The CDC's Insistence on 'Universal Masking' in Schools Looks Less Scientific Every Day
That recommendation, which never had a firm basis, is even harder to justify in the current context.
A recent NPR report quotes a Maryland mother who complains that you risk being tarred as "a psychotic, anti-vax right-winger" if you dare to question whether children should be forced to wear face masks in day care and K‒12 schools. That attitude is based on the premise that rejecting mask requirements is tantamount to rejecting science.
The truth is closer to the opposite. Supporters of school mask mandates assume they are effective at reducing COVID-19 transmission, then desperately search for evidence to validate that conviction. That process bears little resemblance to science.
NPR says "mask proponents…point to the many studies associating mask mandates with lower COVID-19 rates in schools." But those studies are mostly imaginary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began recommending "universal masking" in schools a year ago. At that point, there was no solid empirical basis for the CDC's advice, and that is still true.
Most of the studies cited by the CDC did not even compare schools with mask mandates to schools without them. One exception was a study of Georgia elementary schools published last May, which found that masking of teachers was associated with a statistically significant reduction in COVID-19 transmission, but masking of students was not.
A subsequent study, reported last September, found that "counties without school mask requirements experienced larger increases in pediatric COVID-19 case rates after the start of school compared with counties that had school mask requirements." But that study did not take into account vaccination rates or other COVID-19 safeguards, both of which are potentially important confounding variables. Since "this was an ecologic study," the researchers noted, "causation cannot be inferred."
Another study published the same day found that COVID-19 outbreaks were more common in Arizona schools that did not require masks. Again, that study did not control for vaccination rates or other mitigation measures, and critics pointed out various other weaknesses.
"You can't learn anything about the effects of school mask mandates from this study," Arizona State public health economist Jonathan Ketcham told science writer David Zweig. Noah Haber, a Stanford postdoctoral fellow who had co-authored a systematic review of research on COVID-19 mitigation measures, described the study as "so unreliable that it probably should not have been entered into the public discourse."
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky nevertheless repeatedly cited the Arizona study as proof that her agency's advice was well-grounded, and her slippery response to the criticism was revealing. During a Fox News appearance in December, she said "study after study" has "demonstrated that our layered prevention strategies, including masks in schools, are able to keep our schools safely open."
While those studies show that schools with mask mandates can operate "safely," they do not show that mask mandates are necessary to achieve that goal. Data from Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, Texas, the U.K., and Spain suggest they are not.
Laboratory studies provide compelling evidence that masks—especially N95 respirators—can reduce virus transmission, assuming they are used properly. A randomized trial in Bangladesh found that surgical masks reduced COVID-19 cases by 11 percent, but cloth masks—the kind most commonly used in schools—did not have a statistically significant effect.
Uncertainty about the real-world impact of masking is compounded when mandates apply to children as young as 2, as the CDC recommends—a stance that is extreme by international standards. And the theoretical, unsubstantiated benefits of school mask mandates have to be weighed against the burdens they impose, which include interference with communication, learning, and social interaction as well as daylong discomfort.
That calculus should take into account the vanishingly low COVID-19 fatality rate among children (about 0.002 percent, according to the CDC); vaccines and treatments that dramatically reduce the risk of severe symptoms; and the availability of high-quality masks that immunocompromised children and adults can use to protect themselves from infection. In this context, the CDC's continued insistence on "universal masking" looks less scientific every day.
© Copyright 2022 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
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It was never scientific Jacob.
It wasn’t scientific for the greater population either, just FYI.
It was always a placebo.
Someone yesterday pointed out to me that they had people so scared with the lockdown they needed something to make those frightened sheep go back out into the pasture. Wear a mask, then you feel like you’re doing something!
Mask mandates cause remarkably antisocial situations, empowering the busybodies and the germophobes, and to no good end. I hate the masks and the performative nonsense they engender so much I just can’t say.
Yep! Remember back in May 2020 the fear was still thick. Donald Trump coming out and saying everything was okay would just drive MORE people underground, so they lied about masks and lied about why they lied about masks.
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It was never a placebo. It was always about control, power, and showing who’s boss. This was enhanced because Trump had shown himself immune to the usual political shaming, and lockdowns were the perfect way to rub it in Trump’s face that they were in control. Trump is really good at being Trump, but since COVID came out of the blue, he was unprepared to pivot from his wall, draining the swamp, etc, and deferred to Fauci, Brex, etc, not realizing until too late that they were not on his side.
He made a grave mistake giving FauXi the podium.
To give him some cover, albeit Trump is far from my favorite person, if he hadn’t the media would have sought out Fauci and the story would be Trump was ignoring and trying to silence the “experts”.
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I used to agree with you, and still do on some points.
But I’m really feeling the placebo thing. There’s no reason otherwise for it to be OK to wear a chin diaper with your nose hanging out, but not OK to just say “Dude, I had a vaccine” or “I had a case of Delta, I’m not wearing a fucking mask.”
Once they were married to the narrative, admitting it was bullshit destroys what’s left of credibility. Wallensky probably thinks she’s doing “good” by protecting the CDC or science or some shit, but she generally just makes it worse. Fauci is just a weasel — listen to him, he never says ANYTHING real, instead prevaricating on everything and repeating what any one of us already know from reading the headlines or the local data sources. It’s not “We expect this to happen here. These are other possibilities. This is the thing we don’t understand.” It is “there’s a possibility that maybe on some timeline something like this might happen, but meanwhile we have to all pull together and wear our masks so we can beat this thing.”
They’re too on message. They’re as bad as the 50 centers here on the internets repeating the same FUD on every goddamned thread regardless of the thread topic. I am convinced they think they’re saving face, saving respect for science, at least in their heads.
There is nothing to say it can’t be both, that it started as a placebo, and for some remains a placebo, and for others it has warped into a power play or always was. I place the CDC in the former category, at least initially, and the teachers’ unions in the latter category.
Exactly.
Still don’t know why the teacher’s unions were and are so adamant about ridiculous shit. They had their people first in line for vaccines this time last year, before people who actually might have been at risk, but then fought tooth and nail to not reopen schools, or to do so with untenable, unworkable solutions.
I wonder how much of the school masking part of this is just unions sticking to their guns, like they have been for two years.
Teachers’ unions were and are adamant because putting masks on all the students protects the teachers – randomized controlled trials show that even surgical masks reduce virus shedding by a factor of 3.4, and cloth masks are similar – and vaccinating the teachers reduces the chance that the teachers – who often have risk factors like obesity or diabetes – will get hospitalized or die from covid.
Notice how the unions are not pushing for the students to be vaccinated. That’s because vaccination doesn’t prevent people from catching and passing on the virus, so vaccinating the students doesn’t protect the teachers.
We have three kids who have been going to a school with a 100% masking requirement since covid started, along with weekly testing. None have gotten covid.
My wife is getting her teaching credentials. She had a student teacher position last semester at a similar school. No covid.
She now has a long term substitute position at a different school without masking and testing requirements. In her first week there – bang, covid! She caught it despite her being fully vaccinated.
Our family’s personal experience confirms what the scientific studies say: masking greatly reduces spread of the disease. Vaccines don’t – you can still get covid, and pass it along, even if vaccinated. Vaccines only reduce the seriousness of the disease if you get it.
Unions know these facts, and their demands reflect them. They also know how spread can be reduced by proper filtration and humidification in the ventilation system, and in many school systems demand that too.
Keep in mind that almost anything that protects the teachers, protects the students too. We should be glad that teachers’ unions are guiding school districts to solutions that actually work to minimize covid, and not the vaccination myth that is pushed by this ill informed article.
Yeah… No. Not even worth more of a reply than “read the fucking article, Chicken Little.”
Only in your scared and demented world does wearing a piece of cloth stop a virus from spreading. As Fucci (wrong spelling on purpose) told u children on 60-minutes two years ago: “Wearing a mask is just silly. It may make YOU feel better about the situation. BUT…, it doesn’t do shit”. And then we have u. What a moron u r. A complete and utter fool.
The Phucko Knows
In her first week there – bang, covid! She caught it despite her being fully vaccinated.
well, Warren dewbee, the experiences of your wife really shouldn’t drive public policy now, should it…? I have never worn a mask except under compulsion, and bang, you know, I haven’t contracted covid at all; by your lights, I should thus go ahead and make the utterly stupid and irrational statement that my experiences should be translated into universal acceptance…
and by the way, what did teachers do back in the dark ages before these wonderful mask mandates came along and gave your myopic little life meaning…? do you think that maybe, just maybe, they (gasp) got sick with infectious respiratory diseases and got over them, instead of assuming the fetal position and repeating nonsensical phrases like ‘zero covid, zero covid…’?
Yup take a look at the first surgeon general announcements. They were completely soft peddled. They were saying “If you would like…” “Something that may help…”. It was clearly a way for the government to coax people into the wild.
States took it and amped things up to 100 with mandates, and if became a Kulture War hill.
That fucking culture war hill… why is THIS the thing to fight over?
Yet, it is. And it’s making things way worse. Just got an email from the symphony and they’re all in on the masks, checking vaccine cards, etc as a matter of law, but they wanted to do that anyway as, for some reason, arts organizations are all super pro-government-control progressive now.
There’s going to be a fight after the 15th when the state mandate theoretically ends. Local numbers are crashing hard, but I wonder if now they’ll say we all need N95s instead of allowing me to enjoy my cup of coffee in the lobby before the opera like sane people.
So email back and cancel your membership, and tell them that’s why.
