COVID Theatre Kills

 

Today the New York City Mayor’s Office announced that like it’s doing with restaurants, soon storefronts will be doing business outside. Just in time for the balmy months of winter, famously temperate and mild in the Northeast United States.

This is yet another anti-science response to COVID. Throughout contact tracing efforts, we’ve never seen grocery stores or other retail operations prove to be a hotspot for COVID, if they were, we’d all have had it in March and April.

I think to some extent, masks are another part of our COVID theatre. They have been billed as a magic bullet that will save us all, except, they aren’t.

It’s the same story in Europe. John McGuirk, an Irish writer and political commentator wonders:

We now have far more cases than we had in the spring, when the official consensus from Governments was that facemasks are bad.

How can this be so? Are there other explanations?

First, remember what the argument against masks was, back in the Spring:

Here in Ireland, HSE lead for infectious diseases Prof Martin Cormican recently reviewed guidelines on mask-wearing for hospital staff and came to the conclusion that there was no evidence to support the wearing of surgical masks by healthcare workers for close patient encounters and staff meetings.

Citing WHO advice, Prof Cormican suggested mask-wearing by people with no symptoms could create unnecessary cost and create “a false sense of security”.

That’s the HSE lead for infectious diseases, warning that masks might actually be counter-productive, saying that wearing them could lead to people dropping their guard.

Is that what’s happened? Is there a sense, perhaps, that wearing the mask is a good enough protection and that other attempts at self-preservation have fallen by the wayside? How many people, for example, still keep hand sanitiser in their cars, and use it immediately after getting in? How many people have stopped doing that, and now take their mask off using hands they’ve touched fourteen or fifteen surfaces with?

Repeatedly, in the spring, we were warned that facemasks would pose hygiene risks – that people would touch them, not clean them properly, and mis-use them in such a way as to actually heighten the risk of virus transmission. Do those warnings look more, or less, prescient, today?

Of course, there’s no going back. Because for most people, masks do provide a sense of security. But could it be that the sense of security is, in fact, what’s proving fatal?

This has been my thinking on masks over the last few weeks especially, as I’ve seen the social distancing we know slows the spread slowly fading, as folks around me relying on whatever protection they think they’re getting from their masks. This is an extension what I call COVID theatre, the games we play that make us think we’re safer, but really do little more than lower our guard.

Earlier in the pandemic, we saw another important part of COVID theatre taking center stage: temperature checks. At several local businesses, they were performed outside, and I always liked to sneak a peek at the number and laugh: usually our temperatures were in the 93-degree range; even in the heat of the summer. On one outing I noticed all of my kids’ readings were “too low” on the thermometer gun, which I saw as we were waved in for admission.

I recalled this today as I read a powerful profile of Herman Cain from BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray, and in her piece, she talked to Cain’s family about his decision to attend the President’s rally in Tulsa.

Melanie Cain Gallo believes he could have been more careful — after the Tulsa rally, she said, she questioned him herself about why he wasn’t wearing a mask in the photo he tweeted. He told his daughter that he felt comfortable enough to do so because of the event’s temperature checks, a measure that was popular early in the pandemic that scientists increasingly say offers little protection.

We know one effective preventative in the fight against COVID: physical distancing (which, frustratingly is more commonly known as social distancing). Regular hand washing and avoiding touching one’s face doesn’t hurt either. With all of the additional COVID theatre, I think at the tail end of this epidemic we’ll wonder how much it actually contributed to the death toll. At the best, we may learn it led to a feeling of complacency, and at the worst, we may discover it made viral transmission worse.

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  1. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Rodin (View Comment):

    I think the arguments over masks seem to pass by each other. Do masks, properly worn, reduce the spread of disease? Yes. But there are two important words: properly and reduce. To be effective, people need to wear good masks and wear them good. Few people actually do, therefore spread is minimally reduced by broad public wearing of masks. In fact it is so minimal that unintended consequences of wearing masks may bring it to zero as a practical matter. Studies of health workers is convincing with respect to the benefits of health workers wearing masks but is not translatable to a public that does not have the same incentives and structural support for proper mask protocols. Given this reality, the public is rightly skeptical of the motives of those leaders who are trying a punitive approach to scofflaws or making mask wearing a kind of secular purity ritual. “Don’t kill grandma” campaigns empower karens without increasing compliance.

