Covid-Infected HIV Patient Developed Mutations, Study Shows (bloomberg.com) 231
A South African woman suffering from inadequately treated HIV, and who harbored Covid-19 for nine months saw the respiratory virus develop at least 21 mutations while in her body, according to a study. From a report: Once the 22-year-old adhered to the anti-retroviral medication used to treat HIV and her immune system strengthened she was able to overcome the Covid-19 infection within six to nine weeks, the study, led by scientists from Stellenbosch and the University of KwaZulu-Natal showed. The research has not been peer reviewed. The study adds to evidence that Covid-19 may mutate rapidly when harbored by immunosuppressed individuals, such as those not taking medication to treat HIV, and this may lead to the development of new variants. The beta variant, which the patient in the study was infected with, was discovered in South Africa, as was omicron. "This case, like others before, describes a potential pathway for the emergence of novel variants," the scientists said, stressing that it was still a hypothesis. "Our experience reinforces previous reports that effective anti retroviral treatment is the key to controlling such events."
The sick factory (Score:3, Interesting)
So, if I read this right... due to the patient's weak immune system, the original variant was able to create more mutations with in the sick person's body? So, is it possible that if you are sick, there is more chance of you creating more mutations and possibly spreading those mutations to others?
Talk about when it rains, it pours, and then floods.... :/
Re:The sick factory (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly how that works. The longer a virus is in your body, or in the world, or in a lot of other bodies, the more it mutates. That's what a virus does.
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Yes well the question to ask is, does it matter.
This is the whole argument for vaccine mandates really but ... there are 1) a lot of people, 2) a lot people developing severe enough infections despite being 'fully vaccinated' to have significant respiratory symptoms, which basically means a there is a lot of virus replication occurring in those people.
So it comes down to this someone needs to show there is really a meaningful change in the over risk before we go taking further actions, I don't care if you a
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Lockdowns work. I am in China. Unless you believe they can literally hide every truth, the economic is doing good in light of the pandemic and there aren't that many infected. The greatest hits to economy are related to policy superficial to the epidemic but hey it's China. Again accepting this has to do with accepting that country doesn't have a 10-100x fold advantage over any other in regards to propaganda (as that's what's generally required in both regards for hiding any loses). Note I live in Qinghai a
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Zero Covid works because the objective is to be as strict as possible to stop spread because the real cost to an economy comes later, such as "long covid", sick leave, and other loss of life. However, it requires such a level of commitment which is beyond the "freedoms" of western society but hey life is full of trade-offs. More so, you cannot really have good statistic of zero covid because most every country has given up on it because again "Freedom".
I don't know what part of Covid is NEVER GOING AWAY China does not understand but I suspect they will figure it out eventually.
Even asking people to at-home quarantine after travel is basically met with zero legal repercussions where as China has examples of individuals seeing significant repercussions from breaking these rules. It clearly won't work when the punishment for breaking the rules is minor.
What changes in year 3, 4, 5, 10... 20 with a zero covid policy? Do the Chinese think it will be gone in year 30, 50...100? Enjoy hiding forever while the rest of the world moves on.
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Wow that's rich
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Okay... so you are a crazy. Got it.
First... "MRNA". Nope... pretty sure it didn't work that way but even if it did China uses an inactivated virus so you show that your reading from some talking points.
Second, deflect and downplay.
Third, any quick search finds plenty of good academic publications of "long covid" which has some other random name like "PNAS" but I am again too drunk to look up that shit.
Not doubling down... just wanted to see how full of shit you were. Never ever gone with the crowd... litera
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>
"Long covid" is fake, there is no proof of it, no identifiable mechanism.
I developed COVID-19 in January 2020. At the time no facility would test me because loss of taste and smell were not associated with this relatively unknown disease. Reports about COVID and coronavirus were on the 5th page of newspapers. Alas, I suppose it was COVID-19 with no way to prove it. I got better except for not regaining taste or smell. In October 2020 I got sick again and by this time people were starting preventative measures. My COVID-19 test came back positive. I still get winded easily and my
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Considering they now found a set of genes that is almost entirely reponsible for all cases of people having "Long Covid", you're just talking out of your ass.
