I don't think one side has a monopoly on losing trust, behaving badly, or making anti-science decisions.
It is overly generous to speak of "one side" as if there is another equally valid side to compare with. The CDC is not a political institution and they always cite published research in their guidance and public statements about COVID-19. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd are going around spreading one fantasy after another, coming up with new and ever more outrageous conspiracy theories and excuses for refusing to cooperate; none of their claims have ever been based in reality, and that is why the story changes on a daily basis and why there are so many contradictory claims being made.
To put this in perspective, the high-level direction of the CDC's guidance has, since the very beginning of the pandemic, been to reduce the rate at which COVID spreads; the changes in their guidance have been about the details. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd has gone from denying that there is a virus to saying that the virus is no worse than the flu to claiming that masks would suffocate them to whining about how mask mandates violate to their freedom and that they would rather die of COVID than comply with a mask mandate. They went from heaping praise on the last President simply because he was in office when the vaccines were first becoming available to complaining that the current President was being given too much credit for the vaccination effort to claiming that the vaccine is made from aborted fetuses, that the vaccine alters DNA, that Bill Gates inserted microchips into the vaccine, that the vaccine causes people to become magnetized, and that vaccine mandates are proof that the vaccine is the "mark of the beast."
Look at the most recent issue of vaccine boosters. The FDA panel of experts (whom we're supposed to trust now, right?) said boosters are not necessary. CDC comes in and says the FDA is wrong, boosters are good jk lol. What a joke.
Can you point me to a well done study on cloth masks and their efficacy? 19 months in and I have yet to see one. But people "feel" that masks must work, so CDC guidance says wear them. Surely at this point we should have so much compelling data about masks if they are effective...
I'm guessing you've hidden away a lot of meaning in the words "well done" but here's one:
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v4
These also: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p...
If you don't think these are "well done", can you at least clarify what such a study would look like and point us to an example?
If cloth masks are effective (I'm not arguing either way) and those who wear them felt endangered by those who don't, could they simply double their mask? Particulates passing in or out, in either direction, would be subject to the same amount of material as if both were wearing a single mask.
guy with mask + guy with mask = two masks
guy with 2 masks + guy with 0 masks = two masks.
I'm not suggesting that anyone should have to bear the responsibility of another, but the effect should be the same for the wearer if non airborne contaminated surfaces are of low risk. Unless it's a matter of directionality.
Could it be tested to observe a controlled situation where group A) exhales only through cotton while inhaling without, while a seperated group B) does the opposite, exhaling without and inhaling with?
Is this absurd to consider? I'm not feeling well and might actually be absurd right now.
When you exhale, on the other hand, you create positive pressure which violently expels the droplets regardless of what's in the way. This creates droplets with high velocity and turbulent flows within the mask that prevent them from traveling a straight path through the mask and cause most of them to collide with the fabric.
Basically, once it's exhaled it's a hazard to anyone who doesn't have a properly fitted N95/100 mask (which requires specialized equipment, though it's relatively common)
I remember as an OTR driver the truckstop bathrooms I survived each day. The olfactory violence was palpable enough to feel it crawling through the mask and see it grinning as it coursed through what must have been an unusual ratio of gas to air. I'd think to myself in that sometimes surreal environment where photons seemed to sweat and stagger, that even an n95 was pointless, perhaps life itself. If rona be here, every particle is riding a pale horse in a hazmat suit. I'll always consider myself a permanent petri dish for that.
I'd be all for mandatory toilet skirts.
That's how we end up with a calculus that determines that impinging individual liberty (requiring masks) has a net benefit (limiting overall community spread).
I guess a similar analogy might be: driving half the speed limit might in a weird sense feel like you're protecting yourself from harm in an accidental if else someone drives too fast, but the better policy would be that both directions of traffic maintain speed at or under the limits. Again, this is an instance where we limit individual freedoms when there is a perceived net benefit to community safety.
this minutephysics video might answer your question
Thank you
wearing two masks instead of one wouldn’t make things worse, though. but better? again, good question.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...
Cloth masks don't work at all, and surgical masks only reduce infections by 11%. N95s are probably a lot more effective but this study didn't measure those.
The problem with getting your science news from FB memes is that some nuance tends to get lost.
"Studies show that after getting vaccinated against COVID-19, protection against the virus may decrease over time and be less able to protect against the Delta variant. Although COVID-19 vaccination for adults aged 65 years and older remains effective in preventing severe disease, recent data pdf icon[4.7 MB, 88 pages] suggest vaccination is less effective at preventing infection or milder illness with symptoms. Emerging evidence also shows that among healthcare and other frontline workers, vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infections is decreasing over time. This lower effectiveness is likely due to the combination of decreasing protection as time passes since getting vaccinated (e.g., waning immunity) as well as the greater infectiousness of the Delta variant.
"Data from a small clinical trial show that a Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot increased the immune response in trial participants who finished their primary series 6 months earlier. With an increased immune response, people should have improved protection against COVID-19, including the Delta variant." (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-s..., https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
SCIENCE! or whatever agenda the current administration wants to push. This was the same reason all these "leaders" (including Joe and Kamala) were telling everyone to be skeptical of the jab previously, because "you can't trust the orange man's CDC and the vax he pushed through so fast!"