They won’t get any pricing signals otherwise.
Bought the tickets years ago. My seatmate died 2 years back, too, so I have a shitload of tickets on credit since I am a singleton this year. I’ve been a regular subscriber and supporter for a decade, symphony AND opera, and it sucks to lose the symphony touchpoint as a social outlet.
I’ve had words. Many words. I’ve withdrawn my donations, as well, and lots of us at the summer and fall shows (outdoors, no masks so you can talk to people) have expressed great consternation in all the feedback forms.
They don’t give a shit, though. The Symphony association CEO and board members are just awful, and really don’t understand how far left of the community they are. We are NOT the Bay Area here, but the CEO seems to think we are. Doesn’t mean they won’t get another earful on Feb 16, when they can’t hide behind Newsome’s mandate anymore. But I really don’t see myself buying for the fall season if they don’t rescind the mandates. Even if it’s zero out of pocket because I still have a credit. It’s not a fun or social experience anymore.
And then there’s the pathetic munchie shaming efforts:
Opinion: Wearing a mask is an act of caring for others
It looks like a lot of us have stopped caring
Cindy Shapiro
1:30 AM MST on Feb 2, 2022
These days, the America we live in is no longer so considerate. In fact, most public spaces are downright inhospitable.
How do I know? I am newly immuno-compromised and in every single public space I have entered in the past few weeks, the unmasked are hanging around, flippant and unwavering, consciously ignoring the signs at every entry point on every door that make it clear that masks are required for everyone 3 years old and up…In mid-December, I went out to Michael’s to get a couple of art supplies for a holiday craft, deliberately choosing to venture out in the hour before closing, figuring it would be less crowded. Instead, I encountered at least four other customers who brazenly had their faces uncovered. One man’s uncovered cough ricocheted around the store. I hurriedly snatched what I needed off of the shelf and hustled to the register.
As I walked out into the open night air, I thought, Why don’t you care about us?
At home, it is your right to do as you please. If you want to smoke pot at home, go for it. If you want to gather with 100 of your closest friends for a holiday party, by all means — it’s your choice, your health. But when you decide not to put a simple piece of cloth over your face while in public — yes, one that covers both your nose and your mouth — to help protect the vulnerable, I can’t forgive that.
It’s making me hate you, and I have never hated anybody.
Notice the hyper-reductive, solipsistic viewpoint espoused here–“Why don’t you care about me?” Bitch, because you’re a neurotic hypochondriac that wants the world to cater to your mental illness.
This part should have been blockquoted:
Jesus Christ u pathetic little fool. STAY THE F HOME…, PERIOD!! My what a clown show u be.
The Phucko Knows
Yeah, we should NOT give any credence to the people who expect all of society to cater to their problems, yet are completely ignorant of my problems. Or facts.
Facts are, if you’re immunocompromised, you’re screwed. Sorry. That’s the way it has always been, and now you have to make your own efforts. Wear an n95 mask — which really is only meant to protect the wearer — or don’t go crowded places.
But holy shit what sort of a narcissist wants the entire rest of the world to change for their sake?
Well, me, I guess. Because I want people to leave me alone to enjoy my life. And everyone covering their faces is psychologically quite disturbing to me, socially isolating, and worst of all ineffective.
Imagine publishing something like that in a mainstream news publication, and thinking you’re one of the good guys.
Think of it look ducking under school desks during nuclear war. You need to give people a feeling that they can do SOMETHING to mitigate possible damage since the press and government had scared them shitless.
And like that, much of the hype was pushed by the media and activist (such as the Doomsday Clock stupidity). I remember reading that one of the main causes of Brexhnev’s fear of Reagan starting a nuclear war was because the US media accused Reagan of wanting to start one. The Soviets, and Brezhnev especially, couldn’t grasp that the US media was able to print whatever they wanted and were sure those stories were an indicator that the US Government was preparing the US public for war.
I also remember until the fall of the Berlin Wall, about once a year the local Spokane media would do a story on how Fairchild AFB was a major target if there was a nuclear war, and how much it scared me to death, as we lived only 35 miles from Spokane.
I almost prefer that existential threat to the current one. It was obviously bullshit, but it sure made fodder for some great B movies about what happens after the nuclear apocalypse.
Mad Max, Hell Comes to Frogtown, a Boy and His Dog… good times man.
I was a young child in the early 1980s, but also pretty aware for my age of the world around me, so I was paranoid about it. Also, my undiagnosed at the time Autism, probably made me more susceptible to those irrational fears. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become less susceptible to mass hysteria, and much more aware of how some of my fears are irrational.
Not autistic. But probably close to the spectrum on some things, so I understand. And good for you for gaining self awareness.
I suppose you understand the issues I have with not seeing faces, and not being able to put people at ease with a smile, though. It causes remarkable social anxiety. I just ignore that sort of thing and go on with my life, but it’s very hard for me to read social cues with everyone wearing a mask. If they actually, you know, did ANYTHING I might be able to justify it as just my problem, but they don’t. And that makes the anxiety worse, because it’s entirely performative.
I never had much anxiety over the cold war. The teachers told us that duck and cover was for earthquakes (California schools) not nuclear war. Maybe that helped. I didn’t realize the apocalyptic movies so common were Baby Boomer anxiety until I was an adult.
I remember doing the duck crouch in the halls..we figured out quickly it was BS.
It may have helped with a low yield device in the 1940s but was absolutely useless in the 60s.
Yeah, but I didn’t have to carry the fucking desk all over town with me!
Sorry, but the fact that so many people refuse to comply with mask mandates is one big reason why we’re not nearly out of the woods yet regarding the pandemic. This empowers the anti vaccine people and the conspiracy theorists to no good end. If the United States acted like other countries and lived up to its responsibility by making both Covid-19 vaccine mandates and indoor mask mandates, as well as the avoidance of close contact and large indoor and outdoor gatherings mandatory, rather than leaving it up the governors of individual states to do what they want, the United States would be out of the woods by now, or close to it.
We can also thank Donald Trump for laughing Covid-19 off as a hoax, and refusing to do a goddamned thing about it, until it was too late to contain and control it.
Thanks to the conspiracy theorists and the anti-vaccine people for making an already-dangerous situation worse.
Go take another booster you twat
All those states are performing as well as the US, none are out of the woods. The only country that has lifted the mandates is Denmark, and they have been heavily criticized by others because their case rate is still high.
Israel in fact has some of the strictest mandates, and they have proven so ineffectual that they are currently having yet another surge and are now recommending a fourth booster, which is strongly discouraged by the WHO, and has very little science behind it. In fact, some at the WHO are warning against giving additional boosters, or even a single booster, as they actually state it could be counterproductive and weaken the immune system rather then enhancing it.
There is one country we should have emulated more and that’s Sweden. Neve had any mandates and they are as close to out of the woods, and likely closer than any other European country.
Stop with this idiocy. There is no excuse for believing that nonsense at this point. There is no data to support the idea that masks make a significant difference in either cases or deaths.
We could also emulate Denmark, which has eliminated all risks, and says it is because of high vaccinations, but in reality it is because the people have basically stopped following them and even are rebelling against them.
*eliminated all mandates (not risks).
And now I wish I had the school desk, so I could beat this person with it.
Read the article before commenting, Maypole.
The article is idiotic, prioritizing the author’s religiously held beliefs over facts. The fact is, masks work, vaccines don’t prevent infection or passing covid on to others.
First hand knowledge: wife recently contracted covid despite being fully vaccinated. She followed isolation guidelines including masking at home, and having the rest of us mask when close to her. None of the rest of us – two vaccinated, two not – caught covid from her, despite living in the same house.
Effective masking strategies cut the spread of covid. Vaccinations don’t – they just keep you out of the hospital if and when you do catch it.
Funny you should mention religiously held beliefs as you blow past science…
I’ve also heard several anecdotal reports of people sharing a house with someone with covid not wearing masks and not getting sick. You have no idea if the masks made any difference.
Damn, Magpie, but you are stupid; what in the world makes you think that everybody wearing a useless cloth (as even your beloved, feckless CDC admits) over our breathing apparatus was ever going to lead us ‘out of the woods’…which, if you had even two functioning brain cells, you would know we were never really ‘in’ in the first place…
I bet you’d be ecstatic about kids being tossed out of schools for not masking up, though, and you’d be overjoyed by snitching on your neighbors if they dare to live their lives not according to your gospel…
i’m guessing you’re a woman; it’s exceedingly difficult to imagine any self respecting man acting like such a snivelling little bitch
There are a lot of non-self-respecting men out there.
Man… U be one gross ass human. Pathetic really. How the hell can a human be so f-ing stupid? One would have to be WANTINGLY this much of a dumbass to achieve this level of ignorance. Gross dude… Just gross.
The Phucko Knows
I asked the mayor of Taipei during SARS why he implemented a mask mandate in public transportation for all, despite no evidence it would work.
He said it was important to make it seem that the issue was not being ignored. He needed to seem in charge.
He said he would’ve masked just the sick, but people would lie because of fear of stigma, so they all pretended to be healthy, even if they just had allergies or a cold.
So he went with a mandate, to make no differentiation between the sick, those with other problems, and the healthy. Not for science, just to avoid stigma.
That was the first modern mask mandate and it was to give the impression that something was being done.
It was theater. Always was.
AWESOME COMMENT.
Its all Kabuki.
The Bangladesh study found a 1% difference, not 11%, and only over age 65, which pretty much proves there was some other factor at play.
