More sacrifices to the 2nd Amendment

[billvon 2,400]

9 hours ago, BIGUN said:

Effectiveness of N95 Mask in Preventing COVID-19 Transmission

Plus if both parties are wearing masks; the transmitter and the receiver protection is doubled?

Not quite.  They are better at reducing transmission than infection - so it would be more like protection goes up 75%.

[billvon 2,400]

35 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

You may think that we don't already know about the Dunning-Kruger effect but you are wrong in making that assumption. The bottom like is that face masks can and do play a role in reducing the spread of droplets containing viral particles therefore reducing but not eliminating the spread of viral infection. At a time when the health system was overwhelmed with cases of covid leading to sever overtaxing of the system anything reducing the infection rate was very much welcomed and needed. 

 

That's exactly it.

Masks don't work 100%.  A vaccine would be a much better mitigation - but we didn't have vaccines at that point, so we used what we had, which was masking, distancing, shutdowns, barriers and sanitation campaigns (handwashing etc.)

There have been plenty of studies that have shown that masks, when properly worn, reduce viral transmission.  But the best proof that the NPIs that we used DID work is not those studies, but the actual course of the pandemic.  If you had a pandemic with no mitigations, the infection curve would look like the green curve in the first picture below.  It would rise to a peak, then decline when most of the population has 1) been exposed and is now immune or 2) been exposed and is now dead.

But the actual course of the pandemic did not look that.  Infections would rise, we'd implement NPI's (masking, distancing, shutdowns) and infections would drop after some delay.  And that's what we saw in the data (second picture.)  This means that those NPI's worked, and prevented that 'standard' peak from the first graph, a peak which would have overwhelmed our healthcare system and greatly increased the death rate.

Those NPIs, of course, were not 100%, and did not end the pandemic.  They merely pushed the Re of the virus low enough that cases would start to decline.  Health officials, cognizant of the societal damage that shutdowns cause, were constantly increasing and decreasing the level of NPIs implemented to balance the damage from shutdowns vs the deaths from COVID, with the goal of not overloading the healthcare system.

And for the most part they succeeded.

[gowlerk 1,914]

13 minutes ago, billvon said:

But the actual course of the pandemic did not look that.

It seems like so long ago now, but wasn't there something about "bending the curve"?

[billvon 2,400]

2 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

It seems like so long ago now, but wasn't there something about "bending the curve"?

Yeah, "flattening the curve."  The original plan was sometimes referred to as "hammer and dance" - a long shutdown to get cases low enough to slow the next rise, then adjusting NPI's constantly to keep total infections at what the healthcare system could handle.  Which worked, except for the winter of 2022 for a month or so.

[Rickendiver 6]

46 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

That is an impressive enough resume I suppose. What is your opinion on the direction given to the public by the NIH? are they some sort of scammers? Is your posistion influenced by the politics around the pandemic, or is the rest of the scientific community just plain wrong and only you are correct?

https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/11/face-masks-covid-19

You may think that we don't already know about the Dunning-Kruger effect but you are wrong in making that assumption. The bottom like is that face masks can and do play a role in reducing the spread of droplets containing viral particles therefore reducing but not eliminating the spread of viral infection. At a time when the health system was overwhelmed with cases of covid leading to sever overtaxing of the system anything reducing the infection rate was very much welcomed and needed. 

 

It’s not just me. There are about 70,000 scientific, medical & health care professionals that have signed the Great Barrington Declaration attesting to it. There is an incredibly tiny percent of the population that has hands on experience in a BSL3 or 4 laboratory working with this nasty stuff, so it’s easy to lie about it. There isn’t a “conspiracy” per se. it’s just the way science is controlled in this country.

Honest questions to ask oneself- Do I have the background to recognize what an expert looks like? If so, how would I know if they are lying? Do I have the expertise necessary to parse out a journal publication to separate BS from good science? Is data being accurately represented? The answer for the vast majority of people is NO.

Most of the “experts” that show up on TV dressed in Armani suits or sparkling clean lab coats are administrators- suits, pencil necks. I call them PowerPoint scientists. They have science degrees from the right schools (and usually an MBA as well). They have their name prominent on papers & patents and probably have not spent one hour in a lab other than for photo ops. They control funding & can enable easier publication is why they get away with it. I have a lot of direct experience with this, sadly.

Most (OK, some) government agencies and national laboratories have well deserved reputations for honesty, integrity, and doing all things nice & necessary, as is their charter.

