CDC Study Says On-Premises Dining Linked To COVID-19 Spread (npr.org) 147
Thelasko shares a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NPR reports on the key findings: As several states face criticism for lifting coronavirus-related public health restrictions, a study published Friday confirms that state-imposed mask mandates and on-premises dining restrictions help slow the spread of COVID-19. The study, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, looked at the impact of state-issued mask mandates and on-premises dining on county-level COVID-19 cases and deaths between March 1 and Dec. 31.
It found that mask mandates were associated with "statistically significant" decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation. In contrast, allowing on-premises dining was associated with an increase in daily cases 41 to 100 days after reopening, and an increase in daily death growth rates after 61 to 100 days. "Policies that require universal mask use and restrict any on-premises restaurant dining are important components of a comprehensive strategy to reduce exposure to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2," the study authors wrote. "Such efforts are increasingly important given the emergence of highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United States." The study says its analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining.
It found that mask mandates were associated with "statistically significant" decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation. In contrast, allowing on-premises dining was associated with an increase in daily cases 41 to 100 days after reopening, and an increase in daily death growth rates after 61 to 100 days. "Policies that require universal mask use and restrict any on-premises restaurant dining are important components of a comprehensive strategy to reduce exposure to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2," the study authors wrote. "Such efforts are increasingly important given the emergence of highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United States." The study says its analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining.
In related news... (Score:2)
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By that same logic, American beer is wet.
"Statistically significant" (Score:1, Interesting)
They had to go out two to three months to detect a "statistically significant increase" of two to three percent.
Which was almost certainly close to (or even within) within the error range.
There was no significant increase in the shorter term (in the first month or so).
It mostly sounds like they went hunting for an association, found it through massaging statistics, and backtracked to the conclusion.
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And to think - democracy gave idiots like you a vote!
Um... of course they had to go out a 2-3 months (Score:2)
2-3% is sizable when you're talking a virus that's killed 500k. Put another way, the lock downs saved 12,500 lives. Around 700 under the age of 55. And that's before we take into account that these procedures have more or less destroyed the run of the mill flu virus (which couldn't spread in the face of the kind of measures needed to control COVI
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We also know from numerous studies that mask
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So, you're saying that the flu has been destroyed because of these measures? I'm not quite sure how you can come to that conclusion when the flu has been largely absent in places where voluntary mask wearing has been minimal and there haven't been lockdowns. In Sweden 59% of people say they never wear masks, and only 11% say they frequently wear masks... and they are only now thinking about locking down for the first time.... and the flu is absent there as well.
The flu basically dies out every summer, because its transmissibility is just above 1, and when it is warm outside, people are outdoors, sharing less air with each other. It mainly comes back because of international travel from places where flu is still in-season.
We also know from numerous studies that masks are ineffective against influenza, not from inferred data, but actually testing with influenza strains.
That's not actually true. The studies that "proved" masks ineffectual were fundamentally flawed in their experiment design, because they were studying flu spread within households, not out in the wild. If you've ever lived in a house with other
Re: Um... of course they had to go out a 2-3 month (Score:2)
And that's before we take into account that these procedures have more or less destroyed the run of the mill flu virus (which couldn't spread in the face of the kind of measures needed to control COVID)
No, what we did was create a flu pandemic for ourselves in the fall with no vaccine and more limited immunity. The flu is undoubtedly down by a lot, but it's not gone.
Re:"Statistically significant" (Score:5, Insightful)
They had to go out two to three months to detect a "statistically significant increase" of two to three percent.
Which was almost certainly close to (or even within) within the error range.
There was no significant increase in the shorter term (in the first month or so).
It mostly sounds like they went hunting for an association, found it through massaging statistics, and backtracked to the conclusion.
Based on the report, the growth rate is is a daily growth rate. So, 2-3% per day is a significant increase. Furthermore, the p-values indicate a lot of certainty. So, your assertions are not correct.
