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[Deleted member 17706]

Unless they elaborated on what specific studies they were basing this on, I don't know.

Why are you so concerned about the WHO changing their mind and revising their guidelines?

Because their previous guidelines made sense and were based of decades of common knowledge and data, and the new ones, to me at least, do not make sense. For them to completely reverse what they held to be true one day and move to recommend significant changes in how we behave and interact in society, I would expect some extremely convincing evidence to presented as justification.

 

[Rentahamster]

Because their previous guidelines made sense and were based of decades of common knowledge and data

Not really. The efficacy of masks in the general public was studied during SARS too. That's why most people in Asia wear one even before COVID.

A big organization giving sub-par advice in the early stages when they're not aware of the full picture, and then updating their advice based on new and better information does not seem out of the ordinary to me. It's not just studies that inform their change of opinion. It's also the supply chain of medical supplies and their game theory approach to emergent human behavior en masse.

 

[Rentahamster]

I don't have a blatant mistrust of research and experts. Not at all.

That's not what I gathered from this:

I want to be able to trust that every scientist works without any prejudice as to outcome. But that's just not the case. In the end, these experiments are being run by humans, and humans, not matter how hard we try, are humans subject to our own biases.

But I'll take your word for it that it's not at all the case.

I do think you are working from your conclusion as you haven't cited the other research that goes the other way, but thats fine.

Because I haven't cited research that says masks don't work is not evidence that I'm working back from my conclusion. I'm giving you the data that's available to me that I think is relevant. I've also pointed out the limitations of the links I've provided and been very careful to frame my analysis in terms of likelihood and probability.

In any event, you are solid poster and look forward to seeing your other posts on things.

Thank you.

 

[Raven117]

That's not what I gathered from this:

But I'll take your word for it that it's not at all the case.


Because I haven't cited research that says masks don't work is not evidence that I'm working back from my conclusion. I'm giving you the data that's available to me that I think is relevant. I've also pointed out the limitations of the links I've provided and been very careful to frame my analysis in terms of likelihood and probability.


Thank you.

I know its not what I put out there (ie mistrust of all science). My point is that it all must be taken in perspective. Science does not exist in a vacuum ...especially when there are fast moving social pressures at play. The disciple is just not designed to go about things that way. This issue, it was more susceptible than others.

It is a little bit, but as I said, you were putting your sources out there in good faith and analyzing them well.

 

[celsowmbr]

All credits to Trump

 

[Hulk_Smash]

I dunno, man, when you look at India and Brazil and you look at what was happening in our hospitals during the first wave, it's really horrific.

It is a damned if you do damned if you don't situation and it's probably true that we could have taken a more regional approach than we did, but to say it would have been fine to just go about like normal is beyond a stretch.

You seem to be locked in this thing where your experience with Covid is the extent of it. It's not like that. We are a country with a lot of healthcare problems and we would have totally collapsed the system in our big cities if we just ignored the problem.

Not really my take. I'm locked into the "I don't trust the government to do their jobs with honesty and integrity" kind of thing.

We were told way back that only 6% of the people that died in the total number died OF covid. The rest died with "COVID complications". What the hell does that mean? Both the UK and US admitted they were counting anyone with COVID in their system as a COVID death.

The two people I know personally that died with COVID were "covid complications" type deaths. Both of them had other horrible health related things going on with them. One of them already had pneumonia BEFORE contracting covid yet he was counted as a covid death. They were both elderly, both battling dementia, both were sick with something else. But, it was covid that did them in? That doesn't sound nearly as bad.

if the 6% thing is true the reporting should reflect it. We should be around 31k deaths. Not 500k.

That right there is what I'm about. Both liberals and conservatives fucked with the data and shared contradictory and deceptive advice. We don't know who to trust.

if it is true that only 6% of covid deaths are a direct result of covid then this is a pretty tame virus that got hyped into the stratosphere.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Not really my take. I'm locked into the "I don't trust the government to do their jobs with honesty and integrity". We were told way back that only 6% of the people that died in the total number died OF covid. The rest died with "COVID complications". What the hell does that mean? Both the UK and US admitted they were counting anyone with COVID in their system as a COVID death.

The two people I know personally were "covid complications" type deaths. Both of them had other horrible health related things going on with them. One of them already had pneumonia BEFORE contracting covid yet he was counted as a covid death.

That right there is what I'm about. Both liberals and conservatives fucked with the data and shared contradictory and deceptive advice. We don't know who to trust.

if it is true that only 6% of covid deaths are a direct result of covid then this is a pretty tame virus that got hyped into the stratosphere.

This argument falls apart super quick if you look at any of the excess death stats.

When someone dies from AIDS they write it down as "complications from AiDS", that's just how the terminology works. Because it can be multiple things, fever, pneumonia, etc. You're doing mental gymnastics to try to to ignore the super obvious reality that Covid killed a bunch of people and we couldn't have handled it if we didn't do anything to mitigate.

