signed off by a real MD. Physician's Assistants are a scam that doctors use to make more money than they can make seeing patients themselves. Every procedure, and every prescription an Assistant writes is credited to the Doctors practice, and must be signed off by them.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

nodak3 said:


> Doctors are not past all that. They deal with covid daily. And are not going to do things that spread it. Here, most offices are doing triage. No walk ins, and you won't be seen for cold symptoms or flu or covid symptoms. The hospital has a walk in clinic and there are some urgent cares, but they are all clear that if you have covid symptoms you must call first so you can be sent to a special area and tested. That way they can get you appropriate help.
> 
> And yeah, if you need to be seen for something else but have possible covid symptoms you won't be seen, but may depending on what you need treatment for be sent to the er or to urgent care.
> 
> It isn't at all discriminatory. It is just a way to see all people get seen and timely treatment while isolating those that possibly have contagious diseases. And colds kill some people every day. Maybe cancer patients, etc. The medical establishment is beginning to take ALL contagions more seriously. And we should applaud them and do the same.


If you read my comment, it had nothing to do with doctors but I see that didn't deter you from your usual rant.


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## Farmerga (May 6, 2010)

nodak3 said:


> Doctors are not past all that. They deal with covid daily. And are not going to do things that spread it. Here, most offices are doing triage. No walk ins, and you won't be seen for cold symptoms or flu or covid symptoms. The hospital has a walk in clinic and there are some urgent cares, but they are all clear that if you have covid symptoms you must call first so you can be sent to a special area and tested. That way they can get you appropriate help.
> 
> And yeah, if you need to be seen for something else but have possible covid symptoms you won't be seen, but may depending on what you need treatment for be sent to the er or to urgent care.
> 
> It isn't at all discriminatory. It is just a way to see all people get seen and timely treatment while isolating those that possibly have contagious diseases. And colds kill some people every day. Maybe cancer patients, etc. The medical establishment is beginning to take ALL contagions more seriously. And we should applaud them and do the same.


Covid is endemic now. It is going to be with us forever. How long are doctors going to hide behind it?


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Farmerga said:


> Covid is endemic now. It is going to be with us forever. How long are doctors going to hide behind it?


I think you'll find the poster in question remains quite stuck in the belief covid is here to stay until everyone on the planet has their 12th shot. 

I would like to point out that my roommate is just getting over covid and ironiclly, she's a walking medical manual of comorbidities, including COPD and asthma and she recovered quite nicely at home with nothing more serious than Buckley's cough medicine.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

wr said:


> I thought we were past all that.


Maybe you all are past all that just in Alberta, but that's not so in the rest of Canada. If I recall correctly, most Albertans never wanted to follow the restrictions right from the get go and many folks, especially the religious ones, were reluctant or in outright denial to comply with the covid safety guidelines. 

But as far as I know people in the medical fields in the rest of Canada are all still being extremely cautious, particularly since so many medical facilities are seriously burned out and understaffed now. Most doctors won't see any patients or make referrals without first having a telephone consultation with them to ensure the patients aren't experiencing _any_ covid symptoms. If they make a diagnosis over the phone and determine all the patient needs is just a prescription for something the practitioner will send in the prescription to the pharmacy, or will make a referral to a specialist if needed and they are hard to see too. 

I haven't been in to see my GP in person for two and a half years now, we just talk on the phone about whatever I may need. I'm not complaining cuz at least I have a family doctor that I can call but there are many people who don't. The burn out rate of practitioners all across Canada is pretty bad.

.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Paumon said:


> Maybe you all are past all that just in Alberta, but that's not so in the rest of Canada. If I recall correctly, most Albertans never wanted to follow the restrictions right from the get go and many folks, especially the religious ones, were reluctant or in outright denial to comply with the covid safety guidelines.
> 
> But as far as I know people in the medical fields in the rest of Canada are all still being extremely cautious, particularly since so many medical facilities are seriously burned out and understaffed now. Most doctors won't see any patients or make referrals without first having a telephone consultation with them to ensure the patients aren't experiencing _any_ covid symptoms. If they make a diagnosis over the phone and determine all the patient needs is just a prescription for something the practitioner will send in the prescription to the pharmacy, or will make a referral to a specialist if needed and they are hard to see too.
> 
> ...


Apparently, you didn't read my comment either. It directly addressed a specific situation in a coffee shop. 

I don't believe anybody in Canada is required to mask up to have a cup of coffee but you seem to have greater expertise on the subject so please advise where in Canada we need to mask up for a cup of coffee.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

wr said:


> I think you'll find the poster in question remains quite stuck in the belief covid is here to stay until everyone on the planet has their 12th shot.
> 
> I would like to point out that my roommate is just getting over covid and ironiclly, she's a walking medical manual of comorbidities, including COPD and asthma and *she recovered quite nicely at home with nothing more serious than Buckley's cough medicine.*


Ahhhh, good old Buckley's - I swear it's a life saver for people who are walking medical manuals of comorbidities including COPD and asthma.  When I had covid last winter my COPD really acted up bad but Buckley's was what I used too and it got me through the very worst days of my experience when I had my doubts about if I was going to make it through the night.

.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

wr said:


> Apparently, you didn't read my comment either. It directly addressed a specific situation in a coffee shop.
> 
> I don't believe anybody in Canada is required to mask up to have a cup of coffee but you seem to have greater expertise on the subject so please advise where in Canada we need to mask up for a cup of coffee.


Sorry WR, you weren't explicit and I didn't realize you were making reference specifically to the coffee shop worker. 

As far as I know, nobody in Canada is required to mask up in a coffee shop or restaurant while consuming their purchase. But in many places definitely have to mask up when entering medical facilities, dentist office, hair dresser/manicurist salons, barber shops, pet shops, animal shelters, public libraries and a variety of other places at the discretion of the facility owners/managers.

Everybody I know here always carries a mask in their purse or pocket just in case they're requested to put it on when going into any establishment.

.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

I went to an ear, nose, and throat doctor today in central Texas. No masks required. No vaccinations required.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Paumon said:


> Sorry WR, you weren't explicit and I didn't realize you were making reference specifically to the coffee shop worker.
> 
> As far as I know, nobody in Canada is required to mask up in a coffee shop or restaurant while consuming their purchase. But in many places definitely have to mask up when entering medical facilities, dentist office, hair dresser/manicurist salons, barber shops, pet shops, animal shelters, public libraries and a variety of other places at the discretion of the facility owners/managers.
> 
> ...


I notice a difference in Calgary but locally, it's pretty much business as usual, unless you need to enter an AHS facility but my county has exactly 3 cases so we're pretty low risk. 

I was actually shocked when I was working with a private ambulance company for a short while, how eager nurses were to get patients out of hospital and that included omitting mention of active covid patients. If you ask too many questions, they will simply have a cab company bill AHS. 

Life Flight, which handles North American flights was equally as dishonest about covid status and both of them contribute significantly to a paramedic shortage. If they don't disclose, staff needs to be put on a mandatory 5 days off and I can't even count the number of times we were working with a skeleton crew because of covid contact or we had too ambulances out of service for fogging. 

The other side of that is a lot employers are getting wise to the home test kits being abused and now pays for employees to have outside testing.


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## Hiro (Feb 14, 2016)




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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

nodak3 said:


> Doctors are not past all that. They deal with covid daily. And are not going to do things that spread it.


My doctor's office has shut down 3 times because of covid. Each time it was a staff member who came to work while sick with "it can't be covid, I've been vaccinated".


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## NEPA (Feb 21, 2015)

I go to a dentist here where they still ask you to wait in the parking lot, and they text when they are ready for you to enter. They require a mask to enter the building. Then they ask a series of questions pertaining to travel and Covid. Very silly. I usually give the "correct" answers to these questions. Last visit I decided to be honest. 

Q. Have you been exposed to anyone with Covid in the past 2 weeks. A. I manage a tire shop and work with the public every day. I can't control who comes in. I honestly have no idea. 
The nurse looks at me funny, smiles, and says "Well ok then, lets get you ready for the dentist." 

Apparently, all the effort is just for show.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

They are covering their liability fannies.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

NRA_guy said:


> Mostly, if you go to a clinic or hospital around here you will see a Nurse Practitioner or Physician's Assistant instead of a real MD.


I've found Nurse Practitioners to be entirely competent, and there are some advantages to seeing NPs. While I suppose time is money to virtually everyone, it's been my sense that NPs are more generous with their time than MDs. My primary care physician is a NP and it's working out really well.

