CDC Sentences Kids to Another School Year of Irrational Masking
Because adults can't evaluate risk, kids continue to suffer the most from COVID policy, despite suffering the least from COVID.
My 13-year-old daughter, like every one of her Brooklyn friends, has been vaccinated against COVID-19. Her public school teachers, who have had access to the vaccine since mid-January, will be required by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to either show proof of vaccination come September or submit to weekly testing. Our ZIP code's rate of fully vaccinated humans, 57.9 percent as of July 27, would rank eighth in the country if we were a state.
And yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tuesday recommended that my daughter, her classmates, her teachers, and everyone else who sets foot inside her middle school wear masks yet again this coming year.
"[The] CDC recommends localities encourage universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status," the agency announced, reversing its own guidance from 19 days prior in the wake of increased delta variant–fueled infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. "Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies are in place."
Those two CDC sentences are at serious tension.
If the past is in any guide, this latest ratcheting up of classroom-infectiousness fear will encourage public schools to not open but close, particularly in the most restrictive districts, which have tended to be the most Democratic-leaning politically. When the CDC in mid-February shocked epidemiologists (and pleasured teachers unions) by keeping its global outlier of a school social-distancing recommendation at an average of 6 feet between humans, multiple school boards in blue polities responded by suspending plans to reopen. (That guidance, amid near-universal outcry, was reversed less than six weeks later.)
You will see, in various discussions about this issue, variations of the following argument: Hey, what's the cost of just a little more masking while we get this unknown delta thing under control? We're not asking for much, here, just a piece of cloth!
But this accommodationism rests on a faith-based hunch, unsupported by available evidence—that masking vaccinated people in schools will make a damn bit of difference in the spread of COVID-19.
Consider this remarkable little paragraph, published over at the health policy/science site Stat:
An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told STAT that health experts do not have studies proving that fully vaccinated people are transmitting the virus. Rather, the official said, the updated guidance is based on studies showing that vaccinated people who contract the Delta variant have similarly high levels of virus in their airways, which suggested that they may be infectious to others.
Italics added to emphasize the precautionary basis of this guidance. The government's infectious disease bureaucracy is asking vaccinated people in 46 percent of the country, and 100 percent of its schools, to apply a facial prophylactic to impede the transmission of something it does not know is being spread.
The 161 million U.S. residents who have been vaccinated, and are now being asked to re-mask, are far less likely to contract, transmit, or suffer significantly from the scary new strain. "We continue to estimate that the risk of a breakthrough infection with symptoms upon exposure to the delta variant is reduced by sevenfold; the reduction is 20-fold for hospitalizations and deaths," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday.
What about asymptomatic breakthrough infections? Could I just be walking around feeling healthy but chock full of viral load? Though the CDC is no longer measuring that precisely (in part because the number is necessarily an undercount, since vaccinated people who feel healthy generally do not get tested), we still know enough to say that I'm significantly more likely to get into a car crash this year.
As of April 30, when there were 101 million fully vaccinated Americans, the CDC had documented just 10,262 breakthrough cases, 27 percent of which were asymptomatic; 995 hospitalizations (29 percent were for non-COVID symptoms), and 160 deaths (18 percent from other causes). Your chances as a vaccinated American of being detected with COVID were one in 10,000; of being hospitalized with COVID, one in 102,000; of dying with COVID, one in 632,000.
As of July 19, the number of vaccinated Americans had shot up to 161 million, but so too had the Delta variant. Now instances of breakthrough hospitalizations were up to one in 37,000 (27 percent of which were asymptomatic); and of deaths, one in 190,000 (26 percent non-COVID-related). If the ratio of cases-hospitalizations-deaths were roughly the same as in the April 30 report, that would put breakthrough infections at around 61,000, or one out of every 2,640 vaccinated people.
The delta trendline among the vaccinated is getting worse, but the baseline from which it has ticked up is borderline miraculous. Let's put the above odds in context. You have a one in 2,535 chance of choking to death on food. If you drive more than 1,000 miles a year, you have a one in 366 chance of getting into an automobile accident. The odds of you dying from a lightning strike are higher than the ratio of vaccinated people who have perished while infected with COVID.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the breakthrough infection rate is as high as one in 2,000. Now imagine a middle or high school with 2,000 combined students, teachers, and staff, the vast majority of which are vaccinated. The CDC school masking guidance would have us believe that everyone in this school needs to wear masks because chances are that one vaccinated person will contract the delta variant, and we just don't know whether that person might have the ability to spread it to any unvaccinated stragglers in the building. As Walensky said Tuesday, "In those cases, those rare cases that we have breakthrough infections, we felt it important for people to understand that they have the potential to transmit virus to others."
This is irrational restrictionism, inflicted on a population that has suffered the most from COVID policy while suffering the least from COVID.
For all the ooga-booga about the delta variant, its main innovation is to transmit faster, not pack a deadlier punch. As the CDC points out, "To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in the case demographics or vaccine characteristics among people with reported vaccine breakthrough infections." This finding is of particular importance when it comes to schools because the underlying case demographics of COVID are that even the unvaccinated kids rarely get it, spread it, or suffer from it.
As David Wallace-Wells put it in New York magazine July 12:
Over the course of the pandemic, 49,000 Americans under the age of 18 have died of all causes, according to the CDC. Only 331 of those deaths have been from COVID — less than half as many as have died of pneumonia. In 2019, more than 2,000 American kids and teenagers died in car crashes; each year, according to some estimates, about a thousand die from drowning.
In New York City as of June 20, the lowest case rates among age cohorts have been 0–4 (3.5 percent), 5–12 (5.4 percent) and 13–17 (7.1 percent). This despite the first two groups being mostly ineligible for the vaccine. We are masking vaccinated people who will probably not contract COVID, to protect a population that gets it the least and suffers from it less than it suffers from the flu. At what point are we going to admit that this is crazy?
The left-of-center support for these restrictions is reminiscent of the right-of-center apologia for such post-9/11 security theater measures as having airline passengers take off their shoes in the security line. Sure, it might not be the most important precaution, but if we can prevent even one shoe-bomber, the mild inconvenience will be worth it!
But not only is the potential upside greatly exaggerated, the downside is heavily discounted, and inflicted on people with the least political power. My 6-year-old daughter has been wearing masks in school settings now for 20 percent of her life. Young kids rely on facial recognition for all kinds of early childhood development and basic social competence. Most of the developed world has not been masking elementary school children, in recognition of both the limited benefits and developmental costs.
As Boston-based infectious disease specialists Westyn Branch-Elliman, Shira Doron, and Elissa Schechter-Perkins put it in the Washington Post last week, "On July 8, the superintendent of schools in Decatur, Ga., announced that masks would be mandatory for all students in schools next year. School districts in California and New York have adopted similar policies. This insistence on universal mask-wearing is not an evidence-based approach."
The CDC guidance is yet another product of adults who are incapable of evaluating risk and unwilling to take seriously the downside of treating a generation of physically healthy kids like deadly biohazards.
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This is dumb and hurts kids. The one silver lining, long term is it weakens unconditional support for public schools and strengthens the demand for more school choice.
In 2009-2010 in response to Obama’s and democrats excessive spending plans there were “tea party” protests and organizations (some grass roots, some not) in order to resist such deficit spending. New politicians were elected in order to help this movement along. Over a decade later we are in a worse situation than before.
I’d say school choice will disappear the minute they unmask and get the kids in there for free day care. Americans like the “free” part of things and politicians are happy to oblige.
Are we sure that unmasking is ever in the cards though?