    As RushBabe says: let the people decide. Give them information, not propaganda. If someone is asymptomatic and is going to wear a scarf instead of an N-95, those viral particles are going to float as if nothing was on the face. If you are symptomatic for any chest congestion anything you wear will catch something, but people around you should not be comfortable in your presence. And yet, the public message is put on a mask and it is all good. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The virus is going to do what the virus is going to do. Therapeutics is the key at this point. Masks are mainly health theatre outside of a medical setting.

    Excellent point.

    There is also this issue- if masks DO work to slow transmission, they will still not eradicate the virus, even if worn indefinitely, by 100% of the population. We will still need to gain immunity by allowing the virus to do it’s thing. That happens regardless.

    So, if masks do “work,” the last thing we should do is all wear them. Their only legitimate use would be to protect extremely vulnerable subsets of the population. Under no scenario is universal masking a good idea.

    (p.s. the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy in the comment you quote is astonishing. That so many so-called experts fall into that trap is extremely sobering)

    So if masks do work, all they do it flatten the curve.  By how much?

    • #61
  2. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Rodin (View Comment):

    I think the arguments over masks seem to pass by each other. Do masks, properly worn, reduce the spread of disease? Yes. But there are two important words: properly and reduce. To be effective, people need to wear good masks and wear them good. Few people actually do, therefore spread is minimally reduced by broad public wearing of masks. In fact it is so minimal that unintended consequences of wearing masks may bring it to zero as a practical matter. Studies of health workers is convincing with respect to the benefits of health workers wearing masks but is not translatable to a public that does not have the same incentives and structural support for proper mask protocols. Given this reality, the public is rightly skeptical of the motives of those leaders who are trying a punitive approach to scofflaws or making mask wearing a kind of secular purity ritual. “Don’t kill grandma” campaigns empower karens without increasing compliance.

    As RushBabe says: let the people decide. Give them information, not propaganda. If someone is asymptomatic and is going to wear a scarf instead of an N-95, those viral particles are going to float as if nothing was on the face. If you are symptomatic for any chest congestion anything you wear will catch something, but people around you should not be comfortable in your presence. And yet, the public message is put on a mask and it is all good. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The virus is going to do what the virus is going to do. Therapeutics is the key at this point. Masks are mainly health theatre outside of a medical setting.

    Excellent point.

    There is also this issue- if masks DO work to slow transmission, they will still not eradicate the virus, even if worn indefinitely, by 100% of the population. We will still need to gain immunity by allowing the virus to do it’s thing. That happens regardless.

    So, if masks do “work,” the last thing we should do is all wear them. Their only legitimate use would be to protect extremely vulnerable subsets of the population. Under no scenario is universal masking a good idea.

    (p.s. the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy in the comment you quote is astonishing. That so many so-called experts fall into that trap is extremely sobering)

    So if masks do work, all they do it flatten the curve. By how much?

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit 

    • #62
  3. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit 

    That’s my position, too.  But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this.  If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    • #63
  4. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    • #64
  5. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth.  What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column.  And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population?  I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence.  And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    • #65
  6. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Whatever the efficacy of masks at preventing the transmission of this disease in the population at large, I’m pretty sure that we don’t have solid data on the relative efficacy of mandated mask wearing versus voluntary mask wearing. And if that’s the case, I think all masking, social distancing, and lockdown mandates, all mandates, should end immediately. It takes serious and unambiguous evidence of major and imminent harm to justify the restriction of so many liberties, and no such evidence has been forthcoming. End the mandates.

    • #66
  7. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Whatever the efficacy of masks at preventing the transmission of this disease in the population at large, I’m pretty sure that we don’t have solid data on the relative efficacy of mandated mask wearing versus voluntary mask wearing. And if that’s the case, I think all masking, social distancing, and lockdown mandates, all mandates, should end immediately. It takes serious and unambiguous evidence of major and imminent harm to justify the restriction of so many liberties, and no such evidence has been forthcoming. End the mandates.

