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Apologies meant WHO

https://www.who.int/emergencie...n-covid-19-and-masks

"Currently there is not enough evidence for or against the use of masks (medical or other) for healthy individuals in the wider community. WHO continues to recommend that medical masks be worn by individuals who are sick or those caring for them. WHO is actively studying the rapidly evolving science on masks and continuously updates its guidance."

Last edited by James G
@Goosegg posted:

Flu is a well known, well studied disease. With species jumping virus' literally nothing is known before, and much is learned when it emerges. Alot of that preliminary data is unsupported (duh, because there isnt any data of great depth. That emerges over time). So, better to proceed with caution until the virus reveals its secrets.

To say that Corona effects on children are understood simply misstates what is known. In fact, we are all learning in real time of these cases of Kawasaki-like symptoms in children (all over the world). Many of these symptoms are emerging AFTER the virus is resolving. But in NY, 100/100 children who displayed this new symptom either currently had Corona or had the antibodies.

While it does appear the fatality rate for young children is way, way lower than the at-risk group, we simply dont know about things like this symptom or about lingering side-effects. Given a few more months, more data will emerge, more hypothesis will be proven/disproven, more treatment will be approved.

So, I have no idea on the effects on kids.

While i dont accept that kids aren't transmitting the disease to adults, I accept for argument that your point that there is no conclusive study on children transmission is valid. So, when addressing a novel disease is it better to learn first, or simply take the action and learn afterwards?

Of course, it's fortunate kids can drive themselves to school, fix their hot lunches, teach themselves all without adults, etc.  Only being facetious here; but, if the adults who make schooling possible are representative of our fellow citizens, 50% of those adults have comorbidities. What about them?

I am not saying keep elementary and HS shut. How can we get back to work without this child care option?

I am saying that if I were planning I'd plan for both scenarios - distance learning (with all its problems) and an open school. I also think on this issue, region by region is the way to go and, it's way too early to make a pre-college open/distance determination in May.  A kid in NYC who rides public transit to school and sits in a class of 35 has a different situation from, eg, my kids who were driven and had super small classes.

Who knows where we will be at Labor Day; let the data develop and see where it leads.  

But to be sure, economically and for the country's competitive world position, we need our kids to be back in the classroom.

PS  I'm reading a book "The Great Influenza" by John Barry, written in 2004. While I found the first 200 pages dry as dirt (that part laid a broad foundation for what comes later), the book is a great read of the 1918 pandemic. So much of what were arguing about was also argued back then.)

The overwhelming theme here is that there is much we don't know.  Agreed.

This is something no reasonable person disputes.  There is no need to go through the waffling that "experts" have gone through over the past few months, but as you and others suggest proceeding with caution, it begs the question: What is caution?

We don't know exactly how this is affecting children.  Again, agreed.  What do we know - a few are showing symptoms similar to Kawasaki's disease.  Another thing we know is that Kawasaki's has been strongly linked to low vitamin D and usually present after viral infection.  We also know that it is far more prevalent in children with significant Vitamin D deficiency.  We are also finding out that Covid-19 seems to be more problematic (deadly) in adult persons with low Vitamin D. 

Now, how to exacerbate a pandemic?

How about if we start making irrational decisions in the largest human experiment of all time.  Tell people they will be "safer-at-home", tell them they need to "shelter-in place"  or "stay home to save lives".  Inherently, this will lower their immunity and reduce their vitamin D levels. Then lock them into cramped multi-tenant housing with old infrastructure and poor ventilation - increasing the quantity of exposure to an infectious disease that preys on that weakened immunity.  These are things that no one has ever done to a healthy population.  This is an experiment and it is failing. 

We see some of the results in New York.  We know most of the people showing up with C-19 and needing to be hospitalized were sheltering at home.  Governor Cuomo was, in his word,  "shocked".  How could this be he was following the "science".  Well guess what, the reasons we do experiments in science is because we don't know the outcome.  Frequently, more often than not, we find out our hypothesis was wrong.

So when you say proceed with caution, I don't think we can even know what caution is.  But I can tell you what is neither cautious or scientific,  changing a bunch of variables at the same time and expecting a known outcome.  This whole thing is ass-backwards.

@James G posted:

Apologies, I posted above. It was WHO not CDC (link above). But yes as baseballhs pointed out, CDC didn't recommend them before per some extensive research. Then magically early March they did. 

