Here is the theory under-girding most Covid demands of the general population:
You can tell this by how the precautions demanded keep changing, how they are dispensed with for political purposes, like the medical and political establishments endorsing the BLM riots last year because white supremacy is a health matter and how little the elites obey their own mandates when it suits them.
The point has always been obedience, breaking free peoples to the yoke.
In fairness, there was in March of 2020 a great deal of uncertainty about how the disease was transmitted, who was at risk, and how it should be treated, so there were bound to be mistaken advisories and changes in advisories as new information arrived. Some of the initial advisories (the 6 ft spacing) were speculative. Also, there’s signal and noise, and masses of quick-and-dirty studies generate a great deal of noise. Fauci lied about the use of PPE at the beginning, because he only wanted medical sector employees to be making use of limited stocks. In the intervening 17 months, observational studies have indicated that PPE is a weak vector in influencing rates of transmission. By the middle of 2020, it was evident that indoor air was the matrix through which the virus spreads, not outdoor air or surfaces or your skin in proximity with your nose. It was evident earlier that the virus was a threat to people over 60 and to people over 50 in certain contingencies, and as time went on it was evident that the ‘comorbidities’ were proxies for excess weight. The controversies in regard to opening the schools were entirely a function of the pull of the teachers’ unions, and the disposition of the teachers’ unions was a function of the character of teachers’ and school administrators as a class of people: these occupations attract a lot of opinionated shrikes who aren’t much good at formal or on-the-fly risk assessments, because dividing one datum by another is too much math for them. You saw another thing which was really appalling, which was people making assessments as a function of their dislike of Donald Trump (see the controversies over Chloroquine and other experimental treatments); this extended not merely to street-level Democrats, but to media types and even medical professionals. When the vaccines came out, there was a pretty obvious way to distribute them optimally, but the CDC’s advisories and blue state jurisdictions just had to give priority to their mascots. Now we’ve reached a point where the masks and the vaccines are social signifiers and used by the usual subjects for self-aggrandizement. If you recall how getting test kits into production was bollixed by the interplay of the CDC and the FDA in March 2020, you can see how at every stage of this the institutional and cultural pathologies to which we are collectively prone were a strong vector in influencing collective response. And, of course, it was all an excuse for the more predatory segment of our political class to seize resources for politicians to distribute.
Our elites are awful and the ordinary run of professional-managerial types isn’t much better. I’m not seeing how as a society we emerge from this morass.
Testing requires a control group and a definitive set of variables. Not possible(?)
Testing requires a control group and a definitive set of variables. Not possible(?)
Different states had different policies, as did different areas inside of states.
There was either no correlation or a weak correlation between masking and COVID infection rates– that is, there was an increase of risk when masking was enforced, but all were within the margin of error.
They had to start doing things like switching into percent of population infected to make it look better, and even then people had a nasty habit of looking and seeing that per-100k-population, unmasked was still lower. (the increase in percentage worked, with cherry picking, because rural areas can have a huge percentage spike by attributing one or two residents, even if they are in a nursing home in the higher population areas and were not infected in their home county)
We did know that masking wouldn’t work, because it was attempted for the Spanish Flu. Where they tried the “stupid civilians are just lying about wearing masks, or are simply incompetent to figure out how to wear them” trick, until someone pointed out that nurses and doctors were having the same infection rate.
Here’s the poor guy who was stuck writing up the “oops, didn’t actually help” study articles.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18010229/
I deal with filtration at work.
It’s mostly about size (microns).
Here’s a good summary. Watch it before it’s deleted as miss-information!
https://youtu.be/tIaul0U83d0
My wife will be required to wear a mask at her pre-school. So a few days ago she bought 8-10. There was a very small tag in each bag, “Caution – This mask provides no protection against viruses or other airborne illnesses.” I’ve read that there have been 11 studies on the effectiveness of masking for viruses in hospital settings. ALL we conducted prior to 2019. Seven found no difference, three found them more harmful than not wearing a mask and one found that the good benefits were so slight that they didn’t out weigh the bad effects. BTW, one of the problems studied regarding wear masks, probably N95s, for many hours is headaches and how it affected the performance of the medical personnel. More than 25% of their study reported headaches common. One type was caused by not enough oxygen and the second was caused by having too much carbon dioxide. It did affect their performance.
This was all known in 2020 and was probably reason why wearing masks were not recommended. Why would they want to hoard masks for the medical personnel knowing they are ineffective for viruses? Masks have always been about power and control.
