TallGuyJohninBKK

It might well have something to do with the fact that, as many posters here often proclaim, that the majority (but not all) of current COVID deaths and hospitalizations tend to occur among the elderly. Risks continue to be higher for older adults, infants, and people with pre-existing medical conditions "While COVID-19 hospitalization rates have declined across all age groups, certain groups continue to be hospitalized at higher rates, including older adults, infants, and people with underlying medical conditions or certain disabilities. During the first seven months of 2023, adults 65 years and older accounted for 63% of hospitalizations and 88% of in-hospital deaths from COVID-19." Meaning that 37% of US COVID hospitalizations during the cited period involved people under 65 years of age. https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/changing-threat-covid-19.html

That was UK's autumn 2023 vaccination campaign, which peaked toward the end of last year as planned. They had a pause, and now just recently have begun their spring 2024 COVID vaccines campaign, as planned. It's the normal cycle in the UK. Timing of the spring booster You should be offered an appointment between April and June, with those at highest risk being called in first. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-spring-booster-resources/a-guide-to-the-covid-19-spring-booster-2023 Covid booster jab to be offered this spring 7 March 2023 A spring booster vaccine against Covid-19 is to be offered to people at most risk of serious illness from the disease to protect them this summer. UK vaccine experts say it should be available to everyone over 75, care-home residents and anyone extremely vulnerable aged five and over. ... Prof Wei Shen Lim, JCVI chairman, said: "Vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself against Covid-19, and the spring booster programme provides an opportunity for those who are at highest risk of severe illness to keep their immunity topped up. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64876657

Yes they did, and guess what, the terms "COVID" or "vaccines" don't appear anywhere in the article, not even once...even though they should! (as detailed below) In fact, the article talks about "paper mill" operations faking papers and selling authorship rights generally in low-quality or "pay for play" journals where a payment gets one published. Exactly the kind of journal articles with fake science that a lot of anti-vaxers and COVID deniers have exploited during the pandemic. From the WSJ report: "The mill then submits the work, generally avoiding the most prestigious journals [emphasis added] in favor of publications such as one-off special editions that might not undergo as thorough a review and where they have a better chance of getting bogus work published. ... Researchers say they have found them in multiple countries including Russia, Iran, Latvia, China and India. The mills solicit clients on social channels such as Telegram or Facebook, where they advertise the titles of studies they intend to submit, their fee and sometimes the journal they aim to infiltrate. " https://archive.ph/5k8nI#selection-2579.0-2579.201 That is NOT the kind of credible, often peer-reviewed COVID and COVID vaccine research that generally is cited here, typically from credible journals and done by veteran researchers from major universities. Rather, it's more often anti-vaxer and COVID denier junk like this: Column: Why anti-vaxxers are pretending a flawed study on vaccine deaths has been vindicated "my email inbox started filling up with the curious news that a long-discredited and retracted paper claiming that the COVID vaccines had killed nearly 300,000 Americans had been “reinstated.” It did not take long to determine that the truth was, no, not really. But the sudden appearance of this claim and its rapid spread across the anti-vaccine ecosystem speak volumes about how “bad papers written by antivax ideologues designed to promote a narrative that vaccines are dangerous and/or ineffective ... never die,” to quote the veteran pseudoscience debunker David Gorski." https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-10-24/no-anti-vaxxers-this-flawed-and-retracted-study-of-vaccine-deaths-hasnt-been-reinstated AND Retraction: Walach et al. The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy. Vaccines 2021, 9, 693 The journal retracts the article, The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy [1], cited above. Serious concerns were brought to the attention of the publisher regarding misinterpretation of data, leading to incorrect and distorted conclusions. The article was evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief with the support of several Editorial Board Members. They found that the article contained several errors that fundamentally affect the interpretation of the findings. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8262594/ AND https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6.pdf And on and on and on....