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Don't you find it curious that the comparisons were tangential to one another? One showed that infection and death rates slowed where mask mandates were implemented, but did not show any data regarding where mask mandates were not implemente
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No, it's not a daily growth rate.
If it were a _daily_ change in the growth rate, they would have had a massive increase in cases, and it wouldn't have taken specific statistical analysis to notice the difference.
For example, if it was only a one percent increase, they'd see almost a 35% increase in cases in just thirty days (which they claim they didn't see) - and a 140% increase in ninety days. Daily compound interest pays off massively in even a month or so.
At two percent per day, you'd have 80% more case
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No, it's not a daily growth rate.
I'm sorry, but you are not correct. From the report, "During March 1–December 31, 2020, state-issued mask mandates applied in 2,313 (73.6%) of the 3,142 U.S. counties. Mask mandates were associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease (p = 0.02) in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.1, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation (p<0.01 for all) (Table 1)."
2% decrease in daily growth rate, not 2% growth (Score:2)
You have to understand what the words mean. The 2% is the decrease in the daily growth rate. This does not mean that the growth rate was 2% per day. It means that if the growth rate was 2% per day without a mask mandate, then the growth rate was 1.96% per day with a mask mandate, 2% less than without the mandate. That is very different.
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Yes, they have had a "demonstrable" effect, however this data clearly shows only a fool w
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You're making up numbers though, "2-3%" is a wild exaggeration of the result. The study is only 4 pages, why not take the time to read it? Mask policies had a pretty demonstrable effect of (drum roll...) a decrease in daily case growth rate of 1.8% after 80 days (nearly 3 months). Translation: if your county had 100 new infections per day and implemented a mask policy, 3 months later you had 98 new cases per day.
Yes, they have had a "demonstrable" effect, however this data clearly shows only a fool would argue general mask policies have, or were ever going to, alter the course of this pandemic.
This is an incorrect reading of the report. From the report, "The daily growth rate was defined as the difference between the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on a given day and the natural log of cumulative cases or deaths on the previous day, multiplied by 100." It's clear from the report that the growth rate is the difference in cases or deaths over a time window of one day.
Somehow, some people want to believe that the recommendation of the report is flawed and try to manufacture a flaw in the
Re:"Statistically significant" (Score:5, Informative)
Their data was sorted into twenty day buckets. You probably shouldn't expect to see large *population-wide* increases in cases just 20 days after the dining restrictions are lifted. Although it is possible to become infectious a mere two days after exposure that's rare; on average it takes around a week. Then the next person you infect will take, on average, a week to infect someone else. At that rate you'd expect it to take many weeks before the effects grow large enough to see them in the general population.
As for saying it is "almost certainly close to (or even within) within the error range," that's nonsensical. A result is either significant, or it is in the error range; it can't be both. The p 0.05 standard is somewhat arbitrary, but it is practical because (a) it is reasonably tough to hit but (b) not so tough that studies and experiments have to be designed on a huge scale. That's the strike zone; you could argue it should be smaller, but that's what people aim for.
In any case the significant result was repeated in the 61-80 day and 81-100 buckets, so it doesn't look like the first result was at Type 1 error.
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...but the same study also found a drop in infection rates due to mask mandates over less than 20 days.
So you *should* expect to see large population-wide changes in that short of a time period. Either that, or someone cooked the books, in which case "p-value" is meaningless.
The really interesting thing was that mask mandates had such a small effect, according to this study. Less than two percent over the course of 100 days.
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To the first, their math shows there is very little likelihood these results were from pure chance, eg. the dataset is big enough that the mask-effect they sow is true. To the second, you can find the answer halfway down page two of the actual s [cdc.gov]
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I know next to nothing about American sports but I remember reading that some large proportion of superbowl tickets were reserved for people who had been vaccinated.
https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-t... [nfl.com]
I think this was about a third of the tickets, which should have been enough to reduce the spread of the virus.
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I am surprised you didn't post this as Anon. I would reply further but you have roundly been shut down already, with "facts" and "science".
