Are We Better Prepared Now for Another Pandemic? (nymag.com) 221
When it comes to the possibility of a bird flu outbreak, America's Centers for Disease Control recently issued a statement that the risk to the public "remains low."
But even in the event of a worst-case scenario, New York magazine believes "We may be more equipped for another pandemic than you think..." In 2023, more than half of people surveyed said that their lives had not returned to normal since the COVID outbreak, and a surprising number — 47 percent — said they now believe their lives will never return to normal.
But do we really know how a new pandemic would go and how we would handle it? Things are different this time — and in ways that aren't all bad. Unlike with COVID in the spring of 2020, millions of doses of bird-flu vaccines at various stages of testing sit in government stockpiles, and more are on the way. There are also already tests that work, though these are not broadly available to the public... Recent research suggests that we might actually manage a second pandemic better than we would believe. Despite all the noise to the contrary, a June poll by Harvard's School of Public Health says that Americans overall think the government responses to COVID — asking people to wear masks, pausing indoor dining, requiring health-care workers to get vaccinated — were all good ideas. Although the media tends to paint school closures as radically unpopular, only 44 percent of respondents said they currently think the shutdowns were a mistake.
A growing body of research also suggests that many Americans feel stronger for what we endured during the most extreme days of COVID. Counter to what we like to say about our friends and neighbors and children, the challenge of the pandemic may have benefited some people's mental health. One study found that "children entering the pandemic with clinically meaningful mental-health problems experienced notable improvements in their mental health." (Turns out there's one thing worse than shutting down an American school and that's having to attend it.)
The article also points out that "There is no real information" on the likelihood of a bird-flu virus even crossing over into humans.
And of course, "COVID still kills, with a body count just shy of 50,000 Americans in 2024, and it feels like a stretch to say that Americans are particularly concerned."
But even in the event of a worst-case scenario, New York magazine believes "We may be more equipped for another pandemic than you think..." In 2023, more than half of people surveyed said that their lives had not returned to normal since the COVID outbreak, and a surprising number — 47 percent — said they now believe their lives will never return to normal.
But do we really know how a new pandemic would go and how we would handle it? Things are different this time — and in ways that aren't all bad. Unlike with COVID in the spring of 2020, millions of doses of bird-flu vaccines at various stages of testing sit in government stockpiles, and more are on the way. There are also already tests that work, though these are not broadly available to the public... Recent research suggests that we might actually manage a second pandemic better than we would believe. Despite all the noise to the contrary, a June poll by Harvard's School of Public Health says that Americans overall think the government responses to COVID — asking people to wear masks, pausing indoor dining, requiring health-care workers to get vaccinated — were all good ideas. Although the media tends to paint school closures as radically unpopular, only 44 percent of respondents said they currently think the shutdowns were a mistake.
A growing body of research also suggests that many Americans feel stronger for what we endured during the most extreme days of COVID. Counter to what we like to say about our friends and neighbors and children, the challenge of the pandemic may have benefited some people's mental health. One study found that "children entering the pandemic with clinically meaningful mental-health problems experienced notable improvements in their mental health." (Turns out there's one thing worse than shutting down an American school and that's having to attend it.)
The article also points out that "There is no real information" on the likelihood of a bird-flu virus even crossing over into humans.
And of course, "COVID still kills, with a body count just shy of 50,000 Americans in 2024, and it feels like a stretch to say that Americans are particularly concerned."
What I learned (Score:2, Insightful)
Public health is in your own hands. If other people want to be risky morons, let them - no amount of evidence will convince them of anything they aren't already primed to believe.
Re:What I learned (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, this isn't how it works.
If others act as disease breeding (and mutation) grounds and communication vectors, then public health cannot be in your own hands.
Re:What is true (Score:4, Informative)
There is in fact a minority, but not the kind you think. This minority immerses itself in conspiracy theories, tells people to do their "own research" (translation: ignore the experts), and promises a day in the future where The Truth will be revealed to all.
You, Okian Warrior, are part of that minority.
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I don't think a majority exists anymore. Just a pair of minorities plus a pool of malleable swing-voters.
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What does communism have to do with this? What is it with Americans bringing up communism for no reason to try and discredit things when they have no rational arguments?
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Given those dire straits, you shouldn't be surprised that their logic skills are also low. (Yes, that includes my own.)
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Re:What is true (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are part of the group that can only see what is right in front of it. Pandemics have been studied, by people with more brains and actual data than you want to recognize.