Predictably, you've posted long out-of-date info for the U.S. from a more than two month old article. The most recent current info (May 10) for the 2023-2024 monovalent vaccine in the U.S. is: 22.5% (22.1-22.8) for adults 18+ 40.8% (39.7-41.8) among adults age 65+ https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-research/dashboard/vaccination-trends-children.html Or in the U.K., where the newest vaccines are recommended for the elderly and other higher-risk populations: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/ The bottom line is: COVID vaccines worked. Tens of millions of lives were saved from COVID. And the protections from the vaccines along with immunity from prior infections have dramatically reduced the numbers of COVID deaths and hospitalizations, as the virus also has mutated over time to in general become less severe. Meaning people today in 2024, right now, don't feel the same sense of urgent health risk that they did in 2021 and 2022, early in the vaccine rollout and with the more deadly COVID variants circulating in those times, when COVID death and hospitalization numbers were skyrocketing. And there's also the factor of pandemic fatigue... Many people don't want to think or talk about COVID anymore, considering we're now 4-1/2 years into a COVID pandemic that officially killed 1.2 million people in the U.S. and more than 7 million worldwide (though the actual estimated deaths number worldwide has been projected to be some 4 times higher). source:

In my years of experience with them, SCB rarely does anything that's especially financially advantageous for their customers. Rather, they have some history of charging foreigners here lower than normal market exchange rates when the foreigner wants to do a cash advance/debit with their foreign credit or debit card via the bank. I can't help but wonder if the reason you're telling us they don't charge "exchange fees" or foreign currency fees, per se, if because they've already built their profit into giving the customer doing those transactions a lower than market exchange rates on those fund conversions? https://www.scb.co.th/content/media/personal-banking/rates-fees/others/credit-card-rates-and-fees/credit-card-rates-and-fees-en.pdf? https://www.scb.co.th/en/personal-banking/foreign-exchange-rates.html

There also have been credible journal-published studies showing ivermectin specifically had no value in reducing the risk of Long COVID when given soon after COVID infections: Outpatient treatment of Covid-19 with metformin, ivermectin, and fluvoxamine and the development of Long Covid over 10-month follow-up The Lancet Infectious Diseases October 2023 "Post-COVID-19 condition (also known as long COVID) is an emerging chronic illness potentially affecting millions of people. We aimed to evaluate whether outpatient COVID-19 treatment with metformin, ivermectin, or fluvoxamine soon after SARS-CoV-2 infection could reduce the risk of long COVID. ... "There was no effect on cumulative incidence of long COVID with ivermectin (HR 0·99, 95% CI 0·59–1·64) or fluvoxamine (1·36, 0·78–2·34) compared with placebo." ... To our knowledge, this is the first randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial to evaluate the effect of outpatient COVID-19 treatment on the incidence of long COVID. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473309923002992 On the other hand, the same research has shown that the diabetes drug metformin DID have a significant impact in reducing the risk of Long COVID: Common diabetes drug shown to prevent long COVID June 14, 2023 "A 14-day course of metformin, a common drug used to manage type 2 diabetes, prevents long COVID, according to a new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The promising results come from the COVID-OUT study, which looked at three readily available drugs: ivermectin, fluvoxamine, and metformin, for both COVID treatment and long-COVID prevention. All three drugs had shown antiviral properties in vivo against SARS-CoV-2, and all had been promising medical treatments for the virus, as they are cheap and safe. Now, more than 2 years after the outpatients trial began, metformin is the only medical intervention in the study shown to prevent long COVID. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/common-diabetes-drug-shown-prevent-long-covid Google search doesn't seem to find any mention of Cuomo and metformin together regarding COVID.

He hasn't been able to shake Long COVID after four years from his original spring 2020 COVID infection, so he's trying whatever he can... I can understand that. He's literally desperate. But the credible medical research says that won't solve his Long COVID problems. WHO: "The update also includes a strong recommendation against the use of ivermectin for patients with non-severe COVID-19. WHO continues to advise that in patients with severe or critical COVID-19, ivermectin should only be used in clinical trials." https://www.who.int/news/item/10-11-2023-who-updates-guidelines-on-treatments-for-covid-19 New England Journal of Medicine Editorial: Time to Stop Using Ineffective Covid-19 Drugs " Ivermectin and fluvoxamine, in particular, are still widely prescribed, even though evidence has been steadily accumulating to indicate that both treatments at acceptable doses are not effective for Covid-19." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2209017?query=recirc_curatedRelated_article Wall Street Journal: Ivermectin had no clinical benefit against COVID-19 in largest study to date - WSJ Mar. 18, 2022 A group of researchers evaluating the effect of repurposed drugs against COVID-19 found that oral antiparasitic medication ivermectin did not improve patient outcomes in the largest trial of its kind to date, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Ivermectin marketed by Merck (NYSE:MRK) as Stromectol for parasitic infestations sparked controversy during the pandemic prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue warnings against its excessive use. “There was no indication that ivermectin is clinically useful,” said Edward Mills, a lead investigator of the trial and a professor of health sciences at Canada’s McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3815030-ivermectin-had-no-clinical-benefit-against-covid-19-in-largest-study-so-far