What's more, I've found that female physicians are more empathetic than tir male counterparts, so they show more concern for pain and discomfort. That's why my primary care physician is a female NP.

I have some personal experience on this matter because my father was a "real" MD. It's not really the fault of MDs giving patients the bum's rush. They are extremely busy people, so it's the only way they have enough time to see everyone who needs to be seen.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

It was a nurse practitioner that ran the tests on my daughter's gall bladder which found it was not functioning.


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## mamagoose (Nov 28, 2003)

Kmac15 said:


> I have a cold. I took a Covid test at home and it was negative. I got my cold from our granddaughter that goes to daycare. She has had two test done and both negative T is time for my routine blood test so I thought I was doing the prudent thing and wore a mask and used sanitizer when I went into the office. My doctor has an in-house lab so I get my blood drawn at the office.
> when I checked in they gave me the normal form to fill out that ask questions like have you had a fever, headache, sore throat, cough? I am honest and tell them I did a negative test yesterday but due to the COLD I have a sore throat and cough.
> a few minutes later I have a woman come into the waiting room and tells me I have to leave.i am not allowed to go to the back lab or stay in the lobby. Almost pushing me out the door. I explained again it is a common cold. And I need the lab work for myap next week. Was informed I couldn’t be seen for two weeks so no I no longer have an appointment next week.
> she was so abrupt and angry that I just left and started crying on my way to the car. I HAVE A COLD


There are those who don't believe that you have a right to have a cold while others react normally.


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## nodak3 (Feb 5, 2003)

Everybody has a right to have a cold.

But everybody else has a right to exclude you if you have a cold, especially if you might share it with say someone who has had a transplant, or has cancer, etc.

Maybe less focus on "my rights" and more on "my duties to my fellow human beings."


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

I won't excuse the behavior of the medical office worker in this case. There's a right way and a wrong way to deal with customers and healthcare, by and large, has done a very ****ty job of customer service in recent years. That said, the office most certainly has a covid policy that most likely states in no uncertain terms that anyone with covid-like symptoms is not allowed into the clinic. I doubt you'll find a clinic anywhere in the nation that doesn't have either a strict covid isolation policy or an outright ban policy. We are, in fact, still in the midst of a global pandemic illness. 

A medical clinic in my local town had to shut down a few weeks ago. A bunch of the staff, including both of the doctors, all came down with covid at roughly the same time. Because of that, it's likely that the whole office was exposed by a single patient a few days prior to the first symptoms. Everyone else in the office was put on quarantine protocol for close contact. They had to shut the entire clinic down for nearly two weeks until they had enough staff in the clear to start seeing patients again. That's a couple weeks of appointments that had to be cancelled. The clinic is typically running 6-8 weeks out on their appointment calendar. So people are having to wait up to 2 more months all because of a covid-positive patient. That's bad for business and it's bad for patients. 

And before you say the patient didn't know, that's hogwash. When someone is infected with covid and the virus has replicated to the level of shedding, there are going to be some symptoms. The symptoms could be pretty minor, like a little runny nose, but there is pretty much always symptoms if the infected person is contagious. And vaccination status is a double-edge issue. On one hand, vaccinations stop serious illness. However, just because you have been vaccinated doesn't mean the virus floating through the air from the infected guy next to you in the lobby just bounces off your skin and falls to the floor like a bullet off of Superman. That's not how this works. Your immune system can only fight off the virus when it enters your body and starts it's attack. The downside of a vaccination is that your body will quickly recognize and start killing the virus, but not until the virus has already attached and started replicating. So, your immune system can be busily keeping you from getting seriously sick, but at the same time you can be shedding virus to other people. There's been so much misinformation running around out there on this stuff, it's maddening for healthcare professionals to constantly deal with non-medical public who are spreading falsehoods. 

Also, the home tests are unreliable. People don't know how to collect samples correctly. And an infected person may not have enough virus in their nose to register on the test for a couple of days after the first symptoms and certainly for a few days after any direct exposure. The lack of a positive covid test does not rule out covid. Basically, a positive test generally means you're positive or you were positive recently, even if you're over the illness and might not be contagious anymore. But a negative test doesn't really mean you're negative. It only means there's not enough virus on the cotton swab to register on the test. That might be a failure to collect the sample correctly or it might mean the virus hasn't replicated to the point of being able to trigger the test yet. Current practice is that we are waiting at least 24 hours after the first symptoms before running a test. And then we're using a timeframe window after last symptoms or last exposure to determine if the person is clear, instead of trying to get a negative test.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

Kmac15 said:


> I have a cold. I took a Covid test at home and it was negative. I got my cold from our granddaughter that goes to daycare. ........ I am honest and tell them I did a negative test yesterday but due to the COLD I have a sore throat and cough.
> ....... I explained again it is a common cold. ...... she was so abrupt and angry that I just left and started crying on my way to the car.
> 
> I HAVE A COLD


You diagnosed yourself. You are *assuming* that you have a common cold but you don't know that for a fact, so maybe you don't. Those home tests aren't reliable. You are assuming that you aren't contagious but you probably are, just like your grand-daughter is contagious with whatever it is that she has that you are assuming she passed on to you. You already know it's contagious, whatever it is. Colds are extremely contagious viruses too and can kill other patients in the office who already have other much more serious health problems that lowers their immune systems.

I'm sorry that you feel like you were abused but the lady who kicked you out was probably angry with you because you diagnosed yourself, you assumed you have a cold and came for your appointment anyway and endangered the office and other patients when you should have phoned and cancelled. She probably has to send lots other people home for the same reason and is fed up and tired of other people not thinking of potential consequences. Maybe you were the last straw to break that camel's back so she got rude.

Especially in these times when everyone should know the covid epidemic is still rampant globally nobody who has any symptoms of either covid OR what they assume is a common cold should expect their doctor's office to appreciate a patient coming to their office because the patient diagnosed their self and thinks they can't endanger anyone else.

I hope you get well soon from whatever contagious disease it is that you picked up from somebody else and that you don't spread it to anyone else that you are coming into contact with.

.


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## boatswain2PA (Feb 13, 2020)

muleskinner2 said:


> And you should be glad of it. Most Nurse Practitioners have more actual school time than a MD, and ten to fifteen years more years of actual experience than a MD. There are two or three MD's in Tucson who send patients to my Nurse Practitioner, when they are stumped for a diagnosis.
> 
> I don't know why anyone would go see a Physician's Assistant. They don't have as much training as a Registered Nurse. And all of their work must be signed off by a real MD. Physician's Assistants are a scam that doctors use to make more money than they can make seeing patients themselves. Every procedure, and every prescription an Assistant writes is credited to the Doctors practice, and must be signed off by them.


Someone should go work for the Brandon administration with their ability to slung bull excrement.

The path to physician begins with getting a bachelors degree in a HARD science such as Pre-Med, chemistry, biology, etc. Some folks get in with a softer degree path, but all medical schools require chemistry (not "Chemistry for Nursing"...a real class in many nursing programs), organic chemistry I and II, biochemistry, physics, along with the HARD math classes like trig and calculus, along with statistics.

Then there is the MCAT test. This is the big rate limiting factor for people to get into medical schools. It is a BEAST of a test. Do well on that and one can likely get into medical school.

So AFTER FOUR YEARS of serious undergrad and doing well on one of the most difficult tests on the planet, they spend four years in medical school which requires the Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 tests that ensures one has the broad, yet deep, medical education required for practice. Finally, they are doctors.

So AFTER EIGHT YEARS of serious undergrad and graduate education, they have to match into a residency program. The shortest residency programs are three years, and the longest are up to 6 years, where they learn their chosen specialty. During this 3-6 years they are doctors, but their job is to learn as they practice under the supervision of specialists. These residency years often require working 60+ hours a week in addition to classes, lectures, etc ad nauseum. THEN they are able to take the board certification test for their specialty.

So that is 11-16 YEARS of rigorous formal education that a board certified physician has.


The path to Physician Assistant begins much the same way with the requirement for a bachelors degree in a HARD science such as pre-med, chemistry, biology, etc. Again, some folks get in with a softer degree, but ALL PA schools require classes like (real) chemistry, pathophysiology, anatomy & physiology, statistics, etc. MOST PA programs also require organic chem and/or biochemistry, and a few require physics. PA programs require an average of 2000 hours experience in patient care (as a nurse, paramedic, EMT, CNA, etc), and most PA programs require a great score on the GRE.

