-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Mask Efficacy |OT| Wuhan!! Got You All In Check
- Thread starter keraj37
- Start date
- Status
iconmaster
Banned
Under 2000 COVID deaths per day for the first time since March, according to the CDC.
Contact surfaces are no longer thought to be a major infection vector, so as long as everyone in the household remains at least 6 feet from the chimney and tree throughout the night, Santa can make his usual visit. If you exposed yourself in a Zoom meeting, expect coal.
Contact surfaces are no longer thought to be a major infection vector, so as long as everyone in the household remains at least 6 feet from the chimney and tree throughout the night, Santa can make his usual visit. If you exposed yourself in a Zoom meeting, expect coal.
Last edited:
diffusionx
Gold Member
Joe T.
Member
Scientists can do whatever they want. It's 2020 where flip flopping on major issues that affect billions of people is fine because there is zero accountability, but a whole hell of a lot of money makes it all worthwhile. Dr. Zeke Emanuel, for example, claimed on national TV that we should all lock ourselves up until a vaccine arrives in 12-18 months and he's consulting businesses on how they can safely reopen. Such glaring conflicts of interest no longer seem to register with anyone, so is it any wonder we're treated like idiots? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A scientist studying the data would be well served by as much information as they can get their hands on. They then have the responsibility to interpret that information in the best interest of the public. This is not happening in most places, instead we're beat over the head with oversimplified, sensationalist garbage and 24/7 news station pundits that are completely unqualified to speak about this. Meanwhile anyone with an opposing view on the same publicly available data, experts included, is silenced. Curious, don't you think?
Those dead virus fragments shut down entire cities. You're part of the problem if you're fine with that.
Last edited:
Sejan
Member
I’ve checked a few COVID tracking websites. To this point, there are no confirmed cases in the North Pole. Just to be safe, you may put out some hand sanitizer with your milk and cookies.
JimiNutz
Banned
I've got cold symptoms for the second day in a row - sore throat, blocked nose, cough, general aches and pains.
I'm pretty sure it's just a common cold but the problem is that Covid has very similar symptoms. I don't seem to have fever yet though and I don't really think it's a dry cough as there is definitely some flem/mucus at the back of my throat.
I'll ride it out a few more days and hopefully it'll clear up.
I'm pretty sure it's just a common cold but the problem is that Covid has very similar symptoms. I don't seem to have fever yet though and I don't really think it's a dry cough as there is definitely some flem/mucus at the back of my throat.
I'll ride it out a few more days and hopefully it'll clear up.
I'm getting a flu shot for the first time ever tomorrow. My company has a program where you can reduce your healthcare premium by doing certain things. They pretty much cut a bunch of the activities I used to use to reach the goal and made it so flu shots are worth a ton.
prag16
Banned
Sure on a case by case basis maybe not. But the overall results sure as hell are being used by policy makers to determine when to lock down, close schools, and/or impose other restrictions. They're generally using positivity rate (an absolutely laughable metric to put any stock in) or some arbitrarily determined proportion of new 'cases' per 100,000 residents of a region.
Insanely oversensitive PCR tests sure as hell make a difference here. Unless you think it's an accident that precipitous rises in 'cases' have been generally accompanied by much much smaller (if any in some circumstances) rises in hospitalizations and deaths.
Because the question was whether PCR tests are *always* unsuitable for tracking the virus spread, due to being too sensitive or whatever. But I agree that we would also want to wait to see if hospitalisations and deaths are doubling, to make sure the increasing cases are not just an artefact of how we are testing. (But once we have confirmation this is happening, it is reasonable to expect the trend will continue)
If PCR tests detected currently infected individuals only, quarantining and track and trace could be a bit more efficient, but without blanket testing, the majority of infections would be missed and the virus would continue to spread. So most likely, we would still have had lockdowns. Again, focusing on the fact the PCR test detects dead virus fragments, ignores the fact that this is ok when we care about the rate of increase of total infections, which is what drives the decision to lockdown. (Whether we agree with that decision or not)
Last edited:
Chaplain
Member
Video: "Business owners in Orange County gathered to protest the new guidelines for reopening theme parks in California" (10/20/20)
Video: "With large theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood unlikely to reopen until next year, Disney enthusiasts blasted the newly released theme park reopening guidelines." (10/20/20)
Video: "...why the garbage problem has gotten so much worse during the pandemic" (10/19/20)
Edited
Last edited:
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
To be fair that would actually be quite cool in the UK in non-covid times - where the weather tends to be shit it would allow restaurants to use their outdoor spaces more easily (people tend not to want to sit outside otherwise).
