covid 19

[Trochu]

You're not going to -regret- wearing a mask.

You are not going to -regret- wearing a seatbelt.

You are not going to -regret- using a condom.

The problem is wearing a mask is more align with the pullout method.

[SkinnyG]

Totally not following you. Can you explain?

[BHRmotorsport]

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[Trochu]

I just don't pee in my pants...

[Driven5]

Regardless of what a meme might say, all of the reputable science has repeatedly continued to demonstrate the substantial effectiveness of multi-layer cloth masks. It's not about the ability of the mask to filter to the size of the virus itself, but rather to the size of the much larger droplets carrying the virus. To this end it does a reasonably effective job, and even more so when used in conjunction with other basic precautions. No, it's not a perfect. But it doesn't actually have to be either, so long as (near enough to) all people would simply demonstrate even the most fundamental level of personal responsibility...Which unfortunately too many still refuse to do, hypocritically contributing to making the things they claim to be the most concerned about even worse.

The better second analogy for your meme would be "I'm installing a mosquito net to stop Malaria."

[Trochu]

Regardless of what a meme might say, all of the reputable science has repeatedly continued to demonstrate the substantial effectiveness of multi-layer cloth masks.

It hasn't actually. What it has done, is give the average citizen the ability to decided which is "reputable" depending on if the abstract supports their way of thinking or not. I've stopped looking into it as much recently as I have better things to do, but as far as I'm aware, every single actual study performed in the public has determined that masks are "negligible" in reducing the spread of Covid19.

I'm not going to continue on here though as most minds are already made up, actual medical studies will be deemed "not reputable" if they don't support one's view, and this will do nothing but waste my time, so, Merry Christmas.

[Driven5]

What it has done, is give the average citizen the ability to decided which is "reputable" depending on if the abstract supports their way of thinking or not.

So. Much. Irony.

...but as far as I'm aware, every single actual study performed in the public has determined that masks are "negligible" in reducing the spread of Covid19.

I'd love to see some links to these studies that you personally have deemed as reputable, against the consensus of the vast majority of the scientific community, since I like to form my own take-aways from the actual source of the data rather than a biased third party synopsis. There are many intricacies to what conclusions actually can and can't be drawn from any given study, and the conclusions frequently being cherry picked in an effort to push against the grain are more often than not largely or entirely unjustified in my experience. Note that what you specifically said in 'reducing the spread of COVID' can actually be quite different than masks themselves being ineffective at preventing transmission, depending on how other transmission prevention precautions are or aren't being controlled for. Doing any type of "in the public" study is notoriously difficult to perform in any meaningful way with as severely limited as our historical data set is still.

Merry Saturnalia.

[TooBusy]

Here's my take.
Social Media as a whole has made us all collectively dumber.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, YouTube, all run advanced AI that feeds you more of what you want to hear mixed with an unhealthy smattering of extreme far spectrum ridiculousness, that we are becoming increasingly less well able to recognize as nonsense.

Instead of arguing obtuse points, go watch The Social Dilemma, sip your favorite beverage, and ask yourself if you can believe even half of what you read unless you go to the original source and perform your own in depth analysis.

Thank God, that for the most part, this forum is a place is sane and reasonable discussion about a shared passion for turning crazy ideas into functioning vehicles.

As for COVID
Baby Girl, Wifey Dearest, and I are all infected. Baby girl had almost no symptoms. Stuffy nose and headache for a couple of days. Wifey Dearest stuffy nose, a bit of a cough, mild fever, better in about a week.
Me, it's not the sickest I've ever been, but it may have cracked the top 5, definitely the top 10. Today is day 14 of symptoms. Started like the others, stuffy nose and headache. Day 5 coughing some. Day 6 more coughing, started getting a fever late in the day. Day 7 the fatigue set in and that's the worst. It's exhausting to walk down the hall to take a leak.
Continued to get worse, then started having kidney pain, so I called my Doc. Now I'm on steroids, have a follow up appointment with primary care on Friday, and booking with a urologist as soon as he can see me.

When It's over I'm printing t shirts. Go Covid, Recovered, F*** OFF

[KB58]

I trust that the deniers will let others have their vaccine shots, since the virus doesn't exist.

[Lonnie-S]

Look at the difference and results (infections, hospitalizations, deaths) on a per capita basis for Sweden, the USA, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. The effectiveness of those measures (masks, social distancing, testing, contact tracing and isolation) is simply undeniable.

Well you can deny it, but the facts are completely against you.

Cheers,

P.S.

@TooBusy
I'm sorry to hear you and your family caught it. No matter how you feel about public health measures, it must have been scary. I haven't lost anyone yet, but a friend originally from Wisconsin lost both her mom and stepdad to COVID-19 - in the same week. It was very tough for her.