So AFTER FOUR YEARS of serious undergrad, along with patient care experience and the GRE, PA students spend 26 months in an intense, highly standardized educational pathway. The first 13 months is butt-in-seat training that is comparable to the first two years of medical school. It is faster paced, but probably not quite as in depth as the first 2 years of medical school. Multiple tests every week, fail two tests and you are on probation, fail a 3rd and you are gone. The second half of PA school is 13 months of standardized clinical rotations. EVERY PA student has a rotation in surgery, cardiology, womens health, family practice, emergency medicine plus a couple of elective rotations (mine was infectious disease and trauma). This second year requires a MINIMUM of 2000 clinical hours, with the average being about 3500 clinical hours being performed.

To put this in a little perspective --- nobody works in PA school. You simply don't have time. In my class we had two experienced ER nurses who worked a few shifts a month for the first couple of months but had to quit entirely because the pace was too much.

The path to Nurse Practitioner begins much differently with the requirement of having a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. This is a legitimate and important degree path, but the level of scientific rigor in a nursing degree is much lower than that required for medical or PA schools. Many nursing programs have a "chemistry for nursing" class that fits their requirement for chemistry. And much of the educational differences between an Associates of Science in Nursing (which allows one to become a Registered Nurse) and a Bachelors of Science in Nursing (also allows becoming a RN) is usually a bunch of "nursing theory" or "nursing management" type of papers....no real difference in science classes.

So, after having a BSN, a nurse can apply to NP schools which can have a wide range of educational rigor, but none of them come close to PA let alone MD education. Many NP programs are entirely online and I have never met a NP who didn't work while going through their NP program; almost all of them worked full time while working on it. NP programs generally do teach some "medicine" in the form of more advanced pathophysiology etc, but much of the NP programs are filled with "fluff" of nursing theory/nursing management stuff. And NP students also have to do clinical rotations. But instead of standardized rotations like PA programs have, many NP students are required to find their own clinical rotation sites. This frequently means a NP student does their clinical rotation at ONE site, with a friend who they know who graduated NP school a few years before. And the minimum number of clinical hours is only 500.

I know and work with some great NPs, but they only became great because they understood that their NP program did not prepare them to practice medicine so they went out and became great through their own self-study. I know a few NPs who I would trust more than some physicians, but that is only because of the quality of the person and not the quality of the education.

And don't go thinking I am bashing nurses. I'm married to a nurse, I respect the hell out of my nurses, but anyone who says NPs are better trained than physicians or PAs are talking out their Brandon-hole.

Unfortunately NPs have an enormously powerful political lobby and have convinced most state legislators to grand them independent practice rights. Like most things that legislators do, this is foolish and dangerous. Unfortunately the PA profession is following behind them. Fortunately this practice is really limited to independent clinics and I doubt will ever expand to hospitals as hospitals want to ensure that patient care is at least nominally overseen by physicians.

And we should talk a little bit about degree creep. As I alluded to above, there is no clinical difference between an associates degree RN and a bachelors degree RN. There is nothing clinically that the BSN can do that the ASN cannot do. However the BSN nurse wrote a bunch more papers and got their BSN.

The same thing applies to the Masters trained NP vs the Doctoral trained NP. The Doctorate of NP is the same educational pathway as the Masters NP, with one more semester of writing papers on nursing theory/leadership/management. Of course, along with higher tuition for the university since it's for a doctoral program.

The same thing has happened to the PA profession which started out as a certificate program, but had 13 months of intense didactic education and then 13 months of intense medical rotations. This turned into an associates degree, then a bachelors degree (with the last 2 years being the PA portion), and then a masters degree, and now there are doctoral degrees using the EXACT SAME education.

Hope this clears up the bull excrement being spread around....


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## boatswain2PA (Feb 13, 2020)

Regarding covid - it is rampant, and it is effectively a bad cold for a few days. It is "reverting to the mean" for a coronavirus and is becoming MORE transmissible, yet less lethal. I am diagnosing multiple cases daily, and people feel terrible for a few days, but I haven't admitted anyone for covid in a month and that was a questionable admission anyway.

Gone, fortunately, are the days where we are putting people on ventilators to die from covid.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

boatswain2PA said:


> So that is 11-16 YEARS of rigorous formal education that a board certified physician has.


Unless they have a specialty a GP will have nine or ten years. And be out there in the world, asking the NP that works in the same hospital how to treat bed sores. Killing people with the wrong antibiotic, or combinations of the wrong meds. There heads swell up, and their crap don't stink. But they can put MD in front of their name, so nobody ever questions them when they kill someone because they don't wash their hands between patients when doing hospital rounds, and they can't be bothered to read a chart. 

I would go to a Vet, before I would go see a MD.


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## boatswain2PA (Feb 13, 2020)

4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, and 3 (and some are 4) years of family practice residency.

4 +4+3 = 11 years of actual science & medicine.

11 is not 9.

One could apply to be a spokesman for the Brandon administration with your math...


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

Back to Covid: I think that those "forehead temperature checks" at the entrance to medical facilities are useless. Some use hand-held digital infrared thermometers. Some have bought big, expensive instruments that have digital displays of your head, and you stand in front of them.

My wife and I tested positive for Covid with home test kits a few weeks ago. And we were pretty sick, but not sick enough to go to a doctor. I was sicker than she was. I was bedridden for 24 hours. She got Covid at the beauty shop and came home and gave it to me a few days later. It was all over in about 5 to 7 days. We've had the shots.

The whole time we were sick, I checked our temps with a digital oral thermometer over and over. NEVER did either of us run any fever. We never had elevated temperature.

I also repeatedly checked our foreheads with a good digital infrared thermometer and neither ever showed an elevated temperature. (I also checked our pulse and blood oxygen level with one of those little digital things that clip on your finger.)


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

NRA_guy said:


> I think that those "forehead temperature checks" at the entrance to medical facilities are useless.


It's a quick and simple screening test that can be done in under 2 seconds. But they've stopped doing it around here. The only restriction left today is facemask requirements at medical clinics and hospitals. That hints that while politicians have lifted covid restrictions, doctors are still concerned. That's worth noting, on the off-chance that doctors might know more about the spread of viral infections than politicians.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

NRA_guy said:


> Back to Covid: I think that those "forehead temperature checks" at the entrance to medical facilities are useless. Some use hand-held digital infrared thermometers. Some have bought big, expensive instruments that have digital displays of your head, and you stand in front of them.


We went forth with temperature checks in March of 2020 for everyone entering any one of our industrial facilities. I'm the medical staff at my site and we run a population of around 500 workers. For about 18 months, we did temperature checks on 100% of the people coming into the facility. In that time, we had dozens of small COVID clusters or cases of people coming into work despite minor symptoms as they didn't want to miss work ($$) or whatever. The number of people who were caught at the gate with the temperature checks? Zero. 

The fact is, people do not get a fever with the average COVID illness. Fever was really only seen in severe cases and it is a late symptom. It was never a good idea to focus on temperature as a screening tool. Screening tools need to look for early signs and symptoms. In the case of an upper respiratory virus like COVID, that means you have to rely on the person telling you an honest self-assessment of the symptoms they are feeling. Even seeing someone with sniffles and a cough isn't giving you enough information to say it could be COVID. Pollen, dust, and dander still exist with approximately 8% of the general population having mild "hay fever" allergies. Unfortunately, the general responses we started with early in this pandemic were all wrong. We now know better, but you still see a lot of people/places doing things based on "try this" procedures that were put in place back in 2020.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

nodak3 said:


> Everybody has a right to have a cold.
> 
> But everybody else has a right to exclude you if you have a cold, especially if you might share it with say someone who has had a transplant, or has cancer, etc.
> 
> Maybe less focus on "my rights" and more on "my duties to my fellow human beings."


The question I would have is what happens when the person who has a cold is a transplant or cancer patient. Denying or delaying their access to medical care can actually be fatal. 

It seems very common to assume that everyone is a selfish jerk but it isn't always so and you just don't know the reason someone with a cold may be seeking medical attention. 

