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Re: Covid 19
Continued vagaries, moral posturing, and complete lack of evidence for any of your dumb claims.
Just like anything else in life I refer out to experts when needed.
Which experts are you referring to? I would like you to be specific.
The CDC and the WHO didn’t recommend masks for the general public until mid-to-late May. Prior to then, politicians and these very “experts” from the CDC, WHO, the US Surgeon General, and the UK’s NHS were recommending against masks, saying the evidence was quite weak in support of their efficacy. Pepperidge Farms remembers.
It wasn’t until the mythical curve was already significantly flattening that the use of masks was made mandatory. The argument can only be mounted that masks accelerated the slope of the curve as it was already trending in that direction. Additional measures not just related to private businesses were instituted in June when the death toll was further flatlining which it has continued to do up to today. But back when they did make masks mandatory, they didn’t mandate any standard of mask. This isn’t insignificant. We’ll return to this later.
It wasn’t until the beginning of July until the WHO started to revise their official position. The science still isn’t exactly clear. But what is clear is that they resisted the findings until they could no longer do so.
New York Times wrote:The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor.
But in an open letter to the W.H.O., 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations. The researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal next week.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/heal … borne.html
New York Times wrote:After several months of pressure from scientists, on July 9, the W.H.O. changed its position — going from denial to grudging partial acceptance: “Further studies are needed to determine whether it is possible to detect viable SARS-CoV-2 in air samples from settings where no procedures that generate aerosols are performed and what role aerosols might play in transmission.”
…
In a peer-reviewed study published in Nature on Wednesday, researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center found that aerosols collected in the hospital rooms of Covid-19 patients contained the coronavirus.
This confirms the results of a study from late May (not peer-reviewed) in which Covid-19 patients were found to release SARS-CoV-2 simply by exhaling — without coughing or even talking. The authors of that study said the finding implied that airborne transmission “plays a major role” in spreading the virus.
…
It’s not clear just how much this coronavirus is transmitted by aerosols as opposed to droplets or via contact with contaminated surfaces. Then again, we still don’t know the answer to that question even for the flu, which has been studied for decades.
But by now we do know this much: Aerosols matter in the transmission of Covid-19 — and probably even more so than we have yet been able to prove.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opin … osols.html
(Yes, I’m aware the article recommends masks.)
In short, over the past 3+ months we’ve seen about face both in fundamental assumptions about the virus and recommended treatment, i.e. including but not limited to, endorsement of masks from the experts. This, at minimum is evidence that there is really no scientific consensus like you so confidently and idiotically claim.
Furthermore since then the death totals have gone to a crawl and we’ve seen many false positives with testing, misattributed deaths (see: Birx’s policies to mark all deaths as Corona deaths if the deceased tests positive), an insubstantial increase in post-winter all-cause mortalities which undermines the overall credibility of both the virus and the idea of the virus as a pandemic, the decrease in reported annual post-winter disease mortalities which partially explains some misreported COVID deaths, and a deliberate misrepresentation of all aspects of the virus from various parties in the media and government for political purposes. But you know… “science”.
The scientific/medical community overwhelmingly says that wearing masks is the most effective way to deal with this pandemic.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/cb89abf … id=5783187
Show me one scientific journal which clearly mentions the efficacy of masks. One.They all make an "aww shucks, gee golly you should use them" admission and sidestep the fact that they have no evidence.
The most intellectual ones will cite a minor benefit of x<6%.
We've watched 160,000 Americans die because of an abysmal failure of our government
If you would like to blame the Trump administration go ahead. For the record, I think the guy is ineffectual and unqualified for his position and I think Hillary and Trump’s predecessors are warmongering psychopaths who all deserve to be in prison. But if you want to blame Trump and politics costing American lives, be sure to include state governors of the Democratic party in New York, California, and Michigan in your calculation as their policies intermixed COVID-positive patients with negative patients in senior citizen and assisted living homes leading to an inflation of cases and deaths. They topped this genius move by releasing violent criminals from prison, back out onto the street which reoffended in the worst ways possible, most recently a murder-suicide of the murderers rape victim which put him in prison in the first place. And then they put the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae when they admonished people to go protest in the streets. If the virus were a serious existential threat, these politicians would be tacitly recommending their constituency risk certain infection and death. lulz.
But to the broader point of politicization of the situation, here’s one article of many.
Detroit News wrote:Henry Ford defends hydroxychloroquine study, 'saddened' by drug's politicization
Henry Ford Health System defended Monday a study that determined hydroxychloroquine was effective in lowering COVID-19 death rates but acknowledged the need for additional clinical trials.