Institutional & programmatically funding comes largely through Congress, which is funneled through a network of entrenched, unelected bureaucrats. Directors of these agencies & laboratories are appointed, and serve at the pleasure of these bureaucrats (as well as internal boards). 
If there are billions of $$$ at stake, senior administrators are expected to do or say whatever is necessary to give credence to the otherwise obvious BS, or be replaced by someone who will. Oh, and next years budget just got cut. I have personally witnessed this happen. In other circles this is known as extortion.

I should also point out in the research world, studies are not “proof” of anything other than that someone funded them. Normal descriptors that I’m used to seeing are “Interesting, suggestive, supportive “ on the positive side to “Sketchy, dubious, load of crap” on the negative side. 
Normal peer review process is difficult at best under these conditions. Good luck getting funding, good luck getting published, good luck getting press coverage.

Hope this explanation helps.

[billvon 2,400]

48 minutes ago, Rickendiver said:

It’s not just me. There are about 70,000 scientific, medical & health care professionals that have signed the Great Barrington Declaration attesting to it.

Uh - the Great Barrington Declaration said absolutely nothing about masks.  It was a document that called for "focused protection" instead of lockdowns.  Rather than shutting down (for example) movie theaters, waterparks and malls, the authors wanted the vulnerable (the elderly and immunocompromised) concentrated in specific locations where they could be protected.  They argued that the harm of societal shutdowns was greater than the harm posed by the virus to most of the population.

So it spoke to lockdowns, not masks.

It is also worth noting that the Barrington Declaration made the assumption that a previous infection provided sterilizing immunity; we now know it does not.  Their plan to use only staff for these elderly concentration centers who have acquired immunity would thus not have protected the elderly from COVID.  From that perspective it was fortunate we did not try it.

The Declaration is here if you want to look at it:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Great_Barrington_Declaration.pdf

[gowlerk 1,914]

42 minutes ago, Rickendiver said:

Hope this explanation helps.

I'm somewhat aware of the paper chase and the fight for funding that goes on in the academic side of research. But the question remains......did the use of masks REDUCE the speed of the spread of covid? The Great Barrington Declaration was an outline of an alternative plan to deal with the pandemic. It did contain some strategies that had some validity. But it completely ignored the crisis situation in the healthcare system. In the end it was a political document of a libertarian posistion, not a validated scientific paper.

[SkyDekker 1,123]

1 hour ago, Rickendiver said:

It’s not just me. There are about 70,000 scientific, medical & health care professionals that have signed the Great Barrington Declaration attesting to it.

Is that the one where you could put any name down and click the box that said you were a scientist? I heard Mr. Banana Rama's scientific accomplishments are very special. And, who isn't aware of the science behind the healing powers of Mongolian overtone singing?

Do you not see the irony touting your scientific record and then hyping the validity of the Great Barrington Declaration based on the number of signatures?

Edited April 15 by SkyDekker
changed how to who

[wolfriverjoe 1,343]

4 hours ago, Rickendiver said:

It’s not just me. There are about 70,000 scientific, medical & health care professionals that have signed the Great Barrington Declaration attesting to it. There is an incredibly tiny percent of the population that has hands on experience in a BSL3 or 4 laboratory working with this nasty stuff, so it’s easy to lie about it. There isn’t a “conspiracy” per se. it’s just the way science is controlled in this country.

Honest questions to ask oneself- Do I have the background to recognize what an expert looks like? If so, how would I know if they are lying? Do I have the expertise necessary to parse out a journal publication to separate BS from good science? Is data being accurately represented? The answer for the vast majority of people is NO.

So 70k people signed something (that, as pointed out, has nothing to do with masks).

How many DIDN'T sign it.
Somewhat like the "1000 engineers and architects" that signed the thing about the way the WTC towers collapsed being 'wrong', knowing how large the population is counts.

And yes, I may not know about the subject, but I know how to apply critical thinking.
I can usually do a decent job of sorting out 'real experts' from the frauds. 
Sources also help. 
I'm far more likely to believe an 'expert' on NPR/PBS or BBC vs one on Fox.

Viruses travel within droplets, which are blasted out of the mouth. Masks reduce droplet expulsion.

One of the earliest times I was seriously scared of Covid was when it was discovered there was pre-symptomatic transmission. That people could be contagious before they showed symptoms.

There was a story that came out of the Pacific Northwest (Washington? Oregon?) where a church choir had a practice. 2 people were infected and contagious, but not yet symptomatic. 3/4 of the people present contracted Covid. A few died.
Along a couple reports of that story was a silhouette picture of a singer. Strongly backlit, you could see the quantity of droplets being expelled.

Masks help control that spread.
Not 100%, not perfectly. 

Masking, along with distancing and handwashing, the spread was reduced.

