The WHO Walks Back an Earlier Assertion That Asymptomatic Transmission is 'Very Rare' (nytimes.com) 122
A top expert at the World Health Organization on Tuesday walked back her earlier assertion that transmission of the coronavirus by people who do not have symptoms is "very rare." From a report: Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who made the original comment at a W.H.O. briefing on Monday, said that it was based on just two or three studies and that it was a "misunderstanding" to say asymptomatic transmission is rare globally. "I was just responding to a question, I wasn't stating a policy of W.H.O. or anything like that," she said. Dr. Van Kerkhove said that the estimates of transmission from people without symptoms come primarily from models, which may not provide an accurate representation. "That's a big open question, and that remains an open question," she said.
Scientists had sharply criticized the W.H.O. for creating confusion on the issue, given the far-ranging public policy implications. Governments around the world have recommended face masks and social distancing measures because of the risk of asymptomatic transmission. A range of scientists said Dr. Van Kerkhove's comments did not reflect the current scientific research. "All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19," scientists at the Harvard Global Health Institute said in a statement on Tuesday.
Scientists had sharply criticized the W.H.O. for creating confusion on the issue, given the far-ranging public policy implications. Governments around the world have recommended face masks and social distancing measures because of the risk of asymptomatic transmission. A range of scientists said Dr. Van Kerkhove's comments did not reflect the current scientific research. "All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19," scientists at the Harvard Global Health Institute said in a statement on Tuesday.
Re:They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:5, Insightful)
You do understand that science doesn't just pop out instant answers, that phenomena require study, and that further study of any phenomenon may demonstrate that early assumptions were false. Models are, by their nature, always wrong in the strict sense of the word.
This virus has only been known about for about six and a half months. Early assumptions were based off of what we know about related viruses; mainly SARS and MERS. As I have said repeatedly in multiple places, using these two viruses as proxies was a reasonable assumption. It turned out to be wrong, of course, but knowledge in the case of any pathogen is as much a function of time as anything else. In other words, when you're trying to sort out how contagious a virus may be, the only thing you can really do is observe the virility of the pathogen.
You demand perfect answers of any researchers on a virus that we've known about for less of a year, then perhaps you should analyze your own assumptions about how quickly research into any pathogen can begin to produce accurate answers. If WHO had just sat on its ass and waited for the perfect knowledge you demand, then things would have been much worse.
Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:2)
Wouldnâ(TM)t the smart answer be to assume the worst? And plan for the worst? Until you have sufficient proof to the contrary? The WHO Has been screwing up since the beginning on this one. They originally said masks wouldnt be helpful. It is because this statement that many people refuse to still wear them. They also tried covering for China initially, which resulted in more loss of containment and subsequent higher peak numbers. Dont get me wrong, I also hold the CDC responsible for some shortfalls to
Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:5, Insightful)
If WHO assumed the worst, we'd literally be in pandemic mode every few years. Novel new pathogens are always evolving. There's a balance between caution and alarm, and WHO, like any researcher body that has to deal with really bad things that might cause substantial harm, has to sit astride that. In some ways, it's an impossible situation. There's no way to predict when a new variant on a pathogen might arise, where it might arise, and what that novelty entails. WHO did what any researcher would do when something new comes along; make models based upon how similar phenomenon behave.
The complaints here boil down to "why weren't epidemiologists and virologists omniscient?" That's what it really is. Competence is apparently only measured by having absolutely perfect information. Anything less than perfect means absolutely worthless. Of course, that's an idiotic response, whether it's a virus or a volcano.
What it does demonstrate to me is that the average person really doesn't understand science, but that engineers and technicians understand it even less, because they conflate how their areas of expertise WITH science. But science doesn't deliver nice tidy answers, not without a helluva lot of work. And when it comes to something like a novel virus, there's also simply going to be observing how it behaves, and that means it takes time. WHO put off declaring a pandemic because, as it now turns out, SARS-CoV-2 doesn't behave like its cousins. But that failure is hardly a flaw, it's part of trying to balance public health against making a declaration prematurely.
There are no perfect answers. The universe doesn't behave like code, at least not at the level we operate. Randomness, mutation, these are all real things, and viruses have been in an arms race against other orders of life for at least 3.7 billion years. The only thing anyone can say with certainty is that every few decades, a really bad variant of a pathogen is going to come along and sweep across the globe, and every few iterations, it will be a very very bad variant.
