Wear a freaking mask already

My whole family has had the Wu Flu and is now immune. Why do we need to wear masks?

BTW, Texans are great. Our Sunday school class brought us meals during quarantine and I didn't miss a paycheck. Big shout out to both groups of people. I'm working hard now and will be back in church next Sunday. Choose your friends wisely.

 

tRUMP had a couple of pics with a mask on.
So, now it's perfectly fine for supporters of tRUMP to finally wear a mask. It's no longer a liberal hoax. LOL.

 

Maybe they didn't see the pics of tRUMP wearing one?

Polls showed he was wrong on the hoax, so now it's real. Anything to pander.
He now thinks a mask is needed.

 

It's a hoax
Nov 3rd, tRUMPvirus disappears.

 

Umm, tRUMP. He had pics taken for public view. Masks are ok.

Now it's cool to the old people.

 

In respect of the mask thing.
I say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

I wear one reluctantly when I'm around a great many people. Out of respect. And it's been required at work for 5 months.

 

It's been said since the beginning.
Mask protect others, not you.

Transmission is through eyes, nose, and mouth.
So if it gets on your hands and you touch your face, you can let it into your body.

But, if you keep your saliva etc, contained to yourself, it's tougher to spread.
Although, the type of mask is a huge consideration to stopping or slowing it. Bandanas, worthless.

 

Yeah, you don't need to wear masks for as long as the immunity lasts. You may make other people uncomfortable but you won't make them sick. Glad for you that your whole family recovered well.

 

Do you seriously still don't know that they were lying when they said masks protect others, not you? I've posted not one, not two, but 29 studies showing that it protects you, too. They lied to preserve the stock for healthcare workers. Falci even acknowledged the lie, in a TV interview. Why do you suppose doctors wear masks when they take care of a heavily infected patient? To protect the patient who already has billions of copies of the virus inside him/her? Or to protect themselves? Think, man, think! Gee!

That's why masks + goggles or face shields deliver the best protection.

True but that's only 2% of transmission. 98% of transmission occurs through the air. Thus why masks help both others, and you.

Yes, bandanas, 2% of filtration. Cloth masks with a pocket and a filter inside, about 48%. N95s, 95%. ASTM level 3 with enhanced seal, 98% of filtration of particulates the size of the coronavirus: 0.1 micron.

 

From the virus, or with the virus?

It's been shown time and again that US stats do not differentiate between the two. That means your claim that "people are dying in large numbers from this virus" is specious to say the least.

The official IFR is somewhere less than .3 which makes it close to the seasonal flu, and the official numbers are way off.

 

I know several "old people" who don't wear them.

 

Your still not understanding my position that at risk people should take every precaution and let herd immunity build in those in the low risk category. As that group becomes immune and the at risk group takes extra precautions up to and including isolation for the severely at risk the virus will run out of host and begin to die off.

 

I agree numbers are inflated but this virus is killing people in large numbers. I also agree that if you contract it your risk of dying is no worse than the flu if you are young and healthy but Covid seems to be particularly contagious which serves to increase the death toll

 

There is research showing that masks do not reduce the risk of infection from flu like viruses.

“Face Masks

In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25) (Figure 2). One study evaluated the use of masks among pilgrims from Australia during the Hajj pilgrimage and reported no major difference in the risk for laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection in the control or mask group (33). Two studies in university settings assessed the effectiveness of face masks for primary protection by monitoring the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza among student hall residents for 5 months (9,10). The overall reduction in ILI or laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in the face mask group was not significant in either studies (9,10).”

Volume 26, Number 5—May 2020, Policy Review, Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures, Jingyi Xiao1, Eunice Y. C. Shiu1, Huizhi Gao, Jessica Y. Wong, Min W. Fong, Sukhyun Ryu, and Benjamin J. Cowling, Author affiliations: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

Nevertheless, in this age of massive surveillance all Americans should embrace any excuse to put on goggles and a mask. Privacy Matters.

 

I’ve seen mixed reviews on mask but I’ll wear one in crowds because it may do some good and wearing one doesn’t hurt me any. No big deal.

 

The government's own numbers show the IFR to be <1 by a considerable margin.

Therefore, the virus is NOT killing people in large numbers.

 

NYT headline Nov, 4th
"Republican ordered mask mandate proven to cause permanent lung and brain damage from wearers not getting enough oxygen."

