I never banned you. Not once. As a matter of fact, I never gave you a warning. Since I came back, I have not given out any warnings but you go on with thinking things aren't fair.
The Economic Disaster of the Pandemic Response
- Thread starter surfnole
- Start date
Thank you for your recent flashback down memory lane. It simply has really uplifted and energized me more than the Every Ready Bunny. Can't you just feel the unconditional warmth, love, maturity, respect and overall personal security found so many times in this public forum? It just emblazes and emboldens me to move forward such as yourself. I share your pain.... Thank you for sharing!
This is what happens when your sole government policy is to "save lives"
“What we’re witnessing at Foxconn is the bankruptcy of ‘the China model,’” said Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, referring to the Taiwanese operator of the plant in central China that produces half of the world’s iPhones. “It’s the collapse of China’s image as a production powerhouse, as well as China’s relationship to globalization.”
In some ways, China’s struggles are of Mr. Xi’s own making. China has clung to harsh “zero-Covid” policies aimed at eradicating Covid infections, even as its vaccination efforts have lagged. For three years, Beijing pumped out propaganda in support of tough controls, arguing they were the only way to protect lives.
“What we’re witnessing at Foxconn is the bankruptcy of ‘the China model,’” said Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, referring to the Taiwanese operator of the plant in central China that produces half of the world’s iPhones. “It’s the collapse of China’s image as a production powerhouse, as well as China’s relationship to globalization.”
In some ways, China’s struggles are of Mr. Xi’s own making. China has clung to harsh “zero-Covid” policies aimed at eradicating Covid infections, even as its vaccination efforts have lagged. For three years, Beijing pumped out propaganda in support of tough controls, arguing they were the only way to protect lives.
DNyuz - Latest Breaking U.S. News
Latest Breaking News, U.S. and World Politics, Crime, Business, Science, Technology, Autos, Entertainment, Culture, Movie, Music, Sports.
dnyuz.com
Yet China is still going through harsh lockdowns and mandates while the rest of the planet has moved on. Makes you wonder if that Zero Covid policy is really about covid or not. I wonder how the over tolerant Chinese government will handle the latest round of protests.
Why China Is Still Stuck in a Zero-Covid Nightmare
Protesters are calling for China to ease restrictions most nations have already ditched. But the country faces a fraught path toward normalcy.
Who decides the ‘facts’?
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
The facts are only as good as who is reporting on them and what angle or narrative they want to follow. The problem with things like this is that people don't know everything that's going on. Even those in the room don't have the full picture in many cases.
Which is why the government doesn’t need to be put in charge of determining ‘truth’.
Just curious then how you would prefer things to work the next time we face a pandemic situation involving a new infectious disease?
I’m not suggesting in any way that every decision of either administration tasked with addressing Covid and all its variants ended up being the best possible decision.
But given that medical science is not conveniently tidy in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4 math is, and our medical knowledge is ever evolving, do you appreciate that federal and state governments have public health roles to play, and have to make the best possible assessments they can about which scientific findings and hypotheses seem most credible, when there’s little time for wait and see or analysis paralysis, and when the cost of being wrong/abundance of caution considerations are also at play?
Monday morning qb’ing months and years later allows us all to critique way above our pay grade. But how do you envision it actually working in a public health crisis if govt officials are not “put in charge of determining “truth””, assuming of course that we all take into account each candidate’s likely ability to choose the best possible info sources and to act in the public’s best interests as they execute their jobs?
I figure it will be nature's way of thinning the herd. Those who choose not to trust the scientific facts, will die off faster. What a win-win for science!
I realize you’re being facetious, but unfortunately infectious diseases don’t allow only the science-deniers/ultra-skeptics to roll the dice and deal with the consequences in a vacuum.
I understand. But if you don't want to do what the science suggests, then you have to accept the consequences.
I tell my uncontrolled diabetics, every time they come to see me, what the possible complications are if they don't control their sugar. I can tell you that when those finally happen, most of them will tell me that they heard me, didn't think it was true or would happen to them, and that they should have listened. Same thing with COVID. There comes a time when you just have to say F-it and let them deal with the consequences of their actions. (This is where I am now) How may times can I tell you to take your cholesterol medication before you suffer a stroke or heart attack? Same thing, IMHO.