Fauci has already hinted at support for seasonal masking, now that the country is used to the idea of wearing them. Combine that with reports that influenza is low (Florida studies have shown it to be at record lows last year) and, after all, it is deadlier to young children than COVID.
I am not sure that masks are not going to stick around for years to come as the MAGMA hat for team blue… you know, to save our children.
Wearing a mask when you are ill, as they do in Japan, makes sense. The rest is virtue-signaling and arbitrary oppression.
Nope it does not make sense…
OVERALL RESULT OF EVIDENCE ON FACE MASKS
1. Ten RCTs were included in the meta-analysis, and there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf
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Here’s the real reason why we have to mask up again:
The schools don’t have 100% vaccination, and they damn well know not to segregate kids into two groups.
So the only conclusion besides stay home another year is to make everyone mask up until everyone is vaccinated.
kids rarely get Covid.
Look at the data presented in the article
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“I’d say school choice will disappear the minute they unmask and get the kids in there for free day care.”
I guess we will see. All I have is anecdotal evidence, like my relative, a Seattle liberal, who is livid about how local school districts handled the pandemic. She won’t be swayed back by day care because her kid is beyond the age of requiring day care.
It’s too bad that Silver Lining will never be found.
At least we don’t have to endure mean tweets.
Mean tweets >totalitarian socialism
So the one silver lining is that a government institution is acting like a government institution?
No, I am saying that people who have in the past unconditionally supported public schools, teacher’s unions, public school administrators are starting to question them, and not support them unconditionally.
The cry of the fake libertarian. It is okay if Democrats destroy your kids schools and lives, it may eventually lead to school choice.
Another silver lining – this might tip the scales to help CA oust Gavin Newsom
Yes but we don’t have mean tweets and that’s the most important thing!
Well this one’s on Senile Joe now.
Well Orange Man had four years to drain the swamp. The shit Sleepy Joe is wading in is the stuff Orange Man neglected to drain.
LOL
He help create it the last 40 years!
He couldn’t drain the swamp because THE DEEP STATE!!!
Here Mike ignores Civil Protections and how hard it is to actually fire people. Of course done in defense of the 90% of democrats who operate in D.C. federal positions.
And fascgets like Mike Laursen and Brandybuck, who love nothing more than bitching out of one side of their mouth while licking swamp boot out the other side
This would be “both sides.”
I mean, to a certain extent, yes. It’s hard to argue after four years that the entrenched establishment and the lifetime bureaucrats who support them didn’t actively fight against any kind of reform that was proposed.
Of course, nobody here (except maybe lovecon) seriously expected him to actually accomplish that.
Trump made a wee bit of progress reducing bureaucracy, but taught us how powerful they are. He should have done more. His unfamiliarity with the DC way and reluctance to get experienced help, hurt him immensely.
Best 2 accomplishments are 1 reducing corporate tax rate, and 2 court appointments. Op Warp Speed might be #3; too bad the propaganda machine MSM didn’t give him credit for that.
TDS-addled assholes like you did your best to keep that from happening.
Stuff your TDS up your ass; your head wants company, piece of shit.
Look at the backlash Trump got from these people, and is still getting. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. He couldn’t do it alone.
The left-of-center support for these restrictions is reminiscent of the right-of-center apologia for such post-9/11 security theater measures as having airline passengers take off their shoes in the security line.
Only to those with “both sides!” OCD.
An “apologia” I have never heard from any of my ‘right wing’ friends. OR anybody at all TBH.
Everyone I know who is “right of center” in fact calling it ‘security theater.’
Don Welch tilting at windmills again.
It’s security theater now, but had widespread support just after 9/11, which has faded.
So you are skeptical that masks help much but you are worried a generation of kids will lose the ability to read facial recognition? Where’s the scientific evidence on that or are you just being cautious?
Welch knows that the reason they are recommending 100% compliance is that the anti-vaxxers won’t mask up unless everyone is mandated to. So it’s an all-or-nothing deal. But sure, go ahead and blame the CDC for vacillating when we all know exactly why they are changing their minds. If a certain segment of the population would have taken the pandemic seriously to begin with we wouldn’t be here. But instead they create the resurgence and then the Matt Welch of the world smugly go after the CDC and use weak hypocritical arguments to extend the pandemic even further because his 6 year old can’t see faces.
It’s those wreckers and kulaks!
Hooliganism! Sheer hooliganism!
DO AS I SAY SE WE CAN ALL BE FREE!!!!
Get up off of your damn knees.
It’s all good. Emperor Xiden’s red headed spokesweasel and her MSM posse has assured Heraclitus that he won’t cum in his mouth.
They wouldn’t lie… would they?
If a certain segment of the population would have taken the pandemic seriously to begin with we wouldn’t be here
Look, I hate Democrats as much as the next sane person, but they (probably) didn’t create the coronavirus.
If you can show a distinction between Democrats and the CCP, I’ll accept your assumption.
“Look, I hate Democrats as much as the next sane person, but they (probably) didn’t create the coronavirus.”
Fauci helping pay the WIV for Gain of Function research?
If I’m vaccinated, what’s the concern? Show your work.
Heraclitus is commonly regarded as the most arrogant asshole in presocratic philosophy. Thank you for carrying on the tradition.
“If she would just agree to sleep with me, I wouldn’t need the drugs!”
Heraclitus
July.28.2021 at 11:47 am
Fuck off and die, slaver.
I too agree that the Democrats shouldn’t have panicked and followed Sweden’s lead instead.
Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?
Now instances of breakthrough hospitalizations were up to one in 37,000 (27 percent of which were asymptomatic); and of deaths, one in 190,000 (26 percent non-COVID-related).
Oh FFS Welch. The ‘just the flu’ asswipes have been using ratios for over a year to minimize this. They do not UNDERSTAND ratios. Just cite the actual cumulative numbers:
161 million vaccinations
5601 hospitalizations of which
1164 were asymptomatic (ie they were admitted for something else)
1141 have died
the raw numbers alone show covid is no longer a significant problem for the vaccinated. That number of hospitalizations/deaths is tragic at an individual level – but it is not even a bug splat on a windshield as a public health issue.
There is no public health issue for the vaccinated now. Period. If there is in future, then it will be in future.
Stop your fucking flimflam re ratios you sorry sack of shit.
As for the unvax – they are either hesitant or resistant. Maybe the hesitant can be reached locally – not via anything you write. The resistant are completely immune to facts. Possibly they will change when reality hits them in the face but who gives a shit about them.
Which age groups are hesitant or resistant, I might wonder?
Apart from the under-12’s, I would guess the under-40’s unvax tend hesitant and the over-40’s unvax tend resistant. We’ll know when hospitalizations start getting close to max in a locality. The hesitant will start getting vaccinated quickly (hopefully soon enough but prob not) – the resistant will spit in the nurse’s eye only if/when they are admitted to hospital and told they have covid.
Admitted? I thought your plan was to just let them die.
Blacks are the most resistant, with a 72% unvaccinated rate.
So Jfree you get to determine what is significant and others cannot?
You can decide anything you want. Just live with the consequences of the decisions you make.
You want to make it so hospitals can turn away people who defy your determinations.
You’re entire philosophy revolves around not accepting personal responsibility
*your
DAMN IT
Lefty shits are like that.
Anyone with basic math skills and an online device can determine that COVID is not a significant problem for vaccinated people in the US. Look up how many people die per year from car accidents, the flu, cancer, heart disease, etc then compare those numbers to the number of vaccinated people getting killed by COVID.
The hospitals are empty with covid cases and are getting emptier. This Delta variant, with symptons of a scratchy throat and cough, is milder (this is called attenuation) and is as worrisome as the common cold if you are under 75 with no comorbidities. Tell me again why this healthy 54 yr old should take an experimental shot when I had the virus. Tell me why my extremely healthy 18 year old son needs it to go to college?
