COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[pawnman]

1 minute ago, SurelySerious said:

That’s a PA release by an editor, and the underlying “natural scientific study” about mask mandates it references is correlation at best...otherwise how are we spiking so bad with more mask mandates than ever within this pandemic? It studied two months in the spring when mask mandates would be hard pressed to be separated from the bevy of other shutdowns and reactionary measures.

Let's see...MIT isn't good enough...

How about the Mayo Clinic?  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

CDC?  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

British Medical Journal?  https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Nature?  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

I mean...if you have a peer-reviewed, published paper you've written detailing the research you've done into how ineffective masks are...I'd love to see it.

As far as I'm concerned, if they prevent even 5% of cases, then wear a mask.  It's not that burdensome.

[SurelySerious]

1 minute ago, pawnman said:

Let's see...MIT isn't good enough...

How about the Mayo Clinic?  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

CDC?  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

British Medical Journal?  https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Nature?  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

I mean...if you have a peer-reviewed, published paper you've written detailing the research you've done into how ineffective masks are...I'd love to see it.

As far as I'm concerned, if they prevent even 5% of cases, then wear a mask.  It's not that burdensome.

No, not good enough because they ignore the actual results, higher infection rates than ever despite widespread mask use. Masks in use by the general public make people feel better about themselves. Case in point. 

[pawnman]

Just now, SurelySerious said:

No, not good enough because they ignore the actual results, higher infection rates than ever despite widespread mask use. Masks in use by the general public make people feel better about themselves. Case in point. 

Ummm...

 

Quote

Researchers looked at 200 countries, including Mongolia, which adopted mask use in January and, as of May, had recorded no deaths related to COVID-19. Another study⁵ looked at the effects of US state-government mandates for mask use in April and May. Researchers estimated that those reduced the growth of COVID-19 cases by up to 2 percentage points per day. They cautiously suggest that mandates might have averted as many as 450,000 cases, after controlling for other mitigation measures, such as physical distancing.

Quote

• An investigation of a high-exposure event, in which 2 symptomatically ill hair stylists interacted for an average of 15 minutes with each of 139 clients during an 8-day period, found that none of the 67 clients who subsequently consented to an interview and testing developed infection. The stylists and all clients universally wore masks in the salon as required by local ordinance and company policy at the time.³²
• In a study of 124 Beijing households with > 1 laboratory-confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 infection, mask use by the index patient and family contacts before the index patient developed symptoms reduced secondary transmission within the households by 79%.³³
• A retrospective case-control study from Thailand documented that, among more than 1,000 persons interviewed as part of contact tracing investigations, those who reported having always worn a mask during high-risk exposures experienced a greater than 70% reduced risk of acquiring infection compared with persons who did not wear masks under these circumstances.³⁴
• A study of an outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an environment notable for congregate living quarters and close working environments, found that use of face coverings on-board was associated with a 70% reduced risk.³⁵
• Investigations involving infected passengers aboard flights longer than 10 hours strongly suggest that masking prevented in-flight transmissions, as demonstrated by the absence of infection developing in other passengers and crew in the 14 days following exposure.^36,37

Again...I'd love to read your paper.

[SurelySerious]

1 minute ago, pawnman said:

Ummm...

 

Again...I'd love to read your paper.

So we beat covid with masks, great news. 

[pawnman]

Just now, SurelySerious said:

So we beat covid with masks, great news. 

And distance, and vaccines.

Does your car have a seatbelt AND airbags?

[SurelySerious]

1 minute ago, pawnman said:

And distance, and vaccines.

Does your car have a seatbelt AND airbags?

Masks are about as truly useful as the warning sticker on the back of the flip down sun visor in your car analogy. 

[ViperMan]

1 minute ago, SurelySerious said:

So we beat covid with masks, great news. 

It's not a silver bullet - it's part of an array of strategies that are supposed to help us manage the disease and mitigate its impact.

Remember, once upon a time washing your hands was considered controversial, but now, no one disputes its value:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/handwashing-once-controversial-medical-advice/

https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection

https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/history-of-handwashing/

Honestly, though I do see some aspect of theater in this, I don't get the hyper-fretting over mask-wearing. But I see where a bit of the noise is coming from. That said, mask-wearing's role in helping diminish COVID's R-value is completely uncontroversial.

[pawnman]

1 minute ago, ViperMan said:

It's not a silver bullet - it's part of an array of strategies that are supposed to help us manage the disease and mitigate its impact.

Remember, once upon a time washing your hands was considered controversial, but now, no one disputes its value:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/handwashing-once-controversial-medical-advice/

https://www.history.com/news/hand-washing-disease-infection

https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/history-of-handwashing/

Honestly, though I do see some aspect of theater in this, I don't get the hyper-fretting over mask-wearing. But I see where a bit of the noise is coming from. That said, mask-wearing's role in helping diminish COVID's R-value is completely uncontroversial.

Bingo.  It isn't "wear a mask and the virus disappears".  It's "wear a mask and you can reduce the spread".