I drove my roommate to the hospital last night because her doctor didn't want to see her because of a cold (even with a mask) and it had a direct impact on her asthma. When I found her, she was unable to breathe and turning blue.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

wr said:


> The question I would have is what happens when the person who has a cold is a transplant or cancer patient. Denying or delaying their access to medical care can actually be fatal.
> ..... < snip > ...... I drove my roommate to the hospital last night because her doctor didn't want to see her because of a cold (even with a mask) and *it had a direct impact on her asthma*. When I found her, she was unable to breathe and turning blue.


I think in a circumstance like that you did exactly the right thing and her going to the hospital instead of her doctor would have been the most appropriate thing she could have done right from the very get go anyway. It's also the likeliest thing that her own doctor would have suggested to her to do because doctors suggest it all the time if they can't or won't see their own patients for some reason. He should have told her to go directly to the hospital instead of just refusing to see her. A hospital is always better equipped to deal with any emergency or medical problem than a clinic or doctor's office would be.

But I'm curious about something. What was the _"it"_ that had a direct impact on her asthma? That is to say, what was it that triggered her asthma attack - was it the cold or was it the doctor's refusal? Was she already having an asthma attack caused by her cold before her doctor refused to see her, or was it being told that her doctor wouldn't see her because of her cold that then triggered a panic attack that turned into an asthma attack?

In any case going to the hospital was the most sensible thing to do.

.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Paumon said:


> I think in a circumstance like that you did exactly the right thing and her going to the hospital instead of her doctor would have been the most appropriate thing she could have done right from the very get go anyway. It's also the likeliest thing that her own doctor would have suggested to her to do because doctors suggest it all the time if they can't or won't see their own patients for some reason. He should have told her to go directly to the hospital instead of just refusing to see her. A hospital is always better equipped to deal with any emergency or medical problem than a clinic or doctor's office would be.
> 
> But I'm curious about something. What was the _"it"_ that had a direct impact on her asthma? That is to say, what was it that triggered her asthma attack - was it the cold or was it the doctor's refusal? Was she already having an asthma attack caused by her cold before her doctor refused to see her, or was it being told that her doctor wouldn't see her because of her cold that then triggered a panic attack that turned into an asthma attack?
> 
> ...


I'm not a doctor so I'm not qualified to answer the mechanics of why a cold causes some asthmatics to struggle with breathing but I bet her doctor knows why since she's been dealing with it for the better part of 60 years and she's used the same doctor for over a decade. Perhaps his staff could have directed her to ER or offered a phone appointment instead of telling her to make an appoinment at a later date. 

I will say that a trip to ER right now potentially more dangerous that an office visit because there is a 7 hour wait at my local ER today (according to AHS) and you have to get past the guard at the front desk before you can sit and wait your turn to see a triage nurse.


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## Paumon (Jul 12, 2007)

wr said:


> I'm not a doctor so I'm not qualified to answer the mechanics of why a cold causes some asthmatics to struggle with breathing but I bet her doctor knows why since she's been dealing with it for the better part of 60 years and she's used the same doctor for over a decade. Perhaps his staff could have directed her to ER or offered a phone appointment instead of telling her to make an appoinment at a later date.
> 
> I will say that a trip to ER right now potentially more dangerous that an office visit because there is a 7 hour wait at my local ER today (according to AHS) and you have to get past the guard at the front desk before you can sit and wait your turn to see a triage nurse.


Okay, so I take it that it was the cold that initially caused her asthma to kick in, it was not the doctor's refusal to see her.

I agree, the very least her doctor's office could have done was direct her to ER and to phone the ER to let them know they were sending a patient with a cold who was having a very hard time breathing and she needed immediate emergency attention upon her arrival. The ER getting notification like that from the doctor's office would have had some authority and would have shaved off a lot of time and anxiety for everyone concerned because the ER could have been waiting for her prepared and ready for her arrival.

I hope your room mate feels better soon.

.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

The inability to breathe with the skin turning blue is an actual medical emergency. And that person should not be taken to a medical clinic or driven to the ER (unless you can literally see the ER from where you're standing); you need to call 911 and get paramedics there ASAP. They can fix the problem in a matter of minutes. 

But if you were close to an ER and did walk in the door with a severe respiratory distress, I guarantee that you will not be waiting for 7 hours. Life threatening ABC problems move to the front of the line. That guy at the front desk is trained to recognize life-threatening cases and activate the appropriate response. The lady with toe pain that's been bothering her for the last 5 weeks is going to continue to sit in the waiting room for 7 hours. She's the one that needs to be making a scheduled appointment with a small clinic, not going to the ER. But it's cases like that which are clogging up the ER lobbies. It's against the law for the ER to turn away a patient, and thus, the system is abused by the public. 

I think the general public doesn't have a complete grasp on the scope of the healthcare field. It's not like hospitals and clinics are just competing businesses, like Wendy's vs Taco Bell. The comparison might be more along the lines of say the construction industry. You have completely different businesses with people who do completely different jobs, such as architects, bricklayers, framers, electricians, plumbers, roofers, carpet layers, cabinet builders, landscapers, the guy who empties the portapotty, the mortgage company, and the list goes on and on. Together, they all work on building a house, but each of them does a different thing. You don't go to the plumber to get your roof fixed. By the same token, you don't go to the clinic to stop your asthma attack or go to the ER for your chronic toe pain.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

When I was sick and couldn't breathe or stop coughing, pre-covid, I still sat in the ER waiting room over an hour because most of the ERs around here take you in the order you signed in. There were 2 people ahead of me and they were seen and released before I was called back. It was the same when I broke my foot and when my son had a post surgery infection.

As for the temperature checks, here you were not flagged unless your temp was more than 102°f. When you have hiked 1/2 mile through the parkinglot in freezing weather your face is cold and even if you have a fever the scanner doesn't detect it.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

Kmac15 said:


> I have a cold. I took a Covid test at home and it was negative. I got my cold from our granddaughter that goes to daycare. She has had two test done and both negative T is time for my routine blood test so I thought I was doing the prudent thing and wore a mask and used sanitizer when I went into the office. My doctor has an in-house lab so I get my blood drawn at the office.
> when I checked in they gave me the normal form to fill out that ask questions like have you had a fever, headache, sore throat, cough? I am honest and tell them I did a negative test yesterday but due to the COLD I have a sore throat and cough.
> a few minutes later I have a woman come into the waiting room and tells me I have to leave.i am not allowed to go to the back lab or stay in the lobby. Almost pushing me out the door. I explained again it is a common cold. And I need the lab work for myap next week. Was informed I couldn’t be seen for two weeks so no I no longer have an appointment next week.
> she was so abrupt and angry that I just left and started crying on my way to the car. I HAVE A COLD


they know few things 

A the test is about as accurate as a roll of a 6 sided dice not turning up a 1 
B none of the protective measures they have actually work as well as claimed so they want you out and they probably had to draw straws for who got to tell you to go 
C the vaccine is next to useless 

half surprised they didn't call you on your cell phone to tell you then spray down the area you were sitting.

they don't want to burn any more time off either or spreading it through their family so even if you have a symptom your out.

of course there are plenty of symptom-less carriers


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

Danaus29 said:


> When I was sick and couldn't breathe or stop coughing, pre-covid, I still sat in the ER waiting room over an hour because most of the ERs around here take you in the order you signed in. There were 2 people ahead of me and they were seen and released before I was called back. It was the same when I broke my foot and when my son had a post surgery infection.
> 
> As for the temperature checks, here you were not flagged unless your temp was more than 102°f. When you have hiked 1/2 mile through the parkinglot in freezing weather your face is cold and even if you have a fever the scanner doesn't detect it.


Yep. Back about 5 years ago (pre-covid days) my wife and I were responsible for the care of her 85-year old dad. Around 11:00 p.m. one night he got really bad off and we took him to the ER.

My wife (his daughter) went back with him, and I sat in the ER waiting room for about 2 hours.

The only other people in the waiting room were 2 old men. They got to chatting about why they had come to the ER, and one said: "Yeah, I just haven't had much energy lately so I thought I would come in to the emergency room and let them check me out. It don't cost nothin', you know." 

I'm thinking: It doesn't cost HIM anything. It cost the taxpayers plenty.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

NRA_guy said:


> The only other people in the waiting room were 2 old men. They got to chatting about why they had come to the ER, and one said: "Yeah, I just haven't had much energy lately so I thought I would come in to the emergency room and let them check me out. It don't cost nothin', you know."
> 
> I'm thinking: It doesn't cost HIM anything. It cost the taxpayers plenty.