    Yeah, I’m leaning toward that.  I laugh out loud.  It’s been 8 months and trillions of dollars spent, and no one has any real studies showing efficacy? I [glare] in your general direction, Fauci. :)

    • #67
  8. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth. What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column. And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population? I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence. And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    Back in 2003, after SARS, Bush commissioned a taskforce on pandemics. There were studies on masks. Same in 2009 with swine flu. CDC always recommended against masking, citing those studies. When they did a 180, they stopped citing to actual studies, and mask proponents pretend that there is something fundamentally unique about covid to invalidate all of that research. The “studies” they now cite to are computer models that pre-assume effectiveness. There has been one major study on masks, recently concluded, and guess what?

    https://www.berlingske.dk/videnskab/professor-stort-dansk-maskestudie-afvist-af-tre-top-tidsskrifter

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594

     

     

    • #68
  9. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Whatever the efficacy of masks at preventing the transmission of this disease in the population at large, I’m pretty sure that we don’t have solid data on the relative efficacy of mandated mask wearing versus voluntary mask wearing. And if that’s the case, I think all masking, social distancing, and lockdown mandates, all mandates, should end immediately. It takes serious and unambiguous evidence of major and imminent harm to justify the restriction of so many liberties, and no such evidence has been forthcoming. End the mandates.

    Also, if there was no solid evidence either way, that would be evidence enough that liberty-crushing government mandates are both unjustified and unconstitutional. 

    • #69
  10. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Rodin (View Comment):
    Studies of health workers is convincing with respect to the benefits of health workers wearing masks but is not translatable to a public that does not have the same incentives and structural support for proper mask protocols.

    And who are doing one million other things differently, like shutting down all kinds of normal behavior and activities. 

    They have absolutely no idea how much it changes that R0. Cloth masks probably make it worse. Same with overused paper masks.

    • #70
  11. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth. What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column. And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population? I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence. And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    Back in 2003, after SARS, Bush commissioned a taskforce on pandemics. There were studies on masks. Same in 2009 with swine flu. CDC always recommended against masking, citing those studies. When they did a 180, they stopped citing to actual studies, and mask proponents pretend that there is something fundamentally unique about covid to invalidate all of that research. The “studies” they now cite to are computer models that pre-assume effectiveness. There has been one major study on masks, recently concluded, and guess what?

    https://www.berlingske.dk/videnskab/professor-stort-dansk-maskestudie-afvist-af-tre-top-tidsskrifter

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594

    Iye du not underschtende Daenisch, but the other link shows the study is not published due to not being pro-mask.

    • #71
  12. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Flicker (View Comment):
    So if masks do work, all they do it flatten the curve. By how much?

    They have absolutely no idea. Certainly a certain percentage of people are making it worse with how they use masks.

    • #72
  13. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth. What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column. And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population? I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence. And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    Back in 2003, after SARS, Bush commissioned a taskforce on pandemics. There were studies on masks. Same in 2009 with swine flu. CDC always recommended against masking, citing those studies. When they did a 180, they stopped citing to actual studies, and mask proponents pretend that there is something fundamentally unique about covid to invalidate all of that research. The “studies” they now cite to are computer models that pre-assume effectiveness. There has been one major study on masks, recently concluded, and guess what?

    https://www.berlingske.dk/videnskab/professor-stort-dansk-maskestudie-afvist-af-tre-top-tidsskrifter

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594

    1. )There are in fact studies other than models- the best we have are observational studies- i linked to some earlier. They are the BEST data we have by far. Ignoring them doesn’t make them wrong.
    2. ) the Bush administration absolutely believed masks would work HENCE they established the national PPE stockpile. Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden administration used/depleted it during the H1N1 pandemic 10+ years ago and NEVER restocked it-so much for Joe Biden’s claims he would better manage a pandemic! This made the initial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic more difficult b/c we had a more difficult shortage of PPE.
    3. )The CDC’s flip-flops on masks has been explained multiple times & was stupid. They were trying to ensure healthcare workers could obtain masks so they didn’t want the public buying them up. Typical example of elites not trusting the public.
    4. ) There has been one major study on masks? You can’t be serious (I assume you meant here is a study not there has been one major…)-there are dozens- for example here is another study in Germany-it supports masks-https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/masks-can-reduce-covid-spread-by-40-german-study-suggests
    5. ) the data on mask mandates and subsequent decline in transmission does exist- here is an analysis from a website that doesn’t lean left & typically is small gov’t    https://reason.com/2020/06/22/prominent-researchers-say-a-widely-cited-study-on-wearing-masks-is-badly-flawed/
    • #73
  14. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    We have evidence of how much. Zero. If anything, the lockdowns have some effect… It may be that summer lockdowns had the effect of kicking the can right into flu season. Idiotic.