One of the best indicators of the effectiveness was the spread of influenza. 
With the mitigation practices in widespread practice, spread of the flu was sharply reduced. One strain of the flu is now believed to be extinct.

Of course, the idiots refused to comply. 
I've heard the term "Defiant Oppositional Disorder", which is a fancy word for 'acting like a toddler who only says "NO!!!!"'.

This was seen a few times when the idiots were refusing to believe that Covid was serious, that masks were effective and (of course) believing that Covid was a Chinese bio-weapon and that the vaccines were either deadly or contained 'tracking chips. My favorite was a schematic of these 'tracking chips' that went around.
It was an effect pedal for an electric guitar.
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/the-creator-of-the-covid-vaccineboss-metal-zone-pedal-hoax-reveals-all-there-aint-a-lot-of-sane-people-in-this-world
Turns out it was a hoax, from a guy who wanted to make the conspiracy idiots look like...
Idiots.

[Rickendiver 6]

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. As there is no point in continuing a discussion, I’ll leave you with some technology to consider.

Enjoy

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_detection_system

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Thomas-R-Metz-39550427

[wolfriverjoe 1,343]

7 hours ago, Rickendiver said:

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. As there is no point in continuing a discussion, I’ll leave you with some technology to consider.

Enjoy

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_detection_system

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Thomas-R-Metz-39550427

Great, you have an impressive resume. (note: I'm not being sarcastic)

However, I have yet to see you post ANYTHING that supports your 'masks don't work' assertion.

Remember a couple posts back, you asked if I would be able to decide if someone was an 'expert' in their field?

One thing I didn't mention was 'supporting data'.

A true expert in a particular field can and will provide data supporting their position.

This is pretty generic, but it has a fair amount of authority behind it:

https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/prevention/masks.html

[gowlerk 1,914]

8 hours ago, Rickendiver said:

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. As there is no point in continuing a discussion, I’ll leave you with some technology to consider.

Enjoy

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_detection_system

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Thomas-R-Metz-39550427

Truly you have shown yourself to be an opponent of government mandated masking. You have not made or even attempted to make any case that wearing masks does not reduce viral spread. Reducing and slowing the rate of spread was the sole reason for mask mandates. We always knew that we all were going to be infected sooner or later. But one thing is correct. There is no point in continuing the discussion. You are never going to change or give an inch in your opposition to mask mandates no matter their degree of effectiveness. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,343]

10 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Truly you have shown yourself to be an opponent of government mandated masking. You have not made or even attempted to make any case that wearing masks does not reduce viral spread. Reducing and slowing the rate of spread was the sole reason for mask mandates. We always knew that we all were going to be infected sooner or later. But one thing is correct. There is no point in continuing the discussion. You are never going to change or give an inch in your opposition to mask mandates no matter their degree of effectiveness. 

To be fair, mask mandates were pretty ineffective.

There was very little difference between infection rates with or without mandates.

The problem was lack of enforcement. Or lack of a mandate in the first place.

The 'adult toddlers' threw shit fits when told to do something that would help other people.
Then all the 'muh freedumbs' idiots combined forces with the MAGA morons and got the courts (the ones the Rs spent the previous 4 year packing with alt-right types) to overturn those mandates that were put in place.

The people who understood why masks were important kept wearing them.
The fools who never wore them in the first place kept not wearing them.

So infection rates never changed much.

[gowlerk 1,914]

1 hour ago, wolfriverjoe said:

To be fair, mask mandates were pretty ineffective.

There was very little difference between infection rates with or without mandates.

The problem was lack of enforcement. Or lack of a mandate in the first place.

There are places in the world with higher compliance rates and lower death rates than those you witnessed.

[BIGUN 1,056]

20 hours ago, gowlerk said:

You have not made or even attempted to make any case that wearing masks does not reduce viral spread. Reducing and slowing the rate of spread was the sole reason for mask mandates.

Keep in mind that someone, somewhere also calculated the percentage of those that would not comply with the mask mandates, so additional mandates were added. At that time, we did not know what we were facing, how bad it was going to be, if it was natural or manufactured, nor could anyone forecast the extent up to and including the end of human and/or animal life. 

I had no issue with every arrow in the quiver being used to defend against whatever this "was" to be, mask mandates, social distancing, accelerated vaccines, and lockdowns and will still maintain that the lockdown was a month too short. 

I am not a science guy, so for those with advanced degrees - we rely on them to guide us. Which they did. Were mistakes made; yes. But, we had to try anything and everything. And, to this day; I look around and think, "We made it through it."