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I like you. Your logic seems sounds.
China's "perpetual" lockdown is at the border where quarantines are long. Most cities are fine but when infections are detected, it does get intense. I have experienced this -- it's pretty crazy (i.e. being told you cannot leave your apartment). However, it does seem to work and generally doesn't last as long as more infections are detected. Basically China's conclusion is if it is spreading, infections will add. If not spreading, once testing occurs (which will be mandat
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https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/... [jhu.edu]
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded.
That's John's Hopkins there - not Joe Rogan btw- The conclusion is lock downs did not really impact mortality much, but cost a lot measured in all kinds of ways. The bar for trampling peoples freedoms in the name of public health needs to be much much much higher, is the real take away from the entire pandemic.
That's the personal web page of someone at Johns Hopkins, not any kind of peer-reviewed publication from the university. The "Literature Review and Meta-Analysis" was done by a group of three economists, not by anyone with expertise in medicine, infectious diseases, or epidemiology.
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https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/... [jhu.edu]
...
That's John's Hopkins there - not Joe Rogan btw- The conclusion is lock downs did not really impact mortality much, but cost a lot measured in all kinds of ways. The bar for trampling peoples freedoms in the name of public health needs to be much much much higher, is the real take away from the entire pandemic.
That's the economics department at Johns Hopkins. This is not a study by doctors; it's a study by economists. That's not saying that it is wrong, but you shouldn't assume medical rigor merely because of the Johns Hopkins name.
With meta-analysis papers, the way that the authors pick which studies to include and exclude can have a huge impact on whether you can trust the resulting meta-analysis. This one excludes a lot of papers, and not just papers based on modeling. They also exclude papers that compare
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There's probably 10,000 generations, maybe more, of covid that occur in your body across the span of two weeks. One infected person != one generation.
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So, if I read this right... due to the patient's weak immune system, the original variant was able to create more mutations with in the sick person's body?
Mutations happen inside a person so the longer you have it, the more mutations.
So, is it possible that if you are sick, there is more chance of you creating more mutations and possibly spreading those mutations to others?
Yes. (obviously...)
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Buuuut we get "the world's problems aren't our problems" people.
I wonder if some people, back when "A Christmas Carol" was written got the completely wrong takeaway from it . . . like: "What a delightful romp, it IS truly good to be the king"?
Just so no one misunderstands - once Covid is under check, we can get to back to business as usual. That means Cholera is public enemy #1 and we should resume trying to wipe it out.
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Covid won't ever be back under check. It's going to be here like the flu till something worst comes. Note, I am not saying it's as severe as the flu, I am saying people won't do what is required to get it under check and the "providence" of a global economy means we will keep spreading and mutating it till kingdom come. But, as some scientists are saying worst variants will likely come and as few are even saying, the next real pandemic *could* be far worse or at least we will keep rolling the dice till one
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The difference is if it's the same host, the mutations can be somewhat "driven" by other viruses the host has (e.g. the common cold) via horizontal gene transfer, and that such mutations will stack given their advantage within that host.
On the other hand in a population, this "convergent evolution" could take sometime. The same mutation may occur multiple times before becoming dominate and this dominance of mutations would take sometimes though arguably this makes the mutations more suitable for a populatio
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Check the stats, kids die from Covid as well.
Lemme guess, you aren't elderly. My grandboss was 62 and in good health. He died yesterday of Covid.
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Yes. And this is why vaccines help prevent additional major mutations.
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Go ahead and name a few vaccines that provide 100% sterilizing immunity. In the real world where they don't, they've still managed to eradicate the disease through mass vaccination drives. Most vaccines that were initially believed to have been sterilizing simply weren't. There just wasn't an easy way to measure current/past infection in the general population who weren't showing any symptoms.