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but there is also a engineering/logistics side of the WHO as well right? I dont think it is purely science. The scenario of someone weaponizing the common cold has been around since I was in public schools in the 80s. I think a gameplan that is something better than 'this is what we did for the FLU in 1918' should be expected. its not even a similar virus. I am not blaming them for not being omnicient, but we have known for decades that 6 feet is bullshit. We also know that to make 6 feet a real possible th
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Are you sure, they are a research body? Like they have a laboratories with test tubes and stuff?
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Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:1)
I suspect that with the climate warming up as it is, deadly pathogens will appear quicker than the past "every few decades" - I recall a talk I had with a tropical disease doctor in 1990 about this very issue. Environmental warming and human activities in tropical areas would bring about plagues humanity hasn't seen in centuries. And with so many people living in close quarters (cities) it would be a disaster.
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They originally said masks wouldnt be helpful. It is because this statement that many people refuse to still wear them.
The masks still aren't all that helpful for most people. Wearing one does not protect you at all. The virus passes right through most of what people have access to and masks do not cover your eyes. Most people I see wearing them aren't even wearing them correctly. The only benefit of masks is to decrease the velocity of the virus from infected people, decreasing the radius around them it can spread. Social distancing, covering your mouth/turning away from others when sneezing/coughing, not touching you
Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:4, Insightful)
the masks ARE helpful, in the OPPOSITE direction you think. Thats why you are supposed act as if you yourself are infected. Theyve revised surface contact exposure to being very low risk. If I am infected and i touch something, you touching it is not the highest risk factor to catching it. 6 feet is actually NOT effective. When you cough, or sing, or talk on your damn cell phone loudly, you are aerosolizing your phlegm and spit into micro droplets. Those droplets travel up to 23 feet. NOT 6 feet. HOWEVER if you cough or talk while wearing a mask, it DOES get reduced to just a few feet. If you think a mask protects YOU, then youre fucked. Its all the other assholes NOT wearing a mask that put YOU in jeapardy. Some asshole walks into the grocery without a mask, talking loudly into his cell phone the entire time, practically following you every time you think he is going to go down another aisle? Yea, thats exactly how you catch it. It got on your face, it got on in your eyes, your nose. YOU wear a mask because there is a chance you have the virus and just dont know it. IF 100% of the people were to wear a mask, then the spread would be handicapped a huge amount. Masks are not PPE for you, they are PPE for everyone else. For every person not wearing a mask, that person is saying 'fuck you i hope you catch my shit'. Its like fucking you without a condom. The only mistake is to think the mask protects You. If you are not wearing pants, and some other guy is not wearing pants, and he pisses on you, you are going to get a lot of piss on you. If you wear pants, you might protect yourself a little from the piss but the real protection is if the other guy is wearing pants. Then the piss doesnt travel over to you to get you wet in the first place. It works just like that. Make everyone wear pants so you dont get pissed on, make everyone wear masks so their germs stay in their mouth. The back of the throat is literally the only place it spreads from. And yea, ive seen that asshole in the store that literally took their mask off to cough.. what a fucking douche.
Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:2)
There is zero evidence the virus will go through the material of a mask. And you have to be pretty bad at physics to think that a largely solid object won't partially block even a steam of virions.
Masks make it more difficult to breathe because the partially block air. And air is made of of much smaller molecules than a virion.
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They originally said masks wouldnt be helpful. It is because this statement that many people refuse to still wear them.
The masks still aren't all that helpful for most people. Wearing one does not protect you at all. The virus passes right through most of what people have access to and masks do not cover your eyes. Most people I see wearing them aren't even wearing them correctly. The only benefit of masks is to decrease the velocity of the virus from infected people, decreasing the radius around them it can spread. Social distancing, covering your mouth/turning away from others when sneezing/coughing, not touching your face and washing hands regularly are just as effective if not more so. Masks might even be worse as they give a false sense of safety and people are less rigorous with the other precautions. They can provide some value in cases where distancing is not possible. Wearing them outside with no one around is just plain ridiculous. I see many people walking their dogs wearing one.
Mask are nothing but security theater. Most don't block the virus particles even when worn correctly - and many don't. Also, people touch both under the mask and their eyes all the time, and we already know that most infections are happening via the hands and a contaminated surface.
Proper masks will block the virus - and everything else. This can hurt your immune response and actually make you more likely to catch the virus if exposed. Also, such a mask traps humidity and may cause a fluid buildup in the lu
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Just false. It does protect you, although it protects other people more.