DeepBreath87
Banned
It would be interesting. But it has to ventilate somehow or it would become fogged up very quickly.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
When you have even NPR posting this stuff, you know the school shutdowns were a mistake.
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
CBD helps reduce lung damage from COVID by increasing levels of protective peptide
One way CBD appears to reduce the 'cytokine storm' that damages the lungs and kills many patients with COVID-19 is by enabling an increase in levels of a natural peptide called apelin, which is known to reduce inflammation and whose levels are dramatically reduced in the face of this storm.
www.eurekalert.org
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
NPR has no issues changing their stance based on new information or data, unlike the majority of the garbage sources I see on here, but ok
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
you might have heard of a common cold thats going around right now. most likely you have COVID bud
JimiNutz
Banned
Oh yeah I'm pretty sure it's a cold.
My partner is nagging me to get tested but I'm not buying into it. Unless I start having real difficulties breathing I'll ride out my man flu with dignity.
I will survive long enough to play Demon's Souls at PS5 launch - positive thinking! Thanks for your concern dude
diffusionx
Gold Member
NYC isn't a clean or orderly city in good times, but I hate the outdoor dining as implemented. I enjoy the contrast between walking on the sidewalk and going into a restaurant like an evolved human being, or just window shopping the various places and seeing what is going on. The outdoor dining structures set up now make the place look like a rickety third world disgusting trash heap. It offends my sensibilities. And now they are going to permanent.
The question is will NPR change the tenor of their reporting and move away from mass hysteria and endless lockdown, or do they just flatly report on this stuff and then keep going?
Last edited:
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
NPR's editorial content (not necessarily their News Reporting) is usually very fat to the Left, and for whatever reason, the Left has taken the position that keeping schools closed is good, which is why it surprisd me.
Joe T.
Member
Positive test results do not equal covid cases, but everyone reports them that way, governments included. It's a giant scam. There is nothing about this testing process that is okay, it's an incredibly poor manner of responding to what they claimed was a dangerous virus. If it's so dangerous then why haven't we come up with a much more appropriate test yet (there's an easy answer to this)? I'd settle for a much more reliable testing standard using the tests we already have. China earned praise if you listen to the WHO, Bill Gates and a few of the people here, so why not go the same route they did and stop counting asymptomatic cases? Just a thought.
I'm sure that despite the flood of information and length of this pandemic there are still a lot of people that haven't heard directly from the man that created the PCR tests, Kary Mullis and how Fauci is indirectly tied to that story (spent much of his time on HIV). The expected reaction here is to go hunting for reasons to dismiss the people in the video rather than what they're saying and that's why the Kary clips are important.
As for lock downs, they wouldn't exist at all without China's unmistakable influence in media. I've made this case many times already and will continue making it. The cherry on top is that American social media platforms have a trigger finger on censoring issues and people that go against the mainstream narrative, but they're directly responsible for planting the seed of lock downs in everyone's mind with the "unverified" (fake) videos of people fainting in the streets/stores, being welded in their apartments, etc that came out of China. I find it interesting how those videos have received so little scrutiny.
I could be wrong, but I only remember the tabloid outlets writing/airing stories about those videos. Even the laughable Snopes fact checked them. Politifact fact checked the one of a man supposedly collapsing and dying in NYC. There is a mountain of fake/exaggerated stories around this pandemic that were used to pump up the fear. These lock downs wouldn't exist without that fear.