Nope, he hasn't -- from earlier this year: Long COVID to blame for lingering 'sick' symptoms? | CUOMO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z3b8-2mv-k And previously, back when he came down with COVID in spring 2020 long before COVID vaccines became available: CNN’s Chris Cuomo Says Coronavirus Symptoms Have Been “Maddening” in New Health Update He’s been dealing with a relentless fever, extreme weight loss, and sleepless nights. Apr 15, 2020 On Tuesday, Chris Cuomo, 49, opened up about his coronavirus symptoms following his COVID-19 diagnosis on March 31. The CNN anchor, who is still quarantined in his basement away from his family, said he’s been frustrated with his recovery. “I still have this low-grade fever. I can’t shake it. And I know everybody tells me it’s gradual, it takes time, it’s anywhere between 2 to 3 1/2 weeks, but it is maddening to have this little, stupid fever,” he said on Cuomo Prime Time. ... Cuomo also urged others to stay home and take the pandemic seriously. “So here’s the message: Don’t be me. But more importantly, be better than we’re being right now,” he told his viewers. https://www.prevention.com/health/a32031580/cnn-chris-cuomo-coronavirus-symptoms/

Yep, Cuomo hasn't forgetten... well... maybe! Journalist Chris Cuomo opens up about his struggle with long COVID Jan 7, 2024 "On his NewsNation show "Cuomo," journalist and former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo recently opened up about his struggle with long COVID. He shared that he's currently been battling a cold for over a month, and also relayed that since contracting COVID in Spring of 2020, his health hasn't been the same as it was pre-COVID. He has always considered himself very healthy—he lifts weights and is in great shape—but in the years following his COVID infection, he has struggled with more frequent illnesses that he doesn't bounce back from like he used to. He stated, post-COVID, "I can beat nothing" without medicine. He also shared that he has lost bone density from COVID." https://boingboing.net/2024/01/07/journalist-chris-cuomo-opens-up-about-his-struggle-with-long-covid.html Poster guy for all the reasons folks should do their best to avoid coming down with COVID.

There's apparently a lot you don't remember. By the way, "safe and effective" doesn't mean, and has never meant, a medication has no side effects, serious or otherwise. It means the benefits of taking it have been found to outweigh the risks, which was the case here. From the CDC circa 2020: 3. Like any medicine, vaccines can cause side effects. However, serious adverse events from vaccines are rare. Most side effects from vaccines, such as pain and redness at the injection site, are mild and go away quickly on their own. Serious adverse events are rare. If you have questions or concerns about a vaccine, talk with your healthcare provider. Learn more about the safety of recommended vaccines. Page last reviewed: February 25, 2020 https://www.cdc.gov/patientsafety/features/vaccine-safety.html Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Vaccines and vaccine safety 5 December 2023 Vaccines must be proven safe and effective in large Phase III clinical trials to prove that they meet internationally agreed benchmarks for safety and efficacy before they are introduced in national immunization programs. Independent reviews of the efficacy and safety evidence are required by WHO for each vaccine candidate, including regulatory review and approval in the country where the vaccine is manufactured, before WHO considers it approved for emergency use listing or prequalification. Billions of people have received the COVID-19 vaccine to date, showing that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccinations outweigh the risks of getting ill with COVID-19." https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)-vaccines