Masks can provide a benefit in two cases:
as a glorified spit-guard (such as in surgery– as one guy put it, it keeps you from having an unexpected snack while operating) and when working very closely on an uncontrolled individual who is known to be infected for a short period of time. (basically, someone who might spit on you)
Both cases the mask is part of a much more elaborate defense system, including eye protection.
Check out the before-2020-OSHA standards on wearing a mask while working sometime….
The public largely follows whatever is said most frequently by mainstream sources. But there are certain places where they will refuse and I think this is one of them. That is, if they are told that the masks they have been told to wear are useless they will either keep wearing the masks they already have or stop wearing masks all together. They won’t get new masks.
Partially this is because there is no good or simple way to explain why the standard masks don’t actually work, but we “thought” they worked for over a year, and the replacements for them definitely work without any mistake. But the bigger issue is simply that the public has made a big investment, both financially and in terms of adjusting behavior, to the current type of masks. They won’t be willing to throw that all away at a moment’s notice.
It’s very easy to convince people of something when they don’t have an opinion. It’s much harder to change an existing opinion to a new opinion. If they suggested an entirely new type of health mandate, such as requiring gloves in public places, most people would probably still go along with it. But it’s a different matter when you change something that they had plenty of time to get comfortable with.
Could masks help with limiting the amount of viral infection transferred; would that give the immune system more time to respond; might that prevent it from being overwhelmed(?)
Do masks help as a reminder to social distance(?)
Last week, while watching someone in the office walk through the office wearing a mask and then promptly take it off as soon as she sat down, I had a revelation. We have all seen the videos of people being asked simple questions such as who fought in the Civil War, WW2, who is the Governor, vice President, etc. Any you are shown that most people have no idea of history, mathematical principles, science, religion and any combinations of the above. This virus pandemic rests upon and feeds on their complete lack of knowledge and understanding and inability to draw conclusions from various sources of facts and history.. Once you understand that, it becomes very clear how so much of this nonsense as been so widely been accepted.
BTW, I call the phenomenon of people putting on a mask, entering a restaurant, walking 25 feet to their table, sitting down and removing the mask as “Being on Base”. This of course references the “childhood” game of tag in which once you were on “base” you couldn’t be gotten by the It. Who knew in 2019 that viruses played the game too?
IMO, masks are pure virtue signaling. For the tyrants who demand them, as well as the people who, as some have famously said, “don’t want to look like Trump supporters.” I vowed months ago never to wear one again, and I shall keep that vow. Fortunately I do not live in Britain, Canada or the Southwest Pacific. By all accounts those areas have gone completely bonkers.
Back before it became a lose-your-funding-and-maybe-license offense to look at the question, mandating masks was associated with a decrease in use of soap in public restrooms, even after adjusting for reduced people and time spent in store.
Which is why they were pushed with the incoherent claim about “my mask protects you, your mask protects me.”
As far as viral loads go– they provide a decent environment for viral growth in most situations, and an excellent one for bacterial. Which is why so many pediatric presumed COVID cases turned out to be bacterial pneumonia.
We have all seen the videos of people being asked simple questions such as who fought in the Civil War, WW2, who is the Governor, vice President, etc. Any you are shown that most people have no idea of history, mathematical principles, science, religion and any combinations of the above.
The responses are cherry-picked for entertainment purposes. The person in our social circle with the most madcap misconceptions about COVID is a high school English teacher. He’s not doing much thinking, just emotional processing. And his pride’s invested in the rubbish he’s been spewing for over a year.
“The responses are cherry-picked for entertainment purposes.” Of course but they are real and there manymore like them. Most of the people running hospitals and medical systems have no medical or science backgrounds and I suspect are inept on those subjects.
JFK-
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume they’re real.
In my graduating class of fewer than 60 people, we had FOUR male students who gave the stupidest question they could figure out for any question– and another handful that would give a stupid answer if the question, itself, was stupid. (Actual example, the chocolate milk question. Even I wanted to answer “brown cows.”)
Selection bias, my school was largely the children of trust-fund babies– NOT a healthy society, and not average.
But neither are the interviews, and anybody with sense is going to run away from someone sticking a microphone in their face and asking a simple question. (With good sense, they’ll run for ANY question; the asker has their interests at heart, not yours.)