I can't take someone seriously who thinks "statistically significant" and "within error range" can be the same thing.
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Correlation != causation (Score:3)
The details won't matter to the media who will continue to bleat out the headline.
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Perhaps it has something to do with people in Japan tending to follow recommendations and the fact that they already wear a mask if they think there's a chance they might have a cold or flu. You don't have to issue a mandate if you know people will follow a recommendation.
Here people get all bent out of shape if they get the side eye for not wearing a mask, in Japan you get "the long stare". You also get it for littering or jaywalking.
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You may also want to observe which masks they're wearing.
Re:No Mask Mandates in Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the large correlation is between people who are actually working and have to go out (which is either isolated in high paying jobs, or going through everything in the low paid). Being in a low paid essential role (cleaning etc.) is something that disproportionately puts some ethnic groups in the danger line. This then spreads into the families of the workers.
Japanese wear masks, as do most of the Asian countries, because they understand just how much it helps. They all do their bit to protect everyone else, as to do otherwise would be dishonourable.
Re: No Mask Mandates in Japan (Score:1)
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You didn't listen or process anything I said, did you. In Japan, cleaners are a well paid (And extremely well provisioned) bunch. They're generally not the "throw a load of people together and see what falls out", they're treated as professionals in most places. As are most Japanese jobs, and they're honoured for doing a vital service (unlike the west, where we treat it as an endless supply of unskilled labour).
The crux is the concept of honour. It's dishonourable to be inconsiderate of things like COVI
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"Japan has had on-premise dining since the start of the pandemic. The prefectural governments never asked bars or restaurants to close."
Japan? You mean those people that have all been wearing masks when they have the sniffles for the last 50 years?
Breaking News: Not being a hermit still risky (Score:2)
Past 100-days masks do nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh bullshit. (Score:1)
All the research up to...oh...WHEN TEXAS OPENED UP said there was NO appreciable elevation in infection rates due to indoor dining when precautions are taken.
Now that Texas and several others have drawn a line in the sand, isn't it CONVENIENT that this "study" presents itself?
I call "SHENANIGANS!"
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The federal government does not believe this stuff (Score:1, Troll)
The proof is right in front of your eyes.
The Biden administration has opened the southern border and is allowing a huge wave of people to flood in without ANY testing or screening at all for most of them - they're even shipping them to other states. It's impossible for the feds to honestly fear the spread of COVID-19 by American citizens sitting in various eateries (something many of our state and federal authorities have been caught on camera doing, incidentally) so much that they insist American wear mask
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Every country that has done well with a containment strategy has had border controls, quarantine, and rapid testing. Iceland, Australia New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan have all done this. They're all islands or have hard land borders.
This is not medically surprising based on priors.
Border control, quarantine, rapid testing, is better-supported by these just-so longitudinal stories of which TFA is one than the 2% cherry-picked heavily-confounded against-priors nonsense about "masks" that CDC actua
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The Biden administration has opened the southern border and is allowing a huge wave of people to flood in without ANY testing or screening at all for most of them
Newsweek fact-check on migrant screening [newsweek.com]
Newsweek called it "half true" since it looks like some of them are tested while others are not. I cannot understand the reasoning behind allowing any of them through without testing.
Its annoying that Newsweek editors get CBP and CPB mixed-up half the time in their article.
Control group? (Score:2)
Moving about and breathing. (Score:2)
It is well established that Covid-19 is most often transmitted when people are moving from place to place and breathing at the same time. The CDC is recommending that everyone stay at home in a room alone. While recognizing the need to leave this room on rare occasions for certain necessary activities, CDC recommends that we do not breathe when outside of our solitary room to slow the spread of the deadly virus. After another year or two of this, we may be able to return to more normal practices, but pro
Not rocket surgery (Score:2)
So where are the worst places for such contagions to spread, based on thousands of years of scientific research? Seems places where people are packed together sharing airborne droplets are noticea
Correlation but questionable causation (Score:2)
It's alright (Score:2)
Is anyone giving odds on America exceeding a million of death toll? No, seriously, I've got the price of a half-litre of beer to put on it, if the bookies are offering good prices.
