25- Kudos to the pediatricians out there denying the DHHS over the covid boosters for children or why covid is still trying to kill you

I will be frank- Covid is still circulating and still killing people, including children. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) 194 people died of covid weekly in August 2025. Of course this number is highly suspect as many states stopped reporting covid deaths. I suspect that the true number is higher.

To many people, covid is dead and none of the protections need to happen anymore.

Vaccine? Yeah, I got one three years ago and then I stopped getting them.

Yeah, I got covid four times last year but I’m okay.

Other people are not okay after getting covid-19.

To think that covid no longer affects the US or you is highly privileged. This means it hasn’t affected you personally YET.

I think that a lot of the conversations about covid are missing the qualifier “YET”.

I think you mean to say that covid hasn’t given you long covid symptoms YET. I think you mean to say that you got the first vaccine series and don’t think you can get covid YET. I think you mean to say that covid hasn’t impacted or killed your child YET.

See how easy that was?

The CDC finally came out with its covid recommendations in the beginning of June. The recommendations are for adults 18-65 to have an optional covid vaccine but for those over 65 it is highly recommended. They said that they were not recommending the covid vaccine to children or to pregnant women.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said “Bet” and did not change their vaccine recommendations to reflect what the CDC says. The AAP recommends the covid vaccine to children over the age of 6 months. In order to decrease the likelihood of serious illness and covid complications.

Because, and I cannot shout this enough, covid is still out there and still killing.

The most current FDA recommendation is that adults greater than 65 years of age continue to get the vaccine. The vaccine is not recommended for anyone under the age of 65 unless you have one medical condition that puts them at higher risk of a serious covid complication.

But, Kate, that is awfully vague, what kind of medical conditions?

The list I pulled from the FDA website was cancer, obesity defined as BMI greater than or equal to 20, or greater than the 95th percentile in children, diabetes I and diabetes II, asthma, cerebral vascular disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic lung disease, chronic liver disease, cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, mental health conditions, dementia and Parkinson’s, physical inactivity, pregnancy, smokers current and former, TB, those who have had a solid organ or stem cell transplant, use of corticosteroids such as prednisone, and being unvaccinated or not up to date on your vaccinations (interesting). This is not an exhaustive list.

The point is you are going to have to fight and justify your need for the covid vaccine if you under 65. If you can find one, if you can afford it. But that’s an issue for another day.

I think they are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives. Especially children who are still growing and don’t have the mature respiratory system.

Tuesday Top of Mind 3/11/2025-Happy Birthday, Covid-19.

Happy Birthday, Covid-19.

It was 5 years ago today that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

The post I wrote last year on this date was that I was at work. Of course I was at work. I wrote that lockdown and elective cases stoppage, masks were a few days away.

Listen.

The WHO and the CDC and Anthony Fauci did the best they could with the wildly gyrating situation that was wrestling with a very deadly, very real pandemic.

Most people don’t care about that.

Most people only care about how a situation impacts them. Until they or their family member is the one on the vent. Or can’t get a bed because there are literally no beds or no vents available.

Remember New York? And the thousands of people who were sick in late winter, early spring, all the way to summer 2020? Remember the refrigerator truck morgues waiting outside of hospitals? Remember the Of course you don’t.

But those of us in healthcare that were sidelined because of the pause in elective cases remember. Well, some of us do.

Some of us who worked on the front lines in those dark days remember. Even if it makes us sad.

There was just a spike in December/January. Not that the U.S. would know. The current death toll on the CDC website is 735 in the first week of March 2025. The total death toll is hard to find at the CDC site and I spent a lot of time poking around looking for it.

The global death rate for covid is 7,090,890. It is hard to get a current death toll for the U.S, but I did find a number on the Worldometer site. That number is one million, two hundred nineteen thousand, four hundred eighty-seven. Americans dead from covid in 5 years.

Spare me the explanation that some of those dead in the U.S. were illegal immigrants.

Remember that it is still sickening people and they are being hospitalized, sometimes on vents? Yes, even today.

Covid taught the world many lessons.

However, it also gave rise to rampant misinformation and death threats against the very people who were trying to help us survive.

Remember that?

So Happy Birthday, Covid-19. May the lessons that you tried to teach us about humanity and resilience sink in someday. Preferably before the next pandemic.