Because JFree is literally scared of everything.
Because the trend line on Dr. Fauci’s chart needs to look better?
Not all the hospitals are “empty.” They are filling rapidly in such places as Florida and Texas, where their irresponsible governors have placed politics ahead of human lives, by undermining vaccine and other COVID control efforts. Now their unvaccinated citizens are getting COVID. Imagine that.
How many times I have heard this hospitals are filling rapidly and we are all doomed. During the last 19 months not one person has been turned away from a hospital due to overcrowding. The only thing we have seen is excess capacity due to turning away other patients for a pandemic that forgot to show up. Please cite the evidence of these overcrowding hospitals in TX and FL who are filing up b/c on the unwashed. From what I am hearing out of Israel and UK is is that around half the people showing up have had two shots and with the UK over half the Covids in the hospitals are there for other reasons like having a baby. Tell me again when me and my son need this vaccine?
Except they really really aren’t. And the data is available for any of us to actually look at. We saw a summer spike in the sunbelt, just as predicted — and just like last year. But all the numbers are better than last year, which is ALSO what we expect to see, because each wave has fewer susceptible people in it.
In most states yeah. Arkansas and parts of MO, LA are now at mid-winter peak with hospitalizations doubling every week. In those cases they are also exporting patients which will work until it doesn’t.
On the bright side, a stand your ground law just went into effect so Arkansas is well prepared to stop the Delta variant from advancing further.
I am a doctor in a suburban Fort Lauderdale hospital.
Our ICU has plenty of beds.
Sent a patient there just last night, no problem getting a spot.
Our hospital is still quite slow with plenty of empty isolation beds available.
Please come down here and schedule an elective surgery.
We need the business
Covid *was* no longer a significant concern for potential of vaccinated spread.
The infectiousness of Delta changes that, combined with the data out of Israel that shows we had the booster shot too soon in time to prevent infection completely as time goes by (although it’s still great against serious illness). So anybody relying on older statistics is not arguing in good faith or just unaware of how the facts on the ground have changed.
Should children wear masks? It’s really a question of how much do we want to gamble potential health of unvaccinated kids or their parents on the previous historical resistance to a much less infectious/lower dose form of the virus.
Regardless, as long as you have parents that can’t yet get their kids <12 vaccinated you will end up with mask mandates.
Please provide some data showing that any of the major vaccines and / or natural immunity due to prior infection are not effective against the delta variant.
You seem to be the one relying on wild speculation and not arguing in good faith.
I’ll correctly answer your question “should children wear masks”?
This is a question weighing the risks of children catching and spreading COVID, which so far appear to be very low vs. the risks of children’s socialization and education and mental health being forever damaged, which so far appear to be very high.
You make the absurd but common assumption that preventing COVID is the only thing to consider. In reality, with any decision the rational thing to do is to weigh pros and cons of various approaches. Rather than trying to do everything possible to prevent COVID we should do everything possible to prevent harm and maximize positive results.
Also, please show evidence that masking kids reduces their (almost negligent) susceptibility. And that masking kids is safe (there is evidence that their masks are Petri dishes, and CO2 buildup is bad for them).
I’m trying to figure out why someone who is asymptomatic is in the hospital at all.
This is really dumb and hurts kids.
Saving children from something they do not need saving from.
And Matt just has to bust out the both sides that isn’t actually a both sides, much less an honest reflection of reality.
Except that they aren’t saving kids – they are endangering them. Studies have shown that their masks are Petri dishes of germs, and that they are harmed by CO2 buildup (caused by masking).
True, but all that assumes they are actually wearing procedure type masks in a functional manner. Which, in actual use is more the exception than the rule.
The idea that grade schoolers are going to use any sort of PPE in a consistent and effective manner is a belief with no basis in knowledge or practical experience, much less any actual science.
IMO it marks the holder as an idiot.
Excellent article Matt.
Left wing media propagandists and politicians don’t understand or care about health risk assessment or cost effective health risk management.
Rather, they focus on exploiting public ignorances and fears to advance their totalitarian political agendas, which are destroying human and civil rights of Americans.
Rather, they focus on exploiting public ignorances and fears to advance their totalitarian political agendas, which are destroying human and civil rights of Americans.
THIS!!!!
The breakthrough infection rate is either off by orders of magnitude, or the celebrities/politicians are lying to us about being vaccinated. How does 10,000/101,000,000 relate to 6 TX Democrats out of 50?
I strongly suspect that several (and perhaps all) of the six TX Dems who bolted lied about taking a covid vaccine.
Since Democrats have lied about virtually everything during the past decade, nobody should be surprised that many have also falsely claimed they took a vaccine (which was just more virtue signaling to their left wing comrades).
Them lying about their vaccine status is the statistical and logical conclusion
Unless the vaccines are really worthless, you are correct sir.
I hope Reason has a backup plan in case its YouTube channel gets deleted. Google would be entirely justified in kicking you off the platform for disputing the official government position on any virus-related topic.
Maybe, but they still love illegal immigrants. That should be enough to keep them on the good side and keep Chuck Koch rich.
“[The] CDC recommends … [c]hildren should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies are in place.”
An illustration of what happens when people are forced to wear masks in English class for many months.
“Now instances of breakthrough hospitalizations were up to one in 37,000 (27 percent of which were asymptomatic); and of deaths, one in 190,000 (26 percent non-COVID-related).”
If 27% of recently hospitalized covid carriers (who had been previously vaccinated) were asymptomatic, why were they even in the hospital?
If asymptomatic carriers (who simply tested positive by a test that has produced lots of false positives) are being admitted to hospitals, it is likely that many others recently admitted to hospitals have only experienced minor symptoms.
Asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic covid carriers should not be admitted to hospitals, which are for the truly sick.
There’s a statistic hidden in there no one wants to talk about: The unnecessarily hospitalized.
No. They went to hospital for something else. They just happened to be tested because they were admitted to hospital
A little over half of them according to figures that got leaked from the British government.
Died *with* covid. Died *from* covid. Committed suicide because you lost your business due to prolonged closures. Throw them all into the same bucket.
“Throw them all into the same bucket.”
They do, it is called “excess deaths” and people think it’s a valid measure.
Interesting: on 12.31.2020, CDC released a provisional figure of 2.91m total deaths in the US. They’ve since upped that figure to 3.36m.
That’s quite the “lag in reporting”…
Why release a report Dec 31 if they still have 1/8th of their data to tabulate, and when did these 450,000 additional deaths occur? All in December? November and December? The last quarter of 2020?
Where did that remaining 12% of the total come from?
I still have not heard any explanation why the CDC chose to intercalate a 15 year age cohort into data otherwise broken out by 10 year increments.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html
It stinks of manipulation.
I tend to think it’s reasonable. We have different statistics to track different things, and as long as they’re explicit as to what it means they can have different value.
I still think there is just a huge amount of reporting malfeasance as anything. Not all researchers are pure and perfect, but I think this is mostly a reporting issue, both from ignorance on the reporters and from active malice at times.
I’d agree with ThomasD of following Excess Deaths. Even that’s not perfect, but gives you a sense of things. I also have, admittedly, sort of just stopped following too many stats and continued to argue my stance from first principles.
Actually you don’t agree with me. Excess deaths includes those who “committed suicide because you lost your business due to prolonged closures.” Which gives an entirely wrong “sense of things.”
It is not merely “not perfect” it is fucked up.
Hey, JFree, if they’re admitted to the hospital for something, but test positive for wu flu and aren’t vaxxed, do we let them die too or no?
