Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
It kills me to know that we'd be back to normal right now...
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Mask Efficacy |OT| Wuhan!! Got You All In Check
- Thread starter keraj37
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It kills me to know that we'd be back to normal right now...
diffusionx
Gold Member
Anyone who thinks those places are "back to normal" because they don't have COVID cases just is living in a different reality at this point. It's literally impossible to believe that this virus is both extremely virulent and contagious and there are these massive cities along the same latitudes that don't have it. They're back to normal because they chose to go back to normal. They'll test people who show up to the doctor sick and treat those who need treating but for everyone else, go live if your life.
Remember the WHO said recently COVID is endemic. We are choosing, or it is being chosen for us, to live like scared babies instead of accepting reality of what this virus is and moving on from this idiotic nonsense that is a waste of time, money, and energy.
Remember the WHO said recently COVID is endemic. We are choosing, or it is being chosen for us, to live like scared babies instead of accepting reality of what this virus is and moving on from this idiotic nonsense that is a waste of time, money, and energy.
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prag16
Banned
Sorry. As the person pushing mandated draconian intervention, the burden of proof is on you. And you have this far failed miserably to deliver.
Prove it.
Meaningless anecdote.Wearing mask is useless then how are you going to explain this one
Starbucks Cafe’s Covid Outbreak Spared Employees Who Wore Masks
After a woman with the coronavirus visited a Starbucks cafe north of Seoul this month, more than two dozen patrons tested positive days later. But the four face mask-wearing employees escaped infection.www.bloomberg.com
You are quickly becoming a cartoon character here.
arkhamguy123
Member
"Days after." It needs like two weeks to do anything. This is a non issue. Thats like "man doesn't put foot on the gas, car doesn't move. Cars ineffective?"This isn't a good.
Hundreds of Israelis get infected with Covid-19 after receiving Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – reports
With the vaccine not providing immediate immunity to the coronavirus, over two hundred Israeli citizens have been diagnosed with the disease days after getting the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs, local media reported.www.rt.com
arkhamguy123
Member
Game set and match for COVID. As usual Humanity - 1 Pandemic - 0.
Joe T.
Member
Found a flu nonbeliever.
Started well for me:
"Isn't it obvious that there is an extremely serious problem here that should actually shake the entire "pandemic"?"
diffusionx
Gold Member
I read his autobiography, he’s been living on borrowed time since about 1998.
cryptoadam
Banned
Famed pro wrestler Mick Foley dies from COVID he had no underlying health conditions aside from chair shots to the head and being thrown off the roof a cell.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
Lister
Banned
You sound like the idiots back in the 80's/90's refusing to wear seatbelts cause of their FREEEDOHM!!!
You live in a society, not in a fucking vacuum. Your actions have consequences for others. In the case of the seatbelt laws, for the most part it was a thing where you ended up a statistic, no biggie (except for you, but play stupid games win stupid prizes). But even then there were other issues other people had to deal with. Starting with passengers in the car for which you were now a fast moving projectile endangering them. For the first responders who would have to pick up your torn carcass from the pavement. For the tax payers who would have to pay for the much more expensive care you would need should you survive, possibly including supporting your handicapped ass.
In this case you just end up as a vector, infecting other people around you, helping the disease reach our most vulnerable people. Maybe you won't end up a statistic, or another cautionary tale among the many we have from nurses that watch as covid patient's eyes go wide in fear as they struggle for breath, or of the deniers who's literal last words were: It's NOT COVID!!! ::dies of covid::
But you are still causing harm to others.
Wearing a mask and social distancing. Quarantining if you're sick or travel, and avoiding crowded places/only going out when you need to (or to a park where you can distance for some needed fresh air/sun light), and testing if you need to, is not asking the world of you, you fucking snowflake. You're not storming the beaches at Normandy.