 

[poppabk]

Of course you should. Same as I am with you. I agree that we should in fact seek the facts and truth. I don't think in this climate we are going to get it...not yet anyway. Overall, I do agree with you.


Not at all. I too wore a mask when I was asked to and got vaccinated to help things get back to normal.

My point was it was theater for some of those businesses. But there is a sad assumption in your statement, you just assumed it was just fine for the government to dictate what could open and what couldn't and we should all be grateful that they threw businesses a bone and allowed some to open with masks. You just accepted that in your assumptions. Like the one poster above was talking about, the measures that were taken did not fit the actual danger.

Hopefully, by the time of our next global pandemic, we will have an effective strategy.

No my assumption is that without the reassurance of masks and social distancing most businesses would have seen bigger reductions in traffic overall as there would have been a lot fewer people willing to frequent them.
Without the preventative measures in place I doubt the lab where I work would have stayed COVID free the entire pandemic despite not closing for a single day and would have likely taken a big hit to productivity at the absolute worst time for a lab to take that hit.
You are assuming that if state governments had said business as usual - that everything would have stayed the same - it wouldn't have.

 

[DeepBreath87]

This argument falls apart super quick if you look at any of the excess death stats.

When someone dies from AIDS they write it down as "complications from AiDS", that's just how the terminology works. Because it can be multiple things, fever, pneumonia, etc. You're doing mental gymnastics to try to to ignore the super obvious reality that Covid killed a bunch of people and we couldn't have handled it if we didn't do anything to mitigate.

I agree we had to do something. But I think you can look at the variety of responses between the various states and see that what we did had a negligible effect on the outcomes from the virus. Some states were draconian. Some were more laissez faire. The outcomes were not demonstrably different. Certainly not to the point where it justified the damage done to people in the more draconian states.

At some point human beings need to accept that we are only in control of so much. And this virus should have showed people that. I don't think we should've done nothing. But attempt to lockdown a population of 330 million was foolish. Especially last spring/summer. It never should've been attempted. It burned people's trust and didn't really help anyway. Then in the fall/winter when we needed to try and tighten things up because the virus was out of control, there was no public appetite for it.

 

[poppabk]

I agree we had to do something. But I think you can look at the variety of responses between the various states and see that what we did had a negligible effect on the outcomes from the virus. Some states were draconian. Some were more laissez faire. The outcomes were not demonstrably different. Certainly not to the point where it justified the damage done to people in the more draconian states.

At some point human beings need to accept that we are only in control of so much. And this virus should have showed people that. I don't think we should've done nothing. But attempt to lockdown a population of 330 million was foolish. Especially last spring/summer. It never should've been attempted. It burned people's trust and didn't really help anyway. Then in the fall/winter when we needed to try and tighten things up because the virus was out of control, there was no public appetite for it.

We will have plenty of time to figure out what worked and what didn't. Its kinda bad that we really didn't have any kind of plan in place - I'm sure the government do all kinds of modelling and mock scenarios for pandemics - but it seemed like we were completely blindsided.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I agree we had to do something. But I think you can look at the variety of responses between the various states and see that what we did had a negligible effect on the outcomes from the virus. Some states were draconian. Some were more laissez faire. The outcomes were not demonstrably different. Certainly not to the point where it justified the damage done to people in the more draconian states.

I think we were a bit one size fits all about it. Like do we need to close down the waffle house in Beaver, Wyoming the same way we need to close down the Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden? Probably not.

But we should probably walk back that "not demonstrably different" thing because there was a huge amount of variability in Covid spread from state to state. I'll grant it can be difficult to isolate any single factor in why that is, but that's a poor reasoning to say none of it mattered.

 

[terintamel]

This is not peer reviewed yet and the article states that, but here is a preliminary study saying mask mandates had negligible affects on covid transmission.

I know some will ignore it because of the website, but it was just the easiest link I could find to the original study.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/preliminary-study-suggests-masks-had-little-effect-on-slowing-covid-19

 

[highrider]

This argument falls apart super quick if you look at any of the excess death stats.

When someone dies from AIDS they write it down as "complications from AiDS", that's just how the terminology works. Because it can be multiple things, fever, pneumonia, etc. You're doing mental gymnastics to try to to ignore the super obvious reality that Covid killed a bunch of people and we couldn't have handled it if we didn't do anything to mitigate.

Yes super obvious to anyone that watched and believed msdnc or any other main stream dump. This was heavily politicized from the beginning, completely tanked any trust thinking people would have.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Yes super obvious to anyone that watched and believed msdnc or any other main stream dump. This was heavily politicized from the beginning, completely tanked any trust thinking people would have.

Let's not argue about the media, the fact is we track deaths and we can spot increases in the baseline and where they were coming from. A lot more people died last year than normal, and that correlates perfectly with the Covid deaths.

This whole idea of it being a shell game and Covid not really killing that many people is just impossible. It's a blowhard conspiracy based on nothing that flies in the face of the data.

Just because your mad at CNN or CNN is wrong about something doesn't mean every idea that pops into your head is now true.