You can (and should) check your Library of Congress, as they still have those reports and many a thesis about real world results from the Spanish flu outbreak in 1919.
Many of those documents clearly state that quarantine hit economies hard. But also that cities who where really strict about those rules and kept their population under those strict rules, were also the cities that were back to their pre-pandemic economy level within 5 years. From the Spanish Flu-pandemic era is more than enough good data available. Cities that were soft on those regulations, or those filled with 'worriers' like yourself, those needed at least 10 years to get in the neighborhood of their pre-pandemic economic level. But for most cities that was too long, so families left those for cities that were strict and back to their economic level.
If you think the rhetoric in your comment makes you sound like a "warrior", let me re-assure you, you are the "worrier" instead.
And if you even think that your government was strict about quarantine, be ever so glad you were not subject to a 'cordon sanitaire' instead.
Why that even exists? Because it is a proven/battle-tested method that makes sure that the few don't make the "herd" sick.
Here in South America, in the first 6 months armed military and (federal) police was posted all around the capital to make sure everyone was and remained under curfew.
And guess what, because of that, Paraguay could re-open pretty quick. The economy didn't suffer that much. And for most of the 1st 2 years there were hardly any Covid cases.
Unfortunately, Brasil had Bolsinaro as president and he was the same as you, a Covid-denier and lifted whatever quarantine regularion he chose to apply far too quickly, worrying about 'economy'-blah blah. So that gave ground for Covid to mutate into the Brasil-variant.
That one did cross this border as Brasilians were seeking refuge here for health and economic reasons with family. Which turned Paraguay from one of the safest countries from the pandemic to one of the absolutely worse ones.
And the second lockdown...that really did damage the economy.
We'll agree on lack of leadership in the Covid-pandemic. But my experience is completely opposite of yours. And as I witnessed the effectiveness of very strict quarantine rules and willingness to uphold those, compared with the BS you are trying to peddle in your post, I'll choose strict adherence every time.
There have been pandemics before the Spanish flu, there is also documentation about those, but supporting data is a lot more sketchy. However, also those documents state that short, but very strict quarantines help get rid of pandemics quicker with much less damage to (local) economies as a result.
So yeah, previous pandemic studies state 'strictness' is the only way to go, and now my personal experiences undergoing both ways of dealing with a pandemic tell me exactly the same.
Not only does your post not convince me, I find it one about as meaningful as farting in the wind.
Wearing proper masks the proper way, keeping my distance of 6 feet and washing my hands everywhere I went, I never felt better. Simple cleanliness works. All the time. All over the world. Because you simply don't pick up nearly as much germs up that way to make you sick.
Then again, I was raised with: "one ounce of prevention is worth one pound of cure". Cleanliness is a large part of that 'ounce'.
And to finally get back to the point of the article. No, people are most definitely not better prepared for the next pandemic. Because the world is filled with far too many people, like yourself, who think they know better.
Now, I "hate" to tell you, but regarding health you don't know jack sh.t. Neither do I. But, unlike you, I am not opposed to take advice and/or medicine from those t
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Great post. Moderators please note.
Re:What is true (Score:4, Informative)
Quarantines and lock downs have been part of the strategy for centuries
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Note that this is the reason that we have laws against things like defecating not in a toilet or on someone else's property.
'cause that crap spreads disease.
So, you can say it is in your own hands as much as you want, but it isn't true at all so long as you're other than a self-sufficient carveout from all of society (no trading/buying with that society in any dependent way either).
Practically, that is noone.
Re:What I learned (Score:5, Insightful)
It absolutely is not. Leaving public health to individuals making individual decisions is precisely how you get disease, how your spread a pandemic, and how you breed drug resistant superbugs. Sure *YOU* may take care of yourself. You may wash your hands. You may not let your animals defecate in your own living room. You may use a full course of antibiotics. But someone else not doing that can have a material affect on your health.
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Re: What I learned (Score:2)
Nope (Score:4, Informative)
The voters elected the worst president possible
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He's not the worst one possible. Use a bit of imagination.
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Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Covid was a hoax by the democrats https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
And the head of the health department is an anti vaxxer who had literal brain parasites https://www.pbs.org/newshour/h... [pbs.org]
We'll be just fine...
Politics says no (Score:5, Insightful)
We could be better prepared.. but the pandemic response was politicized, and so we'll probably see worse outcomes next go round.
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
At the political level, we do not have the will to do what should be done. At the population level, we don't even have the belief that we should.