I am not saying for the government to stop reacting to infectious diseases or other health issues. But if people choose not to listen and heed the warnings, that is their problem. Stop forcing people to react. But if you don't do X,Y,Z don't ask for my help later. Kind of like the antivax parents who's child get mumps and they are upset because they may become infertile. I want to tell them....if only there was a way to prevent this from happening...OH WAIT!
One major difference though is that your stubborn diabetics don’t pose the same magnitude, urgency and types of threats to immediate public health, stretched virus-specific resources in very short supply, virus mutation impacts, etc etc as the “freedom fighter” ultra-skeptics do during an infectious disease pandemic. And no matter how much anybody says “cool, play dumb games and win dumb prizes, but don’t show up asking for help later”, there’s no reasonable way to keep them from sucking up healthcare resources if/when they do face a severe outcome.
If they could suffer their own consequences without all the collateral damage, I’d agree with the more laisez faire approach (too lazy to look up spelling)… not to suggest that diabetes doesn’t carry its own basket of collateral damage impacts.
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I do agree that nobody has the right to put my health in jeopardy because they want to be a Richard Cranium!!
I find it amusing that you complain about sources when yours tend to be the same two guys on twitter or russian disinformation sites.
not Belem, but is unpacking Gore and Bush errors and/or lies about WMD in Iraq more directly relevant to the thread subject than the questions I asked you about reliance on scientific data when fighting a pandemic?
For starters I’d like the government healthcare officials, that have been pushing gain of function research and funneling money into third parties to conduct the research overseas, not trying to stifle any discussion on the origins of new viruses.
That’s not an environment conducive to arriving at the best public health practices.
The ‘cost of being wrong’ applies to action as well as inaction.
What if they’re acting in their own best interest by trying to squelch research and debate, and not the public’s?
I think the safer course is encouraging debate. The scientific process of finding truth doesn’t require censorship.
I agree that debate should be encouraged.
Yet when it comes to urgent matters of public health, especially when faced with a lethal pandemic, how much time do you want your elected officials to spend hearing every opinion that anybody wishes to voice before making their decisions as to which inputs are most credible and what actions to take in a super timely manner to save lives, health care resources, livelihoods, etc. in the wisest possible manner given the available "facts"?
Since apparently all opinions are equally valid and must be heard, how helpful is it for any POTUS to trumpet and legitimize the input of demon sex astrologers like Dr. Stella Immanuel and drug addict pillow executives with zero medical or scientific training, while admittedly "playing it down" (ie. lying) to the American public about the severity of the pandemic... "it's like a miracle... it will disappear" come the warm weather in April, and to repeatedly dismiss and mock his own public health officials?
Do you think it's important to present the public with timely yet well thought out and consistent messaging that encourages the behavior which the prevailing science at the time suggests has the highest probability of success, or to just let everybody deal with a cacophony of messaging, no matter how reasonable and safe or how potentially dangerous. And then for everybody to fend for themselves, even when infectious diseases make us all so vulnerable to each others' actions and inaction?
Yes, the deliberations and outcome of the Kansas City/Dykes lawsuit regarding gain-of-function research funding and its contribution, if any, to the Covid outbreak will certainly be interesting, but that does nothing to answer the question about how you expect public officials to deal with pandemics or any other critical issues if determining which facts and hypotheses to give the most credence to is somehow taken off their plate.
As long as officials continue to be elected largely as a middle-finger f - you to voters' perceived enemies rather than based on their actual qualifications and trustability to execute their jobs in a manner which best serves ALL their constituents, then deflections like your "hey look over here" protests about gain-of-function research will continue to be the least of our actual worries.
All those arguments could be applied to the Chinese policy for preventing the spread of COVID.
Awesome. But I thought you're a staunch supporter of the party of America first and foremost, so shouldn't we be most concerned with how we as a society, elected and appointed officials and civilians of all stripes, handle the impacts of pandemics and other crises on our own citizenry?
Where they originated and how other countries handle these matters is important too, but it seems to me this thread is most focused on what's happened here in the US. Unless you just prefer to deflect.