Not "magically".  Originally the CDC recommended masks only for people who have coronavirus.  Now they know that so many people have the virus and don't know they have it, they recommend them for everyone.  As goosegg said above, this is a new disease.  Science is discovering things about it all the time. 

There's a lot to know.  Either we read absolutely everything, or we have to trust entities like the CDC, which are filled with people who can process all this information.  Non-specialists don't grasp it all.  The error in hshuler's post is that you don't breathe out virus particles, you breathe out respiratory droplets that contain virus particles.  Masks are able to contain those respiratory droplets.  In the article cited by baseballhs, all of the studies were about whether wearing a mask when one person in the house/dorm is sick will prevent the others living there from getting sick.  None of the studies was about transmission of virus among people going out in public.  There's a lot to know, the best recommendation now is that since you don't know if you have virus or not, wear a mask.

Pedaldad, I am 100% waiting for the very few clinical trials and studies that are going on about Vitamin D, why aren't there more? 

New CDC posting https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru...covidview/index.html

"Nationally, visits to outpatient providers and emergency departments (EDs) for illnesses with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 continued to decline. Outpatient ILI visits are below baseline nationally and in all regions of the country."

"For people 65 years and older, current COVID-19 hospitalization rates are within ranges of influenza hospitalization rates observed at comparable time points* during recent influenza seasons."

"For children (0-17 years), COVID-19 hospitalization rates are much lower than influenza hospitalization rates at comparable time points* during recent influenza seasons."

Again...what are doing....

It's like a cold.

It's no worse than the flu.

Less than 500 will die.

Less than 5000 will die.

It will be gone by April.

We're reaching herd immunity.

HQL is our savior.

The death toll will be 55,000 - 60,000.

It only impacts high density east and west coast cities.

Everyone who wants a test can get a test.

We dont like testing because it discovers new cases.

Try injecting bleach.

We're successful if only 100,000 die.

We've saved millions of lives; 2.2 million were supposed to die.

It doesn't harm children.

Only 1% die [editor's note: 1% of the 200,000,000 needed to reach naturally acquired herd immunity is 2,000,000 souls].  [Further note: its 1% AFTER LOCKDOWNS, QUARANTINES, MASK WEARING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, HAND WASHING.]

The goal posts have been moved quite a few times.

 

 

 

 

 

@Goosegg posted:

It's like a cold.

It's no worse than the flu.

Less than 500 will die.

Less than 5000 will die.

It will be gone by April.

We're reaching herd immunity.

HQL is our savior.

The death toll will be 55,000 - 60,000.

It only impacts high density east and west coast cities.

Everyone who wants a test can get a test.

We dont like testing because it discovers new cases.

Try injecting bleach.

We're successful if only 100,000 die.

We've saved millions of lives; 2.2 million were supposed to die.

It doesn't harm children.

Only 1% die [editor's note: 1% of the 200,000,000 needed to reach naturally acquired herd immunity is 2,000,000 souls].  [Further note: its 1% AFTER LOCKDOWNS, QUARANTINES, MASK WEARING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, HAND WASHING.]

The goal posts have been moved quite a few times.

 

 

 

 

 

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

These articles are pure garbage. What studies are they referring to? They are simple referring to computer models which I presume are based on the hypothesis that masks are effective in combating the spread of disease.

How about the scientific studies that show masks reduce transmission? I haven't found any.

All I've seen on this thread thus far is what baseballhs posted. And of course the blurb posted by hshuler which reflects the opinion of a medical doctor (presumed). I happen to believe what "Doc Graham" posted as this is common sense and I am a common sense sort of guy.

Iowamom23 posted about her trip to the grocery store where a mask and glove wearing employee placed bags of groceries into her trunk. Folks, this is how viruses are transmitted. Grocery clerk touches face and adjusts the grimy mask he's likely been wearing all week with his dirty gloves and them wipes them all over the grocery bags. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but rather it's just reality. It is what happens and it is the reason viruses spread.

I got the biggest kick a month or two ago watching news footage of people wiping down all of their groceries before they brought them into the house. Then a few weeks later I happened to see a headline on CNN that stated medical experts suggested this practice was unnecessary. Huh? Didn't they also say the virus lives on surfaces for as many as three days? Very amusing except that it affects my life in a major way.

I have now progressed well beyond the amusement stage.