Big tech Co is pushing a bigger agenda and silencing dissent.
They're talking about a different CDC committee that went against the FDA panel, and the CDC director sided with the FDA panel(which meant going against one recommendation of the CDC panel). So yes, you and Greenwald blaming the CDC for siding with the expert FDA panel.
This kind of misinformation spread on the right is insane and permeates every discussion. It's easier to spread misinformation than to fight it, this is such a sad state of affairs.
The Trump-appointed CDC directer Redfield exerted a ton of pressure in CDC to hide or manipulate data, overrode career civil servants’ decisions, fired or marginalized CDC scientists for doing their jobs, publicly spouted nonsense on Trump’s behalf including promoting conspiracy theories about China, etc.
People inside CDC were (for better or worse) not willing to stick their necks out to resist. CDC screwed up a ton in the first 6–12 months of the pandemic; 2020 was pretty much the worst year ever for the CDC. Federal agencies are sadly not fully functional without effective good-faith leadership and support from the top.
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-the-cd...
I agree, that's an excellent goal! Universal vaccination seems to be an excellent means of achieving it. Besides that, what other thrusts would you like to see?
What triggered me to wrote this is articles like this one [0] that, in my opinion, don't do anything to convince anybody to get vaccinated. All they do is shame people or groups of people. And what's missing from this article? While it talks about case numbers
> Manitoba's Southern Health region, which encompasses the RM of Stanley, made up roughly half of the province's new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, but is only home to around 15 per cent of the population.
it completely leaves out what's actually going on in the hospitals in that particular region. Case numbers aren't meaningful. Especially with vaccines that are great at preventing serious symptoms but only good at preventing spread. Don't get me wrong, I'm vaccinated and I believe everybody should be. But the vaccines aren't gonna protect us from ever getting the virus. We all will get it. What matters is to strategically focus on vulnerable groups and difficult geographical areas. But unfortunately we seem to be looking for a one size fits all approach. But maybe people in rural Manitoba need to be taken care of differently than people in urban Toronto.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-st...
I mean, sure, but in our toolbox of interventions, vaccination is far and away the best one we have in service of those goals.
Right?
So far the playbook seems to have been:
1) Flatten the curve: Use lockdowns, masks and social distancing measures to maintain a situation where hospitals can still cope. This is not a one-time goal, it's an ongoing effort: As long as there was no vaccine, "no significant transmission right now" does not mean everything is back to normal - because if measures are lifted, transmission can quickly increase and become critical again.
2) Because the situation in 1) seriously sucks for everyone, try to come up with solutions to end the pandemic permanently (or at least make it permanently nonthreatening for the health system so we can leave "pandemic mode" and treat it as an ordinary disease). So far the most obvious strategy for this is vaccination - hence the increasing push to get everyone vaccinated.
3) Evolutionary pressures on the virus might cause the vaccines to become less effective. This unfortunately calls into question whether 2) is really able to bring an end to the pandemic. If this is really the case, then new plans are needed, such as boosters, new vaccines, I don't know. This stuff is currently being figured out.
1) and 2) does not seem like "moving the goalposts" to me. The goals were the same since the beginning of the pandemic, though of course the situation and circumstances were changing (you can only keep up a lockdown for so long, vaccines changed from "vague hope" to "viable strategy", etc)
3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected (I remember the virus was being talked about as relatively mutation resistant, which evidently wasn't the case.) - but this was simply new knowledge and new developments that might require a change in strategy - the overall goal to get out of this mess (by either eradicating covid or make it nonthreatening) did not change IMO.
Of course if this goal turns out to be permanently unarchievable, the goalpost shifting might start...
Edit: "3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected". That evolutionary pressures on the virus might^H^H^H will cause the vaccines to become less effective was and is the #1 concern of the critics of mass mRNA vaccination campaigns.
You want to make a randomized, controlled study on entire countries? That's your idea of ethics in science?
> That evolutionary pressures on the virus might^H^H^H will cause the vaccines to become less effective was and is the #1 concern of the critics of mass mRNA vaccination campaigns.
No, it was one argument of whatever seemed convenient at that point to argue against vaccines. Consequently, their only advice how to cope with that problem seems to basically give up and don't do anything.
Honestly, I don't understand what strategy you guys would propose to end the pandemic. Apart from pretending it doesn't exist of course.
* Vaccines are useful in preventing severe disease. Get one, especially if your are not a child. But they are also fragile and it's anybody's guess how they'll interact with a 'likely vaccine evading variant' (quoting Pfizer CEO here).
* It is unclear what effect the vaccines have on the virus evolution. We assume its going to be positive, but have no actual data on it.
* It is unclear what effect the vaccines have on disease spread. The big question is the effect of vaccines on the rate of 'asymptomatic spreaders', which may increase under a regimen of reducing symptom severity.
* Lockdowns have massive costs. Keeping the world running also saves lives, and it's not at all clear that the balance favors hard covid measures.
* Suspended school, masks and social distancing have severe costs in children. I am not sure we thought through the consequences on the next generation.