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arkhamguy123
Member
*begins to lose faith in humanity as board transmogrifies into a conspiracy nut job covid denying tour de force*
*rational people enter and counter with common sense like this post*
*faith in humanity slowly restores as does hope for 2021*
Euclid's Bendy Water
Banned
DeepBreath87
Banned
You want to control other people. Ostensibly for their own good, only you can fuck off. I don’t care what you think is good. That is actually the beauty of being free. I don’t give a shit what you want me to do. You don’t have to like it. You can bitch and complain. But I’m going to do it anyway. I’ll take the precautions I feel are appropriate, which I’ve been doing the whole time. But I’m also going to go the gym, go the stores, visit my family when I’m not sick. We all have our eyes open. We are aware of the risks. But my grandfather has dementia. He probably won’t know my name in six months. So I think we’ll take our chances.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Not reading all that, but I do wear a mask where required by stores and such, but I would never be in favor of handing over more control to the government to micromanage people's lives. The downside of that is more division in society and less "group cohesion," but that's the flipside of prioritizing individual liberties.
You joined well into the pandemic, though? Either way, there have been people arguing both sides of the freedom vs. control coin throughout this thread. It's almost as if it's OK to not have 100% enforced agreement.
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arkhamguy123
Member
I'm just gonna pretend this response to me made any sense.
Joe T.
Member
You can discern a lot about what a person does or doesn't know about the coronavirus and the measures being applied simply by the manner in which he responds to those that disagree. The majority of the blame always rests with the individual for not digging deeper or having an open mind, but I have a great deal of resentment for the corporate media, governments and "experts" that have treated us all like animals. You've been conditioned into believing the opposite of what is true.
Here's a nice montage, a timeline of governments and their experts telling everyone about the ineffectiveness of masks right through the first half of the year... until they all abandon it completely as if instructed by someone from above. Try to tell me you don't see what's happening here after watching it and take special note of the WHO's U-turn mentioned in the video's title:
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your post said you had begun to lose faith in humanity as this board "transmogrified into a conspiracy nut job covid denying tour de force," but you just joined at the end of July, well into the pandemic.
arkhamguy123
Member
.... Since I've joined.... It's been almost half a year dude.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Nevermind that it's pretty clear now that, as we knew before this pandemic, masks actually have no effect (or not enough of one to really even register) on the spread of COVID-19.
Mask use over 90% in the US now and yet the spread has never been faster.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Yes, and your post implied that something has changed over time since you joined, but the exact same debates were raging in July and even before in this very thread.
arkhamguy123
Member
Agree to disagree. In my opinion it's gotten worse. Maybe my memory is failing because I don't recall every conversation about covid from a video game board but I don't remember being to the level it is now back then. Perhaps I just checked it less than I do now from being less busy.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Well, if you're so inclined, you're actually in the very thread where those conversations took place and it's very easy to jump back to previous pages to see for yourself. I'd recommend starting around late May when the BLM riots really started kicking off and politicians and health experts around the world were forced to show their asses bare for all to see.
Outrunner
Member
Thank you
arkhamguy123
Member
Late may? I thought I joined in July? Gotta get this stuff straight while you're apparently sifting through ones post history from like 6 months ago. BLM protest would incite that kind of discourse. Now it seems just... ridiculous. Covid was relatively subsided in the summer. Now its exploding and its the same shit from that unique time in summer with the protest.
Leyasu
Banned
It wasn't an instruction from above that prompted the about face. It was the fact that they now had enough in stock for the general population. All the bullshit stemmed from the simple fact of having barely enough for the health care workers that needed them, let alone the general public.
Once the channels were full, and people could buy them without jeopardizing health care workers supplies, the message changed.
In France, mask wearing was so useless and not needed, they even banned their sale to the general public until the 10th of May. People buying them from abroad had their parcels intercepted and the contents confiscated. Amazon in the EU would not sell certain types as they were reserved for people that needed them, and everything else had delivery dates of months after purchase.
In short, there were no higher ups giving the nod, and the WHO followed the script being used by most of the western world due to the dire shortages of PPE.