    We see what’s going on in no-mask/no-lockdown Sweden, and yet these European countries persist (UK just locked down again). Foolish incompetence that borders on criminal negligence. And if Biden wins, expect the US to follow suit

    That’s my position, too. But I have no statistics on the other side, and I’d like to hear from any pro-maskers on this. If masks definitely help slow transmission, how much does it flatten the curve?

    But that’s just it. Obama’s jobs “created or saved,” IHME’s and imperial college’s predicted millions of deaths if we do nothing. Models with built in assumptions. But all of those models have failed to predict reality. Every time. Why trust their faulty models now?

    There are people whose predictions have been right. All skeptics. Scot Atlas, et. al. People being censored and smeared by fear mongerers. As a public, we should be furious.

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth. What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column. And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population? I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence. And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    Back in 2003, after SARS, Bush commissioned a taskforce on pandemics. There were studies on masks. Same in 2009 with swine flu. CDC always recommended against masking, citing those studies. When they did a 180, they stopped citing to actual studies, and mask proponents pretend that there is something fundamentally unique about covid to invalidate all of that research. The “studies” they now cite to are computer models that pre-assume effectiveness. There has been one major study on masks, recently concluded, and guess what?

    https://www.berlingske.dk/videnskab/professor-stort-dansk-maskestudie-afvist-af-tre-top-tidsskrifter

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594

     

    1. )There are in fact studies other than models- the best we have are observational studies- i linked to some earlier. They are the BEST data we have by far. Ignoring doesn’t make them wrong.
    2. ) the Bush administration absolutely believed masks would work HENCE they established the national PPE stockpile. Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden administration used/depleted it during the H1N1 pandemic 10+ years ago and NEVER restocked it-so much for Joe Biden’s claims he would better manage a pandemic!
    3. )The CDC’s flip-flops on masks has been explained multiple times & was stupid. They were trying to ensure healthcare workers could obtain masks so they didn’t want the public buying them up. Typical example of elites not trusting the public.
    4. ) There has been one major study on masks? You can’t be serious-there are dozens- for example here is another study in German-it supports masks-https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/masks-can-reduce-covid-spread-by-40-german-study-suggests
    5. ) the data on mask mandates and subsequent decline in transmission does exist- here is an analysis from a website that doesn’t lean left & typically is small gov’t https://reason.com/2020/06/22/prominent-researchers-say-a-widely-cited-study-on-wearing-masks-is-badly-flawed/

    Do we even want a broad still porous attempt to reduce transmission? Shouldn’t mask use be targeted? Why try to delay the outbreak’s end?

    It is undeniable that proper use of a high-end mask by a knowledgeable user would reduce transmission by some significant measurable rate in such instances of use. It is also undeniable that generic mask mandates as policy do not and will not reproduce that kind of transmission reduction on the large scale.

    Therefore I do not understand why pro-mask enthusiasm is not part of advocacy for the Atlas position of max PPE for the vulnerable and their immediate care-givers while the rest of us go Swedish and effectively end the pandemic. 

    A predictably failed policy of arbitrary closures and desultory face covering is disastrous on several levels. Whether masks should in theory work as policy is a distraction from the actual policy choices.

    • #74
  15. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    .

    Because I’m interested to know if anyone really knows the truth. What I believe is just my fogy global interpretation of mental chalk marks: years of experience and the mechanics of masks involved and a jumble of differing graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data all in one column. And doctors and other informed people believing their own experience and governments and government agencies acting on something else, and a jumble of other graphs based on non-matching scatter-shot data in the other column.

    Is there any actual verifiable communicable disease evidence that masks do any good in the general population? I still ask because people generally assume it’s so, and that would make chalk marks in my “good” column, but they haven’t backed it up with anything concrete and verifiable to give these assumptions any real credence. And to say there’s no real solid verifiable evidence either way just doesn’t cut it.