…
"Unfortunately, the political climate that has persisted has made any objective discussion about this drug impossible, and we are deeply saddened by this turn of events," they wrote, noting researchers' goal is to "allow the science to speak for itself."
"To that end, we have made the heartfelt decision to have no further comment about this outside the medical community," the doctors said.
You can look up additional studies and infographs of countries that stopped and resumed use of hydroxychloroquine.
Maybe one day you can apply your MENSA-tier intellect and mount an argument consisting of something more than name calling, false equivalence, drawing conclusions that isn’t supported by data, and a consistent supply of straw men, but well, it’s not today.
Ok, now onto masks.
The support for masks, even through so-called evidence, will be a weak correlative effect at best. For example, to say masks are effective because one area has a more authoritarian government and greater mask adherence is irrelevant. The virus could be simply be more prevalent here or there. It doesn’t explain the data and the burden of proof to prove even correlation let alone direct causation lies on those making said claims. (By the way, the Chinese also wear masks because of air pollution which kills a million plus per year so they have a reason to wear masks religiously). A given population could also be significantly more physically fit, less unhealthy, more educated or more intelligent than a non-mask wearing population, too. Again, one variable doesn’t explain the data. Epidemiologists like to make broad recommendations whether or not it’s supported by the data because it merely sounds good and gives them something to do. They’re inverting the Precautionary Principle to justify their wages. Same with politicians and soccer moms. It creates the illusion of control and keeps the sheeple from panicking or starting to ask too many questions. You’ll see this in the journals but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Furthermore, whether they admit it or not, all these studies are flawed if you just want to study the efficacy of masks because you have a replicability error. You have no control group. You can’t measure the potency of the virus from one area to another. You don’t have the health data of each geographical area to analyze and draw any meaningful conclusions. And so on.
You yourself admit:
Symptoms are mild or the individual is simply asymptomatic.
You unwittingly undermine your entire argument. Most people who have the virus are asymptomatic. They don’t need the masks. They could’ve had the virus for months and the shedding period could be long gone. They could’ve picked it up while wearing masks during a trip to the grocery store or they could’ve picked it up getting the mail without wearing their precious face-muzzle. They don’t know, we don’t know.
What we do know is that unless you’re 60+, obese, have pre-existing medical conditions, and/or a weakened immune or respiratory system, you’re probably going to be fine. These are the only people who potentially need masks and if symptomatic, the only ones needing of isolation. A person may experience very mild symptoms, again, you don’t know the cause. It could be a common cold. If symptoms worsen, the common sense thing would be to tested immediately and take the preventative and super cheap hydroxycloroquine and/or roll the dice and pay at most $200 for an asthma steroid and antibiotics. It’s low risk, high reward, and will save you thousands of dollars circumventing our joke of a healthcare system.
If we go off the understanding that the virus is airborne and could be because of the air we expel or the air we inhale, which is the latest accepted position, not only do the 0.3 micron perforations of the better KN95s (vs. cloth or Alyssa Milano’s adorable granny knit homemade mask) are still too large to filter a 0.1 micron airborne virus. It’d prevent much larger 5.0 to 10.0 micron droplets (previous W.H.O. party line) but not air particles or air expelled via breathing. So unless you have a study from July onward, it’s likely to be operating off this same false premise. With air particles, the mask would be merely directing the expelled virus where to go. Furthermore, masks work both ways. If you argue it’s partially helping on the inhale you could easily argue the inverse that it’s also partially hurting via the exhale because you’re recirculating the air right in front of your nose and mouth and masks could cause leakage out the sides of the mask. Many journals touch on this ideas.
But you want the studies? Okay. Here are the studies.
Prior to 2020, masks were viewed as ineffectual in general and for other respiratory issues. I’ll drive down from the general to the specific as it relates to covid.
There are numerous studies which view masks as ineffectual in varying degrees for other respiratory issues, notably influenza:
“Among 2862 randomized participants, 2371 completed the study and accounted for 5180 HCW-seasons. Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.” (1)
“Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis” (2)
“Self-reported assessment of clinical outcomes was prone to bias. Evidence of a protective effect of masks or respirators against verified respiratory infection (VRI) was not statistically significant” (3)Cloth masks are significantly worse:
“The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm… Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.” (1)Here’s something that was written for the dental industry which was removed for Orwellian reasons such as “not being fit for the current climate” even though it clearly applies to the coronavirus / covid-19. If it truly doesn’t apply, the author and/or could’ve simply proven it instead of a claim without evidence and a cheap appeal to authority.