It's sad we've come to a point where even otherwise educated adults can't grasp that not breathing on people will help prevent the spread of germs.

[BashiChuni]

funny how most who demand more lock downs usually is sucking on the government TIT for their income

don't you care that your fellow American citizens are losing EVERYTHING they have built?

[Negatory]

40 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

That said, mask-wearing's role in helping diminish COVID's R-value is completely uncontroversial.

But not in this thread.

 

1 hour ago, SurelySerious said:

Go troll the playground equipment thread. 

No thank you.

[SurelySerious]

4 minutes ago, Negatory said:

But not in this thread.

 

No thank you.

Ok Commie Charlie. 

[Negatory]

3 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/15/most-brits-just-wont-wear-face-masks-heres-why.html

Mask mandates don't work, I agree with that. Because a large portion of people don't follow them anymore. That's why the whole US is going up in flames while we "lockdown." 

But that doesn't mean masks and lockdowns don't work, whatsoever. Realistically, if you want a good look at what happens when people wear masks and social distance, look at a time when people actually had high compliance: March-May. You'll note that, almost everywhere in the world, cases decreased significantly - that's what happens.

Am I saying that is tenable? No. We can't lock down and literally not interact with each other indefinitely. But your guys' arguments and correlation graphs that aren't related are bogus and unscientific.

[Negatory]

2 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Ok Commie Charlie. 

Do you have anything of actual value to add to the conversation? Or do you always just resort to baseless name-calling whenever you can't make a valid rebuttal?

[jazzdude]

I think you underestimating the problems that many small businesses are in. 

Bad cash flow, not meeting expenses/debts payments due to local/state restrictions? Likely going to have to close indefinitely or permanently? Many are likely going to fail, unfortunately their timing was bad and luck ran out. It sucks for the businesses, but the second failure is that there's no/limited safety net for individuals to help them get back on their feet and back out into the workforce. The dirty part of pure capitalism is that while there is great opportunity to become rich, there's also a great risk of failing miserably, and there may be factors you just can't control.

That mom & pop small business could also fail if one of the owners were to get sick (due to interactions with a public that doesn't mask/distance/quarantine appropriately) and run any lengthy complications or hospital stay. A larger small business could have the same outcome if several employees get sick and are out (and poor sick leave policies may encourage workers to come in sick and get more workers sick).

Either way, there's risks, and there's no "right" answer, despite what the pundits say. Some business may be more capable of adapting to the new environment and rules, and others not so much. But there's going to be winners and losers no matter what the pandemic response is (and government doing nothing/absence of action is a decision). A 4-6 week hard shut down/lockdown early on followed by forced quarantine when entering US borders might've stopped the pandemic from spreading early on. Doing nothing and hoping for herd immunity may have just gotten the whole thing over quickly at the cost of some potential extra deaths due to capacity issues. But in either scenario, there are going to be winners and losers, businesses that adapt and succeed, or can't and fail.

So the question becomes: what is more important, businesses or individuals? Should taxpayer money go to businesses to keep them open, or to individuals to assist them meeting basic needs (food/shelter) so they can be able to work in the future? The two are intertwined, businesses provide jobs to individuals, and together it contributed to the economy. But without healthy individuals to work, businesses can't stay afloat. And they need individuals to sell their goods and services to.

We all have our own interests, and we advocate for them. In a sense, it's great that we can debate what or response as a community or as a country should be, and why I take the time to respond on this message board. The downside is that takes time, and time is not always on our side.

The hard part of the pandemic is it's a slow motion train wreck, versus a much shorter, discrete catastrophic event. We as a country seem to do decently with response to discrete events, but anything that takes any real effort over a length of time where consequences are in the future and we start falling apart.

It's possible we just did too little too late, and now we're just along for the ride and trying to mitigate or delay the damage that's coming. It feels like for the most part our response has been largely for show-mandates to show government is doing *something*, though not really enforced or enacted in a way to make the desired effect. Part of it has been poor messaging (the initial "the general public doesn't need a mask" in order to ensure healthcare workers had access to masks given limited supply probably did irreparable harm to getting people to wear masks later, though people can be irrational and hoard supplies far in excess of what they need). Though partial credit for the healthcare system not getting overrun, though NY went through its challenges and now LA is facing similar challenges with capacity.

It's hard to say what things would've liked like if we did nothing, but Sweden's response probably could be used as an analogy for estimating what the impact could've been.

[SurelySerious]

4 minutes ago, Negatory said:

Do you have anything of actual value to add to the conversation? Or do you always just resort to baseless name-calling whenever you can't make a valid rebuttal?

You’re the one advocating for communism and posting anecdotal feel good stories as “evidence” of science. I challenge your relevance outside of trolling the community. 

[SurelySerious]

22 minutes ago, MyCS said:

Because social gatherings attribute to 70% of the cases we see. Nobody is wearing masks at social gatherings. Social gatherings equates to holidays. You have some cultures in the US who are big on tradition. 

I’d buy that as far more likely than chance encounter at the grocery store. 