~MINO 

[wolfriverjoe 1,343]

11 hours ago, gowlerk said:

There are places in the world with higher compliance rates and lower death rates than those you witnessed.

That's very true.

For much of the pandemic, the US had higher infection rates and death rates than most of the rest of the world

[Rickendiver 6]

You are correct, I am against mandates & lockdowns as they do not ultimately change the trajectory of a pandemic, but have severe unintended consequences. I am NOT against people wearing a mask if they choose to.

I am concerned that people in high risk groups for ANY virus to be fatal thinking that a cloth mask will protect them when they should be taking more effective means. (i.e. sequestration, PAPR). I am retired & have nothing to gain here except for this.

I don’t think you will find any information readily available on the internet that predates COVID. I do remember finding some studies on cloth masks that were conducted in the 1950’s, but that was part of some research that I did back in the 2000’s when my life/health depended on things like that. That info may still be somewhere, but probably buried on page 200 on a search engine.
Some points I was trying to make are that the internet is not always a panacea of answers, particularly during a contentious time period. Government agencies are not always trustworthy (keeping in mind I have a lifetime there). Probably 90% of the data and findings that I worked on are not published to the public, which is representative of most work done for them. We assayed thousands of atmospheric samples for organic & non organic material, conducted hundreds of experiments examining how a bio strike might be implemented at mass transportation centers and high rise buildings, how pathogens and toxins can propagate through HVAC systems and filter material. Some with live agents and some with surrogates. A virus is able to transmit astonishingly well, and not just through droplets. Maybe a FOIA request to DHS or DOD would work, but I wouldn’t count on it

 

 

[gowlerk 1,914]

25 minutes ago, Rickendiver said:

A virus is able to transmit astonishingly well, and not just through droplets.

I can remember at the beginning of the pandemic there was a lot of speculation on how this particular virus spreads. There was a focus on surfaces cleaning for a long time. It later became more clear that covid mostly transmits through aerial droplets. It also became pretty clear that the first strains that were the most virulent caused worse disease when the viral load of the initial infection was higher. Both these things support the use of masks as an attenuator. 

[BIGUN 1,056]

12 hours ago, Rickendiver said:

Probably 90% of the data and findings that I worked on are not published to the public, which is representative of most work done for them. We assayed thousands of atmospheric samples for organic & non organic material, conducted hundreds of experiments examining how a bio strike might be implemented at mass transportation centers and high rise buildings, how pathogens and toxins can propagate through HVAC systems and filter material. Some with live agents and some with surrogates. A virus is able to transmit astonishingly well, and not just through droplets. Maybe a FOIA request to DHS or DOD would work, but I wouldn’t count on it

"Cause I said so" is not an effective form of education,

And it's my job to go submit FOIA and requests to DHS/DOD to support your position . . .

ummm. Not so much.   

[Stumpy 256]

19 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

"Cause I said so" is not an effective form of education,

And it's my job to go submit FOIA and requests to DHS/DOD to support your position . . .

ummm. Not so much.   

Plus NONE of the things he's said actually contest that masks, even just cloth ones, are effective at reducing transmission rates.
Feels like this one is another political animal trying to distort actual facts. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,343]

15 hours ago, Rickendiver said:

You are correct, I am against mandates & lockdowns as they do not ultimately change the trajectory of a pandemic, but have severe unintended consequences. I am NOT against people wearing a mask if they choose to.

I am concerned that people in high risk groups for ANY virus to be fatal thinking that a cloth mask will protect them when they should be taking more effective means. (i.e. sequestration, PAPR). I am retired & have nothing to gain here except for this.

I don’t think you will find any information readily available on the internet that predates COVID. I do remember finding some studies on cloth masks that were conducted in the 1950’s, but that was part of some research that I did back in the 2000’s when my life/health depended on things like that. That info may still be somewhere, but probably buried on page 200 on a search engine.
 

So nobody studied masks before the pandemic?

Seriously?

And as far as 'buried on page 200', this was THIRD on a google search:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8499874/

Admittedly not 'pre-pandemic', but one of the more interesting parts of the abstract is:

 

Quote

all studies we analysed that did not find surgical masks to be effective were under-powered to such an extent that even if masks were 100% effective, the studies in question would still have been unlikely to find a statistically significant effect.

 

[SkyDekker 1,123]

Regardless of this discussion, I am not convinced that Public Health should be solely science driven. At least not to the extent that if we don't know 100% sure yet, we should not advocate to do anything.

 

Fauci standing at the microphone and stating: "We don't really know what's going on, or how the virus is spreading. Until we are 100% sure we are 100% correct, we ask the public to do nothing, go on with your life and please just ignore the bodies."