In fact, the docs need to reverse any procedures or treatment done before finding out they were unclean(ed) and boot them out immediately. Or just lock them in the morgue freezer.
Gimme back those bone screws!
Do you want them back orally or rectally?
An EMT I associate with about a month into lockdowns was talking about all the COVID cases he’d handled and how they were taking extra precautions (someone else asked). He mentioned a case where they had a woman who’d tested positive and had a stroke because of DVT and mentioned that they were discovering COVID was associated with strokes. I, not an EMT, pointed out that there’s a much stronger correlation between DVTs and sitting on your ass while locked in your home and that she likely didn’t develop DVT in the two weeks between a positive test and clearing COVID unless she was already pretty inert and predisposed to clotting/stroke. He agreed that being locked in her home was probably a complicating factor.
That juicy 15% payment bump for anything coded as Covid Related has lead to some very real abuses
of deaths, one in 190,000 (26 percent non-COVID-related)
Just a doggone minute! Did this person die *of* COVID or not?
Of diagnosed Covid cases, up to 33% are asymptomatic. Let’s use 25% as a conservative estimate.
Estimates of undiagnosed cases range from 4 to 6 undiagnosed cases for each diagnosed case.
Using 4 undiagnosed for each diagnosed would be the most conservative approach.
It should be safe to assume that undiagnosed cases are asymptomatic.
Survival rate of diagnosed cases is 99.7%
The math:
1000 diagnosed cases
4000 undiagnosed cases
3 deaths
Actual mortality rate = 3/5000 = 00.06%
Covid 19 Survival rate = 99.94%
Other survival rates for comparison
28% Ebola
40% Bird Flu
50% Bubonic Plague
70% Smallpox
85% Spanish Flu
85% Typhoid Fever
92% Yellow Fever
98% Swine Flu
2 + 2 = 5
Don,
if 25% of the cases are asymptomatic that means that for every 4 detected cases there are actually 5 cases in total, not 16 cases.
So you are greatly underestimating mortality
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html
30% of our ‘covid hospitalizations’ are pregnant women (the most common reason for a hospital stay)
The majority of whom were almost certainly in the 65+ age group, the highest risk demographic.
We test everyone coming in to the hospital for surgery.
So this is how asymptomatic, vaccinated persons might be admitted to the hospital.
“[The] CDC recommends localities encourage universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.”
“[The] CDC recommends localities encourage universal eschewal of gun violence for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.”
And the Blue cities can’t quite figure out why everyone has high-tailed it to FL, AZ and TX..
A) No matter what you do, kids will infect other kids with a variety of diseases. It’s what kids do. It’s actually part of growing up and developing the immune system.
B) Many of these childhood diseases are very very VERY bad for adults. Chicken Pox for example. A minor nuiscance as a kid, a serious problem for adults who never managed to catch it as a kid. (And those that did catch it are prone to re-occurrence as Shingles).
C) COVID has been shown to be serious for adults, the older the more serious. But has not shown to be serious for children (although there is still a low but measured risk for children).
Conclusion) While it may make sense for adults to perform certain rituals to protect themselves and others against COVID infection, such rituals are pointless when applied to children who face minimal risks from COVID.
Note I said “rituals”. Masking is mostly a ritual. If you’re not wearing N95 or better masks, with a tight face seal, then you’re performing a mostly useless ritual. They can stop a lot of things, but they have not been shown to stop airborne viruses. And the double masking is pure fappery when you don’t have a face seal. You’re just breathing out the sides of the masks.
I do wear masks when in stores and common work areas. Not because I need to, but because it’s become a common courtesy. I do it to be polite, just like I wear shoes and shirts when eating at a restaurant, even beach restaurants where it’s not required.
People who make masks a political issue, on both the left (must wear them) and the right (must not wear them) and major wankers and I hope the pull a groin muscle while wanking.
I do it to be polite, just like I wear shoes and shirts when eating at a restaurant, even beach restaurants where it’s not required.
“A masked society is a polite society.”
My next invention:
The mask-holster!!
This is essentially where I come down, and may perhaps be the first time you and I have really shared a common ground, Brandy.
Gosh. I’ll put that down in my diary. 🙂
Two (OK, three) things I’d add:
1. Shingles as an adult is still better than chickenpox as an adult. Not as good as the vaccine (chickenpox or shingles) but still, natural immunity is better than none.
2. I would say more than just “a tight face seal” to N95 masks (and the CDC does/did too). Constant and vigilant asceptic technique and near lab safety level conditions are required. Pulling your N95 mask out of your purse, making sure it fits, and then participating in a sweaty, mostly peaceful protest for 6, 8, or 12 hours, with mask-free meal breaks in between, and then putting your mask back in your purse (or even some sort of “clean” storage area) ain’t gonna cut it.
I don’t wear masks in stores in common work areas unless instructed to (or the work makes it necessary). One assertion about the ‘shirt, shoes, service’ rule is that it was implicitly racist, meant to keep out poor black people who worked shirtless or didn’t own shoes. Similar with schools and headlice. I don’t know whether it’s a true assertion or not. I’m not aware of any widespread outbreaks of staph infections from a lack of ‘shirt, shoes, service’ rules. I do know that there are no known cases of any diseases (other than lice), being transmitted by head lice. Either way, it does adequately raise the point that someone can knowingly/actively be oppressive under the guise of manners.
Those of us refusing to wear masks aren’t the ones who are making it a political issue at this point.
You may not be making it a political issue, but you may be making it a life endangering issue for yourself and others, especially if you are not vaccinated.
No, you’re not. See Brandy’s comment of why masks are a ritual.
You had me until you were a chump.
Measurable risk? Not really. Down in the noise, and many cases have known comorbidities.
According to CDC data and estimates, almost HALF of all Americans have already had covid.
And according to a website that tracks covid reinfections,
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/08/covid-19-reinfection-tracker/
just 14 Americans who already had covid have been reinfected with covid (and just 169 worldwide), which means that >99.9999% of Americans (and humans worldwide) who have had covid remain immune (aka Natural Immunity) (14/160,000,000=.0000000875).
Meanwhile, just 61,000 of 161 Million covid vaccine recipients in America have experienced a reinfection, for a reinfection rate of just .0003789, meaning that >99.9% of vaccinated Americans appear to remain immune.
In sum, about 50% of Americans still have Natural Immunity from covid, while vaccines have conferred immunity to another 25%-30% of Americans (as about 40% of vaccine recipients already had Natural Immunity).
So while 75%-80% of Americans remain immune from covid, left wing media propagandists, Democrats, their allies at CDC, and Big Pharma still deny the existence of Natural Immunity, and have proposed even more mask mandates and vaccine mandates.
This couldn’t be true. I have neighbors with signs that say “You matter” and ” We Care”. So much for the teen suicide rate.
Welch subjected his daughter to an experimental gene therapy that is supposed to protect her from the disease that presents practically no danger to her. And then he complains that she still has to wear a mask. Welch, stay obedient. The rulers will remove the restrictions–one day–but only if you stay obedient.
Notice that the article doesn’t even mention the children of the parents who didn’t engage in child abuse–the ones who stayed unvaccinated.
At least one good thing, the mask-wearing makes it harder to send out mean tweets. Oh, wait, no it doesn’t. Shit.
Brandy/turd hardest hit.
The higher rate of insecuritiesinsecurities is just the problem this enconomy is face right now ,and how to address should comecome from each citizens,
It is indisputable that COVID represents next to NO risk to children. None. And yet the government is forcing kids to mask during PE. It is forcing kids into classrooms where they are spread out, behind plexiglass shields, like prisoners. Test scores have plummeted and kids are missing out on proms, graduations, dating and all the other stuff that we once considered vital to the childhood experience.