Outrunner
Member
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Not sure why wires are getting crossed, but to put it simply: my point is that nothing has changed since you joined. COVID deniers and COVID doom sayers and everything in between have been right here in this very thread since the beginning.
Not to defend the channel it's posted on it, but you're really showing that you must not have even clicked on the link. It's a timeline compilation of clips and such from news media and press conferences, etc. It's almost 100% original sources that have been edited together to tell a story. What does the channel's credibility have to do with anything? Are you saying all of the videos are doctored?
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arkhamguy123
Member
Agreed. And I'm saying, it has gotten worse. Deniers seem to be becoming more prevalent and brazen.
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Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Deniers that COVID exists or deniers of the effectiveness of the policies and restrictions that have been imposed?
If the latter, it only makes sense, because the policies have been complete disasters that have quite obviously not been effective and yet many policy makers can't seem to consider anything else but to double down on their failures, all else be damned.
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DeepBreath87
Banned
I think that's probably a result of watching so many of our public health experts and political leaders either breaking their own rules or watching as the measures they implement fail to do what they are supposed to do. Masks were supposed to work. Remember this:
If everyone wore a mask, Covid-19 could be brought under control, CDC director urges
"If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control," the CDC director said.
www.statnews.com
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D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I think that's probably a result of watching so many of our public health experts and political leaders either breaking their own rules or watching as the measures they implement fail to do what they are supposed to do. Masks were supposed to work. Remember this:
Well compliance has been over 90% for months. Didn't work, did it? This is just one example. Things like this erode trust and lead to people, rightly, questioning what they are being told.If everyone wore a mask, Covid-19 could be brought under control, CDC director urges
"If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control," the CDC director said.
Gotta say, though, the whole mask thing was such a brilliant play at shifting responsibility.
Joe T.
Member
You're being presented with the deceptiveness of the media, government and their experts, not being told to trust it. This stupid game you're playing is what I expect from trolls. People get paid to do what you're doing here, to "flood the zone" with garbage in order to cover up the truth, so I'm hoping there's something in it for you because it's not reflecting well on your character.
We already knew before this started that masks were pointless in the general public. Some of us stood by that scientific understanding and were smeared for it because the masses ate up what they were being told without question. The WHO has abandoned you on PCR tests, lock downs and even masks, yet you're incapable of admitting they aren't helping.
If I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here it would be in thinking that it's self-preservation of ego driving you to continue defending masks.
Edit: spelling
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Outrunner
Member
Flooding the zone with garbage is what you have been doing the entire time on this thread, but you are not alone.
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DeepBreath87
Banned
I said it at the beginning. It was a politician's wet dream. They get to pretend they are doing what it takes while simultaneously creating a whole subset of people to blame for the problem. It couldn't be that the masks didn't work... You people just aren't doing it right. It was a stroke of genius. It is an infallible proposition. If cases go down, the masks are working. If they don't, its just because people aren't masking hard enough. Suddenly they can't lose, because people will never admit the masks didn't work like we were told they would.