Dr. K Sibert, an anaesthetist with an interest in infection control, is of the opinion that many infection control rules are indeed arbitrary, not justified by the available evidence or subjected to controlled follow-up studies, but are devised, often under pressure, to give the appearance of doing something.
…
The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection.
Source: https://archive.is/mK9db
Here's the truth from the horses mouth, arguably the most respected medical journal in the US.
New England Journal of Medicine, April wrote:We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.
Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
…
It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals.New England Journal of Medicine, July wrote:We did state in the article that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” but as the rest of the paragraph makes clear, we intended this statement to apply to passing encounters in public spaces, not sustained interactions within closed environments. A growing body of research shows that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is strongly correlated with the duration and intensity of contact: the risk of transmission among household members can be as high as 40%, whereas the risk of transmission from less intense and less sustained encounters is below 5%.
AKA, the entire justification and rationalization for the mandate of “protecting other people” in public spaces is invalidated.
The evidence isn’t there. It never was. It’s all one big post-hoc rationalization.
I could cite so many more studies but it's clear by your string of stupid, brief sentences you've never read any of them in the first place and I'm merely wasting my time.
Instead of examining the science, Americans let politicians take their civil liberties to a paper shredder, let the power hungry not only abuse their power but seize more of it, let corporations astroturf small businesses, and let douchebags like Steve Mnuchin and Lindsay Graham lecture them about making more money than the minimum wage during a so-called pandemic.
I don’t think anyone has put the effort into their post the way you did. Please don’t get dragged down into the petty posting of others. Ideas like yours matter and need to be shared, less others be able to smugly hide in the shadows of their ignorance.
Re: Covid 19
That's a great post; as a result there's a less than 1% chance he reads it and an even smaller chance he understands any of it.
gd. he might has well have written Game Of Thrones, or the harry potter series 
i'll read it when i can, wtf was that horseshit lol, makin us all "read" n shit. jk
Re: Covid 19
buzzsaw wrote:That's a great post; as a result there's a less than 1% chance he reads it and an even smaller chance he understands any of it.
gd. he might has well have written Game Of Thrones, or the harry potter series
i'll read it when i can, wtf was that horseshit lol, makin us all "read" n shit. jk
Isn’t it scary how many people are comfortable feeling informed after reading 200 words or less on incredibly complex issues and ideas. The twitter mindset is so destructive to the modern intellectual.
Re: Covid 19
gd. he might has well have written Game Of Thrones, or the harry potter series
i'll read it when i can, wtf was that horseshit lol, makin us all "read" n shit. jk
Since George RR Martin didn't release The Winds of Winter, the least I could do is prevent The Winds of Shit from blowing in our faces.
Re: Covid 19
PaSnow wrote:buzzsaw wrote:That's a great post; as a result there's a less than 1% chance he reads it and an even smaller chance he understands any of it.
gd. he might has well have written Game Of Thrones, or the harry potter series
i'll read it when i can, wtf was that horseshit lol, makin us all "read" n shit. jk
Isn’t it scary how many people are comfortable feeling informed after reading 200 words or less on incredibly complex issues and ideas. The twitter mindset is so destructive to the modern intellectual.
It was sarcasm, but I always wanted to give the post an honest & full read, rather than just skim thru it. It deserved it, as he took the time to write it up. I'll say, I'm a bit disappointed. Really it's just talking points, taken from websites rather than using one's own thought & memory. Let's go...
China, Italy, Spain, Germany and every country was wearing masks in February. I've been wearing one hard since the shutdown (March 15?). Where is this talk about the CDC & WHO didn't advise wearing one until June?? Dude, by June people were already yelling at the Georgia Governor for reopening in April on NOT asking his residents to wear a mask. You speak as if people are sitting at the edge of their seats waiting to hear from the CDC/WHO on it, like its the 69 space launch going to the moon.
Secondly, where do you read that masks are only "6% effective"?? Everything I've seen says its upwards of 50%, and I think its higher if the 2 people interacting wear a mask. Also, look at Ben Carson?! Or the bus driver early on it Detroit. Let's get real here.
Third, you quoted "(and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes)" of conversation within 6 feet of each other is whats needed for it to spread? Do you honestly believe this? There's 5 million people who've tested positive for it. Do you think there's been 5 million people holding conversations for 10 minutes straight within 6 feet of each other in the middle of a pandemic? Also, it 'might' have been removed because there's a difference between a dentist catching any old virus 10 years ago, versus the chances of catching Covid-19, its been known to spread rapidly even going back to the Wuhan days.