Completely wrong. If surface transmission was a major thing, all the people getting mail and food delivered and getting takeout would have continued to spread this. They haven't
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You do understand that science doesn't just pop out instant answers, that phenomena require study, and that further study of any phenomenon may demonstrate that early assumptions were false.
And I was thinking that science had moved on to 'if Trump said something, all science automatically says the opposite'. That's at least the impression I get from reading the news the past 3.5 years. It's also been amplified the past 5 months. Anything Trump has said about covid, reports immediately come out in the hours and days after refuting every word of it (especially the words that were quoted out of context). Now you're telling me the truth is actually science takes time? Different studies might
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That's funny. The impression I've gotten in the last 3-1/2 years is that if science says something that doesn't help Trump politically, it must be "fake news" to Trump supporters.
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I'm not demanding perfect answers from researchers. Of course it's inevitable that the scientists won't know much about the virus yet - how could they? But somewhere along the line, the message became "we're following the science". What's to follow, if nothing is known yet? I remember a scientist here in the UK warning that millions would likely die. He was listened to, and we locked the whole country down, costing billions of pounds, and probably killing many people. He asserted this based on a computer m
Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:2)
The Govt didn't listen to him. If they had, around 60,000 fewer Brits would be dead.
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False
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"Without lock down the death rate would have been much higher and healthcare may have fallen apart".
Would it though? Would any of these thing have happened? It certainly hasn't been proved - merely predicted by a massively nonlinear computer model What is definite is that the UK economy is shat through a binbag thanks to the lockdown - which will defininitely cause misery and death on an ongoing basis.
Science: the right answer, just not right now (Score:2)
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That assertion is a lie. The WHO was purposefully given little authority to tell countries what to do and made reliant on information given to it by member countries. They gather information, analyze it, alert member countries to potential problems, and work on health-related research. It's not like they have subpoena power. They are not an investigative law enforcement agency. They rely on member countries being open and honest to do their job.
Re:They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:4, Informative)
WHO didn't flat out lie. They were wrong. There is a difference. They didn't support China, because by the time the WHO had made comments about the matter that might lead people to think it was not too serious, China had already moved on to treating the illness as severe and preparing to start lockdowns. I don't excuse the WHO for this, however, and they should rightly be held accountable for not releasing the most up to date relevant information. It's really not any better than what Trump did with that hurricane weather forecast... regurgitating obsolete information even though newer data was available at the time that completely contradicted what might have been understood earlier.
China didn't even lie... they made an error in judgement. One that only proved to be colossally bad in hindsight. They did not originally gauge the illness at being that serious because it was not realized until nearly the end of December that asymptomatic transmission was not as improbable as it often is with a coronavirus. Had they announced the concerns that the doctor who discovered it had to the world as soon as they knew about it and the illness turned out to be no more serious than most other coronviruses, then they would have been accused of needlessly starting a worldwide panic. I'm not saying it was actually right for China to actually suppress this information, only that I can at least understand their reason for doing so. Within a week of the discovery of asymptomatic transmission, and as the number of cases in China started really exploding, China made the formal announcement to the world of the Coronavirus's existence.
The rest of the world, especially in Europe and North America, reacted to this news with a level of indifference that itself bordered on no less negligence than that of the WHO itself for releasing outdated information, or even China for mistakenly suppressing the information about the coronavirus, and this indifference ended up causing cases to explode as infected people moved around the world from location to location, unknowingly spreading the virus, and setting the stage for what has become the worst economic disaster in nearly a century.
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I don't excuse the WHO for this
I do. The WHO is an organisation bound by certain rules. Those rules among other things require them to toe the government line on a local issue. So if the Chinese government says they are experiencing a virus in the public that doesn't transmit person to person, despite all evidence to the contrary then that's the conclusion the WHO need to report on. Why? Because that's the way WE set them up. We being the USA, the UK, and the rest of the UN who wrote the WHO's charter as an organisation that is only allo
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I do. The WHO is an organisation bound by certain rules. Those rules among other things require them to toe the government line on a local issue. So if the Chinese government says they are experiencing a virus in the public that doesn't transmit person to person, despite all evidence to the contrary then that's the conclusion the WHO need to report on. Why? Because that's the way WE set them up. We being the USA, the UK, and the rest of the UN who wrote the WHO's charter as an organisation that is only allowed to analyse official government data.
We the very people who criticise the WHO for doing exactly what we tell them to.