The .002% mortality is under age 26. Below age 18 it’s so low as to be statistical noise, and almost all deaths had multiple comorbidities. It’s a lower rate than the flu.
While the Bangladesh villages study did have its problems – it provided free masks, but did not mandate using them – it did show over a 10% benefit to promoting masking. Perhaps you are reading a different study.
It says right on the box: “ Not for medical use.”
Mask for spray painting, mask for asbestos, mask for mining, mask for deadliest virus in human history.
Well, we are all supposed to be wearing N95s now I’m told.
…which still don’t do diddly.
Has anyone seen anyone who isn’t working at a hospital or medical office wearing an N95 mask properly without huge gaps around the edges?
No, and I don’t know how much hospital staff is trained in them either. We usually received some training each year, but so rarely used them that I wouldn’t call it proficient when I worked in hospitals. I see the receptionist at our hospital/clinic l’s glasses fog up all the time, which indicates she hasn’t been properly fitted or trained to wear it. My doctor takes hers off and lets me take mine off, as soon as we enter the exam room, as does her nurse. My wife works at the hospital, and they didn’t receive any refresher training, just got told to start using them.
My dental hygienist wears a N95 respirator that seems to be well fit. That’s the only medical office I’ve been in since the insanity started.
Nope. And I often see facial hair or a full nose.
Facial hair pretty much renders N-95s useless, as they can’t form a seal.
Exactly. And I’m not shaving my beard because someone else is too stupid to realize that I’m NOT, in fact, going to kill them by breathing.
And I’m not shaving my beard because someone else is too stupid to realize that I’m NOT, in fact, going to kill them by breathing.
I have sworn and cursed more in these past two years than I have in my entire life, and if anything have increased my profanity, such that I’ll likely never mend my salty ways…and one of the things that sets off my four letter radar more than anything is the blinding stupidity of people thinking that I am going to cause them to keel over by walking past them while breathing out of the nostrils that nature provided me in order to sustain my respiration…one such dolt attempted to tell me that if I lit a candle and set it twenty feet from me, it would flicker from my normal breathing, and thus I was a threat if unmasked; I’m telling you, I am glad that I am an antisocial curmudgeon, because, in fact, most people deserve the brushoff…
And if you’ve got a full beard (as I do) the beard tends to mean that since it can’t cup under your chin, it just rides up your nose and into your eyes.
That’s lots of fun to have going on constantly while I’m grocery shopping…
Which means you readjust the mask constantly, and if like most you aren’t doing 30 seconds of hand washing before you touch the mask, therefore you are actually increasing your risk of contamination (the link between respiratory illness, hand sanitation and face touching has been established for a long time). Note this isn’t a criticism but a statement of fact, I also have a full beard, and no matter how well I fit the mask (and I was nurse for 17 years so have extensive training) my eye glasses fog up completely. Also, when I wear a mask in a public place that requires it, I am not performing the necessary hand washing that I was trained to use.
So don’t wear it. I haven’t worn one yet. Only once did I have to tell someone to fuck off.
And I often see facial hair or a full nose.
My personal favorite now is to see the ‘yank up’ as I walk in to pretty much anywhere. I’ve said a couple of times, “If the customer is always right, well, you aren’t wearing that mask because *I* told you to.”
Still stands. N95s are ineffective for virtually any amount of time in any of the above occupations.
15 minutes, or less if you’re breathing heavily, for respiratory moisture to permeate, wasn’t it?
Yes, that is why prior to this N-95s in hospitals were only recommended for direct patient care (because that generally takes less than 15 minutes) and if it took longer than 15 minutes it was recommended that you wash your hands, dispose of the mask, wash your hands again, put on a protective mask, and wash your hands a 3rd time, also you wore gloves as well and had to change them before each hand washing, and any patient that had a pathogen in which N-95s were recommended for, were in a negative pressure room, to keep the pathogen from escaping.
And you were supposed to exit the room before discarding and changing the masks.
The CDC does politics, not science.
The CDC stopped being useful after smallpox was eradicated.
Not sure it was ever useful.
UNICEF and the WHO eradicated smallpox.
The CDC was involved in some funding, but the research wasn’t conducted by CDC, nor was the vaccine campaign in the US overseen by CDC.
It’s a policy center that hands out funds. There’s nothing really useful done there, on a practical level, that isn’t already being done by the NIH or USAMRIID. CDC could close tomorrow with very little effect on the country.
There’s nothing really useful done there, on a practical level, that isn’t already being done by the NIH or USAMRIID.
Yeah, everybody knows the NIAID is where the real work is being done.
In the CDC’s defense, they aren’t really supposed to do anything most of the time. Like FEMA, they’re supposed to hand out guidelines to local DPH and National Guard detachments and let them do all the heavy lifting at the behest of the local government. But, yeah, in the internet age, it *should* require 1/10th of the workforce to do the same job it did 50 yrs. ago, not 10X.
False.
.CDC IS a science group. They published papers proving N95 masks dont work
The Talking Heads making the public statements are political pawns required to stand the Party Line.
Its a low grade cluster hump for deniability
Just Facts addresses it better: https://www.justfactsdaily.com/coming-to-grips-with-the-facts-about-masks
I like the site, the guy cites his sources, but some of the conclusions are iffy.
I don’t like that many of the citations are documents he houses on his website, meaning I’m not sure they haven’t been altered.
I would like it if his source material links included original sources and independent archival servers.
It’s not a “guy”, it’s a research organization. If you want to see even more detail on their research on masks (long read): https://www.justfacts.com/news_face_masks_deadly_falsehoods
While Sullum states above “Laboratory studies provide compelling evidence..”, Just Facts points out that laboratory studies are the “weakest form of clinical evidence.” That’s according the WHO’s ranking of the “quality of evidence”.
They are weak. Largely because a tightly controlled situation, while great for isolating confounding factors in a study, absolutely doesn’t reflect what happens in the real world.
Alas, some of the best studies of what might happen in the real world pretty much get misinterpreted to match people’s preconceptions anyway, but that’s a different issue.
The takeaway from a laboratory test should only be relevant to something like “so, it worked here, we would need to test in the real world” or “It didn’t work at all under controlled circumstances, we shouldn’t bother testing in less controlled environments.” Those well designed, controlled, peer reviewed studies would provide much better and more relevant data.
Most of the kids at my kids school have been mask less for a long time. They supposedly wear theirs but I have my doubts of the teachers and other kids don’t care. They both ended up with mild cases last week, not sure where they got it but guessing it’s an indoor water park their mom took them to, because they should have gotten it long ago if it was from the school.
I was running errands today and half the service workers I encountered had masks below their noses. At this point they’re using minimal compliance, just to keep their jobs.
None asked me to put on a mask. They’re just tired of the charade.
I wouldn’t be surprised if teachers were doing the same.
Most people just walk in now. The level of disregard for gov’t and CDC in daily living is mounting with each new Chicken Little freakout.
I remember when Williams county, ND implemented their mask mandates. Walking into Menards, people complied for about a month, then they stopped complying and the workers stopped asking people to mask. Now it is rare in Williston to see anyone wearing a mask.
Early on, back when they were still wiping down shopping carts and ushering everyone in through a single entrance, counting people as they went in/out, one guy, somehow, forgot his mask. They had a box of them for sale individually right there at the entrance. Now, no wiping down carts, walk in any entrance you like, nobody except the fire marshal cares about how many people are in the store and he doesn’t ever come around, and the ’emergency mask’ box at the returns counter is gone.
The same sign saying, “We require everyone to wear masks in compliance with the CDC and IDPH guidelines.” is still out front. It’s a 60/40 split as to whether people wear their masks. I usually wear the same gaiter I wore all Summer because now it’s fucking cold outside.
-8 degrees Fahrenheit right now in Culbertson, MT. Which just means I have to break ice for my cows and will have to feed them more frequently (consumption increases obviously when it’s this cold).
One of the best things was the placement of hand sanitizing stations in stores, as hand hygiene has long been known to decrease even respiratory illness. Our hands quickly become dirty, and we constantly are touching our face, most people don’t realize how often they touch their faces during the days. Hand sanitizer, however, is not a replacement for hand washing, and if your hands are severely soiled does no good.
It should be noted that this is another reason, during previous respiratory outbreaks, most health organizations discouraged face mask wearing by the public, because wearing a face mask actually increases face touching.
Except — Covid does NOT transmit via fomites. So the hand sanitizer is just another placebo.
And it’s a bad placebo. People are told they should be afraid to touch hands, so they should do stupid shit like elbow bumps inestead, which brings your face closer to the person you’re greeting where, though aerosols, Covid DOES transmit. Bad science as a public policy is fundamentally counterproductive.
Except no, the link between hand sanitation and respiratory illness has long been established science. If someone coughs or sneezes in your general area, or even breaths with it, the virus, and it contaminates your hands, and you then touch your face you increase your risk of contracting it. Of course the virus only lives on exterior surfaces for a short time, however, when you touch your face, especially around the nose and mouth, if the virus is still active you greatly increase your risk of contracting the virus. Because of the short duration of virus activity on exterior surfaces things such as wiping down carts and food was strictly placebo. Hand washing, and if not visibly soiled, hand sanitizer use will decrease the likelihood of catching it, but not eliminating it. Hand washing has been widely accepted since a couple decades after Lister’s passing, as one of the most effective tools to decrease transmission of any pathogen, rather it is respiratory or not. Effective hand washing and sanitation should be part of your daily routine, rather it is a pandemic or not.