 

[Raven117]

No my assumption is that without the reassurance of masks and social distancing most businesses would have seen bigger reductions in traffic overall as there would have been a lot fewer people willing to frequent them.
Without the preventative measures in place I doubt the lab where I work would have stayed COVID free the entire pandemic despite not closing for a single day and would have likely taken a big hit to productivity at the absolute worst time for a lab to take that hit.
You are assuming that if state governments had said business as usual - that everything would have stayed the same - it wouldn't have.

Not my assumption. Some measures needed to be taken.

 

[Paulxo87]

tomorrow is the day in nj masks come off and all life basically just goes back to normal. no distance req's - nothing.

 

[DeepBreath87]

I think we were a bit one size fits all about it. Like do we need to close down the waffle house in Beaver, Wyoming the same way we need to close down the Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden? Probably not.

But we should probably walk back that "not demonstrably different" thing because there was a huge amount of variability in Covid spread from state to state. I'll grant it can be difficult to isolate any single factor in why that is, but that's a poor reasoning to say none of it mattered.

Demonstrate the difference then. Specifically, demonstrate how states with more draconian responses, like Michigan, California, New York, had better outcomes than states that took less restrictive approaches like Texas, Florida, Arizona. We should be able to see clear distinctions between approaches if we are to believe that more intrusive government restrictions were even effective, before we even talk about whether they were justified.

 

[highrider]

Let's not argue about the media, the fact is we track deaths and we can spot increases in the baseline and where they were coming from. A lot more people died last year than normal, and that correlates perfectly with the Covid deaths.

This whole idea of it being a shell game and Covid not really killing that many people is just impossible. It's a blowhard conspiracy based on nothing that flies in the face of the data.

Just because your mad at CNN or CNN is wrong about something doesn't mean every idea that pops into your head is now true.

Doesn't change what I said and you know I'm right. And I'm not mad, just pointing out obvious things that aren't obvious to people like yourself.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Doesn't change what I said and you know I'm right. And I'm not mad, just pointing out obvious things that aren't obvious to people like yourself.

Again, no, CNN being wrong about something does not, in fact, make you automatically right about everything. It doesn't work like that.

I get distrust and skepticism, to a point, but we can't just live in a completely "post fact" world.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Demonstrate the difference then. Specifically, demonstrate how states with more draconian responses, like Michigan, California, New York, had better outcomes than states that took less restrictive approaches like Texas, Florida, Arizona.

My whole point is that you can't because it's apples and oranges anyway. You can't really prove or disprove much of anything about this by just comparing completely different states, with vastly different climates, population densities, cultures, standards of living, infrastructure, etc. That's not how science works.

Science is when you control for differences and compare the results. In controlled environments we know masks reduce transmission. How much this matters in the real world is sort of an open question but you're wrong to simply conclude that it doesn't because of that.

 

[12Goblins]

Ima let the surgeon know that the mask does nothing

 

[12Goblins]

Demonstrate the difference then. Specifically, demonstrate how states with more draconian responses, like Michigan, California, New York, had better outcomes than states that took less restrictive approaches like Texas, Florida, Arizona. We should be able to see clear distinctions between approaches if we are to believe that more intrusive government restrictions were even effective, before we even talk about whether they were justified.

In other words, let them die. Which I'm OK with also.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Ima let the surgeon know that the mask does nothing

That's really dumb... A surgical mask can obviously help stop big droplets and bacteria from the surgeon's mouth and nose from falling into a patient's open wounds during operation... That's what they are designed for. They were not designed to stop viral particles from entering the air.

 

[belmarduk]

All credits to Trump

Nope. He couldn't even protect himself from the coronavirus.

 

[carlosrox]

if it is true that only 6% of covid deaths are a direct result of covid then this is a pretty tame virus that got hyped into the stratosphere.

Yup. Saw it coming since Feb of last year.

Definitely overhyped.

 

[12Goblins]

just making shit up again

 

[Hulk_Smash]

just making shit up again

Who is?

 

[Rentahamster]

They were not designed to stop viral particles from entering the air.

Viral particles are carried via droplets.

 

[GoldenEye Samurai]

I know I was ridiculed for not being vaccinated, but I have my reasons. For one thing, both my sister and her husband got REALLY sick after taking the vaccinations. My sister almost died after taking the second one and my brother-in-law got a horrible case of the flu after just the first dose. I don't know. I do want to take it so I can stop wearing a mask, but I haven't been proactive about doing so. I have nothing against the people taking the vaccinations and I believe it's smart to do so, but I have that doubt in the back of my mind that's keeping me from going through with it.

 

[highrider]

Again, no, CNN being wrong about something does not, in fact, make you automatically right about everything. It doesn't work like that.

I get distrust and skepticism, to a point, but we can't just live in a completely "post fact" world.

At no point did I posit that at all. Certainly can see where it would serve your needs to extrapolate that rather than just dealing with a very salient and direct point I made.

 

[celsowmbr]

Nope. He couldn't even protect himself from the coronavirus.

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