The man everyone loves to hate, Donald Trump, has great instinct and he was right to want to open everything back up by Easter. It's a shame he had so many entrenched advisors around him that simply went with the globalist flow, not that it mattered at that point because the media had already scared everyone shitless and it became politically damaging to break from lock downs. Key word there: politically.
This pandemic is one really bad joke. Curiosity is dead. Accountability is dead. Hundreds of thousands of people will unnecessarily lose their lives not because of the virus but because of all the mistakes we made in responding to it. Is anyone capable of admitting they made a mistake anymore? The Russian collusion story showed me that became an extreme rarity and this pandemic is giving me a firsthand look at how troubling it is for people to grasp the truth - it flips their worldview upside down.
Edit: millions -> thousands, that one slipped by me while flipping between windows/conversations.
Last edited:
I am still waiting for someone to tell me exactly why we can't use the PCR test to track the spread of the virus.
(Yes, a certain proportion of the daily new cases will be genuine false positives, in the sense the person never had the virus, but if testing capacity is constant then we should not expect this rate to be growing, let alone doubling every X number of days)
ManaByte
Gold Member
California Theme Parks Officials Call Suing a “Viable Option” Over Gov. Newsom’s Reopening Guidelines
A group of officials from California’s major theme parks gathered Wednesday for a press conference to once again voice their outrage over the state’s reopening guidelines for their busi…
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Get fucked Newsom. Now it's not hairdressers suing you, it's the biggest corporation on the planet.
Joe T.
Member
You're ignoring a lot to say that. It's a myopic view of the PCR test and how it applies to this particular coronavirus.
That's a big if and we know for a fact it does not apply to the real world. Testing capacity is not constant, tests per day are fluctuating significantly even in regions or time frames where you believe that to be the case.
Joe T.
Member
Story out of Italy that up to 30% of hospital admissions have been unnecessary and driven by fear (quick Google translate so a little on the sloppy side):
www.ilgiornale.it
Parts of Italy are now under curfew just like France (source: France24).
Cosa non torna sui ricoveri: "Il 30% in ospedale per paura"
Il virologo Pregliasco: "In questo momento di paura e agitazione questi pazienti vengono posti per motivi sociali o per precauzione nei reparti"
www.ilgiornale.it
Parts of Italy are now under curfew just like France (source: France24).
Last edited:
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
diffusionx
Gold Member
All of those "Europe has beaten back the virus while dumbfuck Americans can't figure it out" articles that came out of our media over the summer sure haven't aged well huh?
The truth is what us flubros have been saying for months. Masks don't work. Social distancing doesn't work. Lockdowns don't work. Mass testing doesn't work. Contact tracing doesn't work. It's the goddamn flu. It will spread. Let's be adults and not destroy our society.
The truth is what us flubros have been saying for months. Masks don't work. Social distancing doesn't work. Lockdowns don't work. Mass testing doesn't work. Contact tracing doesn't work. It's the goddamn flu. It will spread. Let's be adults and not destroy our society.
Last edited:
Wait, I didn't hear you because I was busy burning down a 7-Eleven. Say what?
That would imply that someone had given me a reason why we can't use the PCR test to track the spread of the virus, and I was ignoring that reason. But it's the opposite - I am waiting for the reason! How can I ignore an objection that does not exist?
I have been given plenty of reasons why we can't use the PCR test to track who is currently infectious, or reasons to think the media is misrepresenting the figures, or reasons to think lockdowns are not the right solution, or reasons to think the virus is less deadly than presented . And that's all great but it's not what I was asking for. You would think if the answer to my question was so simple and obvious, I would have received it by now.
Sure, but if cases are doubling every X time period then to account for this through increased testing, the testing capacity would have to be doubling too! That's why it's a lot more clear cut then people make out. There are three things that can be happening to the infection rate:
R > 1 - Cases, deaths and hospitalisations will double every X number of days
R = 1 - Cases will be increasing linearly (number of new cases every day will be constant)
R < 1 - The number of cases will be halving every X number of days
That's it. All we need to know, to figure if the virus is under control, is whether cases, deaths and hospitalisations are doubling. We don't need to care about whether the aggregate numbers are 100% accurate, or even necessarily whether testing is increasing (unless testing is also doubling). Exponential growth swamps all other growth. It's not even close.