    After all, it’s been 8 months.

    Back in 2003, after SARS, Bush commissioned a taskforce on pandemics. There were studies on masks. Same in 2009 with swine flu. CDC always recommended against masking, citing those studies. When they did a 180, they stopped citing to actual studies, and mask proponents pretend that there is something fundamentally unique about covid to invalidate all of that research. The “studies” they now cite to are computer models that pre-assume effectiveness. There has been one major study on masks, recently concluded, and guess what?

    https://www.berlingske.dk/videnskab/professor-stort-dansk-maskestudie-afvist-af-tre-top-tidsskrifter

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594

    Iye du not underschtende Daenisch, but the other link shows the study is not published due to not being pro-mask.

    If you should be able to open the link in most browsers on your phone and have it translated into English. I know chrome will.

    The tweet refers to this study. It likely shows that masks do more harm than good.  They increase bacterial infection, reduce oxygen, etc… 

    • #75
  16. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    For those constantly citing that masks make it worse-(based on the study of healthcare workers in Vietnam wearing cloth masks-a study with a number of problems in evaluating the use of masks in the community) the article you cite has been superseded by additional work by the SAME authors- and their conclusion is: “A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    • #76
  17. Hammer, The Inactive
    Hammer, The
    @RyanM

    MiMac (View Comment):

     

    1. )There are in fact studies other than models- the best we have are observational studies- i linked to some earlier. They are the BEST data we have by far. Ignoring them doesn’t make them wrong.
    2. ) the Bush administration absolutely believed masks would work HENCE they established the national PPE stockpile. Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden administration used/depleted it during the H1N1 pandemic 10+ years ago and NEVER restocked it-so much for Joe Biden’s claims he would better manage a pandemic! This made the initial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic more difficult b/c we had a more difficult shortage of PPE.
    3. )The CDC’s flip-flops on masks has been explained multiple times & was stupid. They were trying to ensure healthcare workers could obtain masks so they didn’t want the public buying them up. Typical example of elites not trusting the public.
    4. ) There has been one major study on masks? You can’t be serious (I assume you meant here is a study not there has been one major…)-there are dozens- for example here is another study in Germany-it supports masks-https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/masks-can-reduce-covid-spread-by-40-german-study-suggests
    5. ) the data on mask mandates and subsequent decline in transmission does exist- here is an analysis from a website that doesn’t lean left & typically is small gov’t https://reason.com/2020/06/22/prominent-researchers-say-a-widely-cited-study-on-wearing-masks-is-badly-flawed/

    You are confusing actual studies with computer modeling based on assumed efficacy. The latter, of which there is plenty, is junk science, much like the imperial college’s models. There are zero studies that show universal mask wearing to improve pandemic outcomes. The very idea is ludicrous on its face. Best case scenario you would kick the can down the road, causing worse harm, unless your miracle vaccine shows up and is a silver bullet. “Slightly reduced transmission,” which is the absolute best case scenario, will never eradicate a disease.

    You can always find a link of some self-described expert smearing other opinions. That is yawn-worthy. They immediately jumped on the great Barrington declaration… Yet, these doctors are the only ones with a serious plan that doesn’t involve total societal collapse. It’s high time we start listening to them over the “totalitarianism will save us” crowd.  

    • #77
  18. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Hammer, The (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

     

    1. )There are in fact studies other than models- the best we have are observational studies- i linked to some earlier. They are the BEST data we have by far. Ignoring them doesn’t make them wrong.
    2. ) the Bush administration absolutely believed masks would work HENCE they established the national PPE stockpile. Unfortunately, the Obama-Biden administration used/depleted it during the H1N1 pandemic 10+ years ago and NEVER restocked it-so much for Joe Biden’s claims he would better manage a pandemic! This made the initial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic more difficult b/c we had a more difficult shortage of PPE.
    3. )The CDC’s flip-flops on masks has been explained multiple times & was stupid. They were trying to ensure healthcare workers could obtain masks so they didn’t want the public buying them up. Typical example of elites not trusting the public.
    4. ) There has been one major study on masks? You can’t be serious (I assume you meant here is a study not there has been one major…)-there are dozens- for example here is another study in Germany-it supports masks-https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/masks-can-reduce-covid-spread-by-40-german-study-suggests
    5. ) the data on mask mandates and subsequent decline in transmission does exist- here is an analysis from a website that doesn’t lean left & typically is small gov’t https://reason.com/2020/06/22/prominent-researchers-say-a-widely-cited-study-on-wearing-masks-is-badly-flawed/