On a lighter note I watched a great documentary on PBS last night and HIGHLY recommend it:

https://www.pbs.org/independen...llison-breakthrough/

You will NOT be disappointed. Our world needs many more people like Jim Allison.

@baseballhs posted:

We are delaying for mail in voting....

Practically every country in the world is taking the same or very similar preventative measures and have "reopening" plans of roughly the same duration, following similar guidelines (most of which have been put forth by the majority of leading world health experts).  We can legitimately debate the validity and effectiveness of each of the measures and the bigger more complex dilemma of lives vs economy.  But your comment suggests that all of these world experts are collectively intentionally altering their recommendations to survive a pandemic as part of a conspiracy to slant an American election??  Do you really believe that?

 

Pandemic or not, why would someone be against mail-in voting? The level of documented voter fraud in states, like Oregon and Washington, which have pure mail-in voting is minuscule. The only reason to oppose it is to suppress voter turnout.

And let me add, I live in far eastern Washington, not Seattle (very legit rural conservative for the most part - not “city slicker rednecks”) and mail-in voting is pretty universally liked here. Nobody wants to travel on “Bob’s Road” from their home into town to stand in line at a polling place in February in the Palouse.

 

Last edited by Gardener
@baseballhs posted:

When I’ve received multiple petitions sponsored by Tom Hanks, Michelle Obama asking me to sign a petition for mail in ballots...I think they are  making sure a good crisis doesn’t go to waste.  The majority of the US does not warrant this shut down at this point and more and more people are feeling that way.

That is a completely different "they" than the majority medical experts I referred to so you did not answer my question and ignored my point.  

I agree that the majority do not want the shut down at this point.  The question is how to come out of it smartly and as soon as possible.  Again, THE EXPERTS have provided guidelines that allow most places to start opening up RIGHT AWAY or VERY SOON, but with measured precautions in place.  Many are already moving in that direction.

The occasional far left and far right actions are exacerbating the problem.

I'll step back away from this as my initial attempt to make it more about fact than politics is failing again and I'm becoming equally guilty.

We have early voting in FL as well as mail in. I don't understand why this is not universal. Why make people wait for hours, more than likely why many people don't vote. 

A big reason for mail in is because of voter suppression in poor and black neighborhoods which consists of closing voting sites without telling those who vote in that district, closing early, no transportation, or claiming that the machines broke down.

There, I said it.

 

 

 

@James G posted:

Political or not political, mail voting or no mail voting, you simply don't shut down states/countries/the world for something that has a 99% survival rate. It's simple common sense.

You do if you want to win an election.

If nothing else the Barstool Sports guy said it best, when did shelter in place become find a cure.

Project Fear.

Last edited by SomeBaseballDad
@baseballhs posted:

We are delaying for mail in voting....

I'm assuming you mean to insinuate that Democrats are pushing the shut down in order to impact an election.The next election is a primary in which each party chooses its candidates for the November ballot, so not sure what partisan advantage anyone gains on that.

Just as a note--in Iowa our REPUBLICAN secretary of state sent absentee ballot requests to every registered voter in the state for the June primary.

There are two contested races on our ballot in my county, Democrats choosing a candidate for U.S. Senate, Republicans chose a candidate for county sheriff. 

So far, our county auditor has received three times as many ballot requests as the number of people who voted in the primary four years ago. With about three weeks before the election, more people have voted in this primary than voted in the entire election last time.

People exercising their right to vote seems to me like a good thing.

@Goosegg posted:

It's like a cold.

It's no worse than the flu.

Less than 500 will die.

Less than 5000 will die.

It will be gone by April.

We're reaching herd immunity.

HQL is our savior.

The death toll will be 55,000 - 60,000.

It only impacts high density east and west coast cities.

Everyone who wants a test can get a test.

We dont like testing because it discovers new cases.

Try injecting bleach.

We're successful if only 100,000 die.

We've saved millions of lives; 2.2 million were supposed to die.

It doesn't harm children.

Only 1% die [editor's note: 1% of the 200,000,000 needed to reach naturally acquired herd immunity is 2,000,000 souls].  [Further note: its 1% AFTER LOCKDOWNS, QUARANTINES, MASK WEARING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, HAND WASHING.]

The goal posts have been moved quite a few times.