Vaccinated individuals generally don't have a high enough viral load to lead to mutations. It takes lots of repl
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Three doses of inactivated polio vaccine is about as close as we've ever come, iirc.
Over 99.5% effective.
Still not a hundred, true... but close enough that the disease was effectively eliminated inside of a single generation.
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I think that's poor wording in the summary, and presumably the article.
First, viruses don't "create" mutations. They suffer them. Most mutations are either harmful or neutral. Very occasionally one is beneficial.
Second, there's no reason the mutation rate would be higher in someone with some other infection. However, if you've got a normal immune system you're going to be recovered or dead from COVID in a couple weeks. If you've got a weakened immune system from uncontrolled HIV, immunosuppressants, etc., y
Immunocompromised, Not just HIV (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't quite understand your critique. You seem to agree with the paper's conclusion and yet also criticism them for lacking peer-review. Your major critique seems to be pointing out that immunocompromised individuals includes more than HIV patients. It feels like this should be obvious but perhaps I over-estimated that this site embraced nerdom. But even if we accept this, is there not the question that some immunocompromised individuals are not equal to others? Does not HIV seem like the worst form of be
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Actually, depends on what you mean by "originate".
Spain was the first country to actually widely and openly report on the 1918 influenza pandemic, which it's my understanding is where it earned its moniker. You are right in that outbreaks did not start in Spain, but poor reporting practices at the time by other countries due to censorship of news by feuding nations led to a lot of ambiguity of where the actual first outbreak happened. We will never know for sure where it actually came from.
No exemptions (Score:2)
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I'm not sure why you'd give an exemption to an immunocompromised person. They're the ones most likely to personally benefit from the protection. Here they were given first access to the vaccine, along with the very old.
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This makes it very clear no exemptions to vaccination should be given to immunocompromised people. If they are given exemptions their bodies can become variant generators.
It's all a game of risk vs potential benefit. The risk from the vaccines to immunocompromised people outweighs the potential benefits of vaccination. Potential benefit versus very real risk.
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Sure, but most iimmunocompromised people can actually receive the COVID vaccine entirely safely.
So yes and no. It is obvious that some immunocompromised people *should* be allowed an exemption, but only if their particular immune condition is such that they could not safely receive the vaccine in the first place.
There's no reason to conclude that being HIV positive would warrant getting such an exemption.
But that does not mean there are not other more severe cases of being immunocompromised where re
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As a genuine immunocompromised person, I can tell you that there are absolutely no exemptions being given to us. The opposite is the case. We are encouraged to get 3-4 primary doses of our vaccine of choice and then start with the boosters when we can.
In my case I have an autoimmune disease that requires me to take an immune inhibitor (azathioprine).
HIV Reverse Transcriptase at fault? (Score:2)
And as HIV has a a high mutation rate due to the RT enzyme not being especially careful about the copy process being correct.
Seems like a good reason to prevent these things from mixing.
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HIV Reverse Transcriptase reading the Coronavirus RNA
Can you expand on this? You are saying the transcription process of HIV is "leaky" in a sense that it could transcript viruses other than itself and likely mutate them? This is supremely interesting despite the brevity of your original comment and in turn would likely say the matter is far more complex than merely being immunocompromised? As such I am supremely interested in learning more about what you refer to.
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No, that is near zero probability if not impossible unless the situation is highly contrived. There is no reasonably probable way the mutations were due to the RT being involved. If the RT copies the covid mRNA into DNA .. it would have to be integrated into the genome and read back out .. that is not very feasible. RT doesn't go around copying RNA into DNA randomly .. if it did .. it has a whole bunch of existing RNA in the cell that it would try doing that with .. and there is zero evidence of RTs doing t
‘It's only my neighbour's house on fire&rsqu (Score:2)
I knew it. (Score:2)
Prepare yourself, here comes the zombie apocalypse!