 

I perfectly understood you and still don't agree, because of the HUGE number of at-risk people. Proceeding like this would mean a lockdown more strict than we had before and there will be no political or popular will for it. And if we don't lock down 2/3 of the population then it's even worse. Your plan to expose the young and healthy (good luck locating them all, in the midst of this many people with underlying conditions including young ones) will only accomplish one thing: increase exposure for the vulnerable ones who interact with the young/healthy ones because it will mean more virus will be circulating next to them.

Your approach would make sense if we had, say, 15% of our population at risk. When we have 60+% of a population at risk for severe cases, the herd immunity approach is a full-blown disaster as by increasing the circulating virus, it puts them at more risk. What we need is epidemiological control, not encouragement for the spread in the vain and futile hope for herd immunity.

By the way, with this many susceptible people, even if ALL non-susceptible ones got the virus AND developed good and lasting neutralizing antibodies (not a given; actually contradicted by the large study in Spain that showed short-lasting neutralizing antibodies), we still wouldn't get to the Herd Immunity Threshold. If we have 40% of the population with the virus, it still leaves out 60%, this seclusion you want would never be complete given that it wouldn't be achieved by a lockdown (again, no political or popular appetite for it), so the virus would continue to circulate given that it is estimated that the SARS-CoV-2 Herd Immunity Threshold is up to 82.5% of the population needing to have fully and lasting neutralizing antibodies.

Again, lay people who don't understand the implications of herd immunity for this virus, are running with this concept since it is such an attractive one... but it is wrong, wrong, wrong, a bad, bad, bad idea, which is why health officials in 214 countries out of 215, including ours, did not embrace this concept. Do you think the only country that is right about this is Sweden and all other 214 are wrong? Newsflash: it's Sweden that is wrong. They paid a price in much bigger death toll than neighbors. Yes, theoretically herd immunity *could* be achieved... it's just that the death toll would be too large.

If you feel that losing the lives of 2 to 3 million Americans is no big deal and we should just all run to this herd immunity fantasy, than herd immunity is for you.

Me, I'd prefer that we kept a much lower death toll, maybe around 250,000 when it's all said and done, by continuing precautions including for the young and healthy, hoping that an effective and safe vaccine will come along soon (could be already being injected into Americans by December and almost certainly by January), instead of advocating for herd immunity and ending up with a total death toll several times bigger.

The other MAJOR failure in your concept is that you're assuming that the young and healthy people have nothing to fear. Not so. They won't die in the acute phase of the disease any more frequently than 0.02% of cases, but we don't know what other consequences they will suffer. Remember, the Germans found 78% of impressive heart damage in a population that included 67% of mild and moderate cases and people with no pre-existing heart condition, raising the possibility of heart failure down the road, and that's only ONE organ; we know that the SARS-CoV-2 attacks multiple organs.

How would you feel if the young and healthy person, maybe one of your loved ones or a close friend, whom you are encouraging to go out there and get the virus for the sake of herd immunity, got it, had a mild case, apparently recovered fully, then died of heart failure five years down the road?

You'd be extremely sad and guilty, and you'd think, "huh, that guy CenterField was right, after all; I wish I had listened."

 

Oh, come on, Eleuthera! When I start liking your posts and agreeing with you on stuff, you come in and post something like this... Oh my...

First, I think that the IFR is being underestimated by the CDC at 0.65% for the reasons I've explained in a long post in the "Tracking the COVID-19 virus in Germany, USA.. snip" thread, and I believe my reasoning is pretty sound, like other people in that thread have recognized. Remember, the CDC is an organ that is directed by a Trump loyalist and appointee... And minimizing the IFR is politically expedient. But it's not even due to the political agenda that I doubt the numbers. It's based on epidemiological data that I doubt it, because data from Santa Clara county in California that was used to bring down the IFR is flawed by false-positives and a biased sample, and because of data from Rhode Island (which has tested 40% of their population), from the total of tests done in the USA so far and its percentage of positives, from the United Arab Emirates data (which have tested more than half of their population), South Korea, and the cohort confined to the Diamond Princess cruise ship. I also looked at comparisons between the seasonal flu IFR (which is known) and its death toll, and what we're seeing with deaths by COVID-19. I explained in detail my reasoning in that long post; I won't repeat it all here, but the bottom line is that the real IFR should be at least 1% if not even higher like 1.4%. And that, plotted against our huge population, does indeed result in a large number of people, unless you think that all these deaths of Americans are no big deal. Me, I don't think so.