I have heard lefties rail on for hours about how special interests compromised the USDA Food Pyramid and how it is an injustice of endless proportions. And yet they are silent, or even aiding and abetting this catastrophic decision…More concerned that some rube in Iowa doesn’t want to get vaxed than the fact that the CDC is making slaves of us all.
sigh.
Washington’s governor urges the vaccinated to wear masks indoors in certain counties, won’t impose new mandates.
Tempering our scientific guidance to political realities, I see.
I won’t be surprised if he reinstates the mask mandate. I would bet on it.
How many businesses would roll over for him again, though?
Meanwhile, hospital utilization in WA is the same as it’s been all year — roughly 60%. He did the same thing last summer to kick the fear up when the virus was gone. Gotta bridge that gap to winter somehow.
My 13-year-old daughter, like every one of her Brooklyn friends, has been vaccinated against COVID-19. Her public school teachers, who have had access to the vaccine since mid-January, will be required by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to either show proof of vaccination come September or submit to weekly testing. Our ZIP code’s rate of fully vaccinated humans, 57.9 percent as of July 27, would rank eighth in the country if we were a state.
Matt, half the commentors have been telling you since March of 2020 that they were going to make you and your kids suck a dick and you sided with the party of science and derided the dissenters. Even before that, your partners in crime were penning articles like “If rural Americans are so underserved, why don’t they just move to New York?” and you were silent. We pointed out, well before the media ‘broke’ the story that Cuomo and DeBlasio fucked thousands of old people so hard it killed them, and still you chose to stick to ‘the science’. After the story broke, and it was revealed that Cuomo and DeBlasio fucked thousands of old people to death and tried to cover it up because it might make members of the anti-science party look like they know something, you chose to continue hanging out in their bedroom and sending your kids to enjoy their company unsupervised.
So, now that it’s clear that they’re going to make you and your kids suck a dick and there’s no way for anyone to stop them, what exactly do you expect us to do? AFAICT, the only thing to do is mock you for your buyer’s remorse so that you don’t make the same mistake twice and do it in front of your kids so that they learn what a fucking halfwit you are. But, as I indicated with the “Why don’t rural hicks just move to the city?” article, you’ve been informed/admonished to the point that it’s clearly fruitless and one can find ample evidence in your actions that, in reality, you like to watch and for your kids to watch you.
A+
You can’t comply your way out of tryanny.
Tyranny, either.
“… you’ve been informed/admonished to the point that it’s clearly fruitless…”
It’s beyond that. It is now to the point where any protestations from him should be deemed performative.
Yeah, I was mistaken about him being silent as well. When outdoor dining was once again allowed in NYC, he opined about the majesty of five outdoor restaurants/bars on the same block. Like every other city and even a good number of small towns in America doesn’t have 5 restaurant/bars on the same block and didn’t come out of lockdown sooner (if ever locked down to begin with).
He’s a tool that enjoys being used.
4 of those 5 eating places were boarded up; that’s what he’s not telling you.
I genuinely feel sorry for his poor kids, who are probably adopted. They’re going to be so fucked up for so many different reasons. It’s quite sad.
“CDC Sentences Kids to Another School Year of Irrational Masking”
Only those who go to public schools.
The maskless Jews will get locked in the attic… again… in New York City… in the 21st Century… again.
This would be hilarious if I wasn’t forced to help fund the abomination known as the education industrial complex.
As always, the answer is the same: take your kids out of their schools and don’t look back.
This.
Not super do-able for families with two working parents and who cannot afford property taxes AND private school tuition.
Then move to housing you can afford.
During the dark days of 2020 groups of parents were organizing their own shared ‘schools’.
Don’t you remember them telling us how racist that was??
I’m busy collecting the numbers on this currently. Currently what I’ve got for kids. Relative to Covid kids are:
Just as likely to die by Murder.
3 Times more likely to die by drowning
7 Times more likely to die by accidents.
1,325 Times more likely to be molested by a teacher.
Now I’m relying on some 2017 statistics for the last one (which estimates 250-350k cases annually). I’ve got better quality stats from 2004, but they’re a bit old. Anyone got a more recent source on Teacher/student sexual misconduct? If we’re going to compare COVID in school to anything, we might as well compare it to something that is unique to schools.
In related news, Buttplug signs up to be a substitute teacher.
Couldn’t even cut it as a full-timer. Damn shame.
Regarding children, Buttplug prefers to fill in.
Given what passes for a curriculum in PS69, 100% of school kids are sexually and/or mentally molested.
I would say there is zero chance that a quarter million kids are molested by a teacher every year. Even if you expand the definition of molested to include “felt uncomfortable around”, that is a big number. Sounds suspiciously like the ” one in four women on college campuses are raped” number.
That was my thought. Sounds outrageously high. I got it from a few government sources, which had some astronomically high number. And they have trouble parsing “feeling uncomfortable” with actual contact. I limited what I was using down to actual contact, but some of the the data appears to be self reported after the fact. One source even cites it as high a 1 in 10. I’m just not buying that.
With what I used, It comes down to 0.3% – 0.4% of children. So it’s not completely out of bounds, especially considering offending teachers tend to have more than one victim. I know based on my public school experience, that number actually pans out, but that was because there was one gym teacher who was convicted over stuff with several middle school aged girls over a few years. 3-4 out of 1,000 ended up being about what my graduating class was like.
Data on child abuse by government educators is a little harder to come by than I expected. I remember the stories of priests and boy scout troop leaders involved in child abuse being front and center. None of the priests or boy scout troops in my town were involved in it. There were teachers though who were. Not a peep from the press.
The guidance cites a study that uses non-US approved vaccines, that didn’t pass peer review, as well as “unpublished data” and on going studies.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Alicia_Smith19/status/1420417010752761860
I am pretty sure the guidance used “a powerful union that is the most reliable source of money and propaganda for the DNC says so” as their primary source..
Insane, anti-scientific, sociopathic bullshit. Kids aren’t masking to protect themselves, for the most part. They’re masking to protect their grandparents, parents, teachers and school staff who are at far higher risk. Reason is a disgraceful right-wing rag.
If you are making your children mask up for your protection, or the protection of their teachers, you are a total asshole. You are as bad as the old people forcing 20 year olds to subsidize their retirement.
With vaccinations in place, the risk that a child will kill grandma by going to school is vanishingly small. And it is so small, that forcing that kid to wear a mask all day- risking their own health and development- exposes you to be the most selfish, narcissistic kind of totalitarian.
You are as bad as the old people forcing 20 year olds to subsidize their retirement.
We’re well past forcing 20 yr. olds to subsidize retirement. Much like the ‘Billionaires would fund the government for 6 mos.’ argument, there is no mass of wealth of 20 yr. olds to seize and transfer even if there were, it wouldn’t solve the problem, assuming the government would even allow kids to pay off their SS debt in a lump sum in the first place.
Irrespective of whether or not there are enough 20 year olds to fund Social Security, the fact remains that it by design transfers money from the less wealthy young workers to the more wealthy retirees of this nation.
This nation has spent years complaining about grandma eating cat food when in reality it is some 21 year old eating ramen while funding grandma’s panama canal cruise.
“This nation has spent years complaining about grandma eating cat food when in reality it is some 21 year old eating ramen while funding grandma’s panama canal cruise.”
That is the way that it should be
The best part of being even vaguely politically independent is getting to be each and every wing depending on who you’re talking with.
Fuck off, slaver.
My kids were in-person for an entire year with masks and gave no fucks about the masks. This is not some traumatic event.