It costs the legitimate patients too. I refuse to go to the OSU hospital emergency room because of the huge number of people who use it like a doctor's office. When I took my son there for the post surgery infection there were over 100 people in the waiting room. Some were laying on the floor because there were no seats. In the 2 hours we were there only 3 were called back to be seen.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

By "don't cost nothin", he probably means that his insurance will pay 100% for an ER visit. And if he had booked an appointment at his doctor's clinic, he probably wouldn't be seen for 2 months and the insurance would only pick up 80%.


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## kinderfeld (Jan 29, 2006)

Kmac15 said:


> ...I HAVE A COLD


They can't just take your word for it.



Danaus29 said:


> The last time I saw my gp, she wanted to chat while the nurse was drawing blood. I don't know what was said, my head was spinning, my ears were ringing and my vision was fuzzy.


Was all this going on in a bar?


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

kinderfeld said:


> Was all this going on in a bar?


Hahaha, I wish!


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## nodak3 (Feb 5, 2003)

boatswain2PA said:


> Regarding covid - it is rampant, and it is effectively a bad cold for a few days. It is "reverting to the mean" for a coronavirus and is becoming MORE transmissible, yet less lethal. I am diagnosing multiple cases daily, and people feel terrible for a few days, but I haven't admitted anyone for covid in a month and that was a questionable admission anyway.
> 
> Gone, fortunately, are the days where we are putting people on ventilators to die from covid.


Not exactly. Yes, fewer patients are winding up dead or on vents. But that does not mean nobody is. I have a friend who is unvaxxed, otherwise healthy. Stayed healthy through original and Delta, got lax with the mask and other protocols and got the original Omicron. Almost died. Got well and figured good to go. Just got BA5. Yes, survived and no vent. But almost died from Covid pneumonia anyway. Otherwise a healthy person under 65.

This is not just a bad cold. It is less dangerous than two years ago, but still dangerous.


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## boatswain2PA (Feb 13, 2020)

nodak3 said:


> This is not just a bad cold. It is less dangerous than two years ago, but still dangerous


So is diabetes, heart disease, influenza, MRSA, strep pneumonia, klebsiella, mycoplasma, driving a car, diving in a Democrat controlled urban city, etc ad nauseum.

Lots of things I worry about more than Covid now.

Covid is just a bad cold. But, even bad colds sometimes kill people.


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

JOAT said:


> By "don't cost nothin", he probably means that his insurance will pay 100% for an ER visit. And if he had booked an appointment at his doctor's clinic, he probably wouldn't be seen for 2 months and the insurance would only pick up 80%.


Haha! Insurance. Pretty sure that he was on Medicare and Medicaid.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

NRA_guy said:


> Yep. Back about 5 years ago (pre-covid days) my wife and I were responsible for the care of her 85-year old dad. Around 11:00 p.m. one night he got really bad off and we took him to the ER.
> 
> My wife (his daughter) went back with him, and I sat in the ER waiting room for about 2 hours.
> 
> ...


One of the biggest problems in my area is that doctors don’t want to live the city.

Pre pandemic, we were brutally short of doctors and 4 have moved back to the city and those that remain are unable to take new patients. We did have a nurse practitioner move out here and she had to stop accepting new patients within a month.

Our current choices are, try and find a doctor accepting new patients in one of two cities, both 60 miles away or go to ER and wait.

The ambulance shortage in Calgary means they pull outlying ambulances to cover their gaps and quite often we are being told to drive ourselves or call the RCMP or fire department to get a ride to ER.

There may be the odd person waiting to have a hangnail treated but there’s a strong chance they will get hungry and go home long before they see a doctor.

I hear it’s worse in Calgary and Edmonton, where people are calling 911 in order to try and even get inside the ER doors.

Alberta shut down so many aspects of healthcare that people are literally dying, waiting for help.

An elderly woman in Calgary was attacked by dogs and it took calls multiple calls from police for an ambulance, which arrived in over an hour. The woman had bled out before they arrived and the finger pointing has already begun.

Most patient transfers and discharges are being handled by private ambulance companies. I actually quit the day I had to tell someone that I understood that his father was likely having a heart attack but we couldn’t legally take him to hospital.


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## NRA_guy (Jun 9, 2015)

About a year ago my son (he's 38 years old with a wife and 3 young children) got sick. He felt worse and worse over the next few days.

At that time he didn't have one of those Covid home test kits.

His wife finally drove him to a local clinic. They had one of those "Call before you enter" signs on the door; so they called the clinic while they sat in the car in the clinic's parking lot.

The clinic asked why he wanted to see a doctor, and the wife explained his condition and said that they feared he might have Covid.

The clinic said, "Yes. It sounds like he has Covid; so he cannot come in."

So they went back home.


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## nodak3 (Feb 5, 2003)

The clinic did the right thing. At least where I live. At the height of covid there were covid clinics to go to if you thought you had it. Today you call your doc, or the walk in clinic, or the urgent care places. They triage you over the phone and tell you the correct place to go. Under this system, covid patients get the fast treatment they may need without exposing everyone with non covid illnesses and conditions. Win win.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

nodak3 said:


> The clinic did the right thing. At least where I live. At the height of covid there were covid clinics to go to if you thought you had it. Today you call your doc, or the walk in clinic, or the urgent care places. They triage you over the phone and tell you the correct place to go. Under this system, covid patients get the fast treatment they may need without exposing everyone with non covid illnesses and conditions. Win win.


Yeah. We all want to live in a world where you can’t go to the doctor if you have a cold.

Doctors should only be working on important stuff, like vacuu-chopping inconvenient people, and mutilating the genitals of people who god screwed up.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

NRA_guy said:


> Haha! Insurance. Pretty sure that he was on Medicare and Medicaid.


You know those are "insurance", right? Government-issued insurance, but it's still just insurance.


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## nodak3 (Feb 5, 2003)

Seriously? What is really your issue? Nobody who just has a cold is refused medical treatment, but anybody with cold, flu, or covid like symptoms is triaged to the appropriate facility where THEY SEE A DOCTOR.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

nodak3 said:


> Seriously? What is really your issue? Nobody who just has a cold is refused medical treatment, but anybody with cold, flu, or covid like symptoms is triaged to the appropriate facility where THEY SEE A DOCTOR.


My issue is pretty clear. Fear-junkies, allowing those interested in the profit of fear to make Covid into something more than it actually was- a bad cold. Now, two and a half years later, after we’ve found that it wasn’t nearly as deadly as claimed, that masking didn’t work, the “vaccines” were worthless, that social distancing was nothing more than a ploy to kill certain segments of the population, and that everyone in our government and media lied to us, those same fear junkies, so eager for one more drop of that tasty fear, are still demanding that we play along with their stupid game.

You should always do your best to keep your coughs and sneezes to yourself. If you have the flu or a cold (including Covid), you should try to minimize your exposure to others, but, if it’s bad enough to send you to your doctor, you should go. Nothing has changed.

That’s my issue.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

nodak3 said:


> Not exactly. Yes, fewer patients are winding up dead or on vents. But that does not mean nobody is. I have a friend who is unvaxxed, otherwise healthy. Stayed healthy through original and Delta, got lax with the mask and other protocols and got the original Omicron. Almost died. Got well and figured good to go. Just got BA5. Yes, survived and no vent. But almost died from Covid pneumonia anyway. Otherwise a healthy person under 65.
> 
> This is not just a bad cold. It is less dangerous than two years ago, but still dangerous.


I have a friend who has more comorbidities than you can imagine and is also unvaccinated. A bottle of Buckley's and she was right as rain in a matter of days. Covid can be problematic but then again, it's not a death sentence either.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

Being way over on the right section of the political spectrum, I wholeheartedly agree that the response to COVID in most areas of the country and especially on the national leftist media propaganda outlets (often called, "the news") was handled terribly and with political motives. I mean, they went from "go to Chinatown and hug an Asian" after Trump tried to ban travel to China to a full-blown "stay in your apartment" lockdown in NYC in about one month. But, nearly 6.5 MILLION people have died. The most direct comparisons one can make in the modern era with pre-widespread-use-of-vaccine influenza are the global pandemics in 1957 and 1968 that each killed a little over a million people. COVID is not a "bad cold", but it's own stand-alone and now endemic viral illness. You can catch a "cold", the "flu" or "covid" and those are 3 completely different things. COVID is likely here for the rest of the human species' reign on this planet. 