BadBurger
Is 'That Pure Potato'
Scientists and health experts informed the world that a second wave was inevitable - we'd only be able to reduce its impact. They also warned young people not to get bold but rather remain vigilant. From the article:
The Daily Beast said:
Lots of other countries are imposing curfews now as well. I'm not sure if we've seen one in a US city since around June, but I bet some cities reintroduce them if they haven't already.
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
that is awesome
Joe T.
Member
You're using the word can't which is a clever way to skirt around the argument. This isn't legalese we're arguing - I have no interest in it anyway - it's the lives of billions and how this test is responsible for impacting those lives that I'm talking about.
Whether you can do something and should do something are entirely separate matters, as I touched on before. The two are conflated by the media, governments, and you're doing the same here. The reason is very simple and you've pointed it out yourself: a positive PCR test result does not mean you're infectious. So why are those positive test results from dead virus fragments being used to shut down businesses and impose very strict measures on large populations?
The hospitalization issue is a far more relevant measurement, also an entirely different matter not at all tied to test results (see the large disparities between March/April vs September/October). As pointed out above, up to 30% of Italian hospitalizations due to covid are there because of fear and are ultimately unnecessary. When you dive into each hospital in each region of the world and analyze what's happening in detail you see that the situation is rarely as bad as it's reported. This has happened time and time again.
As an example, the Quebec government has been crying about the hospitals here being "overwhelmed" for months. The problem with that? They've been overwhelmed for years and a Google search will find plenty of results to prove it. It's in French, but note the dates:
Using this to instill fear about covid cases goes well beyond the realm of irresponsible. They can make the case that we can't handle covid on top of the flu and everything else, but that then takes us down into another topic of conversation: the quality of our health care systems.
The problem isn't that covid is flooding hospitals, it's that Canadian health care just isn't as great as some would like to believe. A great way to make this point is to compare Quebec's handling of the pandemic against South Dakota's. Quebec has almost 10x as many people within its borders and the daily reported covid cases in South Dakota are within the spectrum of 50-100% of Quebec's. So how is it South Dakota isn't in panic mode when Quebec's been that way since September? Governor Kristi Noem is making Francois Legault look like the worst premier ever.
There's always Sweden too, but that one's become too easy and I figured the US could use a little counterbalancing to offset all the sensationalized negative coverage.
You ignored this, but it bears repeating: China did not eradicate the virus, they are testing and reporting those results very differently than most other states/countries. They are wide open. South Korea's "mass testing" which media outlets claimed was the reason it was able to contain the virus is only half-true because that "mass testing" was really massive spin. That country of 51+ million had testing capacity of between 10-20K tests per day at their peak which would make it a poor performer within the United States.
The deception being propagated is unreal and you're guilty of it if you're aware of how these PCR test results are being reported.
Hospitalizations always rise this time of year, pandemic or no pandemic. Keep a watchful eye for how your local media and governments report the steadily rising hospitalizations. Not everyone makes the distinction between covid cases and everything else, especially in regions where you're suspected to have covid just for coming within range of someone that tested positive (so much for the utility of masks and social distancing).
I live in France.
It is utter madness.
My small city will be in curfew tomorrow night at 21. All the gym close for 6 weeks (but surely more). I workout 4 times a week at 21h-22h. There are max 10 people in a large gym with one floor. These measures don't make any sense. The media propaganda is disgusting. I am really disappointed by the politicians.
Thank you for your analyzes on this topic which reasure me that some people still get a critical mind.
It is utter madness.
My small city will be in curfew tomorrow night at 21. All the gym close for 6 weeks (but surely more). I workout 4 times a week at 21h-22h. There are max 10 people in a large gym with one floor. These measures don't make any sense. The media propaganda is disgusting. I am really disappointed by the politicians.
Thank you for your analyzes on this topic which reasure me that some people still get a critical mind.