* The scapegoating shaping online is grotesque. Being a fortunate to be born post WW2 world with its bounty of health, I never understood the story of touching the leper. Until the reaction to the covid pandemic finally illuminated my mind.
The costs of attempts to cure the disease may be worse than the disease. And the disease is horrible.
But I'd like to ask again: You've listed a lot of points on what not to do. But so what should we do to tackle this virus? A virus that will quickly cause enough severe cases to require triage at hospitals.if left unchecked and that will not go away anymore on its own.
Or do you really view this as some sort of slow-motion Armageddon, destinied to bring in the end times - so any resistance is futile on principle?
The hope: Eventually everyone is getting exposed to covid, via vaccines, infection or both. At that point, hopefully, epidemic spikes will become minor, though sadly I don't think there is a path back to pre-pandemic innocence.
* Encourage vaccinations for everyone over 18, and especially over 65 where the bulk of the burden is. I say this with a heavy heart, because there appears to be at least one instance of leaky vaccines selecting for hypervirulent variants in veterinary applications. This is what gives me nightmares. I won't link to it, it's somewhere in my comment history if you are super-curious. Praying for the best. Maybe it's just me being prone to overweigh worst case scenarios. Maybe it's my grandma saying "God's punishment" for instances of lack of humility turning for the worse.
* Lift restrictions for children, especially under 12. I've seen credible data indicating that unvaxxed child covid risk is less than vaxxed parent covid risk. Keep schools open, remove blanket mask mandates, stop pushing vaccines, when it's beyond clear the risk and benefits for them are minuscule, and there are long-term questions around virus evolution trajectory. If I'm not mistaken, something like that happens already in a number of European countries: Swe and Den, possibly UK and NL.
* Exercise regularly, vitamin C & D, zinc, especially in winter season. This is a good time to open the conversation about obesity and diabetes. One side effect of the lockdowns is increased child obesity rates; this metric is trending the wrong way.
* Stay at home if having symptoms. Employer pays no questions asked.
* Probably a system of aid for symptomatic long covid cases. It is unclear how prevalent it is, but, for example, losing lung capacity is an absolute nightmare. Source: I could barely climb a flight of 5 stairs after a bout of pneumonia a few years back. Can't imagine holding a blue collar job in those circumstances.
* Probably skip eating out, partying or sports during an active infection spike, usually about 2 months. See covidestim.org for a very useful resource in estimating whether there is an ongoing spike or not.
* Hospitals are going to get overwhelmed during a spike because they are simply not built for spikes. If that is a concern, we should think on how to quickly scale capacity up and down. Might be very expensive. Perhaps something crazy like a National Health Guard.
* There are going to be victims, mostly old but some young. Please try to keep a bit of decency instead of rushing with every single case on social media for clicks and fear and panic. We are incurring great loss, we are supposed to mourn. It's disturbing.
* Stop scapegoating. The situation is miserable as is, no need to make it even worse through a hellish social landscape.
* Finally, please stop playing God. Recently a grant proposing to essentially design covid at WIH was leaked to the press. The grant was thankfully denied, but the thought that we are 2 inches away from triggering the next pandemic is troubling.
Edit: Come to think of it, this is how the system is supposed to work. People have different stations in life and different concerns. We stand together through hell and high water. We compromise. What we are getting instead is extremes: either hyper drastic measures or, I presume, complete lack of caution.
When we figured out there was asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread. Your advice probably leads to significantly more than 219 million cases worldwide, and 4.5 million dead.
Sure there is: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201116/Study-compares-de...
> When did 'stay at home if sick, live life otherwise' become obsoleted?
When covid spread while the victims were still asymptomatic.
Re asymptomatic. Vaccinated people also spread the disease asymptomatically. I have seen zero rigorous studies showing how vaccinated asymptomatic spread compares with unvaccinated asymptomatic spread. No, picking 3 studies and linking data between them is not a replacement for a rigorous RCT. This is a particularly salient question as the biggest selling point of vaccines is that they reduce symptom severity.
And why are you linking spread & symptom severity?
Core vaccines observable effect: Reduce manifestation of symptoms in infected persons.
It is possible that the vaccinated population has a larger rate and/or absolute numbers of people with no/low symptoms, aka 'asymptomatic spreaders'. It is also possible the other way around. I don't have hard data, nobody else seems to do.
Given that I don't actually know, I'm happy to refrain from speculation. I wish I could say the same from the 'any measure that may have some conceivable effect of reducing R0 must be mandated yesterday, or else you are personally responsible for the death of 4M people worldwide, and counting' crowd.
>> This is a particularly salient question as the biggest selling point of vaccines is that they reduce symptom severity.
You mean the 'any measure that may have some conceivable effect of reducing symptom severity must be mandated yesterday, or else you are personally responsible for the death of 4M people worldwide, and counting' crowd.
Nor that parachutes work!
This is a tech based forum, surely everyone here has experience with a boss who complains that he’s paying you when the system never breaks, not knowing that it’s not breaking because of active measures being taken to prevent it
Anecdotally, I have never heard anyone make the argument "no one can ever get covid again" nor heard of a school being closed because "a person got near a person with COVID".
https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-school...