I mean, masks work. We're past this. They work, the president reluctantly wore one in public (twice I think). There shouldn't be a controversy over it, and if your just gonna google stuff about it rather than think "Hmmmmm, if I go into a McDonalds, and have a mask on, do I reduce my chances of catching this any?" or if you think we should just reopen everything and have concerts and schools & NBA games and football and goto movies and roller coasters and be back to normal then, geeez. Find other websites to read. You're getting bad intel.
Re: Covid 19
I mean, masks work.
Masks work because masks work because masks work.
Masks work because masks work because masks work.
Masks work because masks work because masks work.
Also, it 'might' have been removed because there's a difference between a dentist catching any old virus 10 years ago, versus the chances of catching Covid-19, its been known to spread rapidly even going back to the Wuhan days.
How do ILIs differ from Covid-19, an ILI?
Furthermore, if it is a stronger virus than typical ILIs, wouldn't that (A) diminish the efficacy of masks vs. a stronger virus or (B) more clearly show the efficacy of masks?
I'm not married to that particular article even though it's a great example of long-term exposure in a closed environment.
But you didn't read the article anyway.
Secondly, where do you read that masks are only "6% effective"?? Everything I've seen says its upwards of 50%,
"The MSM told me a % and I believed it without questioning it and without ever reading any actual scientific study".
But the truth is, neither did they.
The 6% line comes from a journal on pre-Covid ILIs regarding the efficacy of N95 masks.
Others have said 4% with an error of +/- 8%.
Where is this talk about the CDC & WHO didn't advise wearing one until June??
The CDC and the WHO didn’t recommend masks for the general public until mid-to-late May.
Nice reading comprehension. Truly amazing.
The CDC didn't recommend them until the beginning of April I was off on that one.
The WHO didn't change their policy until June. Late bloomers on that one. And they recommend fabric masks. lolllllll. In and around the CDCs change of policy, they were still sticking to the "medical professionals only" line.
Mandatory recommendations state-to-state have been variable.
China, Italy, Spain, Germany and every country was wearing masks in February.
*cough* bullshit *cough*
Besides that, how do you explain Sweden, Mr. Mask Lover?
The Netherlands are gonna be fun to watch over the next couple months.
Third, you quoted "(and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes)" of conversation within 6 feet of each other is whats needed for it to spread? Do you honestly believe this? There's 5 million people who've tested positive for it. Do you think there's been 5 million people holding conversations for 10 minutes straight within 6 feet of each other in the middle of a pandemic?
"Am I out of touch? No it is the children New England Journal of Medicine who is wrong"
There shouldn't be a controversy over it, and if your just gonna google stuff about it rather than think.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing dipshit! Just googling shit! Because I love Trump soooooooo much!
There's 5 million people who've tested positive for it.
Doesn't sound like a pandemic to me. On account of the extremely low infant and youth deaths, it just sounds like a dramatically mismanaged virus from all authorities involved, i.e. intermixing of patients in hospital without quarantine, in combination with misattribution of typical post-winter mortalities.
Re: Covid 19
I mean, masks work. We're past this. They work, the president reluctantly wore one in public (twice I think). There shouldn't be a controversy over it, and if your just gonna google stuff about it rather than think "Hmmmmm, if I go into a McDonalds, and have a mask on, do I reduce my chances of catching this any?" or if you think we should just reopen everything and have concerts and schools & NBA games and football and goto movies and roller coasters and be back to normal then, geeez. Find other websites to read. You're getting bad intel.
Bingo. Other countries with less wealth seem to have handled/curbed the spread of this a lot better than we have. Cases are STILL INCREASING in this country while most other countries they seem to have stabilized. Not real difficult to understand why.
Of course for some here, it is.
Re: Covid 19
Bingo. Other countries with less wealth seem to have handled/curbed the spread of this a lot better than we have. Cases are STILL INCREASING in this country while most other countries they seem to have stabilized. Not real difficult to understand why.
Of course for some here, it is.
Cases are increasing because testing is increasing.
"Cases" is also irrelevant. What kind of cases? Hospitalizations required? Benign symptoms or severe symptoms?
Back to the mask debate: masks have been mandatory for months, yet cases are still increasing?
Deaths in my state have flatlined and have remained consistently low for months.
Outside of ~5 states, daily deaths are in the single digits.
Please, Slashsfro, more expert analysis. We need it.
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