We are flying blind and, as a healthcare worker and registered nurse, these remain scary times. Not only because 75% of the population shrug and go on with their lives, but because the U.S. has left the WHO and the CDC is likewise hamstrung. Research dollars and research at the major research centers, such as universities, are being affected by what they can research and what they can’t. And that list is horrifyingly anti-women, anti-LGBTQIA, and anti-science.

Good times to be in research. (This is sarcasm. So much sarcasm.)

Tuesday Top of Mind 7/16/24- Fifth verse, same as the first

Yes, the post title is meant to reference the song”I’m Henry the VIII, I Am” by Herman’s Hermits.

What the post title is referencing is that this is the FIFTH covid summer. 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.

Not as bad, but still lethal. Masks have been legislated against or banned in many cities and states. You know, the masks that have kept some of us safe through this entire time.

It is illegal to wear a mask in some states if you are committing a crime.

Since when is the desire not to get covid a crime? Depends on who you ask. Are you asking the ones who don’t believe in covid, who think it’s a boogeyman dreamed up by those with public health in mind? To scare the stock market? To get people to buy into Big Pharma? To want to care for others, no matter their age, sex, religion, and orientation?

Yeah, those people. The ones who excuse the death of over one million Americans (the exact data is hard to come by). According to the CDC tracking database, there have been 1-9 covid deaths in North Carolina in the last week. However, the previous week’s numbers that allow comparison and percentages are not available. Ask yourself what they don’t want you to know or even acknowledge to themselves.

I am keeping a close eye on the infection rate at the hospital. We went from 1 admitted case to more than 5 times in a couple of weeks. ooh, five more patients? Yes, and these are just the ones that got admitted. Or came in. These are definitely the ones who are quarantining because they are in the hospital.

I have not resumed mask-wearing as a general rule. I have some in my car. However, I shop early or late or not at all. I don’t go places where there are a lot of people. On purpose, but then I’ve always kinda done that. Who knew being an introvert could help? Just every introvert known to man.

I have no idea how many covid posts this makes. My record-keeping has been spotty. And incomplete. And my mind has been busy with other things.

As always, it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in covid; it believes in you.

Covid 4 years later

March 11, 2020, was the date that the WHO declared covid-19 a pandemic. I remember where I was; do you?

It was Wednesday and I was on shift. The lockdowns were not to start for over 2 weeks, the operating room schedule was normal. Little did we know what was to come.

I could not let this day go unrecognized.

So much has happened in the past 4 years. People have died and continue to die of covid. Long covid is the boogieman underneath the bed for many people. Symptoms can last for years. We are continuing to learn how dangerous long covid is and, really, how dangerous covid is. The virus attacks many systems: heart, lung, liver, brain. It can also cause extreme fatigue. I mean the kind of fatigue that makes life unbearable and very hard to survive. There are reports of long covid around the world.

And the world shrugs.

Conflating covid with the flu is dangerous. One is more virulent than the other.

And the world shrugs.

Vaccines and updates to vaccines are ready and willing to go into arms. According to a March 8, 2024 report from the CDC, the population reporting having the updated 2023-2024 vaccine is THIRTEEN POINT FIVE.

And the world shrugs.

Tuesday Top of Mind 12/5/23-Gap in the data

My brain is right now about finding data gaps in the nursing research. This is to aid me in my doctoral classes and I think I’ve found one. Both in the doctoral classes.

And in the current covid pandemic numbers.

What covid pandemic numbers?

You say you haven’t seen any covid pandemic numbers in months. You even didn’t know it was still a thing. Mostly because you don’t care. It has killed as many as it is going to kill and other things are more important to you.

I get it, I do. But that’s just it; we don’t know about current numbers. All we get are dribs and drabs of numbers, sometimes, if the wind is right. Otherwise, no one is reporting numbers right now.

At a glance at the current numbers here in my town, the data is lagging a bit. The last numbers are from November 3-November 16 and apparently, the covid risk is low. 11% of those who presented to the hospital with covid like symptoms got admitted, but the covid risk is low.

79% of the covid samples are from 2 dominant strains-Omicron XBB and Omicron XE. The most current variant that is in the news is BA.2.6, according to the CDC. Even that update is from 11/27/23.

That is the point.

The data are weak. When we get it at all.

There certainly is a lot more to capture our attention. Is covid a victim of the news cycle because there is something sexier to talk about that gets attention?

Yep.

Inflation, the holidays, and wars.

Lions, tigers, and bears indeed.

Oh my.