Wait, the summary doesn't match the headline. It's the virus which mutated, not the patient. Never mind. Just the incompetence of the typical
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Well, you're not entirely wrong. HIV is a retrovirus, which means it reverse-transcribes it's RNA into DNA, which is then incorporated into the host's DNA. To do that it causes the cell to produce a reverse transcriptase enzyme. COVID 19 doesn't do that, but it HAS been shown to get reverse transcribed if it's in a cell that also has reverse transcriptase floating around.
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Is this really an English mistake or are you just being an ass? The distinction between host-virus is complex. It read perfectly fine to me though I agree, potentially vague. It doesn't say the mutations are in the host or the virus but the assumption should be the virus as mutations in the host are virtually impossible. English by nature works this way, with more ambiguity than other Germanic languages.
Rapid? (Score:2)
Wear a condom in the shop (Score:2)
Not over your head, dummy.
Human incubator (Score:2)
In other words she was a human incubator for viruses.
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omg mutation (Score:2)
The selection pressure was towards weakness, not strength. She was immuno-compromised so the virus was basically having fun mutating to be optimal to that individual's immune-compromised state. Note that the moment she got on medication and her immune system was restored she was able to clear the virus. In other words, the viral mutations were adaptations to her weakened immune state and they couldn't evolve back to surviving in the strong immune state. Not really evidence that this could lead to a potent v
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Last I checked there is no law stopping anyone from taking any "off label" medication. The supplement industry in the US is basically a free-for-all and if you can get your doctor to write you a script chances are you'll get the meds you want.
What you really don't like is everyone calling you a bunch of dum-dums for buying into made up hype from people who either don't comprehend what the research publications are saying or more likely willfully lying to you since the anti-vax crowd are such a reliable sou
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On paper, there are technical reasons why hydroxychloriquine looked promising, but in real world conditions against covid does nothing
The reason is that the S2 subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 activation unit is not as well expressed by cathepsins-L via endolysosomes. Instead it heavily favors TMPRSS2 expression. More so than any previous SARS like virus.
HCQ inhibits the late action of cathepsin L which the virus very rarely uses as a pathway. This is why early stage in large dose and only then just sometimes, HCQ would work. Because for one reason or another the virus was taking a pathway in the early stage of infection that it rarely uses
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Last I checked there is no law stopping anyone from taking any "off label" medication. The supplement industry in the US is basically a free-for-all and if you can get your doctor to write you a script chances are you'll get the meds you want.
You seem to be confusing a couple of things here. "Off-label" means a prescription for an approved drug. But the doctor is prescribing it for some purpose that it is not approved for. That has nothing to do with "supplements", which are simply not approved by the FDA for anything at all.
Doctors are indeed allowed to prescribe medications for other than their approved use. They are then going slightly out on a limb medical/malpractice-wise. They also may have to argue with the insurance company about whether
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Re:Here's my take (Score:4, Informative)
Once she adhered to the anti-retroviral medication used to treat HIV...in other words the anti-retroviral meds helped cure her!
Not exactly. If the article is accurate, the anti-retroviral medication treated the HIV, which is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. With the HIV treated, the immune system recovered enough to deal with the COVID-18 virus.
But, don't allow anyone to use "horse paste" (incorrectly named) or any other off label treatment...
Well, if you have a co-infection with a parasitic disease, an antiparasite agent would seem to make sense. The same way that if you have a co-infection with a retrovirus, an anti-retrovirus treatment makes sense.
the big pharma groups, politicians etc wouldn't make as much $$$$
Except for the company making ivermectin, quite happy if that turned out to be a valuable treatment.
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Except for the company making ivermectin, quite happy if that turned out to be a valuable treatment.
Ivermectin is off-patent and mass produced by multiple companies around the world for peanuts. Concurrently the company responsible for Ivermectin has been separately developing their own covid treatment. This notion Merck would benefit if Ivermectin worked is a claim I don't understand given the plain undisputed facts of the situation.
The reason why in 2022 NIH is still saying "There is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the us
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Well, if you have a co-infection with a parasitic disease, an antiparasite agent would seem to make sense. The same way that if you have a co-infection with a retrovirus, an anti-retrovirus treatment makes sense.