Mine were in school and hated it. I hated it. Their teachers hated it. Nobody could understand what anybody was saying, and kids reported to the nurse multiple times with exhaustion from running around with masks.
This stupid “oh just wear the stupid mask” bullshit needs to stop. There is zero reason for kids to wear a mask.
We asked the kids if they want/thought they should get vaccinated (one of mine is old enough to get vaccinated, one is nearly so, one got included for information purposes). Separately, all three didn’t answer the question and replied “I don’t care as long as I don’t have to wear a mask.”
The idea that this is just about masks or is strictly politically motivated is exceedingly and rather wilfully stupid. More willfully stupid than the “Bubba Jones” who normally posts here.
Same with my kids. Mine read the writing on the wall about what would be allowable in California and the two over 12 said “Vaccinate me please.” And they lord it over their little sister every time we go to a restaurant where they require the unvaccinated to be masked.
So there you go, my government and its enablers aren’t fundamentally different from my 12+ aged kids at bullying youngers.
Wait you actually make their little sister wear a mask? WTF?
Not definitively. Definitively, the proprieter (acting at the CDC’s behest) does.
None of mine are vaccinated yet (They don’t go to school for another month and may have to wear masks anyway, so what’s the rush? I am glad that we asked when only the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines were approved and decided to wait until after the J&J one was approved.). We only require them to have masks on their person so that if a proprieter does require them to wear them, our choice isn’t between dividing up, leaving a kid alone in a car, or choosing to leave/being forcibly ejected from a restaurant/business.
My kids were in-person for an entire year with masks and gave no fucks about the masks. This is not some traumatic event.
So what else are you OK allowing other people to force your kids to do?
School age children need neither the vax nor the mask. Science.
This is abject tyranny. Shut up and obey your overlords. You are too stupid to make important health decisions on your own.
Maybe a mistake and chink in the armor–the best thing to help stem the continual indoctrination of your kids to statist / communist brainwashing would be for schools to shut down again for a year.
Band together locally and homeschool the little rats. We’ll all be better off for it.
“…in the wake of increased delta variant–fueled infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.”
That’s not a good enough reason to wear a mask?
And in the meantime while you otherwise are bashing science…science is doing the BEST THEY CAN (which is pretty damn good overall) – what, you think they have a 100% correct crystal ball they are supposed to be using but are purposefully/negligently ignoring it? They are using the best data they have access to. You can do better? Esp when lives are at stake?
And in the meantime while you otherwise are bashing science…science is doing the BEST THEY CAN (which is pretty damn good overall) – what, you think they have a 100% correct crystal ball they are supposed to be using but are purposefully/negligently ignoring it? They are using the best data they have access to. You can do better? Esp when lives are at stake?
^When you’re so clueless as to any notion of principles that your thinking/options vary all the way from “vague data” to “crystal ball”.
Science ( and common sense), show masks do nothing to prevent airborne viral infections.
Actually, in kids, they probably increase them. A recent study of kids’ was scary, with the quantity of accumulated bugs that they were forced to rebreathe.
Weird, because us “seasonality theorists” have predicted everything that’s happened for the last year. How are we so lucky?!?!?!?!?
Matt: “Because adults can’t evaluate risk…”
But they can. They choose not to. They choose to be ruled, to have their lives controlled by the initiation of force, threats, fraud. And that’s fine with me. It’s their life to risk in the hands of another. What I reject is their insistence that I do the same. I let them alone. All I ask is they let me alone to self-govern, to practice “live & let live”.
It’s both. Most adults are completely incapable of understanding statistics, and those that do understand are just following orders.
“That’s not a good enough reason to wear a mask?”
Correct, that is not good enough reason to wear a mask. With vaccinations, the risk that a kid will hurt grandma or otherwise spread the virus are so small as to be meaningless noise. Forcing kids to wear masks in that situation is the worst kind of ritualistic cargo cult mentality. Do that with your own kids if you wish, but leave the rest of us out of it.
“They are using the best data they have access to.”
No they are not. The data says kids are not at risk. The data says the kids are not A risk. Study after study after study shows that kids are fine. The data is so compelling here, that pretty much the rest of the world has foregone this meaningless face-covering ritual. It is so compelling, that the CDC had to cite a non-published paper that used non-US-approved vaccines, and which is being revised after failing to pass peer review.
I have no doubt that there are many scientists doing yeoman’s work out there, but that is not what drove this recommendation. This guidance is 100% political. It is driven by teachers unions that want to force the government into massive payouts to the schools for “hazard pay” and “compliance costs”.
With vaccinations, the risk that a kid will hurt grandma or otherwise spread the virus are so small as to be meaningless noise.
Even without vaccinations, what’s Grandma doing at school full time? Making sure the company is profitable so her teacher’s pension doesn’t go belly up before she dies?
Hell, the idea that Johnny will contract COVID, pass it to Billy, and kill Billy’s grandma by proxy before she has any clue and/or Johnny even develops symptoms is pretty laughable. Well before COVID, people routinely communicated that kids were sick *before* (not) visiting.
There is at least *some* empirical evidence that a covid outbreak at school could infect the family at home, and if you had a grandparent at home with you, I understand that there is some risk.
But with vaccinations, that is completely out the window.
(Mind you, on liberty grounds, I would expect that people with those high risk living conditions would take their own precautions rather than forcing 1000 school kids to do the same.)
There is at least *some* empirical evidence that a covid outbreak at school could infect the family at home, and if you had a grandparent at home with you, I understand that there is some risk.
My point wasn’t that a COVID outbreak at school couldn’t find it’s way home but that, even without the vaccine and even without broad testing, general awareness and treatment have increasingly rendered the argument moot. The notion that Johnny brings COVID to school on Monday and Billy’s Grandma is unwittingly killed by COVID on Tuesday was tenuous in March ’20 but, now is pure bullshit. Unless Grandma had one foot out the door anyway, she finds out Johnny had COVID on Tuesday, gets a scratchy throat and gets tested on Wednesday and is fine. And I say this as someone who’s got an Aunt who’s both a cancer and COVID survivor (and on dialysis because of the cancer) who sits her triplet grandkids pretty much full time while their parents are at work.
They are abusing the best data they have access to.
Too bad you can’t come out and say that there’s no evidence that masks work whatsoever. Another lukewarm rejection of the narrative by a Reason writer.
“breakthrough infections”?What fairy tales have they been reading, or writing? IF one has a viral load sufficnetily high to be symptomatic, one MIGHT spread the virus, IF one is in contect in close quarters (<3 feet)for several minutes, ine MIGHT spread. IF the subject in question has no symptoms, his viral load is INSUFFICIENT to be contagious.
Masks? Those stupid blue paper thingies near everyone is plastering accross s their mugs? Their SMALLEST openings are on the order of 800 microns. Those are the openings within the fibres comprising the matrix. The spaces bETWEEN those fibres are thousands of times bigger. The virus runs from aobut 50 micron uo to about 125 micron. HW can holes thousands of microns accross STOP a viral particle that is only 125 micron at most?
Anyone ese remember the factoid sheet released along with the first injections falsey dubbed as "vaccines"? They CLEARLY STATED that this product will NOT prevent contracting the disease, nor will it prevent the recipient of the injection from spreading it IF he has it. They also clealry stated it would NOT be effective against any future variants, the reason they were already scheming to convince us to get the future versioins of it. The ONLY positive claim made in the accomaying literature was that it MAY reduce symptoms IF one contracts the disease.
Simple fact: if the injection were EFFECTIUVE< the masks would NOT be neded. Since they claim they are ncessary,they are, with great deception essntially admitting the "vaccine" does not work. Can't have it both ways.