Note I didn’t say it was totally useful, however, of all the stupid mitigation strategies we have seen implemented, hand washing is probably the most likely to result in decreasing transmission. As I stated in my previous post, the link between hand washing and decreased transmission of even respiratory viruses is well established. Someone breathing out the virus, unless they are in close proximity to you and directly facing you, is likely to result in the virus slowly settling, which means they settle on your hands, which are generally carried lower than your face. If you touch your face in the time period that the virus is active, you can transmit the virus to your mouth or nose. Ergo, that is why I said they were probably the best mitigation strategies. Far better than most of the theater, and far more supported by established science.
Hand washing, however, is limited as you likely aren’t washing or sanitizing your hands constantly, therefore they are of limited value.
Here in my Northeast Montana county, we have a high rate of transmission in adults, but almost none in our school. The kids haven’t been masked all school year. And the high rate of transmission is largely due to the reservation, which also has a high rate of vaccination.
You cannot know a transmission path of a 120nM virus.
The highest rate of adults infects are in the county are on the reservation, while the towns off the reservation have a rate of infection similar or lower than the state as a whole.
This is purely correlative, and in no way implies that any causative factor exists, however, it does show that our high numbers county wide are the result of high rates within a certain geographic hot spot within the county.
If I were to hypothesize about a causative factor I would lean towards the high rate of poverty, the higher rate of drug and alcohol abuse and the higher rate of obesity on the reservation compared to the state on average. Also, historically it is counterintuitive that in this day and age poverty is associated with a higher rate of obesity in the US and most the developed world, as this is unique in history.
Cultural as well – those habituated to living alone would fare better and be more likely to isolate than those accustomed to frequent interactions or communal activities.
Anecdotally, Mexicans had it rough here. Every big family I know caught it at least once, and they still mostly crossed the border for Christmas – most without any lingering issues, happily.
The reservations have also had more complications and severe impacts, probably related to the issues I stated, than the state as a whole.
Gonna guess obesity rates are high there too?
Yes they are.
Masks are not nearly as crazy as vaccinating 2-5 year olds, who very rarely get seriously sick from COVID and aren’t likely to transmit it. Lots of proggie moms have been getting impatient though, so they will get their little ones vaxxed and it will take 3 doses and won’t even work by the time the next variant comes around.
It doesn’t even work now… Everyone appears to be getting Omicron.
My fully jabbed and boosted mother and sister both just got over it last month. My heathen unjabbed self was half a week behind. No discernable differences in severity.
No discernable differences in severity.
Remember when masks cut down on the viral load someone was exposed to and led to less severe infections? All the studies that *proved* it was so? I probably would’ve forgotten them if I hadn’t, at the time, said the “viral load” of an airborne virus was an abject bullshit metric and gotten rebuked repeatedly by people who *knew* that masks cut the viral load and *knew* that a lower viral load meant you wouldn’t get as sick if you caught it.
I blissfully missed that phase of bullshit… Ouch, that is headache-inducing.
Not nearly as crazy. The latest Pfizer trials on infants failed the agreed apriori criteria. They couldn’t show severe illness/death efficacy on the 5-11 yo jab because there wasn’t enough of a signal to show improvement against. So they went with infection. The two top FDA officials resigned in protest.
So, we have a situation where these kids are at such low risk to C19 that no improvement in can be measured which means no benefit to offset the prospect of unknown long term risks. The Unk/Unks will get you every time.
This is why I didn’t get my ten yo vaxxed. I had my first two shots, probably won’t get the booster and my two teenage sons are vaxxed (my oldest needed to because he is in the Guard). But I won’t get my 14 yo the booster. My oldest really doesn’t have a choice. US Army stands for Uncle Sam Ain’t Released Me Yet.
It’s absolutely tragic that it is being mandated for anyone.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/06/30/dod-confirms-rare-heart-inflammation-cases-linked-covid-19-vaccines.html
Yeah, I saw that, also the military has seen a huge increase in miscarriages, menstrual problems and other reproductive problems in vaxxed service members and their spouses. However, at this point it is correlative and no one is doing any sort of causative research, because the DoD doesn’t want to hear it. This also isn’t new, look at all the damage down in the late 1990s because of the experimental anthrax vaccine many service members had to take (not to be confused with the anthrax vaccine series that we took in the 2000s, as that one had been approved since 1957).
There is a sad history of soldiers as guinea pigs, and it has not raised my confidence.
See burn pits, the military has known the dangers of burn pits since at least the first Gulf War, yet still used them up through the end of Afghanistan.
Some of that is because, in my hypothesis, that the DoD and DVA are separate departments and have separate budgets, and many of the problems occur after people are separated so it doesn’t cost the DoD anything to treat the problems, it is all on the VA to bear the costs.
“Collateral damage.”
I am amazed and shocked that they are going for vaccination for the little kids (under 12 was bad enough). But tons of people are convinced it’s necessary, apparently. I’ve been subjecting myself to NPR for a few days to see what is going on in normal news and they are really pushing it. Interviewing moms who are just so eager to get their toddlers jabbed so they can “protect their children”.
How the fuck are there people in the world still unaware that the risk to young children is insignificant and less than from flu viruses that they never gave a second thought to?
Only racist Republicans don’t vaccinate their infants.
But of course, being racist is a prerequisite for being Republican, and only Republicans are racist, so you don’t need to say both.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/covid-prisoners-we-need-to-talk
Because the truth of the matter is this — no one else is coming to save you. People in free (mostly red) states are already over covid and have been for a while now. Their kids are going to school without masks, the bars are open, and the football stadiums are packed. Those places are doing just as well as places that are ‘locked up’ tight. And here’s a tip: people in those places aren’t going to protest for your freedom, especially after the ‘experts’ (and Twitter) have been calling them names for at least the last couple years.
———
You need to stand up and take freedom back, you can’t wait for somebody else to come and do it for you. If people think you’re an anti-vaxxer and science denier because you don’t want your kids in masks, that says a whole lot more about them (and the media) than you.
We are watching them double down and burn their last shred of credibility.
Then like Brian Stelter, they will put out statements such as “why does no one listen to us geniuses and experts, and instead go elsewhere for information” after putting out dated, incorrect, unscientific info for the 100th time.
But it says right there, “Trusted Sources!” I don’t understand. He SAYS he’s honest, why can’t you believe him?
/s
More public self abuse by this clown who ignores the most obvious and damaging fact about covid in America – those not vaccinated (about 38% of Republicans, the largest group) – overwhelmingly get covid, end up in our hospitals, then our ICUs, then die when compared with those vaccinated. WTF is wrong with him or anyone who continue to nit pick and troll the CDC or anyone tasked with controlling the disease, the end result of which is to feed the idiotic conspiracy web which supports the dead weight fools still not getting vaccinated? These people are sxrewing their families and the country based on ignorance this writer tends like a garden of roses.
Just like D Day, the choice is binary, get off the boat, get your shot, and do your part. F…ing weasals!
Does the jab stop transmission, Barbie Jack?
No, it does not. So calm your tits and quit with the progressive totalitarianism while we wait for midterms.
Doofus, the vaccine does minimize transmission since you have to catch it to spread it. Nothing STOPS it or it would be over.
Get your shot deadbeat.
Cite please?
Because I’ve linked you, multiple times, Rachel Wolensky on CNN saying you’re full of shit.
“Minimize” is a bit of a stretch at this point. It may marginally reduce transmissions. But it is clearly not enough to make any real difference in rates of infection overall.
Your tears are salty.
Doofus, the vaccine does minimize transmission since you have to catch it to spread it
No, the vaccine doesn’t minimize transmission. I know, because I’m vaxxed and caught COVID.
Eat a bullet, old man.
Dude u r constantly full of propaganda horse shit. R u really this wantingly ignorant? The “whole it could’ve been worse” without the shot is but pure bullshit. There IS NOT a single per reviewed study on this belief. NOT A ONE!! The powers to be say it… and ignorant jackasses like u goble it down. The WORLD is being reset. This phony ass virus is but the blindfold to all that is REALLY going on around u.
The Phucko Knows
“Just like D Day”. Hahahahahaha! Yeah, you keep nursing that fantasy that you’re a valiant soldier.
I’m sorry that your life is so meaningless that you need a made-up drama to get through the day.
He’s a valiant soldier, but not necessarily one of the ones heading inland from shore.
ICWYDT
I did Nazi it at first, but now I see it’s all Kremlin together.
those not vaccinated…overwhelmingly get covid
Acquired immunity is more effective than the vaccine. Do you want people who have already had it to be vaxxed for no reason?
You “acquire” immunity by catching it which also means you may end up in a hospital, die from it, or get “long covid”.
“Millions of Americans are struggling with long-term symptoms after contracting COVID-19, with many of them unable to work due to chronic health issues. Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said she was “floored” when she started crunching the numbers on the ranks of workers who have stepped out of the job market due to long COVID.
Her analysis found that an equivalent of 1.6 million people are missing from the full-time workforce because of the disease, which can leave people incapacitated for months with persistent symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, headaches, memory loss and heart palpitations. …”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/long-covid-labor-market-missing-workers/
By the way, that immunity is short lived – as is that acquired with much less risk from a vaccine – and as many as 30% of those who catch it don’t develop antibodies, and those who have caught it benefit greatly from getting a vaccine.
“Are you feeling lucky punk?”
And you might be attacked by elephants or struck by lightning (and for healthy people under 30 the odds of dying from COVID are about the same).
So I assume you take rigorous precautions against rogue animals and meteorology, right?
ps. Long COVID is mostly a delusional hypochondriac excuse for avoiding life.