 

 

 

 

 

You forgot a couple:

1. You will be safe if you stay at home.

2.  Georgia isn't ready for phase 1 of a reopen, they will be a new epicenter.

3.  It's ok to return C-19 patients to nursing homes.

4.  Masks don't work, wait yes they do, no they don't, I mean yes they do.

5. We are going with the "science".

The point is none of the statements are accurate.  We should be exercising good hand washing skills and social distancing.  We should be avoiding large gatherings for the near future.  But, we should not be shutdown in large parts of the country. 

FL and GA continue to show declines in test positive rates, total cases, and most importantly deaths three weeks after reducing restrictions.  States like California, Oregon, North Carolina and Minnesota continue to show rises despite strict restrictions to businesses.   Any honest "expert "will tell you that and they will tell you we don't know why.

They will also tell you while good social distancing may be making a difference, masks don't.  Furthermore testing the healthy is borderline useless at this time.  If I don't have it today, what about tomorrow, exactly how many tests will an individual get.  Antibody tests,  great either you had it or you didn't.  We still don't know for certain if that confers immunity if you had it.  If you didn't have it, again what about tomorrow?

Accept that this sucks, people will die, and try to be smart about how you approach life.  We do this everyday with many things in our lives.  

 

Not "magically".  Originally the CDC recommended masks only for people who have coronavirus.  Now they know that so many people have the virus and don't know they have it, they recommend them for everyone.  As goosegg said above, this is a new disease.  Science is discovering things about it all the time. 

There's a lot to know.  Either we read absolutely everything, or we have to trust entities like the CDC, which are filled with people who can process all this information.  Non-specialists don't grasp it all.  The error in hshuler's post is that you don't breathe out virus particles, you breathe out respiratory droplets that contain virus particles.  Masks are able to contain those respiratory droplets.  In the article cited by baseballhs, all of the studies were about whether wearing a mask when one person in the house/dorm is sick will prevent the others living there from getting sick.  None of the studies was about transmission of virus among people going out in public.  There's a lot to know, the best recommendation now is that since you don't know if you have virus or not, wear a mask.

Pedaldad, I am 100% waiting for the very few clinical trials and studies that are going on about Vitamin D, why aren't there more? 

This is a bit off topic, but important. You can have your vitamin D level checked by blood test. Most people, especially in the winter months are low, or low normal. It’s best to be high normal.  You can overdose on vitaD as well. If your level is low and you supplement, it is life changing (speaking from personal experience). 

@Goosegg posted:

It's like a cold.

It's no worse than the flu.

Less than 500 will die.

Less than 5000 will die.

It will be gone by April.

We're reaching herd immunity.

HQL is our savior.

The death toll will be 55,000 - 60,000.

It only impacts high density east and west coast cities.

Everyone who wants a test can get a test.

We dont like testing because it discovers new cases.

Try injecting bleach.

We're successful if only 100,000 die.

We've saved millions of lives; 2.2 million were supposed to die.

It doesn't harm children.

Only 1% die [editor's note: 1% of the 200,000,000 needed to reach naturally acquired herd immunity is 2,000,000 souls].  [Further note: its 1% AFTER LOCKDOWNS, QUARANTINES, MASK WEARING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, HAND WASHING.]

The goal posts have been moved quite a few times.

 

 

 

 

 

I usually enjoy reading your posts. This one is far too political. It reeks of MSM vomit. 

"You forgot a couple:

1. You will be safe if you stay at home."

Show me where this was asserted. We stayed at home to reduce social interaction in order to reduce the R factor to below 1 - in other words to reduce infections spread and rate of spread. Every country which employed this did indeed reduce the R factor - and the stricter the stay at home order, the faster the reduction.

No one said "you will be safe at home." Now, in fact, if a person stayed at home, alone, and observed all the guidelines, that person would be safe.

"2.  Georgia isn't ready for phase 1 of a reopen, they will be a new epicenter."

Neither you, nor I, nor anyone knows yet. We all know the delay involved in learning about new infections. For example, the deaths for the next two weeks are already baked in the cake and nothing we do - open, close - impacts that in the least.

[Editors note: I am retired, 50% of our income has evaporated and we're living on saved capital. I want to reopen as much as every person who wants to reopen.] So, I want and need Georgia and Florida and the rest to be successful; I dont believe hopium is a sound basis to leap into a potential volcano.

"3.  It's ok to return C-19 patients to nursing homes."