The "24 studies" you reference, which were cited earlier in this thread, showed how COVID vaccines reduce the risk of Long COVID in recipients. And said nothing about "this would never happen again." Those studies had/have nothing to do with what you're posting about here. But indeed, ever since the beginning of the pandemic, health authorities have been clear that COVID vaccines could have rare and sometimes serious side effects. But that those, while regrettable, pale in comparison to the tens of millions of lives the vaccines saved from COVID. ------------------------------ Just remember, for every photo you post of a woman in a hospital bed, let's post millions of photos of people around the world who are still living their lives today because they got vaccinated and didn't end up dying from COVID. Or of the millions more who had the opportunity to get vaccinated against COVID and refused, and ended up paying the price: Florida radio host who called himself ‘Mr Anti-Vax’ dies of Covid-19 A conservative radio host from Florida who criticised coronavirus vaccination efforts – and called himself “Mr Anti-Vax” – before contracting Covid-19 himself has died, his station said on Saturday. A statement said: “It’s with great sadness that WNDB and Southern Stone Communications announce the passing of Marc Bernier, who informed and entertained listeners on WNDB for over 30 years. We kindly ask that privacy is given to Marc’s family during this time of grief.” When Bernier was hospitalised with Covid-19, three weeks ago, WNDB operations manager Mark McKinney told local media: “If you’ve listened to his show, you’ve heard him talk about how anti-vaccine he is on the air.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/29/conservative-radio-host-anti-vaxxer-dies-covid-marc-bernier

You (the anti-vaxers here) have got ones and dozens of cases out of (in the case of the UK) 50 million AZ doses given there. I've got a projected 6+ million people worldwide who were kept alive from COVID because they were vaccinated with the AZ vaccine. Let's not forget to balance the scales. Oxford vaccine saved most lives in its first year of rollout 15 Jul 2022 "The University believes that this has been – and continues to be – achieved through our partnership with AstraZeneca, with over 3 billion doses made available for use in 183 countries. As a result of this commitment to ensuring global and equitable access, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine saved 6.3 million lives in the first year of the global vaccine rollout – the most out of all the vaccines in circulation at the time. Airfinity, which conducted this analysis, further said that the vaccine may have saved the most lives before it first went to older age groups in high income countries and nations with less robust health care systems." https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-07-15-oxford-vaccine-saved-most-lives-its-first-year-rollout AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech saved over 12 million lives in the first year of vaccination Posted on Jul 13, 2022 "AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech saved over 12 million lives in the first year of vaccination New analysis by Airfinity shows the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines saved the most lives in the first year of the global vaccination campaign. Today’s modeling shows the AstraZeneca jab saved 6.3 million lives and Pfizer/BioNTech saved 5.9 million lives. Last month Imperial College London published a study on excess deaths which calculated COVID-19 vaccines saved 20 million lives between December 2020 and December 2021. Airfinity has added further analysis to this work using its unique time series data set on vaccine distribution. ... “AstraZeneca may have saved the most lives due to where its primary series was distributed and who received it. Its vaccines first went to older age groups in high income countries and nations with less robust health care systems. Both factors would have resulted in averting more deaths in the first year of vaccinations.” https://www.airfinity.com/articles/astrazeneca-and-pfizer-biontech-saved-over-12-million-lives-in-the-first

Yah, those people are EXACTLY that dumb, swimming in an ocean of misinfo rubbish. And people died because of it. Kudos to the "I did my own research" crowd. Behavioural interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation on social media BMJ - Published 16 January 2024) "Anti-vaccine campaigns proliferated during the covid-19 pandemic15 with undeniable effects including substantial increases in covid related illness and death.151617 [emphasis added] Even before March 2020, vaccine hesitancy was directly linked to misinformation (false, inaccurate information promoted as factual) spread on social media.18 Once covid-19 reached pandemic status, social media was acknowledged as the epicentre of misinformation leading to hesitancy,1920 and consequently, interventions to tackle hesitancy have globally focused on delivery through social media.2122 Despite unprecedented levels of vaccine access and nearly real time communication on the development and availability of vaccines in 2020-21, public health officials struggled to keep pace with misleading or inaccurate content online.23 As guidelines shifted with the emergence of new information, policy decisions were often perceived by individuals and groups who are prone to distrust or refute government messaging as a response not to evidence but to mistakes or lack of expertise." https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-076542 Competing interests: All authors confirm that they have no conflicts or competing interests in contributing to this manuscript.