It was actually extremely deadly in the beginning, but not as much now. Before we had effective treatments (including new drugs), the death rates were often exceeding 10% and that's a fact that no amount of "data washing" can deny. After our state-of-the-art modern healthcare systems across the world gathered enough data and tried out enough stuff with 100% of the world's medical research capacity singularly focused on one goal, we have been able to push the death rates down to a fairly low level. What they won't tell you straight up, is that a huge piece of the death rate reduction we have seen is simply due to the fact that the virus circumnavigated the planet several times over and essentially killed off the majority of the most vulnerable people. The genetic links between who's vulnerable and who isn't is still being researched and likely won't be known for years still. 

Also a fact that I'm always confused to see people on the "far right" deny is around vaccinations. The vaccines worked very well. Death rates plummeted after we began vaccinations. If you listened to politicians (which I strongly advise against), you might have thought that you'd get vaccinated and the virus would just bounce off your skin for the rest of time. But that's not how vaccines work at all. A vaccine does nothing more than expose you to a dead piece of a virus so your immune system can learn what the bad guy looks like and create natural anti-bodies to fight it off. Then, if you're exposed to the real virus, your body will react quicker to fighting it off so that you don't get as sick. There are practically no vaccines that are 100% effective or stop you from being exposed to a virus. They only change how fast your body responds to the pathogen. Unfortunately, this level of messaging didn't happen and we had talking-head politicians and media spewing a lot of "false hopes" to the public. 

Are there people who are naturally immune to COVID? Absolutely. Are there people who will get little to no protection from the vaccines? Absolutely. Do vaccines reduce the severity of the illness and the number of cases requiring entry into the healthcare system? Absolutely. Do the vaccines "wear off" over a period of time? Absolutely. Are there people who should not get vaccinated? Absolutely. Does the virus pass through a cloth mask from wally world? Absolutely. Does an N95 respirator effectively reduce transmission of the virus? Absolutely. 

You see, ALL of these varying "views" are true at the same time. What we've seen is a situation where 1/4 of the people believe only half of those things are true and another 1/4 of the people believe only the other half are true. And the actual truth is right in the middle and the remain 1/2 of the people can see that or just don't care to listen to the extremes arguing about it on TV and the interwebs. And meanwhile, we have politicians on both side of the debate leveraging those extreme positions for their own personal power trip. And when you get someone like me, who actually knows a bit about the subject from being a healthcare provider for over 30 years now, tries to explain this position, I get people on one side yelling that I'm a "trump-tard" and people on the other side yelling that I'm a "liberal" and no one listens to the facts.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

JOAT said:


> … But, nearly 6.5 MILLION people have died…


Maybe 6.5 million people have died with Covid, but nowhere near 6.5 million people have died from Covid. I start that sentence with “maybe”, because, if you recall, during the height of the “pandemic”, anyone with Covid-like symptoms was counted as a Covid death. That direction came from our own CDC.

In the average two-year span, how many people die with a rhinovirus, coronavirus or influenza in their system? Neither of us know, because there’s never been a push to test for those and mark them on the death certificate, and there’s certainly never been a push to label anyone who died in proximity to a cough, sneeze, upset stomach, loss of taste or a fever or chills as having died from a cold.

I’d be willing to accept that more people actually died from Covid than an average cold or flu bug, but we’ll never get to know exactly how bad this one was because they insisted on lying to us at every possible turn. Don’t empower their lies by repeating them as fact.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> Maybe 6.5 million people have died with Covid, but nowhere near 6.5 million people have died from Covid.


That silly argument doesn't hold water. I cringe every time I hear it. 

Using the same logic, one can say that no one dies from a heart attack. They died "with" a heart attack, but they died because of an oxygen deficiency in the brain. It's a circular logical fallacy. 

Do you also subscribe to the idea being pushed by the same people claiming that anyone who dies at any point after getting vaccinated has died because of the vaccine? The first guy who they claimed as a vaccine death was a doctor down in Florida. He was killed in a car accident. The ivermectin crowd didn't worry about that technicality and ran with the social media blast that this young doctor got vaccinated and one week later he suddenly died. If that isn't fake news, I'm not sure what is. 

When someone gets COVID and dies from organ failure as a result of cytokine storm that was complicated by their chronically compromised immune system secondary to obesity and diabetes, people who are trying to manipulate the numbers can try to confuse the public by claiming this person died from diabetes, not COVID. But that false. They died due to COVID. If they hadn't caught the Rona, they would not have died, yet. They had the diabetes or obesity or heart disease or whatever contributing illness for probably years prior to the emergence of COVID and eventually it would have taken them. But, it was the COVID infection that caused the underlying chronic issues to rapidly deteriorate and cause their death now instead of later. 

Now, if the guy was hit by a bus and they did a rapid COVID screen at the ER (which they were doing for nearly every single patient) and found it was positive, and then the guy died from the trauma of being hit by a bus, he didn't die "from" COVID. And there were _some_ cases where these numbers were initially reported as COVID cases ending in a death, but the death was not related to COVID. Those are the cases that were referenced by the CDC and the numbers were adjusted because of secondary death certificate reviews that were catching a very small % of cases that were incorrectly reported in this way. Those numbers have long since been corrected and the numbers posted on JHU right now should be very accurate. 

Another thing to remember is that out of those 6,436,203 reported deaths, only 1,027,053 are from the United States. So, erroneous reporting that happened in this country is an even smaller percentage of the Global totals. If anything, we should expect the actual global numbers to likely be much higher than what's been reported. And that's because there are literally a hundred countries that do not track this stuff and report it with the precision of the "first world" nations. It's likely that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of unreported deaths in many countries. The entire continent of Africa is statistically underreported and we know that there were areas that were hit extremely hard by COVID where there was no healthcare structure to save even the moderate cases, let alone the severe. There are countless bodies in remote graves that we'll never know about.

I just think that it's important for us to acknowledge the truth that COVID was a novel virus, unrelated to any existing "cold or flu". It's now an endemic viral disease that will be part of the human landscape for a long time, if not indefinitely. We need to recognize that fact and get beyond the blame-gaming so we can properly address how to deal with this virus on a daily basis without further economic and social destruction. Humans managed to survive plagues and pandemics throughout history. I suspect that if this virus had emerged in 1919 instead of 2019, that it would have globally killed 65 million instead of 6.5 million. It says a lot to modern medicine that we were able to react so quickly and develop treatments as well as vaccines in record time for a virus class that was known just 20 years ago to be impossible to create a vaccine against.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I found this interesting article by the CDC about how deaths were tallied.










Death Certificate–Based ICD-10 Diagnosis Codes for COVID-19


Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19 as a




www.cdc.gov




"Nearly 18% of death certificates had a co-occurring significant contributing condition only (Table 1). This finding was more frequent for death certificates indicating that the death occurred in the decedent’s home (38.3%), a nursing home or long-term care facility (38.5%), or hospice facility (23.2%). A small proportion (9,638; 2.5%) of death certificates had co-occurring diagnosis codes that could not be plausibly categorized as either a chain-of-event or significant contributing condition. This finding was more frequent among decedents aged <18 years (64; 35.2%) and 18–29 years (145; 10.2%); these age groups represented only 0.4% (1,608) of all death certificates. This was recorded more frequently among decedents who died at home (1,259; 5.4%), were declared “dead on arrival” (15; 4.4%), or whose manner of death was self-inflicted (39; 63.9%), homicide (13; 43.8%), “could not determine” (18; 26.5%), or accidental (417; 20.0%)."


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

And how Massachusettes overcounted covid deaths.





__





Department of Public Health updates COVID-19 death definition


Revised data capture more accurately the acute impact of COVID in the Commonwealth




www.mass.gov





"BOSTON — Beginning Monday, March 14, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) will update the criteria used for identifying COVID-19 deaths to align with guidance from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate. The updated definition reduces this timeframe from 60 days to 30 days for individuals without a COVID diagnosis on their death certificate."

Note this sentence,
*"Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate. "*


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

JOAT said:


> That silly argument doesn't hold water. I cringe every time I hear it.
> 
> Using the same logic, one can say that no one dies from a heart attack. They died "with" a heart attack, but they died because of an oxygen deficiency in the brain. It's a circular logical fallacy.