Unfortunately you fail to understand what was known with a good degree of certainty and what was not. For example, there is two generations of research on mask filtering that told us that even N95 masks worn by the public wasn't going to mitigate a respiratory virus. Another example is the vaccination. In a novel virus, vaccinating those that were most likely to suffer severe consequences of infection to protect them was wonderful, but there was never any belief that it would prevent infection and its spread by those doing the research. Pfizer didn't even bother to do a scientific study on it as was testified to in front of a Euro board last month. And there was plenty of science suggesting that mass vaccination would actually increase the amount of variants and the speed they came about, making it more dangerous for those that were vulnerable. There are many peer reviewed papers discussing the above.
All this was known. Now to get to the crutch of the matter, the initial estimates of IFR (Infection Fatality Rate).
"In March 2020, with precious little data, the WHO made the alarming claim that 3.4% of people who got COVID had died.
CNBC reported that an early press conference by WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus (March 2020) compared that expected mortality of COVID-19 to the flu:
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said."
Other public health officials had calculated it at 2.3% at the time.
These are alarming numbers.
But, immediately, John Ionnadis, senior epidemiologist at Stanford, and one of the most cited scientist in the world, suggested that decisions were being made on limited data of poor quality that were counter to what was known by science at the time. He warned of this mistake. He was attacked personally and professionally.
He and a couple of his peers did the initial seroprevalence studies in the US. Of course, he was attacked as it demonstrated that Covid was much more widespread than others thought, therefore the IFR was no where near those original numbers.
He did a follow up paper calculating the pre-vaccination IFR. For those aged 0-69, which covers 94% of the global population, the fatality rate was 0.095%, meaning the survival rate for nearly 7.3 billion people was 99.905%.
Broken down by age group:
Survival rates:
60-69 99.5%
50-59 99.8%
40-49 99.97%
30-39 99.99%
20-29 99.997%
0-19 99.9997%
That was based on world wide data, pre-vaccination.
So, while you can say we didn't know at the time, there was also leading experts that were saying that we were panicking and should do the science first before draconian actions were taken.
And in no world should you use an experimental vaccine on folks who had close to zero chance of getting real sick or dying of a disease.
Masks were useless in mitigating Covid.
The vaccine was great for those 70+ and those with immunity issues.
But, we were lied too on many accounts all the way through the pandemic.
Whether those lies were "for our own good" or had some other nefarious implications is irrelevant. The lesson should be to be honest. To actually pay attention to the science (not throw the "anti-science" moniker at people who aren't buying your narrative). And not silence respected scientist who had differing opinions.
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You packed so much in there that even addressing limited parts of it is gonna be a long read.... enjoy, or not...
When you start with "Unfortunately you fail to understand what was known with a good degree of certainty and what was not.", are you actually trying to sound as presumptuously, condescendingly and hilariously off base as you do sound here, like some well credentialed epidemiologist lecturing a 3rd grader?
And then when you follow that groaner with such a cavalcade of cherry-picked and disingenuously misrepresented drivel as what you've tossed out here, it's pretty preposterous. I don't doubt it will get you some applause from the most gullible members of the peanut gallery, but that's not me. I'm capable of digging into research studies, assessing methodology, relative credibility, bias, etc. and separating the actual findings and postulations from how people on message boards represent or misrepresent what the research suggests, as well as how these studies might be regarded in the context of the broader inventory of other corroborating or conflicting research available at the time decisions were being made.
As a few examples:
- You definitively state (and then simply move on, as if your statement alone settles things lol) that "For example, there is two generations of research on mask filtering that told us that even N95 masks worn by the public wasn't going to mitigate a respiratory virus."
Please provide links. Not only do I have my doubts that you've 100% accurately summarized what the studies tell us, but also wonder why you'd fail to provide any info of any kind about these studies' authors, methodology, etc. nor mention how many other studies available at the same time suggested otherwise.
We all know that there are typically multiple studies touching on various aspects of these complex decisions, and that there will almost always be outliers (whether any of those outliers ultimately prove to have some nuggets of value or not), so it's pretty meaningless to simply cite 2 studies or vague "generations of research" and move on.
- Regarding vaccine development -- "...there was never any belief that it would prevent infection and its spread by those doing the research."