Re:Get over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fine. Then wait a few months until there is widespread vaccination.
The base concept of vaccination is to accelerate the development of herd immunity. In theory, you inject a small amount of the virus in order to provoke herd immunity with small enough doses that won't harm the subject.
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If you have to feed the racist troll, can't you at least change the Subject? (But it was mostly a stupid comment from 656414. Mutations don't work that way. Or maybe 656414 got confused in his FP rush to be racist and wound up contradicting himself.)
(I suppose I should clarify that I barely care where SARS-CoV-2 came from. Ditto the mutated versions. But I do see pandemics as a problem calling for international cooperation and the focus on tagging nations is NOT helping. Yeah, we could now blame Brazil and
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Things could have went way worse than it did.
Re:Get over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
The hyper-inflation ... hasn't kicked in yet.
Hyper-inflation didn't kick in the last 20 times it was predicted either.
Re:Get over it! (Score:5, Funny)
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Human nature wouldn't have allowed things to have gone better.
Re: Get over it! (Score:3)
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Inflation is a bit of a one-dimensional way to look at it. The big picture is starting to look like an "everything"-bubble.
Bitcoin is doing it's trick again, and people are paying millions for blockchain GIFs. It seemed to me stocks were inflated before the pandemic, and their crash last March was the correction, which was then uncorrected a few months later. (By design I might add - that was a purpose of the stimulus, and the "everything will be fine by Easter" line that some in power were pushing. What mi
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Flatten the curve and eliminate the virus are two different things.
The point of the lockdowns was to reduce infection rates so that hospitals weren't overwhelmed. Too many people ignored the lockdowns, however, so the hospitals in large cities were overwhelmed and a lot of people died unnecessarily.
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But American hospitals were never full, in either the New York peak or the Christmas peak, as far as I know. Feel free to educate me if you can.
Tell that to Southern California, a region with 24 million people that reached zero ICU capacity.
Re:Get over it! (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair to you, hospital capacity isn't a fixed number. There seems to be no procedure for kicking someone out of an occupied bed, so there's some prediction involved
There's are generally accepted standards for determining when someone should move from the ICU to a general ward, and when someone should be dismissed. Yes, there's some prediction involved, but it isn't like they're saying "Oh, we don't need the bed yet, so we'll hold you for another week." That sort of behavior would get you nailed for insurance fraud. And yes, they do check.
And California kept saying their ICU was at 95%, then a month later twice as many people were in the ICU as an absolute number, while it was still at 95%. The number Newsom announced was fake and manipulative, or at least "anticipatory," and beds can be converted from normal to ICU, or just added, with some effort. until they can't.
Citation needed.
The main problem is the oxygen supply. Some California hospitals got dangerously close to turning people away because they didn't have enough. They had to bring in the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the oxygen system at a number of hospitals because they could not handle the number of ICU patients. And up to a point, you can use portable bottles for some less-critical patients, except that they were running out of those, too.
If this had happened across the nation sufficiently simultaneously, we would be looking at many millions of dead people.
But American hospitals were never full, in either the New York peak or the Christmas peak, as far as I know. Feel free to educate me if you can.
If you don't believe the ICU capacity numbers, then believe that Jackson-Madison County Hospital in Jackson Tennessee turned away all transfer patients from smaller hospitals because they basically reached 100% capacity. People from 17 counties who would normally have been transported there if they needed more critical care than can be provided at smaller hospitals were forced to be airlifted to Nashville or Memphis instead, costing critical time and, no doubt, lives.
Similar problems happened in countless other hospitals in the South, largely because so many people listened to that f**king imbecile in the White House and refused to wear masks, keep a safe distance, or generally respect the virus for the threat that it posed. In fact, many hospitals in Georgia had zero ICU capacity even with dozens of extra ICU rooms in temporary buildings that were brought in to help them handle the crisis. If this had happened months earlier, before those extra facilities could be put in place, a LOT more people would have died.