    You are confusing actual studies with computer modeling based on assumed efficacy. The latter, of which there is plenty, is junk science, much like the imperial college’s models. There are zero studies that show universal mask wearing to improve pandemic outcomes. The very idea is ludicrous on its face. Best case scenario you would kick the can down the road, causing worse harm, unless your miracle vaccine shows up and is a silver bullet. “Slightly reduced transmission,” which is the absolute best case scenario, will never eradicate a disease.

    You can always find a link of some self-described expert smearing other opinions. That is yawn-worthy. They immediately jumped on the great Barrington declaration… Yet, these doctors are the only ones with a serious plan that doesn’t involve total societal collapse. It’s high time we start listening to them over the “totalitarianism will save us” crowd.

    1. NO- the OBSERVATIONAL studies are by definition NOT modeling studies. Really read the articles- words like “Eight of nine retrospective observational studies found that mask and ⁄ or respirator use was independently associated with a reduced risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS)” means NOT MODELING studies.   https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00307.x
    2. Hardly self-described experts-actual experts in the field almost uniformly back the efficacy of masks in reducing the transmission of COVID.
    3. The fact that masks work doesn’t imply lockdowns or ceding more power to Whitmer- but if we conservatives are going to influence the debate we will do better if we acknowledge that the weight of evidence supports the use of masks. We will lose Gaslighting battles to the left-they will beat us with experience.
    • #78
  19. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

     

    Oct 30 2020

    • #79
  20. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    I’m broadly pro-science, but I’m somewhat skeptical about the fusion of science and policy, about how it can lend an undeserved authority to policy while also creating perverse incentives that undermine science. We’ve seen this demonstrated in the climate science community, and I suspect we’re seeing it in the medical community as well regarding the Wuhan coronavirus.

    Nothing about mask efficacy alone speaks to the justification for depriving people of their civil liberties. Justifying that requires making a strong case that significant harm will be averted, that that harm can be averted in no less onerous way, that the cost of averting that harm is not apportioned unjustly, and that the restrictions themselves do not violate fundamental Constitutional protections.

    That case has not been made. Masks are the least of it: shuttered and restricted businesses, closed schools, restricted travel, these are all more burdensome and demand that a serious, clear, and open argument be presented. Mask mandates as well, frankly.

    A voluntary approach based on extensive public advisories and discussion would avoid the civil libertarian problems of the current regimes.

    • #80
  21. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    • #81
  22. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error- it was the lack of proper care of the cloth masks (this was in the 3rd world -not standard US/european practices)

    • #82
  23. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed?  People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    • #83
  24. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    I’m pretty sure paper medical masks had a two hour limit before the Chinese Wuhan Red Death got spread all over the planet. Nobody has a budget for that given these rules.

    • #84
  25. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    Daily washing of masks-masks used for the day.

    • #85
  26. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Spending too much time on this- if I spend this much time with medical students I get paid

    • #86
  27. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    Daily washing of masks-masks used for the day.

    Wow.  Then I guess they don’t hold and get damp and transmit viri, do they.  To save your time, I’ll read the study.

    • #87
  28. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    Daily washing of masks-masks used for the day.

    Wow. Then I guess they don’t hold and get damp and transmit viri, do they. To save your time, I’ll read the study.

    Personally, I wouldn’t wear a cloth mask for 8 hrs in an environment where I thought there was a significant viral load and poor ventilation etc. I would at least use a cloth mask with a removable HEPA filter in it or higher quality mask. I would also take steps to make sure it fit well.  But I have no data to back that up. Working I wear a surgical mask while not doing anything with significant risk but wear, at least, an N95 mask (if not a P100) if doing anything remotely aerosol generating.

    • #88
  29. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    Daily washing of masks-masks used for the day.

    Wow. Then I guess they don’t hold and get damp and transmit viri, do they. To save your time, I’ll read the study.