Utter bullshit.
Nowhere in the WHO's constitution [who.int] does it limit how they gather information, or from whom. Their constitution requires member nations to furnish reports, but there is absolutely nothing stopping them from using other data from anyone they deem reliable (which in fact they do all the time with NGOs). There is certainly NOTHING in their constitution requiring them to "toe the government line", and NOTHING that says the WHO is "only allowed to analyse official government data".
Why in the wo
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That's the problem with credibility, once you squander it, it's gone.
Not true at all.
Tons of people still think Trump has credibility.
I'm sure there are even a few that think you have some left.
People will often just believe what they want to believe.
Re:They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone is "asymptomatic" (meaning "will never get symptoms for the duration of the infection") then presumably their immune system has mounted a robust defense against the infection, and presumably their viral load in their body and saliva will be much lower than other people, and so the chance of catching the disease from them will be that much lower.
If someone is "presymptomatic" (meaning they don't have symptoms yet but will get them soon) then presumably they do have a higher viral load than than the asymptomatic ones, and are more likely to infect others.
There's the critical thinking for you, @melted. It's entirely plausible that asymptomatic people have a lower rate of transmission. It's entirely plausible that this lower rate is so much lower than it's significant. As to whether it is indeed true, and significant, I'd leave that to the researchers.
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It's been a while now since I read about it (two months) but I went on the assumption that asymptomatic people are weak spreaders while presymptomatic people are strong spreaders. Of course before symptoms show up it is hard to distinguish the two.
So I think there has been a mixup at the WHO about the terminology and because it's open season for blaming the WHO everyone pounces on that.
It is also confusing that they start about this now at the WHO because it presumes new studies. Do they contradict the old
Re:They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the study from begin april distinguishing between asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission
https://science.sciencemag.org... [sciencemag.org]
The date at the top is 8 may but it was published a month earlier.
As with any "study" nowadays, one must ask (Score:1)
As with any "study" nowadays, one must ask a question: has it been retracted yet? Not saying it's not true, just asking if someone else has found it problematic. Seems to me the level of "scientific consensus" in medicine roughly mirrors that around whether eggs are good or bad for you.
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It's horrible these days. It would be tolerable if shaky information is represented as such (although you really want more solid ground to stand on) but when reputable journals start publishing rubbish it becomes hard to make things work.
But no, this article has not been retracted and it is over two months old.So we probably have this contagious period two-three days before symptoms and 5 days after symptoms and that is when most of transmission happens. Most but not all.
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I'm not talking about caveats. There are procedures for peer review. There was a major article in the Lancet which was retracted ( https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com] )
because the basic procedures were not followed. The lancet had never seen any of the data which had been used.
If the article had used appropriate methodoly then the difficulty of interpreting would apply. Large study shows no benefit of HCQ. This is not that easy to interpret. Maybe HCQ only works in the right window for the right subset and th
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The lancet had never seen any of the data which had been used.
That's not actually unusual. The requirement to deposit data for any scientific study is pretty new (roughly the last decade), and for medical work, rare due to issues with privacy.
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Re: They haven't been right about anything ever (Score:2)
If the viral load is strong enough to measure with a test, it is strong enough to spread when you cough, or when you spray spit in someones face while talking to them in a bar. I would err on the side of caution and just tell everyone to pretend like they have the virus until you know that you are now immune. That unfortunately means keep the mask on
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The common meaning of asymptomatic is not showing any symptoms at the moment. It does not mean they never will get the symptoms or that they did not have them in the past. For instance, some tumors may be called asymptomatic because they're not causing any problems but the doctors keep a close eye on them because they might become malignant later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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From TFA:
The W.H.O.’s thinking on asymptomatic transmission does not appear to have changed much since February, when the W.H.O. China Joint Mission reported that “the proportion of truly asymptomatic infections is unclear, but appears to be relatively rare and does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.”
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If someone is "asymptomatic" (meaning "will never get symptoms for the duration of the infection") then presumably their immune system has mounted a robust defense against the infection, and presumably their viral load in their body and saliva will be much lower than other people, and so the chance of catching the disease from them will be that much lower.
100% wrong. No need to presume...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... [nejm.org]
There's the critical thinking for you,
Wrong.
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100% wrong. No need to presume...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... [nejm.org]
That's a bold statement for a study of ONE patient!