What?! When you say "...by those doing the research.", are you suggesting that among everybody researching Covid 19 vaccination prospects from day one (the Alpha variant), nobody ever believed vaccination would "prevent infection and its spread", and also, how narrowly are you defining "prevent infection and its spread"? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2116597
- Re: "And there was plenty of science suggesting that mass vaccination would actually increase the amount of variants and the speed they came about, making it more dangerous for those that were vulnerable. There are many peer reviewed papers discussing the above."
I'm not sure you're accurately representing this as well. Please provide links to this "plenty of science" and some discussion of how these studies compare (including prevalence) to studies suggesting otherwise.
- Re: "And in no world should you use an experimental vaccine on folks who had close to zero chance of getting real sick or dying of a disease."
"Experimental vaccine"? Please explain what scientific basis leads you to label as "experimental" the vaccines that were issued EUA's and later full authorizations (for various specified groups) by the FDA.
Furthermore, what qualifies you (as opposed to those who actually made the decisions) to determine that the known and/or predicted-based-on-prevailing-science risks of vaccination outweighed the known and/or predicted-based-on-prevailing-science advantages, and which specific groups of folks should or shouldn't get the vaccination, etc.?
Pardon me for doubting that whatever research you've done (especially from your Monday morning QB chair) trumps the deliberations of the actual professionals involved in the decision making process at the time they needed to make life or death types of decisions.
Not suggesting that the professionals are infallible, but come on. Get at least an ounce of self-awareness and real world perspective here.
- Re: "Masks were useless in mitigating Covid." Oh, really?
Care to share any prevalence of data that supports that definitive proclamation? Hopefully you understand what the terms "useless" and "mitigate" actually mean, and why hyperbole and public health don't go together so well. (and yes, I'm using the same tone you chose to use with me)
You might want to advise Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic and nearly every other reputable health institution about how "useless" masks were in any Covid "mitigation", especially while the most lethal Covid variants were running rampant.
Can face masks protect against COVID-19?
Face masks can help slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Learn about mask types, which masks to use and how to use them.
www.mayoclinic.org
Btw, you might be interested in reading what a fellow harsh critic of some forms of Covid policy and data, who was a former admirer of your poor unjustifiably "attacked" Dr. Ioannidis, thinks of the Covid-minimizing version of Ioannidis...
What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?
John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Will stop there, but come on man. You can't be serious.
Some important reading about how data gets twisted to feed vaccine-skeptic message board narratives -- https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...in-calculating-vaccine-efficacy-idUSL2N2NK1XA
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Gore, Clinton, Gephardt. All the Democratic luminaries of the day spreading Iraq WMD misinformation.
Some were quick to forget that WMD lies about Iraq were a bipartisan tradition of D.C.
"People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons."
-- Ex President Bill Clinton, Jul. 22, 2003 (Interview with CNN Larry King)
“I asked very direct questions of the top people in the CIA and people who'd served in the Clinton administration. And they said they believed that Saddam Hussein either had weapons or had the components of weapons or the ability to quickly make weapons of mass destruction. What we're worried about is an A-bomb in a Ryder truck in New York, in Washington and St. Louis. It cannot happen. We have to prevent it from happening.
-- Rep. Richard Gephardt (D, MO) Nov. 2, 2003
Cue next deflection from government misinformation…
You packed so much in there that even addressing limited parts of it is gonna be a long read.... enjoy, or not...
When you start with "Unfortunately you fail to understand what was known with a good degree of certainty and what was not.", are you actually trying to sound as presumptuously, condescendingly and hilariously off base as you do sound here, like some well credentialed epidemiologist lecturing a 3rd grader?
And then when you follow that groaner with such a cavalcade of cherry-picked and disingenuously misrepresented drivel as what you've tossed out here, it's pretty preposterous. I don't doubt it will get you some applause from the most gullible members of the peanut gallery, but that's not me. I'm capable of digging into research studies, assessing methodology, relative credibility, bias, etc. and separating the actual findings and postulations from how people on message boards represent or misrepresent what the research suggests, as well as how these studies might be regarded in the context of the broader inventory of other corroborating or conflicting research available at the time decisions were being made.
As a few examples:
- You definitively state (and then simply move on, as if your statement alone settles things lol) that "For example, there is two generations of research on mask filtering that told us that even N95 masks worn by the public wasn't going to mitigate a respiratory virus."