Last time we decided "fuck the old and the sick, if they die they die". And we decided, "I'd rather take my chances than stay away from church and sporting events for a while". And finally, we decided to let people walk around unmasked and unvaccinated as if their freedom was more important than our lives. And instead we focus on minor details as if to prove the whole thing was a hoax.
These things do not appear to have changed, and if anything we're worse off now than we were before.
Re: Nope (Score:2)
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Of course you're overlooking that New York was hardest hit earliest, well before a vaccine and while Trump was doing his best to impair COVID response both for profit and because it was killing people who didn't vote for him.
Florida suffered similarly because they decided rectal UV treatments and horse paste was better than masks and vaccines for a virus they denied even existed. And they probably did worse than that, because they were fudging the death certificates and official statistics to support COVI
Yes and No (Score:5, Insightful)
"Are We Better Prepared Now for Another Pandemic? "
In theory, yes, we should be.
In reality, probably not.
In fact, I'm 100% certain that we'll see the same type of idiots spreading the same type of disinformation, just like last time.
"Masks don't help!" (they do)
"It's just the flu!" (it's not)
"Take (horse/dog/sheep medication) and you'll be safe!" (you won't)
"It's a gubmint plot to control us!" (it's not)
"It's a hoax!" (it's not)
"People are dying, but not from it!" (they are)
You'll see every one of these claims within the first 6 months.
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Definitely. COVID was not deadly enough to really cut down the stupid. Maybe we get lucky and the next thing is.
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Re:Yes and No (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden is a large country in terms of area not to mention it's cold as hell, but had a higher death rate not only than similar countries Norway and Finland but also more than Cyprus which is a much more dense country.
Re:Yes and No (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden didn't close down as much as others. They did take some measures.
And you know what? They lost more people per capita than other Nordic countries because of their choice.
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They lost more people per capita than other Nordic countries because of their choice.
You mean Finland and Norway had lower death rates than the rest of Europe. The demographics of Sweden are a lot closer to Europe than to its neighbors.
Re:Yes and No (Score:4, Informative)
> That's not true Sweden had one of the lowest excess death rates
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
How about fuck you, you ignorant conspiracy-spreading fucktard AC?
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Re: Yes and No (Score:2)
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IIRC, what I first saw was a statement that there weren't enough n95 masks, so they should be reserved for people in high exposure situations. That's not quite the same statement...but I seem to recall that it got oversimplified really quickly.
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Yes, that's an example.
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That's OK, the Internet remembers. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30... [cnn.com] “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit."
First, note that this is a recommendation from "Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program", and not, for example, the US CDC or Dr Anthony Fauci.
But wait! There's more: this story was released by CNN on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 (early on): “'There also is the issue that we have a massive global shortage,' Ryan said about masks and other medical supplies. 'Right now the people most at risk from this virus are frontline health workers who are exposed to the virus every sec
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That's not exactly correct. Even ordinary masks help, but the main way they help is by slowing down the transmission from the one wearing the mask. They have only a minor effect on the chance of catching the disease. (Even that doesn't happen if you wear the mask on your chin like I saw many people doing._
Re: Yes and No (Score:2)
Mostly, it’s about the change in vaccines (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, that’s an exaggeration but only slightly. There are definitely going to be more pandemics, but the vaccines will show up in a matter of weeks and nothing is likely to close the world the way covid did.
Re:Mostly, it’s about the change in vaccines (Score:5, Insightful)
There are definitely going to be more pandemics, but the vaccines will show up in a matter of weeks and nothing is likely to close the world the way covid did.
Unless too many people are too stupid to get vaccinated. Then it will be lockdowns again.
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The public health rationale for lockdowns decreases significantly when there is an effective vaccine.
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No, unfortunately. What decreases is the individual moral rationale, but inly if you ignore indirect effects. Lockdowns are not about protecting individuals. If it was a pure ethical question whether people can protect themselves and lockdowns would serve to protect them when they cannot, you would be right. But that is not the function of lockdowns. Lockdowns are about preventing panic and chaos and keeping society functioning.
Hence vaccinations only prevent lockdowns when enough people get vaccinated that
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Maybe. A lot of the reason the vaccines were ready so quickly was because COVID was so similar to SARS which they'd gotten ready to build vaccines for, but it turned out to be easy to contain it with quarantines. So if the new disease is similar to something that been studied then they can probably roll it out quickly...if there aren't any problems. (Some vaccines make you MORE sensitive to the disease. Not what you want, but the only way to tell so far it to build a vaccine and test it.)