Unfortunately, if your co-infection is stupidity there is no cure...
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Once she adhered to the anti-retroviral medication used to treat HIV...in other words the anti-retroviral meds helped cure her!
The anti-retroviral meds supressed the HIV infection, which then enabled her immune system to fight off the COVID infection.
But, don't allow anyone to use "horse paste" (incorrectly named) or any other off label treatment...the big pharma groups, politicians
etc wouldn't make as much $$$$
Again:
1) The mechanism here is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from other medications that (like Ivermectin) were proposed to treat COVID directly but then when subjected to careful study turned out to not work.
2) The major studies showing Ivermectin to work turned out to be fraudulent [mcgill.ca].
A question for you. What make you think that Ivermectin works? The pro-Ivermectin studies have been outed as fraud
Re: Here's my take (Score:3)
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A question for you. What make you think that Ivermectin works? The pro-Ivermectin studies have been outed as fraudulent so it's hopefully not that.
To clarify is your assertion all Ivermectin studies with positive results have been ousted as frauds? If so can you offer citation(s) establishing every paper with positive outcomes (Not just Elgazzar et el) are fraudulent?
I understand there's a lot of anecdotal reports of people finding benefit, but surely you've heard of the placebo effect?
The problem with anecdotes have little to do with placebo and everything to do with statistical significance.
If the benefit of Ivermectin was so great wouldn't you expect studies to find a fairly clear signal?
Like this one?
https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
Or this?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
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By the same logic, wouldn't ivermectin producers by trying to prevent the use of free treatments?
Perhaps ivermectin producers are trying to cover up that eating dirt is an effective treatment for Covid. Or any other
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It's literally used to treat parasitic infections in horses. And guess what, it's created by "Big Pharma" who were making a mint when morons were rushing out to feed stores and stripping shelves bare [azfamily.com] of the stuff.
It's almost as if people don't understand who is making stuff and who is profiting from them buying it.
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Haven't you heard? Drinking piss is the new hotness. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
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Taking "medication" that has no known properties to combat Covid is not a wise choice.
And if you remove the profit motive for companies to produce lifesaving drugs, then you get no lifesaving drugs. Better dine on that hydroxychloroquine, I hear it is to die for.
Re: Great! (Score:2, Redundant)
Cloth masks do not work for aerosols. Procedural masks only partly work IF YOU GET A PROSPER SEAL. Wearing it too loose on your face leaves gaps where aerosols enter and escape your mask. Wearing it under
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
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Those stats don't say what you think they do. That's for mandates, and has nothing to do with the level of compliance. The spike follows omicron, not the mandates.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been for nearly a year...life is short, I'm not going to spend what I have left of it in fear....
lol this is like saying you don't adhere to road markings because you're not afraid of cars in the opposite lane
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Probably he caught Omicron already anyway, he should be safe for a long time from that too.
If you ever want to return to a normal life - there is no point in waiting after getting the vaccine, unless the health system of your country can't manage.
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Ok, so driving a big-rig opposite traffic
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Masks impede the virus' spread by a factor of Re / R0 = (1 - M P)^2, where M is the mask's efficiency at filtering particles and P is the fraction of people wearing them.
Which means that two people wearing reasonably good, well fitting dense cloth masks with a protection factor of 5 (80%) will have better protection - roughly a factor of 25 - than one person wearing an N95,
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Nope. There's no basis for this equation. The major error is implicitly assuming a linear relationship between viral dose and chance of infection.
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Thank you for validating that the only thing truly spreading like wildfire, is the theory that a ten-cent mask is really your fucking savior.
The crucial point is that masks prevent spreading of COVID to other people. There's plenty of research, but this image applies: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW... [twimg.com]
The question is whether or not you're so selfish that you'll wear a mask to keep other people from dying.
Re: Great! (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Now consider the 53min you sit at a restaurant table unmasked. If anyone near you has it, youre carching it.