Outrunner
Member
Community Use Of Face Masks And COVID-19: Evidence From A Natural Experiment Of State Mandates In The US
The study provides evidence that US states mandating the use of face masks in public had a greater decline in daily COVID-19 growth rates after issuing these mandates compared with states that did not issue mandates. These effects were observed conditional on other existing social distancing measures and were independent of the CDC recommendation to wear face covers issued April 3, 2020. As international and state governments begin to relax social distancing restrictions, and considering the high likelihood of a second COVID-19 wave in the fall and winter of 2020,30 requiring the use of face masks in public could help in reducing COVID-19 spread.Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe
We estimate large reductions in Rt in response to the combined non-pharmaceutical interventions. Our results—which are driven more by countries with advanced epidemics and larger numbers of deaths—suggest that these interventions have together had a substantial effect on transmission, as measured by changes in the estimated Rt. At the time of this study, we find current estimates of Rt to range from a posterior mean of 0.44 (0.26–0.61) for Norway to a posterior mean of 0.82 (0.73–0.93) for Belgium, with an average of 0.66 across the 11 countries—an 82% reduction compared to the pre-intervention values. For all countries, we find that current interventions have been sufficient to drive Rt below 1 (probability Rt < 1.0 is greater than 99% across all countries we consider) and achieve control of the epidemic. These conclusions are corroborated by studies from individual countries—France12, Spain13, Germany14 and the UK15—over a similar period, which arrive at very similar estimates despite different methodologies and data.Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions
Using a comprehensive, hierarchically coded dataset of 6,068 NPIs implemented in March–April 2020 (when most European countries and US states experienced their first infection waves) in 79 territories23, here we analyse the impact of government interventions on Rt using harmonized results from a multi-method approach consisting of (1) a case-control analysis (CC), (2) a step function approach to LASSO time-series regression (LASSO), (3) random forests (RF) and (4) transformers (TF). We contend that the combination of four different methods, combining statistical, inference and artificial intelligence classes of tools, also allows assessment of the structural uncertainty of individual methods24. We also investigate country-specific control strategies as well as the impact of selected country-specific metrics.All the above approaches (1–4) yield comparable rankings of the effectiveness of different categories of NPIs across their hierarchical levels. This remarkable agreement allows us to identify a consensus set of NPIs that lead to a significant reduction in Rt. We validate this consensus set using two external datasets covering 42,151 measures in 226 countries. Furthermore, we evaluate the heterogeneity of the effectiveness of individual NPIs in different territories. We find that the time of implementation, previously implemented measures, different governance indicators25, as well as human and social development affect the effectiveness of NPIs in countries to varying degrees.
Fig. 1: Change in Rt (ΔRt) for 46 NPIs at L2, as quantified by CC analysis, LASSO and TF regression.
The left-hand panel shows the combined 95% confidence intervals of ΔRt for the most effective interventions across all included territories. The heatmap in the right-hand panel shows the corresponding Z-scores of measure effectiveness as determined by the four different methods. Grey indicates no significantly positive effect. NPIs are ranked according to the number of methods agreeing on their impacts, from top (significant in all methods) to bottom (ineffective in all analyses). L1 themes are colour-coded as in Supplementary Fig. 1.
cryptoadam
Banned
Joe T.
Member
Glad you brought this up because it's been on my mind. How much pressure has the press put on the government there to impose mask mandates? I suspect that if they've avoided recommending them until now they either haven't faced too much pressure in their briefings or they've done a decent enough job defending their position.
The mask issue is a cascading effect. It usually starts with a recommendation on public transit before the press hammers the government for a mandate. Then that moves to indoor areas and finally outdoors if the press is successful. They spent weeks hammering the Quebec government for each, it was ridiculous watching it unfold because they have precious little time (1 question, 1 follow up and no exceptions) - behave more like activists than reporters.
Quebec's government eventually buckled on all of them except outdoors, that one only applies to protesters which gave them the authority to crack down on the resistance. They let slip in one briefing that none of the measures in place are backed by scientific evidence and that's the upside to spending so much time watching the daily briefings: the most important statements sometimes get completely ignored by the press.
Ma-Yuan
Member
No it doesn't. There could be a million other reasons why they didn't get the virus.
I can also show you a doctor who claims to have treated 3K covid patients with HCQ and not one died.
I guess that proves that HCQ is a cure for COVID so everyone start popping HCQ.
The actual science of masks, actual studies, RCTs etc all show that N95s do a good job but everything else doesn't do much and without proper education, hygiene, and disposal+use of the mask they will most likely help to spread the virus rather than reduce transmission.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Overview
COVID-19 is a new type of coronavirus that causes mild to severe cases. Here’s a quick guide on how to spot symptoms, risk factors, prevent spread of the disease, and find out what to do if you think you have it.www.webmd.com
So 90% of Americans wear masks. Science said if 80% wore masks the virus would plummet. US has more cases than ever.
Same thing in Canada where I live. We don't have Trumpers up here. Mask mandate since July. Yet cases are surging.