Please provide links. Not only do I have my doubts that you've 100% accurately summarized what the studies tell us, but also wonder why you'd fail to provide any info of any kind about these studies' authors, methodology, etc. nor mention how many other studies available at the same time suggested otherwise.
We all know that there are typically multiple studies touching on various aspects of these complex decisions, and that there will almost always be outliers (whether any of those outliers ultimately prove to have some nuggets of value or not), so it's pretty meaningless to simply cite 2 studies or vague "generations of research" and move on.
- Regarding vaccine development -- "...there was never any belief that it would prevent infection and its spread by those doing the research."
What?! When you say "...by those doing the research.", are you suggesting that among everybody researching Covid 19 vaccination prospects from day one (the Alpha variant), nobody ever believed vaccination would "prevent infection and its spread", and also, how narrowly are you defining "prevent infection and its spread"? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2116597
- Re: "And there was plenty of science suggesting that mass vaccination would actually increase the amount of variants and the speed they came about, making it more dangerous for those that were vulnerable. There are many peer reviewed papers discussing the above."
I'm not sure you're accurately representing this as well. Please provide links to this "plenty of science" and some discussion of how these studies compare (including prevalence) to studies suggesting otherwise.
- Re: "And in no world should you use an experimental vaccine on folks who had close to zero chance of getting real sick or dying of a disease."
"Experimental vaccine"? Please explain what scientific basis leads you to label as "experimental" the vaccines that were issued EUA's and later full authorizations (for various specified groups) by the FDA.
Furthermore, what qualifies you (as opposed to those who actually made the decisions) to determine that the known and/or predicted-based-on-prevailing-science risks of vaccination outweighed the known and/or predicted-based-on-prevailing-science advantages, and which specific groups of folks should or shouldn't get the vaccination, etc.?
Pardon me for doubting that whatever research you've done (especially from your Monday morning QB chair) trumps the deliberations of the actual professionals involved in the decision making process at the time they needed to make life or death types of decisions.
Not suggesting that the professionals are infallible, but come on. Get at least an ounce of self-awareness and real world perspective here.
- Re: "Masks were useless in mitigating Covid." Oh, really?
Care to share any prevalence of data that supports that definitive proclamation? Hopefully you understand what the terms "useless" and "mitigate" actually mean, and why hyperbole and public health don't go together so well. (and yes, I'm using the same tone you chose to use with me)
You might want to advise Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic and nearly every other reputable health institution about how "useless" masks were in any Covid "mitigation", especially while the most lethal Covid variants were running rampant.
Can face masks protect against COVID-19?
Face masks can help slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Learn about mask types, which masks to use and how to use them.
Btw, you might be interested in reading what a fellow harsh critic of some forms of Covid policy and data, who was a former admirer of your poor unjustifiably "attacked" Dr. Ioannidis, thinks of the Covid-minimizing version of Ioannidis...
What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?
John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19sciencebasedmedicine.org
Will stop there, but come on man. You can't be serious.
Some important reading about how data gets twisted to feed vaccine-skeptic message board narratives -- https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...in-calculating-vaccine-efficacy-idUSL2N2NK1XA
I'm not going to take the time to cite hundreds of peer reviewed and pre-print studies. It would take me days. And I am not surprised that you aren't willing to look at this with an open mind. You have literally ignored more than 10-15 studies I have cited in previous threads on various Covid subjects.
I read the link from the dude who was taking a shot at Ioannidis. And in it he projected the IFR at 1.8% as the upper bound. He said the absolute lower bound is .17%. Both were wrong by a good margin. Funny how the government own seroprevalence studies (in 5 different US cities) found the spread of Covid was much higher than was previously estimated providing further evidence that Ioannidis authored studies were correct!!!!
And I have never been a Covid denier. I have been consistent that the virus was horrific for elderly folks and those with extreme immune deficiency regardless of age.
You haven't once noted the tremendous damage done to people by the Covid mitigation strategies forced onto people. Hundred million people's financial lives damaged. School children's education disrupted with all testing scores taking unprecedented drops. Creating an environment of pointing the finger of blame at groups of people, dividing us instead of uniting us. Mental Health crisis across the country.
Nor have you reacted to the myocarditis issue among young men that resulted in several European countries to stop vaccinating the young. In a previous thread I gave citations for several studies that led to those changes in other countries.