Your sheer ignorance on the subject astounds me. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly be so ill-informed about the state of our country.
Re:Get over it! (Score:4, Insightful)
And if people hadn't run around not wearing masks and having COVID parties, we might be better off now.
So sorry, you're just going to have to put your big boy pants on and eat your peas before dessert.
What would be really nice is if we could get people to quit working to help the virus mutate before we can all get our shots and kill it.
Re:Get over it! (Score:5, Interesting)
"herd immunity" can come the natural way with millions of people dead... include perhaps yourself or someone you love or through science via mass vaccinations.
It takes some time for the vaccination route and requires some restrictions and (oh the horror) wearing a simple mask when in close social situations. Apparently, you are for the "more dead" approach.
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"It takes some time for the vaccination route and requires some restrictions and (oh the horror) wearing a simple mask when in close social situations."
We have been wearing rubbers in 'close social situations' for decades now.
Re:Get over it! (Score:4, Interesting)
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OK, so what's your Mom's address so the euthanasia squad can get the inevitable over with...
You gonna put your money where your mouth is, or are you wanting a special favor?
Meanwhile, while MANY had existing health issues, many of them would have lived decades longer without COVID. Some of the dead were perfectly healthy until COVID killed them. That includes teen athletes. Do you think their parents are at all consoled to know their kids were outliers? Or do you just not give a shit?
Re: Get over it! (Score:5, Informative)
many of them would have lived decades longer without COVID. Some of the dead were perfectly healthy until COVID killed them
Yep I lost a friend from covid-19; 59 years old, no outstanding health issue, nonsmoker, nondrinker, etc. I am angered to read some of these comments from people who are anti-life and see the "logic" in early "terminations".
Re: Get over it! (Score:2)
You know that people die whether or not there's covid, right? Even non smoking 59yr olds.
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I’m sorry for your loss and the anti-science politics that contributed to it.
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Given that we’re talking about people who refuse to accept the facts, anecdotes are all that’s left.
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Sometimes all it takes is a single credible anecdote. That which happened is possible, so even if it happens only once, claims of impossibility are disproved, for example. OTOH, an anecdote or two can't prove that something is common or even likely.
BTW, you got the often misused quote backwards.
Re: Get over it! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see your Mom's address...
I am not the asshole here, I'm the one that advocates taking strong precautions so we can avoid unnecessarily hastening a bunch of deaths.
But don't forget long covid and lasting damage to heart and lungs. The weak who die will be replaced by the newly weakened.
Re: Get over it! (Score:5, Interesting)
You are a narcissistic asshole. You want the world to stop so your 80+ year old mother will not possibly be affected. I will put it to you bluntly: I do not care about your mother. I care about the younger generation who are not getting educated. I care about working people. I do not care about your mother.
So you want the younger generation growing up not caring about their mothers too? Legit question.
Re: Get over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
...and while you're killing the weak, you're making healthy people weak. Gotta keep the cycle going.
Look. we know you want everything back to normal. Everybody does. But the way you're going about this is dead wrong. You think this isn't about you, because you are an healthy and invulnerable, so you advocate to let the disease cull the weak, not you. But actually that is just two mental problems on display: hubris and psychopathy.
Re: Get over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Heart disease is still the number one killer
Stop spreading false information. COVID is more deadly than heart disease. [foxnews.com]
the people who would have died anyway in a couple of years
I tell you what, why don't you donate 'a couple of years' off of your life instead? I have relatives who perished from COVID who had years or decades of meaningful life left, despite their comorbidities. They unwillingly had their lives cut short because some selfish cunts didn't want to wear a fucking mask. And that's to say nothing of the people who are young and healthy and die from COVID anyway.