That’s a false equivalency, and you can cringe all you want. We don’t all hang on the fear of being the one to cause the JOAT to cringe. Heart attack deaths are recorded as heart attack deaths. Some people died from their bodies reaction to Covid, but not all recorded “Covid deaths” were caused by Covid.

It’s a fact that the recording and reporting rules for Covid were never applied to the cold or flu, so we have no accurate perspective on the former.


JOAT said:


> Do you also subscribe to the idea being pushed by the same people claiming that anyone who dies at any point after getting vaccinated has died because of the vaccine? The first guy who they claimed as a vaccine death was a doctor down in Florida. He was killed in a car accident. The ivermectin crowd didn't worry about that technicality and ran with the social media blast that this young doctor got vaccinated and one week later he suddenly died. If that isn't fake news, I'm not sure what is.


No, I don’t, but don’t let that stop you from dramatically slaying that fearsome strawman for our entertainment.

What I do sincerely believe is that there have been several (many? a lot?) of deaths caused by reaction to the “vaccine” that were not recorded as such by grace of that specifically crafted metric. It’s been documented that a death does not necessarily have to accompany a positive Covid test to have Covid recorded as a cause of death, and deaths occurring in proximity to administration of the “vaccine” must meet a very high bar of medical proof in order to be recorded as such.

Also, and this should make the inner scientist of any critical thinker _cringe_, but there’s never been a requirement to take a Covid test before administration of the “vaccine”. We do know that the “vaccine” causes stress to the cardio vascular system (as does Covid (or any other cold or flu virus)), so there have very likely been people infected with Covid pushed over the edge by the “vaccine”. You know as well as I do that that death would have gone as another tick in the “Covid death” column.

So, for precisely the same reasons and motivations that neither you nor I will ever know how many people died from Covid, we’ll never be allowed to know exactly how risky the “vaccine” was.



JOAT said:


> When someone gets COVID and dies from organ failure as a result of cytokine storm that was complicated by their chronically compromised immune system secondary to obesity and diabetes, people who are trying to manipulate the numbers can try to confuse the public by claiming this person died from diabetes, not COVID. But that false. They died due to COVID. If they hadn't caught the Rona, they would not have died, yet. They had the diabetes or obesity or heart disease or whatever contributing illness for probably years prior to the emergence of COVID and eventually it would have taken them. But, it was the COVID infection that caused the underlying chronic issues to rapidly deteriorate and cause their death now instead of later.


And that’s the exact mechanism by which the numbers got inflated in the first place. In the time before Covid, before people lost their minds, that exact scenario could have played out, except with influenza, and it would have been counted as a heart-disease statistic. Had the presiding doctor caught the flu infection, they may (may) have recorded it on the death certificate, but it would not have been counted as such by the world’s health authorities, and it certainly wouldn’t have been added to a running ticker for the fear junkies to froth over on the evening news.

We have no perspective of how many infirm people were cut short by a cold or flu because there was no profit to be made in whipping up people like yourself over it.



JOAT said:


> Now, if the guy was hit by a bus and they did a rapid COVID screen at the ER (which they were doing for nearly every single patient) and found it was positive, and then the guy died from the trauma of being hit by a bus, he didn't die "from" COVID. And there were some cases where these numbers were initially reported as COVID cases ending in a death, but the death was not related to COVID. Those are the cases that were referenced by the CDC and the numbers were adjusted because of secondary death certificate reviews that were catching a very small % of cases that were incorrectly reported in this way. Those numbers have long since been corrected and the numbers posted on JHU right now should be very accurate.


The CDC, using a similar tactic to the one that allowed them to downplay the risks of the “vaccine”, mitigated the downward correction of the “Covid deaths” that they were forced to make.

By their own directive, everyone who died after a medical professional witnessed them coughing or sneezing was recorded as a Covid death. Then, when the non-Tinmen called shenanigans, the CDC felt compelled to “correct” the numbers in order to save face. Just like with “vaccine” deaths, though, they only counted the ones they absolutely had to, and after thorough research.

The numbers were intentionally and recklessly inflated, but only begrudgingly adjusted downward, by as few as they could get away with.



JOAT said:


> Another thing to remember is that out of those 6,436,203 reported deaths, only 1,027,053 are from the United States. So, erroneous reporting that happened in this country is an even smaller percentage of the Global totals. If anything, we should expect the actual global numbers to likely be much higher than what's been reported. And that's because there are literally a hundred countries that do not track this stuff and report it with the precision of the "first world" nations. It's likely that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of unreported deaths in many countries. The entire continent of Africa is statistically underreported and we know that there were areas that were hit extremely hard by COVID where there was no healthcare structure to save even the moderate cases, let alone the severe. There are countless bodies in remote graves that we'll never know about.


The fraudulent counting practices of the CDC were committed by the health authorities of other countries as well. The EU’s recording practices have been argued to have been even worse than ours.

It’s funny that you bring up underreporting, because all of the inflated death and hospitalization statistics rely on the fact that Covid infections were so underreported. During the height of the pandemic, they literally had people dying, who may have had a cold or the flu, recorded as a Covid death, while millions of otherwise healthy people, who may have had a totally asymptomatic reaction to Covid were forced to stay at home. Couple those two opposing scenarios together and you have yet further inflation of the purported risks of Covid.



JOAT said:


> I just think that it's important for us to acknowledge the truth that COVID was a novel virus, unrelated to any existing "cold or flu". It's now an endemic viral disease that will be part of the human landscape for a long time, if not indefinitely. We need to recognize that fact and get beyond the blame-gaming so we can properly address how to deal with this virus on a daily basis without further economic and social destruction. Humans managed to survive plagues and pandemics throughout history. I suspect that if this virus had emerged in 1919 instead of 2019, that it would have globally killed 65 million instead of 6.5 million. It says a lot to modern medicine that we were able to react so quickly and develop treatments as well as vaccines in record time for a virus class that was known just 20 years ago to be impossible to create a vaccine against.


Covid is not an exact match for any other virus we’ve experienced (that we know of) because it was engineered in a lab, but to say that it is unrelated to any other coronavirus we’ve ever encountered is disingenuous. 

It’s also disingenuous to give modern medicine credit for “saving” 60 million lives that you suppose would have otherwise died from this cold. Our modern medical authorities acted, in this regard, as little more than another propaganda arm of our politburo.

Our medicine tzars’ only contribution to fighting this cold were demanding that we lock ourselves in our homes, wear masks in public, and pressuring us to take some unproven shot for the financial benefit of their benefactors.

The vast majority of people were at very little to no risk from this cold, yet they were forced to stay at home and out of the natural-immunity pool that would have been allowed to thrive with any other cold or flu. Now that the mask mandates are largely over, statistics are showing that masks were of little to no help. The expectations of the “vaccine” had to continually be ratcheted down as it proved to not do the things they claimed.

I’m respectful of the hard work and dedication it takes to accrue the training required to become a doctor or nurse, and thankful that those professionals will be available when I need them, but “modern medicine”, the agencies made up of politicians with PHDs, has proven to be just as corrupt as any other bureaucracy. Choose to revere them if you will, but don’t expect anyone else to buy what they’re selling.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

You make so many assumptions about me and try to force words into my comments that were not there, interspersed with several false assertions. Great use of the Shotgun Argument. Of course, I'm not going to even try to sit here and type out a rebuttal of all 473 points you tried to make in one post. Only one line is needed; I don't agree with most of your opinions on this issue.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

JOAT said:


> You make so many assumptions about me and try to force words into my comments that were not there, interspersed with several false assertions. Great use of the Shotgun Argument. Of course, I'm not going to even try to sit here and type out a rebuttal of all 473 points you tried to make in one post. Only one line is needed; I don't agree with most of your opinions on this issue.


My article is shorter and contains one sentence from a Massachusettes guideline about determining covid deaths.

"Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate. "

Anyone who had covid diagnosis in the 60 days before their death was counted as a covid death. Shortening that time to 30 days removed 3,700 people from the covid death count.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

Danaus29 said:


> My article is shorter and contains one sentence ...


My response is to simply copy/paste the actual death coding and reporting guidelines as posted by the Vital Statistics Reporting Guidelines:

"

If COVID-19 is determined to be a cause of death, it should be reported on the death certificate.
When reporting COVID-19 as a cause of death, use standard WHO terminology, such as “Coronavirus Disease 2019” or “COVID-19.”
Report pre-existing conditions that contributed to the death in Part II of the death certificate.
"

You can read the full text here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf

There is no reference anywhere to any "60 day" guideline. And it's required that all of those pre-existing conditions are reported as well. 