What the hell. How does this relate to my comment at all?
Re: Great! (Score:2)
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The point is to keep other people getting infected. If you wear a mask, less of the virus escapes your local region, and it doesn't travel as far. This is especially true if you cough or sneeze.
It's not about keeping yourself healthy. It's about reducing the spread overall. Do you want other people to get sick?
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It's not about keeping yourself healthy. It's about reducing the spread overall. Do you want other people to get sick?
Everyone's going to be exposed to covid. The only thing that can be controlled is the shape of the graph. Its overall area is a fixed quantity unaffected by NPIs.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Re: Great! (Score:3)
It's kinda odd that you say non-N95 make are useless, and your justification is that if you're *unmasked* in a restaurant you will catch it with 45 seconds of exposure.
Talking about mask effectiveness, and then using an example when no mask is worn is asinine.
Also you have not seemed to factor in the initial viral load - a mask that filters 30% of incoming particles may mean you go from a moderate initial load to a mild initial load. Maybe that means your overall infection lasts 4 days instead of 7 days.
Now
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Its more plausible than a free bible
I belong to a sect which does offer free Scriptures, so the existence of a free Bible is 100% known. How effective free Scriptures are depend on what the recipient does with them.
Re: Great! (Score:2)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
No, they're not [theguardian.com].
Results from more than 30 studies from around the world were analysed in detail, showing a statistically significant 53% reduction in the incidence of Covid with mask wearing and a 25% reduction with physical distancing.
Also [webmd.com]:
THURSDAY, April 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- States that required people to mask up last year had lower rates of COVID-19 than those with no mask requirements, a new study finds.
Researchers examined data from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., to assess mask policies, people's self-reported use of masks in public, and COVID rates from May through October 2020.
They factored in a one-month delay between mask wearing and its subsequent potential effect on COVID infection rates.
"States with the lowest levels of mask adherence were most likely to have high COVID-19 rates in the subsequent month, independent of mask policy or demographic factors," the Boston University team recently wrote on the preprint server medRxiv, before their findings had been peer-reviewed.
And still more [stanford.edu]:
The researchers found that among the more than 350,000 people studied, the rate of people who reported symptoms of COVID-19, consented to blood collection and tested positive for the virus was 0.76% in the control villages and 0.68% in the intervention villages, showing an overall reduction in risk for symptomatic, confirmed infection of 9.3% in the intervention villages regardless of mask type.
When the researchers considered only those villages that received surgical masks (omitting villages that received cloth masks), the reduction in risk increased to 11%. Furthermore, the protective effect of surgical masks was greater for older people: As a group, those ages 50 to 60 were 23% less likely to develop COVID-19 if they wore a surgical mask, and those over 60 were 35% less likely if they did.
But yes, tell us how you did your research to come up with the idea that wearing a mask has no significant effect on covid cases.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have had similar conversations IRL with people who believe they have done their research, because they have listened to several podcasts and/or watched several online videos created by yellow journalists [wikipedia.org] whom they trust on charisma alone. These people honestly believe that the vaccine kills so many people that one is better off taking their chances with the disease. They watch a video with one nurse in one hospital talking about what happened to one patient after getting the vaccine, and say "SEE? Even doctors and nurses are speaking out about how dangerous this vaccine is!!!" The same goes for information about the ineffectiveness of masks and social distancing.
I think it is not "just" a lack of critical-thinking skills at work here (though, that is certainly at work here). I think something in their personal histories has wired their brains such that they believe a statement like "the leading health organizations in the world are united in a conspiracy to lead people to their deaths in order to reduce global population (and make truckloads of money for the pharma industry), and therefore they are blatantly lying to us about the effectiveness of these measures." This sounds completely reasonable and likely to them, and they would believe it no matter who said it, even before the pandemic. Because they see the world from an angle of profound distrust for these industries, and anything that reinforces that world view feels true to them.