Indeed earth based, and of course we need to worry that I might spread elephant or lightening attacks.
By the way, I stay out of zoo cages and during lightening storms – prevalent where i live – I don’t run out to lone pine trees in open fields or get on my roof with an umbrella. No doubt, you practice all these behaviors with a joie de vivre.
The silliness of the precautionary principle is the same no matter what your bogeyman is. That is why science has never, until now, promoted the precautionary principle. It isn’t scientifically valid.
I AM feeling luck. 99.8% is FANTASTIC odds of surviving the coof without issue.
Salted, those are the odds for not dying from covid. (actually about 99.75%. Cases amount to about 22% of the US population which at a minimum require self quarantine and at worse a ventilator in the ICU and possible long covid.
The numbers for covid deaths are more than the yearly deaths in the US from cancer and heart attacks (each).
Are you feeling luck punk?
WITH or OF?
With. But you need to remember that you’re talking to an 80 year old man, and a hippie at that, a man so emotionally immature that he’s still casting about for villains to blame for his impending demise and completely unable to cope with the reality that any kind of pneumonia might spell doom for him in short order simply because that’s how the world works.
This is quite honestly the most self-centered, and self-unaware subdemo in human history, as Ol’ Joe proves on a daily basis.
wdym, Joe is an award-winning contractor and retired LAPD veteran. He’s fit as a fiddle!
Also, completely false statement from you. Again.
2020 WITH Covid: 385,000
…OF: 21,175
2020 heart disease: 690,882
It also was the first year that the rate of heart disease rose in the past decade.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
And cancer claimed 598,932, since I know you won’t touch that link.
I think you might be going a bit far with that data. Comorbidities don’t mean that covid wasn’t at least a partial cause of death. I’m sure there are many in that group that would have died with or without covid. But that’s pretty certainly not the case for all.
It is an important observation, but best to be careful how it is presented.
This is all based on CDC figures, so I also question the accuracy.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e2.htm
The issue of multiples co-morbidities definitely complicates the issue to such a degree that those numbers are almost meaningless. Did COVID exacerbate the underlying condition? It is quite possible. Did it shorter their lifespan measurably? Much harder to calculate, and how do we define it? Is shortening life expectancy by three months measurable? My brother was given three months after he went on Hospice for Cancer (before COVID) but he died two weeks later. Was the estimate wrong, a rosy picture for our sake? How do you determine. Before COVID it was rare to count deaths with a disease as caused by the disease because of the difficulty in determining how causative the pathogen was in the death. Yes, flu can exacerbate underlying conditions, such as CHF and COPD, but how much and to what degree it should be listed was hard to determine, therefore, doctors generally avoided doing so, or listed it as death by CHF, exacerbated by influenza, but even that latter example was more rare. They generally listed it as death by CHF exacerbation and didn’t list any possible causative pathogen.
A good distinction to make, and an absolute headache to debate.
In any case, the typical Covid death is the same as a typical flu death – the old and sick suffer the most, while the younger and healthy feel minimal or no impact.
Numbers of covid deaths are for two full years now.
require self quarantine
Somebody’s behind the times.
The self quarantine requirement is one of the more egregious failures of public policy in human history. You want to strain hospitals? That’s how you strain hospitals.
Haven’t listened to the audio, but are they essentially planning to hold an Omicron cootie chaser policy party in Denmark?
I… think I approve…? It does certainly appear to be the best time to get some complete, natural antibodies.
You “acquire” immunity by catching it
As many healthcare professionals have. Do you believe they should be vaxxed, or are you screaming “BURN THE WITCH” and demanding their expulsion from society?
Yet they can’t get a medical exemption, even though research suggests a higher risk of inflammatory reactions (albeit it is still small) if you have had the infection and then receive the vaccinations. And minimal evidence that the vaccine increases immunity to a great degree. The underselling of acquired immunity has been one of the biggest red flags about the vaccine push. It’s one of the reasons, despite my taking the vaccine, that I’ve questioned the mandates and the government’s vaccine recommendations.
Luck has nothing to do with it. U either have the Natural immune system…, or u don’t. U know…., like in the entirety of human existence. 40-yrs ago big pharmaceutical COULD NOT advertise on TV, Newspapers or Magazines and Billboards. Today…., this industry is at the top of advertising dollars spent on ALL outlets. Faucci was a HUGE part of this “growth”. As it is he…, who decided over his 30+ year career WHERE the billions in funding was to go…, and WHAT the money should “study”. NO vaccine has ever eradicated a virus. Please explain WHY a virus with a 99.97% survival rate for the far majority of the public even needs a vaccine to begin with? My GOD man…, your such a counted on fool.
The Phucko Knows
The vast majority who get COVID, rather vaxxed or not, don’t end up in Hospitals and don’t die. Except for the extremely rare case, almost all who do end up in the hospital, vaxxed or unvaxxed, have multiple co-morbidities. You’ve been told this multiple times with citations, and still you ignore it. You push a partisan line and claim to follow the science, yet reject any data that doesn’t support your suppositions, ergo you don’t follow the science. You are the least scientific troll we’ve picked up this last year.
Wow, big 11% reduction there. Totally worth upending daily life for the nation and smothering a generation of kids.
Just think how many lives were saved… And how much was ruined.
This is gonna be a heavy yoke on the necks of every Covidiot politician for years. Each day brings more proof that the scamdemic has been a political exercise and public health was never anything more than an excuse.
11% reduction only means you will most likely get covid after two exposures instead of one, while still having a 89% chance of getting hit the first time. Or put it in another perspective, imagine a basketball player with an 100% feild goal percentage versus a defender with an 11% block rate.
Still likely to catch it on the first encounter, so I’ll skip the theater.
“A randomized trial in Bangladesh found that surgical masks reduced COVID-19 cases by 11 percent,”
That same study found that color and age of the wearer made a difference. That 95% CI for surgical masks also contained the null hypothesis – zero. The Bangladesh Mask Study was a tortured, p-hacked nightmare designed to show a particular outcome. Using it as some sort of corroboration is specious at best.
If it wasn’t for p-hacking there would be no social sciences and very little public health science. When you are trying to model something as complex as society, you can’t tease out any differences without p-hacking, which is why so many other scientific fields ignore them or deny they are sciences. Simply to many compounding variables to deduct an accurate causation, or anything but a weak correlation.
Did anybody else get the ‘fight mask disinformation’ video with this article?
I don’t see any Reason ads.
Studies of events with multiple factors – how many vaccinated, age, how long classes, and on and on – are less reliable than common sense.
We all know that getting hit by a Mack truck will fuck you up – anyone want a study on that?. We also know by lab tests that masks “minimize” – no, they don’t “stop” – the spread of the virus. Do we need that study on how classes compare anymore than we do on what causes idiots to get fucked up by getting hit by a Mack truck?
Some here might.
I think your parody is a bit overdone. Doesn’t sound sincere enough. But if the others eat it up then I guess it works.
Did you know, 94.5% of people died WITH Covid, and had four or more comorbidities – primarily obesity – that independently of the virus could have caused death?
Only 5.5% died OF Covid, Barbie Jack.
We need to take action against fatties now – for too long their irresponsible, climate destroying voracity has dictated culture and dining in the nation to the great detriment of their peers. Obesity accounts for an enlarging portion of medical issues, and weighs down our overburdened hospitals by taking up a disproportionate share of bedspace. We should deny care to fatties and those suffering from communicable disease when hospitals approach their standard operating capacity of 80%. Medical care should be for healthy people only!
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e2.htm
No doubt you were a big supporter of Michelle Obama’s work to get kids eating healthy. All the “conservatives” were all in on that program, right?
I love how you deflect from anything that runs counter to your internalized narrative.
Really makes you seem sophisticated.
Right because intentions are all that matters and if you don’t want a government program for a thing, then you don’t want the thing at all.
There you go again rejecting data that runs contrary to your hypothesis. Once again demonstrating you don’t actually follow science, but the partisan line.
“No doubt you were a big supporter of Michelle Obama’s work to get kids eating healthy. All the “conservatives” were all in on that program, right?”
Conservatives aren’t behind the “body positivity” movement nor the “fat rights” movements.
Michelle Obama’s push was based upon weak science or science that was considered refuted by most current nutritionists. It wasn’t a science based approach, and definitely wasn’t age appropriate. Her caloric recommendations, distribution of calories by food group, etc was severely inaccurate and not appropriate for growing children.
Additionally, there is a strong correlation between when the FDA first started to put out dietary recommendations, and providing public education on dietary recommendations,and the growth in obesity and obesity related health issues.
Yeah, the food pyramid I saw as a child was, health wise, one of the most destructive things our gov’t has ever unleashed.
I posted a much longer post about all the things wrong with it, and the current my plate recommendations and Michelle Obama’s recommendations but for some reason it hasn’t posted yet. One of the biggest complaints about the FDA recommendations, by many scientists, is that they are often formed through lobbying from activist groups pushing their agendas. See the recommendations on dietary cholesterol, fat intake, especially SFA, and meat intake, which have been influenced by the AMA, sugar lobbyists, carbohydrate (e.g. wheat and corn processors and producers) lobbyists and vegetarian proponents, however, the research suggests for about 30 years that these recommendations are not consistent with the science.
My favorite example is the lobby push for milk* to be redefined as containing added sugars, so it wouldn’t be posted additionally in the ingredients.
This would let kids enjoy the same great taste while putting parents’ minds at ease by not seeing all that sugar on the ingredients list. Win-win!