People need to stop being little bitches and whinging about how fucking inconvenienced they are. Wearing masks and keeping distance SAVES LIVES. And they don't just prevent death from COVID - influenza deaths are at a record low, with a 99%+ reduction in some age groups [khou.com].
What is it about wearing a mask is soooo difficult that it's too tough for Americans to do?
Sure, heart disease and diabetes are still rampant killers. And yes, they should be addressed and reduced. But the false dichotomy you're setting up that we can't be expected to wear masks and fight heart disease is not only stupid, it's dishonest.
Re: Get over it! (Score:4, Interesting)
And they don't just prevent death from COVID - influenza deaths are at a record low, with a 99%+ reduction in some age groups [khou.com].
Cases, too. Although influenza and COVID have a similar expansion rate over time, that's true only because influenza has a shorter incubation period, and thus more transmission cycles per week, which makes up for the fact that it spreads to far fewer people per transmission cycle. But on a per-cycle basis, COVID-19 is much more contagious than influenza.
Seasonal influenza has a median R0 of about 1.28. COVID-19 has a median R0 of 2.28 or so. That means if you cut transmission in half, influenza's R0 drops below 1, and the number of sick people decreases from one cycle to the next. The entire world has basically been in that state for the past year.
And flu almost dies off every winter, precisely because the R0 falls below zero. It only comes back as quickly as it does because of large amounts of international travel and the fact that it is summer in half the world while it is winter in the other half.
Between the distancing, the masks, the lack of international travel, the higher-than-normal level of vaccination, and the lower-than-normal level of mutation (fewer cases means less mutation), influenza cases are at record-low levels.
And when I say higher-than-normal levels of vaccination, 193.8 million doses of flu vaccine were distributed in the U.S. this year, compared with, for example, just 155 million doses in the 2017 season. That's huge.
We'll see how quickly it bounces back when all of this is over, but there's a small chance that it won't, or at least that it will do so very slowly — particularly if people wear masks during flu season.
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And flu almost dies off every winter, precisely because the R0 falls below zero.
And of course, I meant summer. :-/
Re: Get over it! (Score:4, Funny)
Speak through the end with teeth next time. It might actually make sense, and it will certainly smell better than the ridiculous shite you're spewing right now.
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Covid-19 exposed quite a bit of Vitamin D3 deficiency.
Re:Get over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, herd immunity is the exit, but how you *get* to that exit makes a huge difference in suffering and lives lost.
Re: Get over it! (Score:2)
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Trouble with herd immunity at the global scale is that viruses mutate, then you need to infect everyone with the 2nd and 3rd strains, then with the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th strains, and so on. But this can be avoided by doing small scale, localized herd immunity by having small groups quarantine and become immune, thus killing the virus without giving it an 8 billion multiplier to its chance to mutate.
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Re:I'll wear a mask (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh look the "live free or die" type who cowardly posts anonymously.
Re:I'll wear a mask (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're choosing for everyone else who maybe doesn't see you in time, or that you leave droplets in the air so someone who follows you who never see you gets infected.
What you're saying is that you're selfish, and you don't give a rat's ass about causing someone's death because you can't be bothered to do the right thing. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is just excuses.
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"If I choose to wear a mask. If I don't, you are welcome to leave. Look, this country (USA) was formed on the freedom to choose and individual rights, not being stepped on by someone in power."
Tell that to Typhoid Mary, she would have loved a mask instead of being confined to an island.
Re: RIP Texas (Score:1)
Be hard pressed to kill more per capital than Jersey, Penn, New York, or Michigan.
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*sigh*
Let's hope they all remember why they moved and don't bring down the same philosophy and politics that ruined the places they left and ruin TX and the rest of the south with it.
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Re:Is this the same CDC? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not the same CDC. Trump's political appointees to the agency have been dismissed and replaced with people who don't see the use of masks as a political and optical problem.
The Trump administration spent four years firing anyone who questioned his bullshit and CDC employees were no exception. Data on coronavirus infections was rerouted to the administration and denied to the CDC. CDC reports were reviewed and changed before being allowed to be released. Trump did everything he could do to undermine the CDC and distort their messages to match what he wanted them to say.