So when you present rock solid evidence that contradicts this, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Their mental pre-filter has already determined that what you are saying is probably false, and any words after that point are just "fightin words."
I wish there was a way to reach these people, because there are a lot of them. But my own best efforts have yielded no fruit (that I can tell).
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People don't understand numbers. You can manipulate statistics to mislead, but it turns out you don't need to bother.
Just say something like "wearing a mask doesn't prevent COVID transmission." That statement is true. The ordinary human brain goes straight to "masks don't work," *particularly* if that ordinary human brain doesn't like wearing a mask.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Just say something like "wearing a mask doesn't prevent COVID transmission." That statement is true.
It's probably false, because sometimes it does prevent COVID transmission. Maybe most of the time.
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You can quibble about the translation of "prevent" into formal logic, but it's a quibble. If you want to be safe, add an "always."
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If it's deceptive, you can argue that the translation into formal logic is false.
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But yes, tell us how you did your research to come up with the idea that wearing a mask has no significant effect on covid cases.
Alternate facts. Haven't you heard?
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It must be confusing for you when you look at all the countries that have good mask usage and you see they're suffering from Omicron too. and to a similar degree.
No, they're not.
I don't get it. The paper you cite predates the first known case of Omicron by over a month.
When the researchers considered only those villages that received surgical masks (omitting villages that received cloth masks), the reduction in risk increased to 11%. Furthermore, the protective effect of surgical masks was greater for older people: As a group, those ages 50 to 60 were 23% less likely to develop COVID-19 if they wore a surgical mask, and those over 60 were 35% less likely if they did.
But yes, tell us how you did your research to come up with the idea that wearing a mask has no significant effect on covid cases.
The problem with this conclusion if you look at the study there is no statistically significant difference whatsoever even for surgical masks in those under 50. Obviously the conclusion here cannot be surgical masks only work in people over 50 years of age and do nothing in those under 50. Therefore if you accept these figures genuinely offer evidence masks work you have to explain why the same figures showing not
Re: Great! (Score:2)
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Results from more than 30 studies from around the world were analysed in detail, showing a statistically significant 53% reduction in the incidence of Covid with mask wearing and a 25% reduction with physical distancing.
Which doesn't begin to pass the smell test. According to that, masks are more effective than vaccines. That might be true if you're wearing a P100, but I'd like to know what physical miracle would even possibly make it true for cloth masks. Or why masks didn't solve the pandemic at the outset. Or why states with mask mandates such as NY and MI have continued to be pommeled COVID peaks as bad or worse than anyone else.
The actual meta-analysis paper [bmj.com] refereced is quite open that virtually all of the studies th
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Some truckers. You know you're a fringe whacko when the teamsters union tells you to shut up get vaccinated.
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Stupidity is worldwide.
And, as Ron White so eloquently put it "You can't fix stupid. Don't even try..."
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Now you're claiming that masks reduce the rate of mortality?
Re:ya mean like canada (Score:4, Informative)
given that the chance of dying from covid is a subset of the chance of catching covid, something that reduces the odds of catching it necessarily reduces the odds of dying from it.
Unless you mean "the chance of dying once you've caught it", which has nothing to do with what they said.
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given that the chance of dying from covid is a subset of the chance of catching covid, something that reduces the odds of catching it necessarily reduces the odds of dying from it.
This seems to be conflating individual and aggregate risk.
The risk you will die from covid is as far as is currently known almost always a one time thing.
The risk you will get covid from any single exposure is a recurring risk that increases with each exposure.
It is possible for meaningful reductions in individual risk to translate into effectively unchanged aggregate risk where the persons chance of dying remains effectively unchanged.
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That's literally not how the rate of mortality works. It's measured as IFR or CFR, and both measure the Infections or Cases of COVID-19.
The mortality rate is proportional to the infection rate, and it isn't changed by things that prevent infection.
You claimed people in the south were dying at a greater rate because people in the south tend not to use masks, which is false. Mask usage doesn't contribute to the death rate from COVID-19.