And they wonder WHY so many are vaccine hesitant" or "rsistant"? Stop blithering out of both sides of you r collective mouths. How stuid do they think most of us are?
best response to this draconian mandate? Send your kids to school without a mask. Tel them to REFUSE to wear one.Oh wait, bad idea, they'd prolly cal CPS and have them come and steal byour kids "for their safety's sake".
Better idea: just don't send them. Dis-enroll them. cott off the food supply to the school by ullingyour kids out. Schol them at home, or find a private school run y real humans with their heads on straight. And who refuse to listen to CDC. They've blathered and prevaricated all along. Wear masks, dont wear masks, once the vaccine is here masks won't be neded, now half the folks have the poke we MUST wear masks again….
by WHAT authoirty do CDC think they can mandate this foolishness?
The masks don’t prevent the person wearing from being infected as much as it reduces the risk of spreading COVID to an idiot who is unvaccinated…and the petri dish of unvaccinated likely to create new variants…maybe one that could elude the vaccines.
I’m a Republican…but not part of CULT45 of the social media anti-vaxxer disinformation-industrial complex.
Maybe not, but you are a sucker..
Literally all the data we have says masks do nothing. Just like everybody knew last year.
No, masks divert your exhalations to the sides, so they reduce the forward projection of the aerosol with the virus. To the extent that disease is spread by face to face contacts they slightly reduce the rate. Small, but positive, impact.
and the petri dish of unvaccinated likely to create new variants…
No it’s not. As the petri dish of vaccinated grows larger it is more likely to breed variants and, moreover, while the petri dish of unvaccinated may create new variants, the petri dish of vaccinated people is required for the variants to spread selectively rather than compete with wild type strains.
CDC doesn’t have authority to mandate anything. They can only issue guidelines. But then of course, all the liberal dipwads line up to make them mandates.
Please do not spread more disinformation.
– The Delta variant will peak at the beginning of the school year
– The Delta variant can generate 1000X the viral load of the wild type
– Data from UK and US show that people from 10-25 years of age are primarily spreading the virus
— the hospitalization and ICU rate with the Delta variant in the US is higher than the original wild-type
– The Delta variant is primarily affecting people younger than 50
– the appropriate mitigation is
A. Vaccinations for children 6 and up
B. Masks inside in crowded rooms
C. Better HVAC and airflow
Dr. Fauci and Infectious Disease experts are correct, not interwebz bloggers. I think the CDC has actually been a month slow on their recommendations. We knew the Delta variant would blast through the US.
– Please publish opinions that are based upon concrete evidence, not “people are saying.” part of the solution, not part of the problem. If the US had treated COVID seriously like the measles or polio, we would not be in the current situation in some states and counties.
Thank you.
Okay Karen
Who the are you and why would anyone believe your proclamations? And please look into Fauci and his past and current career iterations and begin to see a broken person so beholden to Pharma that it would be useful to seriously evaluate anything that comes out of his mouth.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Your links fell off! What a surprise!
The 1000x viral load, in particular, is a load.
If you have an airborne virus, you want better air sanitation, not airflow. Otherwise, you just improve the circulation of the virus.
The CDC has not “sentenced” the kids to anything. Those who have not been vaccinated, especially those who have been spreading misinformation and outright lies about vaccination (and other common sense and proven COVID protocols) are responsible. They are endangering everybody’s lives, especially our children’s lives. The CDC is trying to protect them from these irresponsible, irrational and dangerous idiots. Wearing masks to school is is miniscule price to pay to protect our children and the educators that are trying to serve them.
The SCIENTIFIC evidence is clear. Masks work, and vaccines work. Those who resist either one (absent a clear medical reason) are not just ignoring well established facts. They are undermining the health and safety of the United States and its citizens. The worst thing about Donald Trump is that he has made it acceptable to many people to act and think like a child, even if you are an adult. Responsibility, the rule of law, and decency are things of the past for him and his followers. They don’t care how many innocent people die as long as they can do what they want.
The Republicans and those whining about “rights” have taken away everybody’s right to a safe and free society. Instead of complaining about the CDC, you should be thanking them and advocating mandatory vaccinations for everyone. The irresponsibility espoused by this author, Donald Trump, and other irresponsible people must stop if our nation and its citizens are to survive. We will not be able to rebuild our economy, our lives and our future until the vast majority of Americans are vaccinated.
Quit whining about “rights,” and start upholding your adult responsibilities as the citizens of this nation.
Quit whining about “rights,”…..
Fuck you.
Mike, someone right now is running with non-safety scissors. Go find them. And when you do, call the SWAT team.
‘The SCIENTIFIC evidence is clear.’
There have been no studies and this is an ongoing experiment. I hope for the best for the guinea pigs, truly. But please stop pretending that there is any ‘science’ whatsoever, that is false.
Why did the country see the exact same drop in hospitalizations last year with no vaccine, until the summer spike in the same exact places and at the same exact times as last year?
Vaccines didn’t work, spring did.
Ha! Ha! Ha! (Repasted)
“Citizens of this nation,” sounds like a nationalist appeal to me.
Like everything with the left, they eventually embrace everything they once claimed to despise, and seek to destroy anything else or anyone else that doesn’t fall in line. We are close to the progressive dream of everyone being forced to think the same way while celebrating the state that oppresses them.
No rights for you… NEXT!
Literally everything in this post is wrong.
Where are these masses of unvaccinated Trump supporters? Sure, some are vocal online.. But where are the numbers?
Unvaccinated hotspots are in large, left leaning cities. Why is that? Do we really think there are more Trump devotees who are willing to risk certain death in these progressive hubs than there were Trump voters? Because that is what you are arguing.
Why are so many hospital workers refusing the vaccine? You could not have easier access, and many face employment consequences if they don’t get vaccinated. Are there really that many Zombies for Trump working in big city healthcare?
Or maybe are you just listening to a bunch of talking points that were made up out of whole cloth by some journalists at your favorite outlets?
Here’s a clue: they know even less than this random collection of idiots on the internet you are communicating with. Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo do not know the first thing about any of this. Why would you trust them at all? They have been caught lying repeatedly and have been stupidly wrong many other times. At least some of the HnR idiots are doctors and medical researchers.
The continual dishonesty has meant that nobody -left or right- trusts our media or our government officials. Remember last year? Remember when you couldn’t go out on a boat with just your family, or surf alone because covid? Remember how the exact same government officials told us that protesting in large crowds in the streets was OK because racist police was totally a public health crisis too?
You might have memory holed that… But the public at large has not. And even the Blue Team has absorbed the ethos of dishonesty and they don’t trust these people either.
Pravda and Izvestia failed… People cannot be successfully lied to for an indefinite time. Even if they have no idea what the true story is, they can tell when they are being given a line of BS. Repeating the party line just makes you a tool… Even if they happen to be right on some particular issue, it doesn’t change that designation. Slavishly following party lines means you destroy your own credibility, but you also destroy the party credibility too.
“Do we really think there are more Trump devotees who are willing to risk certain death in these progressive hubs than there were Trump voters? Because that is what you are arguing.”
Not only that, they’d be mega Trump supporters that overwhelmingly voted for Biden.
You lost me at vaccinating your 13 year old.
It’s all over but the fighting. The MSM loves the delta variant because they get to keep their dying media receiving clicks. Pharma and hospitals love their CARES Act $$$, but the end of the world did not happen and no matter how much yapping people continue to do the average person sees the facts. It’s OK, let’s move on. We can find something else to talk about. Let’s stop clicking!
Except that this week’s data has death rates tending down a bit, as Delta pushes out Alpha.
School-age children do not need waxes or masks. Should think deeply.
Read: Virgin Meaning In Hindi
Once again, what the government is telling us does not make sense.