Ya, except for this 30% of U.S. parents who now lean anti-vaxer (or at least vaccine-skeptic) overall! Survey: Trust in vaccines declines among teenagers, parents May 09, 2024 "The authors found that in 2023, 70% of parents and 56% of teenagers felt that it was important teens receive all recommended vaccines to stay healthy. This was a decline from 85% of parents and 82% of teenagers in June 2021." https://www.healio.com/news/pediatrics/20240509/survey-trust-in-vaccines-declines-among-teenagers-parents

The COVID vaccines were never approved on the basis of their ability to stop transmission of COVID, even though they largely did in the early going. That wasn't even one of the approval criteria. They were approved on the basis of them reducing the risk of people getting sick from and dying from COVID, which they've done extraordinarily well. Fact Check: Preventing transmission never required for COVID vaccines’ initial approval; Pfizer vax did reduce transmission of early variants By Reuters Fact Check February 13, 2024 https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/preventing-transmission-never-required-covid-vaccines-initial-approval-pfizer-2024-02-12/

Sounds right to me: COVID vaccines saved 20 million lives in first year, study says Jun 24, 2022 Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday. ... The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. ... Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/covid-vaccines-saved-20-million-lives-in-first-year-study-says Vaccine Confidence After COVID-19 October 20, 2023 An interview with Ali Mokdad on how the pandemic affected trust in vaccines Think Global Health spoke with Dr. Ali Mokdad, chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington and professor of health metrics sciences at IHME, about their findings. "From a scientific standpoint, the vaccine rollout was done by the books and was safe. There are articles about mRNA and its potential for vaccines and medications from way before I was born, and I’m an old dude with white hair. So this is not a new technology. But it was adapted to provide the vaccine, and two physicians just received a Nobel Prize for that work. We didn’t do a good job of explaining to the public, though, that this has been going on for a long time. ... If we hadn’t developed a COVID-19 vaccine, we’d have lost hundreds of millions of people. It saved a lot of lives. Unfortunately, it wasn’t portrayed as having done so." https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/vaccine-confidence-after-covid-19 WHO chief declares end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency 5 May 2023 The head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has declared “with great hope” an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, stressing that it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat. ... He said the virus – first made a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO chief on 30 January, 2020 - was here to stay: “It is still killing and it is still changing. The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths.” ... For over 12 months, the pandemic “has been on a downward trend”, he said, with immunity increasing due to the highly effective vaccines developed in record time to fight the disease, and infections. Death rates have decreased and the pressure on once overwhelmed health systems, has eased. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136367

Not so sure about that, as per the following: The report also ranked the countries with the highest number of sex workers. Standing at the top is China, with 5 million workers, followed by India (3 million), the US (1 million), the Philippines (800,000), Mexico (500,000), Germany (400,000), Brazil (250,000), Thailand (250,000), Bangladesh (200,000), and South Korea (147,000). https://aseannow.com/topic/1326391-thailand-listed-among-top-10-countries-with-highest-number-of-sex-workers-worldwide/

Thanks for helping to reinforce my prior point, as stated by MoPH, that the current COVID surge is creating problems for an already overburdened pubic health operation. But it goes beyond that, as there's been clear and conclusive research that living in areas with poor air quality, such as is the case seasonally in Thailand, makes people MORE susceptible to health problems caused by COVID. So the two different situations together make things worse! Air pollution exposure linked to more severe COVID-19 outcomes May 25, 2022 Exposure to common air pollutants were associated with more severe outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to findings published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “Apart from showing that the environment, and especially air pollution, may play a role in contributing to COVID-19 severity during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study enforces the idea that air pollution is pervasive and a silent killer,” Hong Chen, PhD, an adjunct professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa in Canada, told Healio. “The association of air pollution and COVID-19 severity reflects the tip of the iceberg of the wide-ranging impacts of air pollution on human health.” ... Overall, the findings indicate that long-term exposure to PM2.5 and O3 was associated with an elevated risk for COVID-19–related hospital admissions; exposure to O3 was also associated with an elevated risk for death due to COVID-19. https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20220525/air-pollution-exposure-linked-to-more-severe-covid19-outcomes AND Air pollution exposure linked to severe COVID-19 outcomes May 25, 2023 Air pollution exposure is associated with a higher risk of experiencing severe outcomes from COVID-19 infections, including intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and death, according to new evidence in Nature Communications from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). While the negative effects of long-term exposure to ambient air pollution on chronic respiratory diseases has long been supported by scientific research, there is less evidence surrounding air pollution exposure and outcomes from reparatory infections. ... Overall, higher annual average exposure to particle matter and nitrogen dioxide was associated with a greater risk (hazard) of COVID-19–related events. An increase in exposure to particle matter of 3.2 µg/m3 was associated with a 25% increase in hospital admissions (hazard ratio [HR], 1.25, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.22 to 1.29). Exposure was also associated with an increased risk of ICU admission (HR 1.16; 95% CI, 1.09 to1.24), and death (HR 1.13; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.19). https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/air-pollution-exposure-linked-severe-covid-19-outcomes