[Warren Nethercote]

I can't help it ...

Closer to (my) home, compare Nova Scotia to Alberta. The Atlantic Bubble has some of the strictest COVID measures in Canada, including mask regulations, and a daily new COVID case count in the 5 to 15 range for the last two weeks. Alberta has had some of the loosest public health measures in the country and no mandatory mask requirements until this week. Daily new case counts in Alberta have been of the order of a thousand or more. Alberta has about four times the population of Nova Scotia.

There are other parameters I know, but when the per capita case counts vary by a factor of 25 ....

Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario are even worse, largely as a result of overcrowding in First Nations communities where social distancing is impractical in colder weather.

[kreb]

Anti-maskers, I ask you to do something simple. sharply exhale through your mouth with your hand around six inches away. Feel the pressure. Then put on a mask and do the same. Big drop in velocity pressure. Masks significantly reduce how far your exhalation plume travels.

But that may be a little too non-technical, so try this: Grab one of those little hand-held cooling fans that you can buy to blow air on your face. Then take a good anemometer - I recommend the hot-wire type and measure air velocity at a 1' distance. Then do the same thing with the little fan blowing through a mask. You'll get a similar result. This isn't rocket science, folks.

I run a metal fabrication shop. My best fabricator happens to be a full-tilt conspiracy theorist - crisis actors, illuminati, the whole bit. We've learned over the years not to push each others buttons. He thinks that Covid and masks are pure bullsh-t, but I've convinced him to wear the mask when he enters the office. Not because he agrees with them, but because not to do so makes everyone in the office uptight. He's wearing it out of courtesy.

[chrisser]

May be in the minority, but at least I'm consistent. I've been saying the same thing since April.

Give me the virus. I'm in my early 50s, in good health. I can schedule 14 days off, be sick on my terms and be done with it. If I have a bad reaction, then we won't have to waste time testing for Covid because we'll know where it came from. We can schedule it when there are plenty of ICU beds just in case. Could have done this in the summer where there's plenty of sun (vitamin-d) and no chance of weather-related complications.

If I get it now, it will be unplanned, I'll probably end up spreading it before I get diagnosed, we're in the middle of winter with lots of other bugs going around, my immune system is low and it's cold and wet outside. Plus, with the holidays, it's likely it would get spread by me even further. And I could have another cold or the flu at the same time. And now I'm cooped up inside with the windows closed so my wife would almost definitely get it at the same time.

Granted, this type of action wouldn't apply to everyone. But just think how much further we'd be along towards herd immunity if we had just done a controlled infection of the healthy these last nine months.

[Bent Wrench]

I am curious about the blood type angle.
Is it true that certain blood types respond differently to the virus?

[Lonnie-S]

May be in the minority, but at least I'm consistent. I've been saying the same thing since April.

Give me the virus. I'm in my early 50s, in good health. I can schedule 14 days off, be sick on my terms and be done with it. If I have a bad reaction, then we won't have to waste time testing for Covid because we'll know where it came from. We can schedule it when there are plenty of ICU beds just in case. Could have done this in the summer where there's plenty of sun (vitamin-d) and no chance of weather-related complications.

If I get it now, it will be unplanned, I'll probably end up spreading it before I get diagnosed, we're in the middle of winter with lots of other bugs going around, my immune system is low and it's cold and wet outside. Plus, with the holidays, it's likely it would get spread by me even further. And I could have another cold or the flu at the same time. And now I'm cooped up inside with the windows closed so my wife would almost definitely get it at the same time.

Granted, this type of action wouldn't apply to everyone. But just think how much further we'd be along towards herd immunity if we had just done a controlled infection of the healthy these last nine months.

It wouldn't work well if your wish came true. We don't know the exact percentage of people who die from COVID-19 because it is underreported as a cause of death here in the USA, and throughout the world.

Let's just guess that it's 1% of people who fall ill. So, we have roughly 280,000,000 people in the USA. To get to herd immunity we need at least 70% (some say 75%) of the population to be infected. That's 196,000,000 people. If 1% of them die that's 196,000,000 x 0.01 = 1,960,000 folks - almost 2M.

I hope you feel that's too high a price to pay. Especially, since we could have likely held the number of deaths to less than 200,000 if strict public health measures would have been observed from February of 2020. That would be a difference of 1,960,000 - 200,000 = 1,760,000 souls from worst case to best case. Don't you think a little self-sacrifice for 12 months would be worth 1.75M+ lives? I bet you do.

Besides, probably someone you know and love would have been in that 1,960,000 total. And, please think about this. In the herd immunity case our healthcare system would have been beyond overwhelmed. Many people would have gotten zero care. The 1% death rate in that case is likely optimistic.

Merry Christmas. Count your blessings. That's what I'm doing anyway.

Cheers,