Where was the science for this? Show me. I know it was done, but, show me the science which backed up the civilian decision.

"4.  Masks don't work, wait yes they do, no they don't, I mean yes they do."

One thing about science and data. You change your conclusions based upon new data. And science is a methodology for learning new things. When those methods reveal hitherto unknown data points, you adjust; when those methods reveal data points at odds with your priors, you adjust. [Why stick with masks, why not say science once created models proving the earth was the center of everything and use that as disproving all science?]

"5. We are going with the "science"."

As the frontiers of knowledge on this virus expand, we take the info and adjust. For example, in the beginning human-to-human transmission was speculative, did it spread as an aerosol or droplets, what is the R factor, what tools do we have (eg, pronation for intubated patients), are these toe rashes related to Corona, what are we seeing with a small number of kids, people are getting reinfected, is there immunity, are there two distinct strains, masks dont work, what is causing an unusual number of strokes in healthy people. My point is science hasn't changed; as data is collected and analyzed hypotheses are made and methods applied to confirm or disprove.

In my recital of goal posts, science backing those claims was non-existent. For example, in Epsteins first article that 500 will die, you had a law professor telling the world that a new, unknown species jumping virus would kill at most 500. Oops. Then he changed it to 5000. Based upon science? No, based upon the fact he was wrong at 500.

Every person is entitled to an opinion, but this  opinion - with no scientific basis - was seized upon as proving "no worries here." 

Pundits move the goal posts all the time - that way they're never wrong (doesnt matter of you're left or right, all pundits are the same in this regard.)

Science doesnt move the goal posts; science wants to understand the goalposts, how they came to be there, what is different, why its different, are the goal posts fixed or not. Every step of the way  (and sometimes its two steps back and one forward) a certain methodology is applied, broadcast to the world so others can reproduce similar results and build on it, peer reviews bring different eyes to the data with harsh criticism, positions are not fixed in stone and data informs every conclusion.

Scientists are not infallible  - but the methodology science employs is way different from the pundits who spewed nonsense/opinions; nonsense because there was no methodology employed, just result oriented conclusions. And those result oriented conclusions fed into whatever priors a person had (eg, those who wanted to believe 500 would die and poof, we're good).

And, as data emerges and is evaluated, our actions to come out of this improved, more focused. For example, it appears that outdoor well-ventilated places are a much lower risk when compared to an enclosed space. Result: go outside and exercise. [One very real issue is the government takes a hammer to everything; when data is lacking a hammer is all we got. But, as data emerges that a scalpel is better, gvt has problems putting down that hammer.]

I'm all in on the reopening. I'm not all in on reopening in the face of data, or despite lacking data (hopium). That said, we'll use the emerging data from all these experiments to determine the next steps.

Oh, and one more point: we have now lost multiples of people compared to that "the flu killed x", "cars kill y." Another absurd pundit point untethered to any science.

 

 

@James G posted:

https://www.spiked-online.com/...xAOKM0OxPzVU-4c1HN4M

My guy!!! "We could open up again and forget the whole thing"

Too bad we didn't pay attention to our own monitoring systems (CDC). Here is the clip that Mr. Wittkowski references in the above article:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?...p-dr-robert-redfield

It's also too bad more people don't pay attention to the CDC's COVIDView page:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru...covidview/index.html

Here's a snapshot of ILI activity for week ending May 9 (and YES, this includes C-19):

Here's a graph of hospital visits in the U.S. that continues where the graph that Dr. Robert Redfield briefed to the White House (in the clip linked above) in April left off:

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@James G posted:

https://www.spiked-online.com/...xAOKM0OxPzVU-4c1HN4M

My guy!!! "We could open up again and forget the whole thing"

Ty for sharing the Spiked article.  Good to see an epidemiologist with a different view.

This read from NY Post this am is interesting; Why American life went on as normal during the killer pandemic of 1969.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/16/...er-pandemic-of-1969/

1969 H3N2 deaths in the US will ultimately end up being lower than Covid-19 however worldwide it will end up higher I think. Perhaps a difference in the US today vs 1969 is people in nursing homes.  So many of the Covid-19 deaths and Covid-19 assumed deaths (I have issues with this classification personally) have occurred in nursing homes.   I found a number that says there were 200k residents in US nursing homes in 1969 vs today where there are 1.7m.  Just an observation. 

 

Last edited by Gunner Mack Jr.

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