Second, what needs to be understood is that the death toll is not all, given numerous survivors who then developed permanent and irreversible organ damage to hearts, lungs, brains, kidneys, and the inner layer of blood vessels everywhere. This virus doesn't just kill between 0.65% to 1.4% of people. It also maims at least 5% of people. It's a nasty little bug and we'll be all better off if we avoid it as best as we can until there is a vaccine. Including, that would be good for the economy - because 5% of maimed people would represent a HUGE economical impact in treatment costs, lost productivity, and premature deaths.

I'm amazed at, and discouraged by still reading people minimizing this virus. When will they learn? What total of dead people and maimed people with lung fibrosis, heart weakness, brain fog, and kidney insufficiency they will need to see, in order to start admitting to the fact that this virus is very serious and a big deal?

This day and age, when I hear someone else saying "it's just like a bad flu" my impulse is to throw the laptop on the floor and stomp on it. It's very frustrating to still see this level of misinformation, in the midst of a freaking pandemic that is killing an average of 1,000 Americans every day (newsflash: the average of the last 31 flu seasons is no more than 64 deaths every day).

 

My approach as you put it is the only reasonable way to respond to the virus short of a miracle vaccine that may or may not come to fruition.
Until that time we really have no other choice than to keep the economy up and running to the extent possible with low risk workers going about life as usual. Higher risk individuals can assess their own personal risk verses reward lifestyles and can live their lives based on that. The most at risk can sequester for the duration or say screw it as my 90 year old mom has done. She has decided not to live her final years in a cave and is out living life to the fullest.
Ultimately herd immunity is the only way to adapt and thats just the realty of the situation. You may not like that but you have offered no better way. You can't hide forever.

 

No, your approach is not only wrong, but also not reasonable. Let's for a moment think that we'd adopt it. Pray tell, how would you go about implementing it? Because like I said, how would you identify the people not a risk that would be encouraged to go out there and catch it? See, 100 million Americans have hypertension and about half of them don't even know that they have it. What about undetected cancers? People who snore and have sleep apnea but never had a sleep study? People who are HIV+ and don't know it? People who have type 2 diabetes and don't know it (several million, again), and so on and so forth? So, are you proposing that we'd have to some sort of health check and screening for... 331 million people??? Good luck with that... we don't have enough medical personnel to take on such task, even if we were to exclude all the ones we already know for having health conditions and focused only on the ones we don't know if they do or don't.

So, no, we wouldn't identify anything. So people would just go out there and party and catch the virus and then A LOT of people would die. The think is, like I repeated many times, it's not that it can't be done (in the hope that people get lasting neutralizing IgG which again is not a given), it's what is the size of the death toll we are willing to tolerate. Because make no mistake, going for the herd immunity fantasy WILL dramatically increase the death toll (like the real case of Sweden has demonstrated).

I propose no alternative? What the hell are you talking about? I did propose an alternative, the one that 214 countries have adopted: to encourage epidemiological control (masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, eye protection, avoiding crowds, avoiding indoor confined spaces with too many people there) and to wait for the vaccine. I know you are skeptical about the vaccines but have you read the phase 1 papers? I did, and they look good. These vaccines may be perfectly more effective than you anticipate, so don't give me this "no alternative" idea, which is just not factual.

Keep the economy up and running: the economy will take a MUCH bigger hit if we allow millions of Americans to be killed or maimed by this virus. There is no worse economic impact than having an uncontrolled outbreak of a dangerous disease that is airborne. Besides, the economy CAN keep going, if only people adhered to the simple precautions I've been advocating for. For example, countries who adopted from the beginning a strict facemask policy like Japan, were hit much less severely and suffered much smaller economic impact.

 

So your approach is wait for a vaccine that may or may not be effective and in tne mean time let economies go down the toilet.
Long term barring a miracle vaccine herd immunity is the only solution. That can happen relatively quickly or over decades but ultimately the death count will be the same or worse the longer you drag it out.

 

Many CA cities will fine him for being out in public without a mask. I was in Monterey and Carmel last weekend and they posted signs everywhere "Mask laws strictly enforced $300. fine."

How would people swim in the ocean with a wet mask?

 

Yes and no. Yes to waiting for the vaccine that may or may not be effective, except that the initial studies show a high likelihood that it will be effective. By the way, historically 3 out of 4 vaccines that reach phase 3 are ultimately found to be safe and effective because when there are big problems, they tend to get visible during phase 2. We have 6 vaccines already in phase 3 so chances are excellent that one or more will be proven safe and effective. No to letting economies go down the toilet because the measures I'm proposing are not inconsistent with economic activity.

 

History does repeat itself. We were just as stupid in 1918 as we are now.

http://www.openculture.com/2020/07/...-wear-masks-during-the-1918-flu-pandemic.html