Joe T.
Member
If anyone's still paying attention to the daily covid press briefings in their corner of the world, is the press asking any questions to the government there relating to Sweden?
I think the government here in Quebec has only been asked twice since May and both times tried tap dancing around them. One of the reporters from Epoch Times asked in May, if I remember right, and was never seen again at the briefings. The other came from a radio station the government has a clear bias against, CHOI Radio X, because they wouldn't air one of their "public service" covid ads. The mainstream media and government here has completely avoided comparing our response to Sweden's.
I think the government here in Quebec has only been asked twice since May and both times tried tap dancing around them. One of the reporters from Epoch Times asked in May, if I remember right, and was never seen again at the briefings. The other came from a radio station the government has a clear bias against, CHOI Radio X, because they wouldn't air one of their "public service" covid ads. The mainstream media and government here has completely avoided comparing our response to Sweden's.
The fear is ramping up here in Ohio. Our moron governor is pleading with people because cases are "surging". Well, our testing positivity rate is what it was back in July. But we are testing 40 to 50k people a day now. Back in July it was literally half - 20 to 25k people per day. Apparently Chris Christie joined the governor's press conference to talk about his experience with COVID and Christie apparently said it was a huge mistake to take his mask off at the event at the White House where he believes he contracted COVID. Only one problem there bub, MASKS DON'T KEEP YOU FROM GETTING THE VIRUS!!!!!
Yet our dumbass governor is having Christie come in and add to the narrative he is trying to spin about the virus being out of control, but if we just wore our magikal masks it would keep us from getting the virus, which has never been claimed by "dA sCienZe!". It's flat out propaganda at this point.
That said - hospitalizations are rising in the state. My wife works at one of the biggest healthcare systems in the state and their COVID units are filling up. There is a COVID outbreak in my wife's unit among nurses and the hospital administration is basically trying to bury it and pretend it doesn't exist. I would not be surprised if my wife and I come down with COVID.
So I can get behind reasonable measures to help slow the spread of the virus, but when our governor comes on TV at his press conference and points to increases in daily cases and pleads with us to "take the virus seriously" when the only difference is increased testing, I call bullshit. Then to trot out Christie and have him say that "If only I had kept my mask on I wouldn't have gotten sick!". Don't insult my intelligence.
These politicians are complete scum.
Yet our dumbass governor is having Christie come in and add to the narrative he is trying to spin about the virus being out of control, but if we just wore our magikal masks it would keep us from getting the virus, which has never been claimed by "dA sCienZe!". It's flat out propaganda at this point.
That said - hospitalizations are rising in the state. My wife works at one of the biggest healthcare systems in the state and their COVID units are filling up. There is a COVID outbreak in my wife's unit among nurses and the hospital administration is basically trying to bury it and pretend it doesn't exist. I would not be surprised if my wife and I come down with COVID.
So I can get behind reasonable measures to help slow the spread of the virus, but when our governor comes on TV at his press conference and points to increases in daily cases and pleads with us to "take the virus seriously" when the only difference is increased testing, I call bullshit. Then to trot out Christie and have him say that "If only I had kept my mask on I wouldn't have gotten sick!". Don't insult my intelligence.
These politicians are complete scum.
I'm an early bird. You should have said "hi"! I can't bite with the mask on.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Does this count as a COVID death?
nypost.com
I like how the article phrases it as a “toll of COVID”, when it’s obviously a “toll of government action.” The government killed this woman.
After stopping chemo due to COVID-19, mom of 4 dies of brain cancer
The toll of COVID-19 goes beyond the virus itself. A 31-year-old mom of four has died after she was forced to stop chemotherapy for brain cancer while battling the coronavirus. Emma Jenkinson passe…
nypost.com
I like how the article phrases it as a “toll of COVID”, when it’s obviously a “toll of government action.” The government killed this woman.
Last edited:
It's precisely for this reason that the language we use matters. Say we're 100% opposed to lockdown, 100% opposed to all restrictions to attempt to stop the spread of the virus, and we think the best policy is to create herd immunity in the younger population while shielding the old and vulnerable.