    Personally, I wouldn’t wear a cloth mask for 8 hrs in an environment where I thought there was a significant viral load and poor ventilation etc. I would at least use a cloth mask with a removable HEPA filter in it or higher quality mask. I would also take steps to make sure it fit well. But I have no data to back that up.

    I read the https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/ study.  It was only the abstract.  I was concerned with this sentence:

    In a previous randomised controlled trial (RCT) in hospital healthcare workers (HCWs), cloth masks resulted in a higher risk of respiratory infections compared with medical masks.  [Apparently, cloth masks gave only higher risk of respiratory infections when hand-washed, but machine washed cloth masks were equal to hospital masks.]

    This does not say if the patients were protected or the the workers were protected.  It also says that both masks contained viral load.  it doesn’t say if the infection rate was high or low.  And it doesn’t say what percentage of people contracted the virus despite the masks. Or for that matter, I don’t think it was even necessarily dealing with viruses.  And it doesn’t say whether “high risk” environments included airborne vectored pathogens.

    The abstract itself says nothing except that machine washed double cloth masks used daily, all day, in a hospital setting are as effective as presumably bottom-line “hospital masks”.  But it doesn’t say how effective for this setting.  Let alone how effective in practice in an essentially unrestricted urban environment.

    • #89
  30. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Hammer- Hot off the press-as for masks reducing oxygen-also bunk:

    “wearing a 3-layer nonmedical face mask was not associated with a decline in oxygen saturation in older participants…These results do not support claims that wearing nonmedical face masks in community settings is unsafe.”

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772655

    Oct 30 2020

    But non-medical face masks don’t do anything, either.

    Wrong_”A well-washed cloth mask can be as protective as a medical mask.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/

    BTW-this is by the authors of the oft quoted article that cloth masks cause more flu- but they have relooked at it & have found that they were in error.

    And how many hours of use are allowed before it’s no longer considered well-washed? People are wearing them for 8 1/2 hours at a time.

    Daily washing of masks-masks used for the day.

    Wow. Then I guess they don’t hold and get damp and transmit viri, do they. To save your time, I’ll read the study.

    Personally, I wouldn’t wear a cloth mask for 8 hrs in an environment where I thought there was a significant viral load and poor ventilation etc. I would at least use a cloth mask with a removable HEPA filter in it or higher quality mask. I would also take steps to make sure it fit well. But I have no data to back that up.

    I read the https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32988954/ study. It was only the abstract. I was concerned with this sentence:

    In a previous randomised controlled trial (RCT) in hospital healthcare workers (HCWs), cloth masks resulted in a higher risk of respiratory infections compared with medical masks. [Apparently, cloth masks gave only higher risk of respiratory infections when hand-washed, but machine washed cloth masks were equal to hospital masks.]

    This does not say if the patients were protected or the the workers were protected. It also says that both masks contained viral load. it doesn’t say if the infection rate was high or low. And it doesn’t say what percentage of people contracted the virus despite the masks. Or for that matter, I don’t think it was even necessarily dealing with viruses. And it doesn’t say whether “high risk” environments included airborne vectored pathogens.

    The abstract itself says nothing except that machine washed double cloth masks used daily, all day, in a hospital setting are as effective as presumably bottom-line “hospital masks”. But it doesn’t say how effective for this setting. Let alone how effective in practice in an essentially unrestricted urban environment.

    As I have said before I think this study isn’t very useful- BUT anti-maskers cite it all the time & the latest work by the authors undercuts the anti-maskers use of the study. It was a study comparing cloth masks vs surgical masks vs & a “control” group. It was to see if the masks provided protection to the healthcare workers. If you read my prior posts I note many problems with the study. 1st-it was rhinovirus- not the best model since we have data from other coronaviruses (SARS & MERS outbreaks). 2nd- the model isn’t at all like the use of masks in the community b/c it was healthcare workers on “high risk wards”-so the viral load was probably much much higher than you would find in Walmart. 3rd- the control group wasn’t really a control group- it was “usual care” which for some of the workers meant wearing a surgical mask. To their credit the authors have admitted these problems. The relook at the study demonstrated that the cloth mask group that used quality washing WERE PROTECTED in a similar fashion as those wearing surgical masks.

    actual article-

    https:/bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/10/9/e042045.full.pdf

     

    • #90
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