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If someone is "asymptomatic" (meaning "will never get symptoms for the duration of the infection") then presumably their immune system has mounted a robust defense against the infection
Apparently the body mounting an overly robust defence is one of the things killing people. But how much virus those who are asymptomatic shed, I don't know.
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Seriously - I literally came here to refer to this as a "clown show", only to see you beat me to the punch with the wording. Early on in this pandemic I defended them and their ridiculous claims because "they're the experts". I utterly gave up on them showing any signs of competence some time around perhaps mid to late February. What on Earth is wrong with these people? How on earth did they get to their positions?
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I'm not and never have been an optimist about the timelines for driver-free FSD. That said, Autopilot is friggin' magic, and keeps getting better.
As for everything else in the past year: GF3 went online ahead of schedule. GF3 phase 2 is way ahead of schedule. Model Y production started way ahead of schedule. GF4 is head of even GF3's schedule.
If you doubt how well Tesla is doing, take a gander at the stock price to see what the market thinks about how well Tesla is doing.
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Not to mention that this COVID pandemic just happened to occur at the start of allergy season when countless people are busily sneezing, snuffling and choking on their allergy baseed mucus. Asymptomatic from COVID certainly doesn't mean cough or sneeze free. (and those damnable cottonwoods filling the air with their seeds and fibres. They're not even an allergen just a dang irritant. )
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Ever? You have read the entire history of everything WHO has said from the very start? Or are you just presenting the opinion that you hate the WHO and felt the need to add false statements to make it sound more impressive?
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Only if you pay attention to the headlines instead of what they actually say.
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Christ. What the fuck is wrong with you?
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Dang. Beat me to it. While I don't share your sentiment I do think the headline invited the reference.
Re:World Anything Anything (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more like they're a scientific organization and are releasing information that needs to be understood properly. I'd also expect them to change their views on things as new research is done
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Are those criteria falsifiable?
That is an excuse to being overtly wrong about anything. A blanket cover of "science!" doesn't change this.
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It's far better so say "we don't know yet" or "that's still being looked into" because some of their other statements have caused a lot problems. One of the earliest statements that they made during the pandemic was that they didn't yet have any evidence that t
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Perhaps the solution is actual science education. RAther than blaming experts, it strikes me a lot of people, including many here, have no real idea how science works. They have this sort of Popper-esque view of science.
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So often those words are said, but are left out of the headlines. Or when they are included in news reports, they're used as "proof" that the experts don't know what they're talking about.
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Reality is they know the absolutely fucked up and as more of their idiotic fuck up is exposed, they keep changing the story to try and hide it. Simply tossing out lie after lie and seeing which ones will stick to protect their lying incompetent asses. They have now changed the story so many times, the silly crap they are saying is now of the well, bullshit baffles brains variety, just empty gaslighting. Heads will role from high to low, someone has to pay the price of this fuckup, lots of someone's across t
Re: World Anything Anything (Score:4, Insightful)
I get it. You feel impotent. You don't have any expertise in the area, and yet experts are saying things you don't like to hear. You have a decision point; accept that science will produce imperfect results, or alternatively just mindlessly and petulantly attack. The difference between a rational creature and an irrational one is that a rational creature will understand when his or her emotional responses are clouding reason. An irrational creature will just attack, because there's no impulse control, no sense that just because all the answers aren't laid before you in an instant, that somehow there's some vast conspiracy.
I'd say "grow up", but I'm not sure most humans whose drivers license says they are an adult are in fact adults at all. They, like you, can't moderate their emotions, and just become angry, petulant, and, frankly, stupid.
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You don't have any expertise in the area, and yet experts are saying things you don't like to hear.
Which experts? I think that's the issue for most folks; the situation changes depending on the expert you're talking to, and no one has any kind of reputation for being accurate. Which leaves us depending on politicians to decide the best route forward.
That's terrifying AND frustrating. Politicians are fucking morons and not to be trusted running anything more complicated or better funded than a lemonade stand, yet here we are.
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Yeah, experts are all just sociopaths who don't care about giving you bad advice, as long as you take theirs. Nobody should listen to sociopaths, and since the government can't even run a lemonade stand, we shouldn't listen to them either. Who is it we're supposed to listen to again? I guess the smart money says we should all be left to our own devices. That should work out well.
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Yeah, experts are all just sociopaths who don't care about giving you bad advice, as long as you take theirs.
Nobody should listen to sociopaths, and since the government can't even run a lemonade stand, we shouldn't listen to them either. Who is it we're supposed to listen to again? I guess the smart money says we should all be left to our own devices. That should work out well.