[VMFA187]

25 minutes ago, Negatory said:

Am I saying that is tenable? No. We can't lock down and literally not interact with each other indefinitely. But your guys' arguments and correlation graphs that aren't related are bogus and unscientific.

How long is acceptable? 

[VMFA187]

22 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

Bad cash flow, not meeting expenses/debts payments due to local/state restrictions? Likely going to have to close indefinitely or permanently? Many are likely going to fail, unfortunately their timing was bad and luck ran out. 

 

It is not their timing, it is illegal government mandates. There is a huge difference. 

[Negatory]

16 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

You’re the one advocating for communism and posting anecdotal feel good stories as “evidence” of science. I challenge your relevance outside of trolling the community. 

You're in the wrong thread, but fine. Advocating for a revision of tax structures that have been bad for a majority of Americans, as evidenced by multiple sources that I cited, is not communism. In fact, it was addressed in the framework of capitalist America, and even had precedence in American policy, again, as referenced by my sources. Calling everything you disagree with communism isn't productive for intellectual discourse, but it sure makes you feel morally superior. 

This is what people look like when they call everything that they don't agree with "communism," even when the policies literally have nothing aligned with that form of government:

Also, this isn't relevant to this thread or conversation, so I will not address this again here.

[jazzdude]

And distance, and vaccines.
Does your car have a seatbelt AND airbags?

I hate that car analogy for Covid.

A better analogy for wearing a mask, social distancing, and isolating/quarantining when needed would be traffic lights, lane markings, and a ban on driving drunk. Ignoring these precautions can have impacts on others beyond their control, and they are things we've agreed to do as a society in the interest of overall safety. You don't *have* to stop at a red light, though you may not always make it safely through the intersection (I'm looking at you, SC drivers who run the light 3-5 seconds after it changes).

Though I guess getting the vaccine could be analogous to wearing your seatbelt (positive action by an individual for their own safety) and having a good immune response would be like airbags in your car (great if you have them, and arguably eliminates the need for seatbelts as long as you're in a protected seat during a collision).

[Sua Sponte]

17 minutes ago, VMFA187 said:

It is not their timing, it is illegal government mandates. There is a huge difference. 

What illegal? I assume you know all state and case law?

[VMFA187]

4 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

What illegal? I assume you know all state and case law?

Governors in several states have issued mandates that are not in accordance with the republican form of government guaranteed by our constitution. These Governors are acting as monarchical forms of government which is not in accordance with our norms.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to know on this board the number of CAF pilots who are for/against government mandated lockdowns and enforcement of "arbitrary" (my word) rules vice those pilots who are not 11F. Could be an interesting discussion.

[jazzdude]

People have to stop comparing our 300M+ people in the US to any other countries. We are different in how we think to include our work ethic. Comparing completely different cultures. 
In Hong Kong, if they say you are staying home. I don't think their government is going to find any resistance.

There are cultural differences, yes. And yes, there are physical and societal differences in countries. But it's hard to argue that their response was not effective at controlling the pandemic, allowing them to live a pretty much normal life. But yes, there are tradeoffs that happen culturally.

We do have some unique challenges, but so does every other country. It doesn't mean we can't learn lessons from other countries. As a pilot, I can learn safety lessons from accidents that occurred in vastly different aircraft than what I fly, extract the core lessons from the accident, and then apply it to operating my jet. Why can't we do that as a nation? Why do we have to be like the over zealous safety officer that says we don't need to know about accidents in other jets because they are different than what we fly?

Maybe we need to re-examine what we value and why, and the consequences of the values we choose to hold. This doesn't necessarily mean we have to change, but we do have to accept the consequences of our choices, and we can make those conscious choices instead of just accepting that things are just the way they've always been.

As an aside, Hong Kong did have some significant protests in the last year, so I don't think they are as compliant to authority as some make them out to be, especially when their values are challenged.

[pawnman]

22 minutes ago, VMFA187 said:

Governors in several states have issued mandates that are not in accordance with the republican form of government guaranteed by our constitution. These Governors are acting as monarchical forms of government which is not in accordance with our norms.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to know on this board the number of CAF pilots who are for/against government mandated lockdowns and enforcement of "arbitrary" (my word) rules vice those pilots who are not 11F. Could be an interesting discussion.

12B here.  Totally for masks, against total lockdowns, mixed opinions on limiting capacity in businesses.

[SurelySerious]

56 minutes ago, Negatory said:

You're in the wrong thread, but fine. Advocating for a revision of tax structures that have been bad for a majority of Americans, as evidenced by multiple sources that I cited, is not communism. In fact, it was addressed in the framework of capitalist America, and even had precedence in American policy, again, as referenced by my sources. Calling everything you disagree with communism isn't productive for intellectual discourse, but it sure makes you feel morally superior. 

This is what people look like when they call everything that they don't agree with "communism," even when the policies literally have nothing aligned with that form of government:

Also, this isn't relevant to this thread or conversation, so I will not address this again here.

Oh, cool so everyone who disagrees with you is a racist, good data point. Keep up the valuable inputs.