This is essentially the same guideline used to report deaths from Influenza and other viruses, which our previous caller claims "they" don't track. But they've closely tracked deaths from Influenza for decades, so that claim is readily proven false. There's no grand conspiracy here. It's just data.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

My sentence was from the Massachusettes official guidelines for covid death reporting. Dispute it if you want. What I posted was fact. The link is in my previous post.

Some people still dispute that hospitals and nursing homes were paid more for covid diagnosis. That information is available for those who care to look.


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## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

__





Department of Public Health updates COVID-19 death definition


Revised data capture more accurately the acute impact of COVID in the Commonwealth




www.mass.gov





"
BOSTON — Beginning Monday, March 14, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) will update the criteria used for identifying COVID-19 deaths to align with guidance from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate. The updated definition reduces this timeframe from 60 days to 30 days for individuals without a COVID diagnosis on their death certificate.

The revision follows the recommendation of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to create a standardized approach for states to use for counting COVID-19 deaths. Several other states are adopting this definition.

*Massachusetts has applied this new definition retroactively to the start of the pandemic in March 2020*. As a result, 4,081 deaths in Massachusetts that were previously counted as associated with COVID will be removed. In addition, approximately 400 deaths not previously counted but identified through a manual process of matching death certificates with medical records will be added to the COVID-19 death count. *The state’s overall COVID death count, therefore, will decline by 3,700."*


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I stand corrected. I removed the word *over* from my previous post.


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## JOAT (10 mo ago)

I don't know anything about MA. And it doesn't really matter on the grand scale. Your article says they altered their counting method, which slightly reduced the number of cases. Isn't that what you guys want? Updating the guidelines to ensure accurate reporting? 

I'm wondering if anyone here has even looked at a death certificate? They don't just put a single thing as the cause of death. There's an "immediate cause" and then there's a list of "underlying causes" and then there's a list of "contributing conditions". The goal of death reporting to the federal VS database is to capture as much data about every death as possible. They not only want to know the immediate cause, but also all of the things that lead to the death. It's how you paint the full picture. When you combine all of the data together, you're able to see trends and establish causal links. And all of that can help drive innovation on reducing death rates from specific causes.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

JOAT said:


> You make so many assumptions about me and try to force words into my comments that were not there, interspersed with several false assertions. Great use of the Shotgun Argument. Of course, I'm not going to even try to sit here and type out a rebuttal of all 473 points you tried to make in one post. Only one line is needed; I don't agree with most of your opinions on this issue.


Yeah, that was longer than even I like to post, but if you look at the post I was responding to, you loaded yours up with both word-count and points to be addressed.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Actually I have my mother in laws death certificate on my dresser and looked at it last night. There was only one cause and it was wrong according to a couple other doctors who reviewed the case after the fact.

There were many cases where a person already had one foot in the grave and covid gave them a push. Hubby's aunt and one of my neighbors were like that. They were both very sick already but covid finished the job.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

JOAT said:


> I don't know anything about MA. And it doesn't really matter on the grand scale. Your article says they altered their counting method, which slightly reduced the number of cases. Isn't that what you guys want? Updating the guidelines to ensure accurate reporting?
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone here has even looked at a death certificate? They don't just put a single thing as the cause of death. There's an "immediate cause" and then there's a list of "underlying causes" and then there's a list of "contributing conditions". The goal of death reporting to the federal VS database is to capture as much data about every death as possible. They not only want to know the immediate cause, but also all of the things that lead to the death. It's how you paint the full picture. When you combine all of the data together, you're able to see trends and establish causal links. And all of that can help drive innovation on reducing death rates from specific causes.
> 
> View attachment 113433


That point was addressed. I don’t think anyone in this discussion is unaware that multiple causes and contributing factors can be listed on a death certificate. That’s not what is in dispute.

What is in dispute is the tired and dubious stat you cited above of how over 6 million people died from Covid. The argument against that stat is that lots of deaths get recorded in the “Covid death” column that really had little to nothing to do with Covid, and were inflated by the record keeping directives from the health authorities.

The last half-dozen posts in this discussion not only prove that point, but show that you’re completely missing it. The state of MA just reduced their window for a positive test resulting in counting as a “Covid death” from 60 days down to 30. That does not even remotely compensate for the error in the intentionally inflated numbers.

From the article posted above:


painterswife said:


> … Currently, the COVID death definition includes anyone who has COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate, *and any individual who has had a COVID-19 diagnosis within 60 days but does not have COVID listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.* The updated definition reduces this timeframe from 60 days to 30 days for individuals without a COVID diagnosis on their death certificate…


Forget about the reduction in the window from 60 days to 30 days, they’re saying, in black and white, that it doesn’t matter what actually killed you. If you have a recorded positive result for Covid within a month of your death, your death gets added to the “Covid death” count. By their definition, as recommended by “*Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)*”, someone could die in a car accident, but, if their medical records show a positive Covid test, they get counted as a “Covid death”.

When was that done for another cold or flu? Covid was bad, but we’ll never know for sure how bad it was because they intentionally muddied the waters. The only thing we can be sure is that the actual number of people who died from Covid is somewhere below the number that you and so many other people cite, and, given the rules set up by the CDC, it was WELL below that number.

That they reduced the window from 60 days to 30 day, instead of eliminating the erroneous counting, proves my point that these new downward-adjustment efforts are being done begrudgingly and with as little death count mitigation as they think they can get away with.


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

Danaus29 said:


> Actually I have my mother in laws death certificate on my dresser and looked at it last night. There was only one cause and it was wrong according to a couple other doctors who reviewed the case after the fact.
> 
> There were many cases where a person already had one foot in the grave and covid gave them a push. Hubby's aunt and one of my neighbors were like that. They were both very sick already but covid finished the job.


There have been a few uproars in my province when our Chief Medical Officer misstated her daily death count but the biggest came when she cried on camera citing the death of a young boy who died of covid, although she was gracious enough to mention that he 'may' have had a few other little issues. 
The child's adult sister recognized the age and called a press conference to share the truth. The child had terminal brain cancer, was in his final hours, had tested negative for covid daily until he had one positive test within hours of his very expected death. 

Was the good doctor remorseful? Not a chance, she indicated at her next daily death conference she would be more careful with pediatric information and make sure that going forward, she would make sure to not disclose sufficient information that anyone might identify pediatric patients that didn't actually die from covid. 

A local man needed heart surgery that was postponed during the first lockdown and when he died from lack of medical care, his family had to fight hard to have covid removed as his cause of death. 

The number of people who died is serious enough but embellishing them did nothing to instil confidence in public officials.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I found a friend's death certificate a couple days ago. Cause of death was listed as a stroke with secondary cause of atrial fibrilation. What was not listed was that he bled to death after a bad fall while he was on a heavy dose of blood thinners.


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## ryanthomas (Dec 10, 2009)

Danaus29 said:


> I found a friend's death certificate a couple days ago. Cause of death was listed as a stroke with secondary cause of atrial fibrilation. What was not listed was that he bled to death after a bad fall while he was on a heavy dose of blood thinners.


Just curious...what did they put as the manner of death?


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

ryanthomas said:


> Just curious...what did they put as the manner of death?


Stroke first, atrial fib second.


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## ryanthomas (Dec 10, 2009)

Danaus29 said:


> Stroke first, atrial fib second.


Sorry, I meant the part where it says natural, accident, homicide, suicide, etc. MOD is a separate box on the certificate from COD. I wonder if they went with natural or accident. Probably natural if they put stroke and a-fib for COD, but accident might fit the circumstances.

Anyway, not that important, just my idle curiosity. A lot of death certificates have some incorrect or incomplete info. I would even estimate that the majority probably do.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

ryanthomas said:


> Sorry, I meant the part where it says natural, accident, homicide, suicide, etc. MOD is a separate box on the certificate from COD. I wonder if they went with natural or accident. Probably natural if they put stroke and a-fib for COD, but accident might fit the circumstances.
> 
> Anyway, not that important, just my idle curiosity. A lot of death certificates have some incorrect or incomplete info. I would even estimate that the majority probably do.


I never noticed that. It's box 32 on my mil's certificate which is the one I have handy. I'll have to look when I put hers away, maybe tomorrow.

I just wanted to point out that even though a death cert says covid, it doesn't necessarily mean covid was the cause.


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