As to masking. Why did the lead public health official in this country, Fauci, originally come out and say not too?
I will answer the question for you. Because we had 2 generations of scientific study indicating it wouldn't mitigate the spread. And despite his opinion turnaround it didn't.
For me the masking issue was emblematic of what was state overreach and ignoring the science. But it was small potatoes to the lockdowns and closing of schools for months and in some cases years.
And if you don't understand the mRNA vaccines were experimental when they were given to the public, then I can't help you. There is a long established protocol for introducing new medications to the public that was skipped. Now I think the evidence indicated it was fine to offer it to the 65+ population and those that were severely immune suppressed. But, the young age groups is where I think the evidence was lacking. But, you will undoubtedly point out I am nobody so my opinion doesn't count. So, simply ignore my opinion.
For many of us, we wanted honesty, a scientifically founded approach, and a little modesty about what could be accomplished in the face of this novel virus.
What we got was panic, finger pointing, censorship, and the ignoring of several generations of research.
No one got it right from the beginning. But, this thread was about how to handle a pandemic in the future. And that is the takeaway for me.
More pure opinion from you rather than prevailing scientific opinion from trained experts, as well as more false presumption that because I choose not to pile on all the months/years later hyperbolic Monday morning QBing of message board scientists that somehow means I’m fine with and unsympathetic about all the collateral damage of difficult decisions made during a raging lethal pandemic.
You do you
And btw, the way Dr Fauci handled and explained his original flip re wearing of masks was undoubtedly clumsy and damaged public trust; I’ve never disputed that, but humans are fallible, especially in crisis mode, and he remains a much more qualified and trustworthy leader of public health policy than any of his legions of uberpoliticized and underqualified mockers and demonizers.
You remain absolutely 100% incorrect (and I’m assuming knowingly so) in your continued attempts to dismiss masks as having zero respiratory disease spread mitigation value. Please review the meaning of mitigation if you need to.
That’s why you refuse to present anything approaching a complete picture of the prevailing science on this matter. It certainly does not support your commentary on masks.
Here, I’ll help you, and this easy read includes an honest assessment of Fauci’s missteps on masking, so you should appreciate that…
Anthony Fauci May Not Have 'Lied' About Face Masks, but He Was Not Exactly Honest Either
Face mask skeptics are presenting a February 2020 email from Anthony Fauci, the federal government's leading COVID-19 adviser, as evidence that he "lied"
reason.com
Hold up.
Issue isn’t the time they ‘spend hearing every opinion’, it’s the time they spent trying to shut down discussions and investigations by encouraging censorship of opinions they decided at the outset to reject.
Interesting. Please provide several actual examples, and explain how you would prefer that public officials determine which voices to hear out and which not to (and how to handle it when the opinion giver strongly feels that his or her less regarded opinion needs more and more hearing), since you say that spending time "hearing every opinion" is not the issue... there's gotta be some discretion in terms of which ones they give more credence to than others, right? Or is any and all of that unAmerican censorship?
Also, to make sure we're speaking the same language here...
when people share their ideas and others challenge those ideas, including calling BS where BS is detected, do you consider that "censorship"?
When people sign up for any private enterprise form of social media or other privately run forum for discussing ideas, and accepting the Terms of Service is part of that patronage, do you think enforcement of those Terms of Service is a bad idea and the same as stifling Americans' free speech rights?
Do you agree that there are and should continue to be at least some purposeful public welfare guardrails around unfettered free speech even in public spaces... I will not use the ubiquitous yelling-fire-in-a-crowded-theatre example since Justice Holmes actually flip-flopped on that in a later ruling, but let's use malicious defamation as an example... should that be fine?
Lastly, do you believe that in all circumstances, all opinions should be heard (and continue to be heard if the speaker insists he/she hasn't been given adequate consideration) and all given equal weight?
So, you left out an important part of my statement.And btw, the way Dr Fauci handled and explained his original flip re wearing of masks was undoubtedly clumsy and damaged public trust; I’ve never disputed that, but humans are fallible, especially in crisis mode, and he remains a much more qualified and trustworthy leader of public health policy than any of his legions of uberpoliticized and underqualified mockers and demonizers.