Now you begin to understand the scope of the problem.
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You can always cry while calling out for "Mommy!"...
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They are just as completely unreliable as all of the National Anything Anythings, and the Anything Anything Corporation LLC.
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It was an irresponsible thing to say (Score:5, Insightful)
The earlier article said that people who are "asymptomatic" -- who never develop symptoms -- would not transmit the virus, but those who were "presymptomatic" could.
If I have no symptoms, either I am uninfected, and cannot transmit the virus; or I am infected but will never develop symptoms, and according to the previous article will not likely transmit the virus; or I am infected and will eventually get sick, and according to the previous article I might be contagious. I still don't know whether I can spread the virus or not. But the mouth breathers are not going to make that distinction.
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The previous statement is already being held up as solid proof, by the same people that have been screaming from the rooftops to defund the WHO for the past few weeks, that the lockdowns are completely uncalled for and the virus isn't as dangerous as we've been told. It's one of the biggest blunders the WHO could have made if they want to retain any belief in the general public that the virus is dangerous.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this statement and retraction in such s
Yes, profitable... (Score:1)
Profitable to WHO?
You answered your own question.
Re: It was an irresponsible thing to say (Score:2)
If simply 100% compliance of mask wearing is all it takes to keep the stores open, and keep other things open so that our economy does not get destroyed, then I have no problem wearing a damn mask. I think the lockdowns wouldnt have been necessary if we had other tools in place, but a lot of that was compensation for the fact we gave china all our disposable PPE in January when the WHO was downplaying the outbreak in wuhan, at the request of the Chinese government. It wasnt the virus alone that caused a loc
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It's one of the biggest blunders the WHO could have made if they want to retain any belief in the general public that the virus is dangerous.
At this stage, anyone who doesn't believe the virus is dangerous. Does so for political reasons. They ain't going to change for anything other than political reasons either. It won't be the WHO telling them what to think.
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The earlier article said that people who are "asymptomatic" -- who never develop symptoms -- would not transmit the virus, but those who were "presymptomatic" could.
Any claim asymptomatic people can't spread is nonsense.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... [nejm.org]
Getting to be a habit (Score:2, Troll)
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Looking at what WHO really does, compared to what they tally and report and predict, I'm thinking we really don't need the WHO. or the United Nations for that matter.
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Of course, if the next castle has even more weapons
Re: Getting to be a habit (Score:1)
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What WHO really does? I always thought of WHO as Interpol of police. They do not carry out their own investigation. They do not arrest people. They just facilitate exchange of information. They manage people and material exchange. But if you came up with some claim, back it up by some evidence (valid or not) and pass that information to WHO, they are just going to pass it on. They do not try to reproduce your results and validate them. At best they can pass it along wit
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Given they've only walked back one statement for being technically inaccurate do you have any basis for your assertion other than being a raving republican troll?
Or maybe you're one of those people who will ignore everything because we can never be 100% sure about something. I haven't checked your post history and it's been a while since we discussed this, but I'm guessing you're also a climate change denier because you think the science isn't settled right?
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So when they stated it did not spread from person-to-person [businessinsider.com], then later "corrected" the statement, that's not an error?
When they originally were adamant you should not wear a mask unless you were a health-care worker, and later "corrected" their recommendation and say you should [khn.org] wear a mask?
This is their 3rd strike in just a few months, on a singular worldwide pandemic. I think it's OK to take what they say, wait a few weeks and see if they change course, and THEN consider their recommendations.
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So when they stated it did not spread from person-to-person
Just the usual Lynnwood lies.
WHO didn't say it did not spread person to person. You are just lying.
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OK.... (Score:2)
All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19
And what actual evidence is that? Just in case it needs to be pointed out, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In other words, just because community transmission is occurring and you can't figure out why, that's not evidence of asymptomatic transmission. Evidence of asymptomatic transmission is documented cases of a person confirmed to have an active SARS-CoV-2 infection, and confirmed to have no symptoms (rather than just self-reporting no symptoms) passing their infection to others.
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This is just one instance, but the choir practice in Washington State - remember that? 60 people - all with NO symptoms, they were very careful about that - gathered for a choir practice. A couple of hours or so. Two weeks later, 45 of them have it. A week later and it was over 50. Out of 60. THAT is evidence.
YOU! Over there - NO SINGING! Probably only one out of the 60 had it - spraying CoV-2 around the room like a god-damn flamethrower. Pun intended.