Great. So how do we know the rate at which the virus is spreading in the population? How do we know which areas are being hardest hit and will require more resources in the next few weeks, as infections become illnesses? How do we know how close we are to reaching the peak of the spread, where herd immunity (at least among the exposed population) is achieved? Answer: testing.
Can we use the PCR test to do this? Well, do you think the answer to this question is a piece of legalese or something that has a real tangible impact? The problem with saying PCR testing is bad for all these reasons that we just can't elaborate on is precisely that it doesn't help us deal with real world issues.
But my entire point is to distinguish what the test is capable of telling us, with what we should do with the results! I have purposefully avoiding wading into the lockdown debate and avoided the debate about the role of the media, to avoid conflating these elements, and focus only on what the test is telling us.
The reason that being able to detect dead virus fragments matters is that it tells us that someone did have the coronavirus at a certain point in time. So why should we care about this at all? Why should the fact someone had the virus at some point in the past affect our decisions about what to do now if this person is no longer a threat to anyone? Answer: because what we really care about is not whether a particular person had the virus in the past, but whether the total number of infections is growing. And if in each time period we can get an idea of the total number of infections, by counting dead and live virus fragments, we can estimate this growth rate.
But what we really, actually care about is not whether case numbers are growing. We want to know if they are doubling. We want to know if seeing X number in one period we can expect to see 2X in the next period and 4X in the period after that, and 32X three periods later. That means the virus is growing exponentially and numbers will soon rocket into the sky. And no one has provided me any reason why we can't use PCR tests to do this.
To be perfectly clear, my post is not about whether lockdowns are justified, it is not about the reporting of the virus in media. It is about how we can track the spread of the virus, which applies equally well if you believe we should be following a policy of lockdown, a policy of herd immunity, or some other policy.
prag16
Banned
This is basically what's happening in CT. We are currently doing 15-20k tests per day (in a state of ~3.6 million). Positivity rates are up somewhat (we're talking in the neighborhood of 2% instead of 1% for much of the summer). But combined with the testing increases it appears that cases are SURGING. Meanwhile comparatively very small upticks in hospitalizations and deaths leave those numbers still more than 90% below the peak in the spring. "Oh but just wait two weeks and see how bad it gets." The song remains the same.
Joe T.
Member
You can't avoid that debate and that's the crux of the problem. Testing results should be left exclusively to scientists and medical professionals to analyze, not carelessly communicated in oversimplified form which then naturally gets used by the media to scare the public with sensationalized headlines and then influence government policy. The general public is not well informed.
The press isn't even allowed to bring up questioning relating to Sweden or Taiwan in some places, a problem I've seen firsthand here in Canada's hardest hit area. I'll let you theorize why that's the case, but that kind of tight control over public information is what's keeping us trapped in this mess.
Last edited:
cryptoadam
Banned
The virus is never going away, they have masks to sell, pleix glass, hand sanitizer and then the vaccine.
Jooxed
Gold Member
Of course you can. You make the necessary distinction in your very post.
1.) What scientists, statisticians and medical professionals have reason to believe regarding particular claims in their field(s)
2.) What the media and governments conclude based on 1.)
Conclusions about 1.) are independent of conclusions about 2.) Does a scientist studying how a virus propagates need to know how the media will report on his research before he can reach any conclusions?
Does a statistician modelling the reproductive rate of the virus need to know how the government will use his work before he is able to determine what that rate is? Does a doctor need to know what the latest headlines are in the newspaper, before he can treat his patients?
No, because we start with science to discover facts about the world. And the media and governments can use (or mis-use) those facts in various ways, but it doesn't change the nature of those facts. Whether PCR testing can be used to detect the spread of the virus is a question of fact. And this fact doesn't depend on who is in government or what is broadcast on CNN or whether lockdowns are justified. That is why not only is there nothing wrong with keeping these issues separate, but it makes perfect sense to. This is something you yourself seem to recognise, when you indicate that science and the media should be considered separate spheres.
- Status