“Nutrition” has been completely subverted.
Whole milk is actually correlated to lower A1C levels, cholesterol levels and obesity than reduced fat milks.
Hah! Maybe we can add milk to our swiss cheese strategy for mitigation.
Antibodies keep fairly well through pasteurization.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34068142/
What do you think “minimize” means?
Do you understand what compounding variables are, and how they eliminate any possibility of deducting a causative agent? Once again demonstrating your lack of scientific knowledge.
Sure dude… And an umbrella stops it from raining. Driving a car doesn’t consume gas. Eating fatty food doesn’t add calories. Reading your post literally adds to the stupidity of ALL humans.
The Phucko Knows
As whiny leftists have revealed recently, masks still provide a critical benefit: wearers have a mortal fear of being confused with conservatives.
It’s hard to find a single case of a healthy child dying of covid. The kids who die of it generally have serious comorbitities and fall into the died-with-covid group not the died-from-covid group.
Los Angeles, with a child population of over 2 million, has had 8 total pediatric deaths, three of which were under 12 years of age. At least 4 of the pediatric deaths were announced in the daily briefing with language that included caveats, such as “severe underlying” conditions and “may have alternate explanation”.
About 223 kids die annually OF Covid, if you extrapolate from adult metrics (and I remember my math.) WITH/OF for adolescents and children TBD, but all indications are that it’s likely a lower rate than adults, so 223 is probably high.
Fot comparison, about 4,000 kids die of car crashes each year. Hell, more kids die of heart attacks than Covid.
Recent Hysteria…
Pete Ballgag, heart-a-bleeding about auto accident deaths due to speed.
The USG stats show ~ ONE death per 100 MILLION passenger miles. 2012, 2.5 per in Ohio.
That cant BE changed.
To say it can implies that FMVSS are faulty.
Its about collusion between speed cam maker corps and da Gummit to grease palms for votes.
Wanna slow traffic?
SPEED BUMPS.
Is Sammy Hagar still alive? Do we need to dust off his classic “Can’t drive 55”?
Id rather hear Van Halen than Van Hagar, but that tunes an exception.
Wasn’t’ a Van Halen tune anyway. But yeah, David Lee Roth Van Halen is the only Van Halen.
And now John Hopkins University has released a study that found lockdowns had little to no impact on spread and mortality and actually may have increased spread and mortalities under certain circumstances. They also stated the negative outcomes of lockdowns far exceeded any benefits of lockdowns. Exactly what I was saying back in April of 2020, and many others were saying.
This research was based on a meta-study of lockdowns in the US, Canada and Europe. And any impact they did find was small, generally less than 10%. They are now recommending that lockdowns are not a good policy and should be avoided during pandemics.
This is a totally-not-snarky request for a cite. I want to read that.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/lockdowns-reduced-covid-19-mortality-by-2-study-finds-lockdowns-should-be-rejected-out-of-hand
It is a journalistic account, and therefore they cherry picked the data that supports their views but the PDF of the research is hyperlinked about halfway down in the story.
GOOD CRITICAL READING!
Meaning?
you caught that they cited a ( probably) crredible paper and then ( probably) twisted it into journalistic spaghetti…
Why is it only probably credible? It is from a well respected institution, it was peer reviewed, all the authors are well respected and well published. I only mentioned the journalistic part because almost all journalistic accounts of science papers tend to be written by people without scientific degrees who don’t understand the material they are writing about, however, the paper is cited and you can read it. As I did, I find that the journalist took much less liberty with the findings than other similar accounts I have read in the past.
“Probably” was sarcasm directed to Foxes regurgitation of the paper, not the paper.
Or whats left OF Fox..
I couldnt put the sarc tag in there.. that goes at the end
/ sarc
ps the entire premise of citing a scientific paper to then REDUCE and SIMPLIFY it like that is a fraud, regardless of who does it.
We dont interpret papers. Well, the honest of us, anyway.
We cite papers to establish the foundation upon which new research is done.
What the Media spew is like giving Filet Mignon to a dog.
Itll love it, but dog foods much more appropriate.
Said having done engineering research and patent writing…
Which is just what I said. I only cited the story because it was easy to copy the URL, and when I opened the actual paper, my phone downloaded it as a PDF and I couldn’t post a URL for the paper as a result. As I stated below.
I have five peer reviewed publications and have presented at multiple animal science and agricultural science symposiums.
point is you actually read and separated.
Most readers wont.
Theyll make a snap value judgment as to credibility of the media source ( left or right wing politically) then make the risky assumption that the news report is substantiated by the source quoted.
It may or may not be..the bulk of the readers have absoluely no science education to make that judgment. They just assume.
You know that. Most readers may never have realized the process.
Thank you
Pdf link for ease – https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf
Thank you, when I read the paper, my phone opened it as a PDF and I couldn’t copy the URL, that is why I posted the FNC link rather than the paper.
…amd Tony wont be able to even click on it much less read it.
Gid bless tge room temp IQs lije Tony. They make the rest of us fall higher up on the curve…
It’s an econ paper, though – its conclusions are obviously invalid.*
* Every public health organization should have a crotchety, skeptical economist on staff to push back against their typically-unrealistic modelling.
Yes, part of public health should include economic impact, as we have known for a century, probably much longer, economic status has a huge impact on public health. If you’re poor (even in countries with universal healthcare, and by some studies especially in countries with universal healthcare) you have poorer health outcomes.
This sounds like the start of a weekly old SNL skit…
its getting so bad that whats left of SNL is starting to go snark on the Left.
The old SNL would have been ‘ out for blood’ by now.
So, back to the recommendations from before 2020.
The people who were pushing lockdowns are all going to apologize now right? For the harm done and for their mockery and derision of people who were saying this all along.
Haha, yeah, I know.
Yeah, almost wish I didn’t block my Uber progressive high school acquaintance, who is a OB GYN oncologist, so I can send him this study. Because he accused me of not caring about people dieing from a very dangerous pathogen back in April of 2020, when I told him that the risks of lockdowns likely outweighs any benefit. Then again, no I don’t, because he would still deny it, and accuse me of just toeing the conservative line (which is funny because he never did anything but toe the progressive line, which is why I unfriended him originally and then blocked him completely years later). Oh and he called me a utilitarian as if it was an insult, but I actually took it as a compliment and he got pissed and called me heartless for being to pragmatic and logical.
The CDC guidance on masks has been clown shoes from the very start. But the truth is that masks are part of a swiss cheese strategy to the pandemic. They are only 5% effective (or some such low number) at blocking respiratory viruses (which are a tiny fraction of the size of bacteria). Social distancing is only 10% effective. Washing your hands, not touching your face, sneezing into your elbow, etc. They all low numbers. But add them up and you get a big number. Like a stack of swiss cheese, it’s harder and harder for a virus to find a hole all the way through.
So why no mandates over sneezing into elbows? Why no cops going around arresting people for touching their faces? Why the focus on masks? Because masks are visible. It’s a signal of compliance with authority. A sign that the one is adhering to the proper cultural mores.
That is all.
I wear masks, not because I think it’s going to save me, but because it actually is the culture norm where I live. I wear shoes into restaurants for the same reason. Hell, I feel weird NOT wearing shoes to a beach bar.
So on to the kids. It’s all about the kids. Won’t something think of the children?! Children can still catch COVID-19, but the effects on them are very minor. My friend’s ten year old daughter has had it TWICE. Not big deal for here. Can’t remember the numbers, but like only 4000 children have died of COVID-19 total.
So masking up schoolkids when the adult teachers are fully vaccinated including all the silly stuff the unions demanded, is silly. Period.
So, in a diverse and inclusive America, compelling virtue signaling with masks would be repressive, discriminatory and flagrantly against the first amendment, no?
masks are symbolic of repression of Freedom of Speech. They cover the mouth.
Now that its reduced to symbolism, the Left can glom onto that thought.
There should be no government mandate for masking. That businesses choose to require it should be up to the businesses. That people frown at you when you don’t is up to the frowners. That you don’t like frowners is your problem. But no government mandates. Did I not make myself clear? Does everything have to be a culture war?
I got yelled at for not wearing a mask in my car with the windows rolled up. That is NOT an excuse to ban masks or go around claiming they are useless.
How about all the peer reviewed literature that says the effects are negligible and nobody wears them right? What about data regarding issues with airflow amd increasing obesity?
If something does no perceptible good but observable harm, it should not be mandated and should be strongly discouraged.
And ‘leave it up to the businesses’ really neglects the heavy thumb gov’t has been putting on the scale and ignores that mask mandates still are in place for many.
No, but the fact that most people don’t wear them properly, don’t change them as often as they should, don’t wash their hands before and after donning them, touch their faces far more often then they should and that masks have always been recommended in health care settings prior to 2020, for use only during direct patient care, under very strict hand washing protocols, by trained personal, means that practically, for the layperson, masks are ineffective. And actually probably increases your risks, as everytime you touch your face, readjust the masks, put on the same mask, or wear it longer than 15 minutes, you are actually increasing your risk of contaminating yourself with the virus.
It doesn’t have to be a culture war, but it appears that it is.
And if masks aren’t very effective (which is pretty certainly the case for what most people have been using), they may well be worse than nothing as they give people a false sense of security because their effectiveness has been way overstated for a long time now. If people believe masks work better than they do, then they are just encouraging risky behavior. Sure, private businesses can set whatever rules they want. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t argue against them if we believe that the policies are counterproductive or harmful.
“Swiss cheese strategy “
Just about the dumbest thing yet.