And, assuming that they are not just completely insane, if what they are saying does not make sense, that means we do not have all of the information. Because clearly they are using some extra data points to inform their decisions.
And, once again, I blame the press. Because the press has become a nearly exclusive monopoly for the DNC propaganda machine, nobody is doing any real reporting. They simply repeat arguments they are told to repeat, even if it contradicts what they were saying 5 minutes ago.
In this case, they are completely incurious as to the reasons for this reversal. “because variant” is not a real answer, as that information did not change over the intervening time.
Nobody asked why children “must be protected” from a virus that is not terribly harmful to kids.
Nobody asked if the vaccine is effective at stopping transmission of the new variant.
Nobody asked what the true rate of immunity is… Including the people who have previously had the virus.
Nobody even asked what the effect of the various vaccines are if you have already had covid. One would suspect that complications would be more frequent, since complications are often driven by inflammation… But nobody asked.
We have seen a large number of breakthrough infections among public personalities… Government officials, celebrities, etc. Why? Does the vaccine not work as well as advertised? The numbers on that flight of Texas lawmakers certainly suggests that either someone is not being truthful about vaccination status, or the vaccine is not nearly as effective as advertised. But nobody in the press with access was all that curious.
The one or two times someone has pressed a spokesman like Jen Psaki, the answers were complete gibberish….. “The guidance has been provided by officials because the officials decided on the guidance .. And that will save lives!!”
I don’t understand it at all. Surely some of these people have kids. Are they all in private schools?
This stuff is important. Our educators seem to be putting more effort into indoctrinating our kids to be racists than they do into providing a quality learning environment… And our 4th estate seems to be just fine with that. This is insane.
Personally, I am really getting pissed, because my kids are affected. I spent years planning the rout to get my oldest into the best high school in the region, which happens to be a public school. It is among the top schools in the country, and because it is a public magnet, there are lots of hoops to jump through to ensure you have a slot… People who do not follow that twisty path have a low chance of getting in (unless their parents work for the school system).
And now? Who knows if my oldest will get a quality education there or not? Are the teachers unions going to shut everything down again? We already lost half of middle school to this nonsense.
We have good schools… I took teams to national championships in robotics, and debate, my son performed in Broadway musical productions and played classical and jazz music… They had diverse athletics…
And civic smashed that for my younger kids. Now, these mandates mean no volunteers in schools. So I cannot do STEM days like our rocket contests, bridge engineering contests, mousetrap car contests, comouter programming challenges… We can’t hold the fundraisers that fund our robotics programs, our drama programs (it cost about $20k to put on one of the Broadway musicals, a big chunk of which goes to purchase the rights, books and backing music). We spent another 20k per year on robotics, including travel to national and world competitions, which included educational side trips… Fully funded by boosters so the poor kids could participate.
All wiped out by these restrictions.
The left keeps whining about women in STEM… How many future physicists and engineers were not minted because they were not inspired by their success in elementary school and middle school programs that don’t exist because covid restrictions cancelled them?
Does anyone in the media care? Or is carrying the water for progressive politicians that much more important??
“ Nobody asked why children “must be protected” from a virus that is not terribly harmful to kids.”
Worse, the virus poses a de minimus danger to kids, esp those under, say, 10. We are talking rounding error, and most of the few who died from the virus had comorbidities. Recent studies have shown that Masks are not healthy for esp younger kids, because they quickly fill up with all sorts of germs, which the kids are forced to rebreath (increasing viral load for viruses), and CO2 buildup is harmful for many of them, esp if they are exerting themselves. Oh, and the vaccines haven’t been tested on those under 18 (and their EUA probably doesn’t apply, since risk of the disease has to be stratified, and the risk of the virus is negligible to them), and their appears to be an inverse relationship between age and side effects from the vaccines.
Don’t post that on hour Facebook page..
Your. Good lord, the Amazon keyboard is useless.
Regarding delta, “instances of breakthrough hospitalizations were up to one in 37,000 (27 percent of which were asymptomatic)”
Tell me again, why were they hospitalized?
Hospitals don’t get paid for keeping beds empty.
“That guidance, amid near-universal outcry, was reversed”
What do you mean, they reversed it?
Look at the most recent guidance. You still have to quarantine as a close contact, and that is still defined as within 6 feet.
It was never changed to 3 feet.
‘The SCIENTIFIC evidence is clear.’
There have been no studies and this is an ongoing experiment. I hope for the best for the guinea pigs, truly. But please stop pretending that there is any ‘science’ whatsoever, that is false.
عطل سناب شاتكيف حل مشكلة تسجيل الدخول إلى التطبيق سناب شات ( Snapchat ).
The “Devil we don’t know” in this debate is the effect(s), long and short term, that masking and social distancing could be having on our children’s’ nascent immune systems. According to a 2015 study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences:
“More than 1600 genes are involved in innate and adaptive immune responses. These genes are of great importance for sustaining life in a hostile environment. Yet the immune system is relatively immature at birth and has to evolve during a life of exposure to multiple foreign challenges through childhood.”
We now find ourselves in the uncharted territory of a mass, self-imposed and dramatic reduction of those “foreign challenges.” Thus, a child celebrating her 7th birthday this month, will have missed out on half a year of kindergarten and all of the first grade. Her immune system should have been exposed to 18 months of close contact with snotty nosed, coughing, sneezing, belching and laughing classmates. Instead, her government gave her stay at home learning and masked outings with family members.
In protecting the grandmas, we might just have imperiled their grandchildren.
CDC Sentences Kids to A Life of Irrational Fear, Insecurity Helplessness and Personal Doubt.
God I feel sorry for these poor kids.
CDC Sentences Kids to A Life of Irrational Fear, Insecurity, Helplessness and Personal Doubt.
God I feel sorry for these poor kids.
I’ve been reading Reason for a while, not because I’m a libertarian (I’m a middle of the road dem), but because I want to understand libertarian principles. At the core, I get why people want less government and better protection of individual liberties. The rub is around what that means and how to achieve it.
This article’s careful parsing of CDC statements and its risk comparison between car driving and COVID, made me question, once again, why masking is such a big deal for libertarians. There are so many more important issues to address. Continuing to wear a bit of cloth on your face for a few more months until the virus is better understood and under control just makes sense. Sure there is always the question of “sez who”. That’s natural. But when surgeon generals (or other health authorities) told you or your parents to quit smoking and drink less and eat vegetables and take cod liver oil, you complied without requiring chapter and verse scientific detail.
What we know about masks is that they help control the spread of the disease. Period. Are they wholly ineffective in some situations? Absolutely. Would it be a worthwhile endeavor for the CDD to write a Dickensian length guidance document about mask wearing? No.
Current anti-mask sentiment reminds me of the “The Mask” Twilight Zone episode in which a dying man coerces his relatives into wearing grotesque masks that reflect their true personalities — masks that become their faces in the end. Last I knew, there is no scientific evidence that COVID masks do this.
Lastly, the comparison of COVID risks to driving and other infectious disease risk borders on irresponsible, because it subtext-ually suggests that everything about COVID is known and comparable, which is far from true. COVID, like AIDs, is a mutating virus. Its transmission, variation, and effects are still being catalogued, experienced, and analyzed. AIDs took years to understand and effectively combat. We’re barely 18 month into the COVID era. It’s true that some parts of the country are better under control than others. In Seattle, however, the virus is finding its way into younger populations.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/younger-people-are-getting-sicker-from-covid-washington-state-hospital-leaders-say/
An abundance of caution; is it too much to ask? We willingly submit to insane pat downs and physical violations at airport security checkpoints. That will never go away. Masks will, just not yet.