If masks worked so well then why are old people in nursing homes still dying in Canada? I mean slap a mask on them, slap a mask on everyone who works there and voila problem solved no more old people dying.
Why are prisoners being freed if Masks work? Just slap a mask on them and voila problem solved no prisoners will get infected.
The issue is that no cares for the rest of hygiene... Mask don't help because sick people stay home. I think I never encountered even one coughing person with a mask since this shit started. And well asymptomatic people don't spread it so yes I assume also masks are completely useless. In the beginning of the first lockdown they cleared all shopping carts in super markets before giving them to you. Barely was a parking lot full in front of a super market and people waited in lines. This is a thing of the past in Germany super markets are crammed and the parking lots are full of cars and no one cares how or if his cart was cleaned. Since this virus can stay days infectios on a surface people most likely transmitted it via their hands when they touched a tainted ground or object. I suspect healthy people driving this by not enacting things we did before like washing hands using alcohol when we go shopping or out in general. It almost feels like by ignoring this they wanna get the numbers high because this is so dumb... Also most of the scared people seem to give rats ass about it when they it comes to free time activities. I was on a mountain using a sled for my two boys today and hell that mountain was so crowded I have never seen this before and not a single mask
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
The mask wearing debate is so dishonest IMO . Of course controlling how much germs you spread is helpful to mitigate the spread, bu none of this will ever be 100%. An analogy I like personally is the stacking layers of Swiss cheese, where every layer or measure we put in place (mask wearing being one slice of swiss cheese, another can be 6 ft distancing, another can be closing bars at night or whatever, virtually useless temperature checkpoints, etc, etc) to where eventually if you stack enough layers, there are no holes for the virus to pass through. that is the idea anyway
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It is hard for me to compare pressure compared to other countries. The pressure has however been very high, it has been brought up every single time another country increases their mandates. The press also spends a lot of time claiming experts and WHO and others recommend general mask usage (which they do not).
The public health agency (fhm) has been pretty good in explaining their position and the lack of evidence to suggest masks work and the prodding has stopped somewhat now when it is becoming obvious to the press that most countries with mandates have an even worse situation compared to Sweden.
The trust towards the public health agency is still extremely high here, and many people still watch the press conferences in person twice a week (the rest presumably read the cliff-notes from the press).
They have to defend their position a lot when it comes to how other countries can come to such a different conclusion compared to us. The agency responsible is responsible for the overall health though, they are not only a disease control agency and as such they feel they have to weigh their restrictions towards doing as little harm as possible (i.e. Sweden kept schools open all spring).
They have always been in favour of masks in health care and have explained that proper use is required for effect.
We will see what happens in the spring with the public transport recommendation, it could be as you say, a slippery slope.
Joe T.
Member
That gives me a fairly good idea of the situation between press and government regarding masks there, thanks for that. Gives me a greater appreciation for Tegnell's work and the population of Sweden, too. Most people here don't watch the briefings which of course makes it much easier for them to be misled.
I hope they can continue resisting the pressure there because I firmly believe they've had it right up until now. Ramping up the mass testing hopefully won't be their undoing.
DeepBreath87
Banned
I get the idea. But a couple of things.
1. That's not how maskes were sold to the public. The CDC director said in the early fall that we could get the pandemic under control if enough people wore masks. Masks were treated as the silver bullet to covid. Its obvious that was bullshit. Because masks were completely oversold, they ended up undermining public trust. You have lunatics screaming at strangers to wear their masks from a foot away. Then you have other people who say "masks do nothing". I'm sure they do something. While whatever they do is debatable, its obvious they are not even close to enough. And they were sold as being the thing we needed to do to get this under control.
2. Because they were over sold, people have rightly begun to question the validity of other things we have been told. So things like outdoor dining bans, gym bans, church service bans. Maybe some of these things are very effective. But when public trust is eroded by public officials either overselling their policies or by them completely disregarding their own rules, it damages the public's willingness to go along.
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