So no. It is not the same fucking CDC.
Stop being played (Score:2, Insightful)
Nearly everybody at the CDC is the same as under Trump and under Obama - those people who stood with Trump at his 2020 pressers and did TV interviews giving conflicting advice on masks were mostly career Washington DC "experts" like Dr Fauci who stay in place and in power no matter who is in the White House.
Dr Fauci was there giving advice way back in the 1980s when HIV/AIDS first appeared in the USA, and his advice was just as bad then. These permanent "expert" officials in various agencies care little abo
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You described the deep state theory without using the word "deep state."
Dr Fauci was there giving advice way back in the 1980s when HIV/AIDS first appeared in the USA, and his advice was just as bad then. These permanent "expert" officials in various agencies care little about who has been elected - they're in power effectively for life, or until they choose to retire.
This is a good thing. This is why the constitution grants judges lifelong terms: we don't want judges making decisions based on political pressure. Elected officials like presidents however, try to spin things so that they and their party look good. This is why we should often ignore the message that officially comes from the White House, and instead look at the reports that come straight from the departments or from the individuals
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If Trump taught us anything it is that the elected government is most certainly NOT in control. The unelected government - whether you use Obama's term "The Blob" or Trump's term "deep state", does not take direction from the elected government and in fact regards them as a hostile entity.
Deep state isn't a conspiracy theory. Pakistan is ruled by its deep state, the military and intelligence agencies. Why do you think they so often make decisions that are disastrous for their people but beneficial for them
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Is this the same CDC that initially said that masks were completely useless and that people shouldn't wear them?
yeah... Fuck them.
Yes, because science should be dogmatic, just like you.
Re: Is this the same CDC? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't been following the CDC or whatever wacky consequences might have come from Trump's political appointments, but most expert advice globally in the early stages was that there wasn't enough information about how the virus spread. Advice was urgently needed and the balance of probabilities at the time was, rightly based on existing knowledge, that cloth mask use by non experts was more likely to spread it through infecting hands from faces and so on. The advice wasn't just suggesting people about masks, though. Typical advice still included other recommendations like frequent hand washing and distancing, in part because on balance of probabilities they were most likely to prevent spread.
Since then there have been countless studies building on each other. There's now lots more data which now demonstrates that widespread use of masks DOES make a positive difference in preventing spread.
This is how science works. Just because something is more likely based on available information doesn't make it definitely correct. Once you have more data, though, it becomes possible to narrow things down into more accurate and reliable understandings.
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what is a "mask" though? 95% of the public is not wearing one that meets any standards.
Something that covers the mouth and nose, reducing the size and spread of exhaled droplets. As an added benefit, if the mask meets this criteria it will, in all likelihood, also reduce the number and size of droplets that originate from others that the wearer inhales.
It's not complicated.
Moreover, the mask doesn't need to be perfect, or even meet specific medical standards, to have an effect. Obviously the higher the standard the mask meets, and the more 'expertly' it's worn, the more effective it will be a
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what is a "mask" though? 95% of the public is not wearing one that meets any standards.
You can look up the research the WHO did back in April on this. You'll find that nearly all of those masks not meeting any standard actually does reduce the spread of the virus in a meaningful way. Heck the WHO even published a list of various common cloth materials and their efficacy in case you wanted to make a mask yourself.
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Re:You know who has the worst numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, you can't get much sun in a concrete/steel/glass canyon. Enjoy your urban lifestyle, I suppose.
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If New York was serious about stopping this thing they wouldn't be allowing in-person dining at all. No indoor dining, no outdoor dining and certainly none of this "outdoor" dining where restaurants are erecting things on the sidewalk that have a roof and walls and doors and other stuff and are very clearly "indoor" but somehow get counted as "outdoor" in the eyes of the authorities (go watch some of the videos by Louis Rossman if you want to see some examples of this).
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