But the truth is that masks are part of a swiss cheese strategy to the pandemic.
Alternative names for the exact same or functionally indistinguishable “strategy”:
-Kellogg’s or part of a complete breakfast strategy
-Kitchen sink strategy
-Spaghetti strategy
-Brute force ‘strategy’
What makes you think that all of these effects are additive?
Anyway, at this point I have no interest in avoiding the virus (and I never really did at least since the cruise ship data came out in 2020). Bring it on (assuming my slightly increased fatigue and headaches a week or so ago weren’t a case).
So u completely ignore all the historical studies on mask pre 2020? U ignore all the historical literature on HOW MASK have been used for torture and the shamming of humans. U r as clueless as a human can possibly be. Personally I find u to be a human embarrassment.
The Phucko Knows
This indicates the trud problem:
“NPR says “mask proponents….”
“He said, She said” is now Science?
Thats just political inter personal games.
FCDC
Just in Jeff Zucker resigns (looks like he was forced to resign from his statement) from CNN and ABC has suspended Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks. Also, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are now receiving flack for previous statements and actions. Neil Young called homosexuals faggots and said they fucking spread AIDs by touching food, while Joni Mitchell has a history of black face and claiming to be more black than white in her thinking. Not that I favor cancelling anyone, but you know stones and glass houses and all that.
This media frenzy follows a dark history of burning books and heretics.
Copernicus was right!
Jesus taught that we should worry about our own sins rather than others. Paul warned of judging others in his letters to the Romans and Corinthians, that often you should be weary of judging others, as you likely are guilty of other sins and thus will appear to be a hypocrite. It is often the case that those cancelling others today cannot bear the same level of scrutiny without discovery of similar offenses as those they judge.
Bingo winner.
.Chicken dinner.
HOWEVER…it is not a ban on judgment.
(Evil people dont like being judged.. )
Not sarc…
It also
condemns those who cannot judge justly.
Too many like to ignore that part.
But according to Christ and Paul, we almost all are incapable of judging others as we all are capable and sinners. No one can live by the law, that is what Jesus meant when he said he did not come to condemn the law but to fulfill the law, and later when he said that we should still try to live by the law. Paul said similar when he said it wasn’t necessary to be circumcised or obey the dietary laws, but if you did, then you should strive to live by the laws.
incapable is a fault. It is not the desired outcome.
” Know ye not that yot shall judge angels? If you are not able to judge in the least things….”
last sentence paraphrased but to the point.
Be prepared to judge by your own standards.
Non- criminals and non baby -murderers wont have to worry about it..
Zucker says he is resigning for shagging his consensual colleague… Who happened to be Andy Cuomo’s ex-communications director…
1. Ew, those sloppy seconds.
2. That is a bullshit excuse while Zoomin Toobin still is cranking along. Something is up.
3. Ms. Gollust has not been fired or resigned. Something is up.
I think the Cuomo affair and the absolutely cratering of CNN ratings, especially compared to FNC, has made the new owners desperate for a change at the top. That’s why I read his statement as him being forced out.
Oh definitely being forced out, but the reason stated smells like BS.
And some anonymous sources at CNN have said so as well, and that there is far more to the story. Of course, since the sources are anonymous it’s difficult to judge their validity or accuracy.
If you must Bang Your Head over all this…
Hairband channel.
http://player.181fm.com/?station=181-hairband
The largest problem with the layered defense strategy is that it can never end. If the vaccines are not 60% or better at sterilizing immunity, I’ve read estimates as low as 33% effective, even if 95% effective at decreasing symptoms, then herd immunity, even with 100% compliance, is not going to eliminate the virus, especially as we discover new animal hosts every day almost.
In fact, with the low sterilizing effectiveness of the vaccine, the decreased symptoms are actually likely to increase spread, as many vaccinated may not be sick enough to realize they are sick, and thus may go out in public and help spread the virus, not to mention the evolutionary pressure on the virus to develop vaccine resistance.
Masks have to be worn properly, changed frequently, and paired with strict hand hygiene protocols to be even partially effective, which is not something that the majority of the population can do. N-95s, even, are only useful for about 15-20 minutes, before they become saturated enough with expired humidity that they lose their effectiveness, after which time they should be discarded, your hands washed, a new one donned and your hands rewashed. Also, if at any time you readjust your masks, or inadvertently touch your face, the mask should be discarded and replaced after hand washing. If at any time the masks becomes wet, from rain or perspiration, the mask should be discarded and replaced. This is what you are taught in nursing and medical schools, but I don’t even see trained nurses and doctors doing this with the masks they are wearing to “protect” from the virus. N-95s are not designed for extended wear, and are recommended only for direct patient care and only for short duration, and donned only after hand washing and followed by hand washing (and not just using hand sanitizer either, but actual scrubbing of the hands with soap and water for 30 seconds).
> The largest problem with the layered defense strategy is that it can never end.
I was just told in this threat that that was the dumbest thing someone had ever heard.
I am against mask mandates in schools, but that does not mean I must engage in a silly culture war against those who want there to require masks in schools. The problem is not the masks, the problem is that these are government schools. A private school should be free to require masks or not without the governor’s express permission.
Masks are not 100% effective, but that does NOT mean they are 0% effective. I think they are mostly pointless for children in school, but this pearl clutching by some on the Right is unseemly.
Based upon how masks should be worn, and the protocols necessary to make them effective, I would actually venture to hypothesize that mass mask wearing is actually counterproductive and likely to cause far more harm than any possible mitigations. Most people wear them to loose, don’t change them every 15-20 minutes, don’t wash their hands before putting them on, and taking them off, and constantly touch their face (far more often then if they didn’t wear their masks). As a result they are actually more likely to increase their risk of contaminating themselves rather than decrease it.
As a result I believe the right is actually far more correct than the left on the issue of masks. As a trained healthcare professional for 17 years, and then getting a bachelor’s and master’s degree in animal science, which required heavy course work in microbiology, I feel fairly safe in my conclusions.
belief is for religion.
CDCs own research says N95 masks failed to stop droplets of various uM size from 5-2)100 % of the time
Odd, FauXi didnt find that paper…
Maybe hes a two faced lying bag of monkey excrement?
Since I can’t predict what future research will show, however, based upon previous research (including previous mask research as you state) and training, I can’t state that my opinion on which side is more right, is anything but a belief. And by stating it is a belief, rather than a hypothesis or fact, I allude to this fact. Additionally, I don’t think it’s scientifically valid to rank one partisan position over another. Partisanship is akin to religion, in that mostly it is scientifically impossible to determine truth.
mass mask wearing is actually counterproductive and likely to cause far more harm than any possible mitigations. Most people wear them to loose,
Going to make an observation here. No science behind it.
Went to a festival over the summer. At the last minute they imposed a mask mandate (August, the Delta thing hitting) and were “Strongly encouraging” masking and being really shitty about people who didn’t.
So, the first night they have a lecture. It is in the smaller room, not the large performance hall. The chairs are shoulder to shoulder, every seat full, I was standing in the back. This room had two very large doors that open into the courtyard so it could be an indoor-outdoor kind of venue. Those doors were closed. The place was downright stuffy. Most people were not wearing masks properly.
The speaker gave some shit about thanks for wearing masks, you’re protecting us all. When the thing they COULD have done, that reduces Covid spread, open the doors, they didn’t.
The whole month I’d stand in the corner or on a balcony and watch the crowd during intermissions. Everyone would wear a mask (outside, where it’s kind of stupid) and shun people not. But then they’d greet an old friend they hadn’t seen in a while with a hug then pull down their mask, gripping it from the front, to talk with those friends. The one place a mask might help is brief face to face interactions, so they pull them down and get close to each other and chat. This was a constant thing, everyone did it.
My guess is that the mask wearing placebo convinces people to do things that are, frankly, bad from a covid spread standpoint, and ignore things that they should be doing that are good. Or maybe it’s just that artists are really goddamned stupid and don’t understand the difference, but also super collectivist and love being part of the religion of “We all have to do this for each other.”
It’s very simple dude. The mask r but theater. Without the visual folks wouldn’t “see” a thing. Especially something that doesn’t exist. Covid has never been isolated in a lab. The PCR test CAN’T test for a virus. The notion that asymptomatic folks NOW SPREAD a virus…, without a shred of scientific evidence to back it up. Mask that have NEVER worked in stopping the spread of a virus. On and on the bullshit goes.
The Phucko Knows
Just stop wearing them
HAHAHA ALERT !!!!
” Teslas are unexpectedly slamming on their brakes in response to imagined hazards — such as oncoming traffic on two-lane roads — ”
To quote Bender-” fhupid fhitheads”
Thats what happens when a control system is busy doing something else and gets interrupted with an ” oh shit” input.
A Slam the Binders interrupt.
Wait till that causes loss of control and kills someone.
.lThat Tesla hood emblem looks like a coffin nail.
Facts and science are democrat kryptonite.
Id recommend sharpened sticks. ball bats too
If accurate, the leaked information from DMED is horrifying and heads need to roll.
https://www.georgiarecord.com/military-med-skyrocketing-disease-data-leaked-biden-regime-knowingly-continues-destruction-of-force/
Politifact to the rescue, apparently the database has been wrong for years, but they only noticed it now, after it was flagged as misinformation on Facebook.
“The DMED system has been taken offline to ‘identify and correct the root-cause of the data corruption,’ (DHA spokesman Peter) Graves said.”