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Among 61 persons who attended a March 10 choir practice at which one person was known to be symptomatic, 53 cases were identified, including 33 confirmed and 20 probable cases (secondary attack rates of 53.3% among confirmed cases and 86.7% among all cases).
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Huh - thanks uh... I'll just call you Jabberwalki. I did not know that. Wow, that group has just been upgraded to complete idiots in my book. Still shows the POWER of singing though - just look at those infection rates!
Also: "Rare" is not "absent" & it just takes (Score:3)
Whether it's rare or common, though, is not really a significant issue for policy planners. The issue is whether it's present, or "vanishingly rare to absent".
If asymptomatic transmission absent (or vanishingly rare), you can use symptom detection (like fever detection by remote infrarared thermometers or worker temperature-sensing wristbands) to segregate potential spreaders from the rest of the population. This lets you reopen from quarantine while you still have substantial numbers of infected and of vulnerable, but don't have an immunization, yet still have only a small number of extra cases and keep the pandemic dying out.
If it's merely rare, symptom detection is not enough. One spreader in a crowd can infect hundreds - who then go through the typical cycle and infect more. You get a lot of extra cases and deaths, and may return the pandemic to exponential growth. So, though they still help, symptom detectors don't save you. You need better screening, or to throw in the towel and retain isolation measures that keep most people safe even with the pandemic in progress.
Consider that the US and other countries used symptom screening of air travelers for a couple months, yet the virus still took hold in essentially every country on Earth. To me that's an indicator that transmission from asymptomatic cases (whether "presympomatic" or who eventually run the whole disease course without detectable symptoms) is likely insufficiently rare for symptom detection alone to be adequate for reopening strategies.
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Which symptoms? (Score:1)
Google: define:walk back (Score:2)
Definition of walk back. transitive verb. US. : to retreat from or distance oneself from (a previously stated opinion or position) try not to say anything in the primary campaign that you might need to walk back in the general election.
Oh, so NOW the models are accurate? (Score:3)
Jeez, you guys haven't gotten a single model prediction correct. Why the hell should we believe you now?
WHO has a mission. (Score:1)
So... (Score:1)
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It's political.
There have been 328 cases in my county of 48,000 people. And 5 deaths, all people over 80.
Last Friday the governor said we have to wear masks. Probably until November. Depending on who wins the election.
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It's political.
There have been 328 cases in my county of 48,000 people. And 5 deaths, all people over 80.
Last Friday the governor said we have to wear masks. Probably until November. Depending on who wins the election.
Your statements just aren't logically connected. Why should the current level of cases/deaths have any influence on the decision of whether to wear masks? Masks are meant to be a preventative measure, so the question is not how many cases we had already; the question is "how many cases there might be in future?" Stupid countries like the USA and the UK waited till everyone was already infected before doing preventative measures. Clever countries like Taiwan, New Zeland and Slovakia did their prevention
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I guess we will see soon if you all stay magically immune. After the restrictions are removed and you all go back outside.
Be sure to keep us posted.
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And the restrictions are what kept the numbers low.
Ok, which restrictions are you referring to? Because there were lots and lots of different restrictions put in place, with disastrous economic impacts.
This is why I get tired of this discussion. Nobody is saying that there should have been NO restrictions, just that they have gone way overboard in most cases. I could probably come up with a hundred examples, but here is one: My county didn't let LANDSCAPERS work for the longest time. Landscapers, who's job is about as socially isolated as they come an
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Nobody is saying that there should have been NO restrictions, just that they have gone way overboard in most cases.
Plenty of people have been calling for no restrictions. Claiming it's no worse than a cold or flu.
I (maybe incorrectly) assumed you were one of them. If so, sorry I jumped the gun in your case.
Plenty of people are claiming that because the restrictions worked and the deaths weren't as high as initially predicted. That those predictions were wrong. And therefore the restrictions were unnecessary. I get tired of that discussion.
Is landscaping really as time sensitive as vineyard work? You're not going to
it's political but not in the way some people thin (Score:2)
it's political but not in the way some people think.
a lot of the policies have been political. for example the right thing to do would have been to quarantine all holiday returnees. everyone who was flying from europe to usa after the wuhan closure should have been put into quarantine.
then you could have save millions and millions of infections from happening in the usa and within europe. but, come on, would a western government give people a forced non-optional two week surveilled holiday? heck no. it's t