I guess it's never occurred to some posters here that the peak of Thailand's pollution season this spring (and all the medical problems that creates) happens to overlap in part with the current seasonal peak of COVID illnesses... And both issues together end up landing in the laps of Thailand's hospitals and emergency rooms, each adding to the larger workload burdens they face.

The narrative is to recognize that now in 2024 when the Thai MoPH starts talking about (per the OP): "The high number of cases is also taking a toll on healthcare workers who are feeling overwhelmed by the demands." ...that they're talking about a real thing that already has been well documented here in Thailand and around the world during the course of the pandemic, as documented by my earlier posts here and cited sources on that subject.

Which in the case of the TWO DOZEN studies that were the subject of the cited article reviewing how vaccination reduces the risk of Long COVID, you have absolutely no idea.... But you can continue to talk about it anyway to try to dismiss the findings in the absence of any actual knowledge on the specific studies.

Since the start of the pandemic, Thailand has officially had 4.77 million COVID hospitalizations and 34,625 COVID deaths. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main I can say with 100% certainty that I've never been a member of either of those groups.

Haven't had a sick day since the start of the pandemic... I feel both lucky and fortunate, and satisfied I've done everything I could reasonably do to stay out of the hospital or worse.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on turnover intention among nurses in emergency departments in Thailand: a cross sectional study 2023 Sep 27 During the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand, a large volume of COVID-19 patients were referred to hospital emergency departments (EDs). This increased job demand and job strain among ED nurses, resulting in a high risk of intention to leave their organization. ... This cross-sectional study investigated 322 ED nurses. ... During COVID-19 pandemic crisis, 72.8% of ED nurses in dark-red zone areas desired to leave their organization. The factors of motivation, exhaustion, and cognitive impairment positively influenced turnover intention among ED nurses in dark-red zone areas. Low availability of organizational resources was associated with an increase in the turnover intention rate. Maladaptive regulation, exhaustion, and cognitive impairment positively influenced turnover intention among ED nurses in non-red zone areas. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10523753/ AND Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Hospital and Outpatient Clinician Workforce: May 3, 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic has put extreme stress on the health care workforce in the United States, leading to workforce shortages as well as increased health care worker burnout, exhaustion, and trauma. These pandemic-related challenges have taken place in a context of significant pre-existing workforce shortages and maldistribution, as well as in a workforce where burnout, stress, and mental health problems were already significant problems. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/covid-19-health-care-workforce And globally: Health and Care Worker Deaths during COVID-19 20 October 2021 WHO estimates that between 80 000 and 180 000 health and care workers could have died from COVID-19 in the period between January 2020 to May 2021, converging to a medium scenario of 115 500 deaths1. https://www.who.int/news/item/20-10-2021-health-and-care-worker-deaths-during-covid-19 It's SAD from some of the comments posted in this thread to see how people seem to forget, or try to forget, what the reality of things was. Washington Post Mar 27, 2020 People all around the world, including Italy, Spain and Turkey, are gathering on their balconies to applaud the health-care workers on the front lines of the fight against the coronavirus.

Yes I do... I have a financial interest in avoiding 3 to 8 week Thai hospital stays because of COVID, as cited in the OP... And I have a financial interest in not letting COVID cut short a hopefully nice long life with my wife.