You remain absolutely 100% incorrect (and I’m assuming knowingly so) in your continued attempts to dismiss masks as having zero respiratory disease spread mitigation value. Please review the meaning of mitigation if you need to.
That’s why you refuse to present anything approaching a complete picture of the prevailing science on this matter. It certainly does not support your commentary on masks.
Here, I’ll help you, and this easy read includes an honest assessment of Fauci’s missteps on masking, so you should appreciate that…
Anthony Fauci May Not Have 'Lied' About Face Masks, but He Was Not Exactly Honest Either
Face mask skeptics are presenting a February 2020 email from Anthony Fauci, the federal government's leading COVID-19 adviser, as evidence that he "lied"
"worn by the public"
Here is the latest on N95 versus surgical masks.
Finally, there are a ton of charts looking at population level data for masking.
Comparing different masking mitigation strategies and different countries level of spread pre-mitigation and post mitigation.
There are easy to find if you choose.
Do you agree that words matter and specificity is pretty damn important when discussing complex life-and-death matters?
If you don’t agree with that premise, we can just stop our exchange, since that would make it absolutely futile.
If you do agree, then are you now shifting your original very definitive statements (the ones I was refuting) of:
“For example, there is two generations of research on mask filtering that told us that even N95 masks worn by the public wasn't going to mitigate a respiratory virus.”
and
“Masks were useless in mitigating Covid”
to something more nuanced, like “Public use of masks should not have been expected to mitigate spread of Covid sufficiently to merit the risks of X, Y and Z”?
If you’re sticking with your original zero mitigation contention, then yes, I’ll take the time once again to refute that, since it’s contradicted by the majority of credible science, and virtually every respected medical/public health organization disagrees with you.
If you’re now reframing that to an argument about the degree of mitigation and cost/benefit projections that you think should have been made differently at the time based on the data available, then we can simply agree to disagree.
There’s certainly more room in that stance for reasonable arguments in either direction, although I strongly believe the costs of masking have been overblown by its critics and the justifications and value of the projected benefits at the time masking was being widely promoted have been undervalued by its critics.
And to make 100% sure everybody is on the same page, "mitigate" does NOT mean to prevent. It means to reduce/lessen the severity of something.
Two very different premises there.
Definition of MITIGATE
to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify; to make less severe or painful : alleviate; extenuate… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
In good news Fox is reporting the "triple-demic" is upon us. Supposedly its Covid, Flu and RSV season so now we can combine all these numbers and track its spread as it paralyses the nation. Maybe we can call it CFRSV+?And to make 100% sure everybody is on the same page, "mitigate" does NOT mean to prevent. It means to reduce/lessen the severity of something.
Two very different premises there.
Definition of MITIGATE
to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify; to make less severe or painful : alleviate; extenuate… See the full definition
https://www.foxnews.com/health/us-hospitalizations-rise-respiratory-viruses-spread
Don’t forget seasonal depression, Christmas tree fires and holiday decorations ladder falls, as well as Hanukkah latke grease burns.
Plus FSU men’s hoops.
Spring better get here quick.
Agree 100 %. As the saying goes, “You’re freedom ends at my nose.” My father went into the hospital two years ago with wound issues with his legs. Tested negative when entered and two weeks later when they transferred him to a rehab facility. One week after that, he spiked a fever. Three days later his oxygen saturation cratered. Three days later, he died.
I’ve often wondered how many so called freedom lovers contributed to someone in that facility being able to infect the patients. People can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that the vulnerable can NEVER be protected if the young and healthy take zero precautions and walk around like so many incubators. These are the ones responsible for putting them at risk, not hospitals or even the evil Dr. Fauci. Scientist and proudly elitist since 1986😉
1961, you should read the study out of the state of Kansas from the beginning of the pandemic. Some counties instituted a mask mandate and some kept it voluntary. The mandate counties saw a decrease in cases and the voluntary counties saw an increase. Nothing was absolute, but there was mitigation. As I learned in stats at FSU, things are never 0% or 100%.And to make 100% sure everybody is on the same page, "mitigate" does NOT mean to prevent. It means to reduce/lessen the severity of something.
Two very different premises there.
Definition of MITIGATE
to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify; to make less severe or painful : alleviate; extenuate… See the full definition
Glad you have such first world issues. My father died from COVID THREE WEEKS before the vaccines became available.