There’s probably a lot of freezing up in front of the camera, but also some have been drinking, or don’t understand the question in English, or feel safer giving a wacky answer that they know is wrong than making a more educated guess.
I remember watching Leno ask someone what three squared is, and I immediately thought to myself, 27. If I’d seen the question in writing I wouldn’t have slipped up. On the opposite side of the coin, he was asking people what Mozart’s first name is, and I would have said Johannes, because that’s what it actually is.
Most of the people running hospitals and medical systems have no medical or science backgrounds and I suspect are inept on those subjects.
Don’t believe most. In any case, institutions need a support staff.
Well, I’ll just say this and leave it. Most of the people I’ve worked with in the past 10 years have no idea of history beyond the Obama administration. And I mean all aspects. Most haven’t even seen movies before the mid 90s and I’m talking about big Academy award winning movies that impacted society. They don’t know ANYTHING about the USSR or Nazi Germany or Mao’s millions dead. Nothing.
They have no idea what a good economy is like. They’ve never seen one.
I remember watching Leno ask someone what three squared is, and I immediately thought to myself, 27.
Yeah, that’s a terrible answer– it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
(Dual purpose: one, I thought it was funny. Two, funny answers are SAFER.)
And I mean all aspects. Most haven’t even seen movies before the mid 90s and I’m talking about big Academy award winning movies that impacted society.
Now I’m kind of curious which you’ve got in mind– while we have done outreach to husband’s co-workers with things like The King and I or Singing In the Rain (and The Princess Bride!) I wouldn’t count them as really impacting society.
Being a generational touch-stone, sure, but that runs into the issue of there being more generations out and about right now.
OT, Cdl. Burke has been transferred from the ICU to an ordinary hospital room and has been able to speak with his sister over the phone. He appreciates prayers.
They have no idea what a good economy is like. They’ve never seen one.
Yes they do. The country in 2019 was as affluent as it has ever been and near full employment.
Masks being used as virtue signaling.. True
Have become political.. True
Are being used by tyrants to force compliance… True
Help with social distancing.. True beyond a reasonable doubt.
Alleviate fear in some people… True beyond a reasonable doubt.
Can be a dangerous panacea.. True.
Don’t slow the spread entirely.. True.
Cut down on the volume of spread… True beyond a reasonable doubt.
Volume makes a difference.. Probably true.
Vaccinated, I do not wear one. It would certainly be a lie to wear one, as I am not capable of: viral load or dangerous infection.
Would I wear one if asked, in person, by someone? yes.
As was already pointed out, several of those statements you claim are true have, after investigation, no evidence to support them, or are even known to be false.
Example:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717
Summarizing it:
The CDC report failed to address/discuss recent potent research data based on high-quality case-controlled analyses, as well as a high-quality Danish randomized controlled trial study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine which found no statistically or clinically significant impact of mask-use in regard to the rate of infection with SARS CoV-2, or a recent NEJM publication (prospective cohort CHARM study) where researchers studied SARS-CoV-2 transmission among Marine recruits at Parris Island (n=1,848) who volunteered, underwent a 2-week quarantine at home that was followed by a second 2-week quarantine in a closed college campus setting. The predominant finding was that despite the very strict and enforced quarantine, including 2 full weeks of supervised confinement and then enforced social distancing and masking protocols, the rate of transmission was not reduced and in fact seemed to be higher than expected, despite the strong experimental design and the rigor associated with carrying out the study.
https://www.aier.org/article/the-cdcs-mask-mandate-study-debunked/
JFK,
There was a deliberate effort to convince children that they should hate anything old which went into overdrive around 2000 or so. One of the clearest generational divides between people born in the 80’s or earlier and people born in the 90’s or later is the exposure (or lack thereof) to older fiction.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/science-of-masking-full.pdf
Foxfire,
I don’t want to be dealing with this tomorrow. I have a lot of work on my plate. Let’s just say the science is unsettled and we should use common sense.
David WS
David WS-
you are entirely welcome to say the science is unsettled and leave it be; the problem is that you refuse to do so, and keep making known false claims even after you have stated that you do not know.
Also, a CDC PSA does not overpower multiple attempts to verify the claims which, even when monitored by Marine boot camp instructors, showed masking and social distancing did not work.
It also does not overwhelm an actual CDC study from several months after the PSA which showed the opposite.
(As the CDC and other pro-masking sources got caught mixing in studies of cloth-masks with studies of N95 masks, this is predictable.)