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/31/instagram-posts/numbers-were-based-faulty-data-military-spokespers/
However, they are being sued, the DoD on behalf of service members and their families, and the lawyers have requested that all records be maintained. So, if they change them they can be in trouble, especially if they can’t demonstrate to the courts a compelling reason for the change.
I shoulda added a sarcasm tag, or mentioned the Ministry of Truth was doing adjustments.
It will be fascinating to see what comes of this, in many ways.
holy shit batman.
Foryunately they csm fallback on the VA as a shining example of Gummit provided medical care.
Is it civil war time yet?
Masks have never stopped on pandemic. If they did, there would be no pandemics. There would have been:
No black plague
No small pox
No Spanish flu
No polio
No TB
Yet we keep on with the lunacy every time a new pandemic comes around.
Jacob Sullum and Reason Look Less Scientific Every Day
That is about as unscientific a statement as you can get.
The pandemic won’t end until the vaccines end.
“The truth is closer to the opposite. Supporters of school mask mandates assume they are effective at reducing COVID-19 transmission, then desperately search for evidence to validate that conviction.”
Even THAT response would be an improvement over what we typically see.
What we typically see is the kind of response that followed this statement. The NPR version of ‘Oh, everybody knows that masks work. All the studies show it.’ Without offering even a single study to discuss. At least when someone desperately searches for a study that agrees with their statement, you can show them its shortcomings or discuss why what they think it says is not what it says.
Reason and logic show us that correlation does not equal causation and single-factor analysis (excluding all other variables) is not logical at all. Yet these are the two errors that we see time and time again. Often from sources that should well know better.
Nationalist Propaganda Radio have licked the Gummit boots so hard they sucked the laces right off!
This stuff is pretty common-sense, but COVID cultists don’t care about common sense…masks really are having harmful social and psychological effects on schoolchildren, especially elementary- and middle-school aged schoolchildren, and the non-existent benefits are nowhere close to justifying these harmful effects.
The CDC is a propaganda outlet promoting political solutions in order to keep their money coming. If they want a study to support a conclusion, they can find one. The so-called “randomized controlled” study from Bangladesh that shows that masks reduced transmission of the virus, is a massive absurdity. Science deserves better than that.
virus tavels in droplets. Are masks soaked with moisture?
No. Then they dont stop droplets so they dont stop the virus.
This is SO simple
Well, masks do get soaked with moisture if the humidity isn’t low. Droplets evaporate really fast, but do get caught in masks. Aerosols (which I think is thought to be more the route of transmission) probably pass right through. But being damp makes them work even less well. And almost everything goes around the sides of masks as people wear them anyway.
Both CDC and N I H documented they pass right thru.
Googles buried those papers.
The CDC was paying schools all across the country millions of dollars to mask children.
https://tritorch.com/legion
The love of money is the root of all evil. It get’s people doing things they wouldn’t normally do like suffocating their young.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Masks, and the Deadly Falsehoods Surrounding Them
https://www.justfacts.com/news_face_masks_deadly_falsehoods
I teach science at high school and I never enforce the mask rule, although our principals are absolute Nazis about it, and so are many other teachers. Instead, I teach my students why masks don’t work and show them the published research indicating why they don’t work. I got written up for it because it is “outside the scope of my classroom.” I pointed out that I have actually done real science, have my masters degree in biochemistry, and that I teach viruses and bacteria, and that’s an entire unit in biology, but to no avail. They know more than I do, obviously.
All you have to do is look at the filtration limits for an N95 – the best mask available. Some claim to filter out any particle larger than 3 microns – 3 millionths of a meter. (That assumes it is worn properly which a 5-year old is unlikely to do.) A corona virus is 80-120 nanometers – 80-120 billionths of a meter, about 30 times smaller. To a corona virus, an N95 looks like an open barn door. Pretty much useless.
No fucking shit.
As we’ve been saying the day these assholes and criminals peddled these pseudo-scientific amulets in 2020.
And the CDC should burn to the ground for what they – and all useless paediatricians public health quacks – did to kids.
The 6-foot trenches don’t go deep enough.
Gee, your real smart Dizzle and know so much about Covid, but let’s cut to the chase. Did you know this?
“Rates of COVID-19 cases were lowest among fully vaccinated persons with a booster dose, compared with fully vaccinated persons without a booster dose, and much lower than rates among unvaccinated persons during October–November (25.0, 87.7, and 347.8 per 100,000 population, respectively) and December 2021 (148.6, 254.8, and 725.6 per 100,000 population, respectively) (Table 2). Similar trends were noted for differences in the mortality rates among these three groups (0.1, 0.6, and 7.8 per 100,000 population, respectively) during October–November. …”
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm
Here’s another thing you may not know: – If don’t catch covid you cant spread it or die from it.
Here’s something you refuse to admit: the jab does not stop you catching Covid.
Listen to your betters again and be thankful your progshit buddies are losers, or you’d be hoisted on your own misinformed petard.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-director-covid-vaccines-cant-prevent-transmission-anymore/ar-AASDndg
Also, are you gonna answer Dizzle or just flail in another direction?
Yawn… Your bullshit is becoming boring as hell. U must work for big pharmaceutical. As NO WAY a human can be this incredibly stupid.
The Phucko Knows
Salted, is there some part of the following – which of course dovetails with data from every local hospital and state in the country – which you don’t understand? Read it slowly:
“Rates of COVID-19 cases were lowest among fully vaccinated persons with a booster dose, compared with fully vaccinated persons without a booster dose, and much lower than rates among unvaccinated persons during October–November (25.0, 87.7, and 347.8 per 100,000 population, respectively) and December 2021 (148.6, 254.8, and 725.6 per 100,000 population, respectively) (Table 2). Similar trends were noted for differences in the mortality rates among these three groups (0.1, 0.6, and 7.8 per 100,000 population, respectively) during October–November. …”
As you can see, during Delta, those unvaccinated were 14 times more likely to catch it than those with boosters and 78 times more likely to croak from it. During Omicron in December, they were 5 times more likely to catch it.
Are you saying Walensky is a liar?
Also, are you trying to pass off displayed symptoms as a metric of infection?
Because even last year it was known asymptomatic jabbed have the same viral counts.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/new-data-on-covid-19-transmission-by-vaccinated-individuals
October-November is irrelevant at this point. That was before omicron came to dominate. Let’s see the December-January numbers. Anything older is out of date and not terribly relevant to the present situation. Notice that the infection rate from November to december roughly doubled for the unvaccinated and increased 6x for fully vaccinated. Might be something of a trend there.
Don’t be so sure. People whose vaccination status cannot be “confirmed,” i.e. they showed up to the hospital without their vax card, are counted as unvaccinated.
The unvaccinated might be more likely to get COVID, but you can’t tell that from the government data, which are almost completely useless.
Using dated information from before Omicron. Like I said, you reject data that doesn’t support your hypothesis, so you are actually doing the opposite of science.
I argued many months ago that mass vaccinations was likely to produce a vaccine resistant variant, now many scientist, including at the WHO, are starting to say the same thing. It produces an evolutionary pressure to develop resistance, that’s how resistance of any kind generally appears. Over use of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria, over use of herbicides leads to herbicide resistant weeds, over use of insecticides leads to insecticide resistant insects, why would viruses be any different, especially one single strand RNA viruses, which are prone to fast mutations anyhow?
Targeted vaccinations was always a better strategy, and one in which the WHO is leaning towards in their current vaccination recommendations.
I argued many months ago that mass vaccinations was likely to produce a vaccine resistant variant, now many scientist, including at the WHO, are starting to say the same thing.
I argued before 2019 (can’t remember if it was for Zika or ebola), that flu shots were building up a reservoir of infirm individuals that would be an albatross for the rest of us when a virus like the flu, for which we didn’t have a vaccine, came around. Not to dissuade anyone from getting flu or any other shots, then or now, but to point out that if you build up large numbers of individuals with weak defenses, don’t be surprised when they get mowed down.
That’s not just flu shots, that’s this hyper-sanitized germaphobic culture we have. Anyone here can recall changes from free-roam childhoods to the incarcerating panic of Karens we have hovering over every sharp corner and 30 second rule adherent.
Also, the shots always were a crapshoot on efficacy. Bolstering your own body always seemed to work better than trying to win ‘guess the mutation’ consistently.
I’ve read that Vitamin D serum levels are correlated to severity of symptoms from COVID. That vitamin D deficiencies are associated with more severe symptoms, so what did we do, locked up everyone inside and when outside make them wear face coverings that lower sunlight absorption, thus decreasing homogeneous vitamin D production.
I agree. I think mass vaccination was a terrible idea from the start.
Seemed obvious to me from the beginning that mass vaccination would quickly produce vaccine resistant variants.
Mass vaccinations are helpful for slower mutating viruses, in which the vaccine has a high efficacy rate at preventing infections, and there are few, if any animal hosts. This is why smallpox vaccines worked, and why polio and MMR have worked to lead to neat functional elimination. Fast mutating viruses, especially if they have multiple animal hosts, have not been eliminated. Influenza vaccines have not markedly decreased influenza outbreaks, despite being available for decades. No coronavirus vaccine has ever been successful in humans, though some are approved for animal use (but their effectiveness is debated and are used as an adjunct to other best practices). With some research now stating the COVID vaccine is no better than 33% at stopping transmission, the mass vaccination strategy is simply misguided and a waste of resources.
Which is why the WHO is recommending against mass vaccinations. They believe that mass vaccinations, especially with boosters added in, in rich nations, has lead to a vaccine shortage for at risks populations in poorer nations.