It's not a simp
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Before covid, making and rolling out a new vaccine took like 24 months ... involving millions of chickens.
Not quite correct. Eggs, not chickens, and some newer techniques that don't use eggs. And it takes months to make a vaccine for a new strain of flu. Prior to COVID-19, the fastest a new vaccine had been developed for a different disease was about four years for measles.
There are definitely going to be more pandemics, but the vaccines will show up in a matter of weeks and nothing is likely to close the world the way covid did.
Probably more than weeks. Maybe as little as a year, more or less. First it's necessary to recognize that there is a pandemic, then to identify and characterize the causal agent, then develop the vaccine, then test the vaccine, and then ram
depends is it going to be more efficent (Score:2)
LOL (Score:3)
We'll have massive denials and then blaming of certain racial groups and people will get accused of deliberately poisoning the air and water.
Yes we are (Score:2)
And hold on to that feeling, just don't think about this question on January 21st
Better prepared? Some are. (Score:2)
The smart ones are. Prepared to wear masks, prepared to get vaccinated, prepared to keep social distance. The stupid ones will just die massively more frequently than necessary. Somehow I fail to see this as a bad thing.
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It's not clear how deadly bird flu would be if it evolved to be human-human transmissible. This isn't unlikely as it's already cow-cow transmissible, though that suspect that the contagion is via milking-machines. The human-human transmissible version would need a different transmission mechanism.
OTOH, it is already known to have infected people who were exposed to infected cows. This means that the needed mutation is not a major one. (But how serious is it? This isn't clear. Some people have died of
50,000 deaths (Score:2)
is on a par with a typical flu year. A bad flu year is three times that.
If the flu isn't a big deal, why is another disease that kills about the same number of people?
Maybe people are smarter than they're given credit for.
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Re: 50,000 deaths (Score:2)
Well we were (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
Nobody going to listen the enxt time (Score:2)
Re: Nobody going to listen the enxt time (Score:2)
No, need smarter, better people (Score:2)
We still have a public, and most leaders who think "exponential" means "a lot", so we can't apply policies that control the growth rate. We have a public that fundamentally doesn't understand probability / statistics, and wants everything to be 100% or 0%. We still have leadership that thinks lying to the public to get the desire actions is OK, and then is surprised when they are no longer trusted. We still have big medical industry happy to amplify profits in any situation.
Maybe if we have an extremely
With RFK Jr - definitely... (Score:2)
I could not think of a "better" person to handle COVID-like crisis than RFK Jr ...
COVID is the new flu.... (Score:2)
Depends on what they're cooking-up at Wuhan (Score:2)
As for, are we better prepared now for another pandemic. See if anyone has recently patented any new vaccines. Like Fauci patented a Coronavirus vaccine back in March 12, 2020
We're doomed (Score:2)
As soon as President Grab 'Em by the Wherever gets his gaggle of quacks in charge of the public health, bird flu will be the least of our worries.
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>> shutdowns went on for months
Anyone with any sense stopped going out to eat in the presence of probably-infected people, or even going shopping without a mask.
Re: Yes we are (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember things differently. Weirdly, pretty much the opposite of your summary.
What I will agree on is that lockdowns have a negative societal effect. That was well known before, during and after though.
Back on topic, I suspect we're probably worse off now than we were. We have a whole lot of people thinking they know best because "*we* were fine last time around", few countries have any money left because they bailed out sections of their economies and more countries than ever have a new crop of leaders (with very few from the last serving anywhere in government now).
That's a sticky mix of arrogance, lack of knowledge of history and no money. Not good, imho.
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I remember things differently. Weirdly, pretty much the opposite of your summary.
What I will agree on is that lockdowns have a negative societal effect. That was well known before, during and after though.
Back on topic, I suspect we're probably worse off now than we were. We have a whole lot of people thinking they know best because "*we* were fine last time around", few countries have any money left because they bailed out sections of their economies and more countries than ever have a new crop of leaders (with very few from the last serving anywhere in government now).
That's a sticky mix of arrogance, lack of knowledge of history and no money. Not good, imho.
Yes, and there's another thing that's not fixed. Governments used nudge units, PR firms, advertising campaigns, etc. to program an unconscious narrative that hooked into our moral and ethical triggers, and make us believe things we would normally not accept. (I guess many highly technical people don't believe they have an unconscious which can be influenced, as there's pride in being rational, but most of what the brain does happens before the thoughts form.)
Laughably ridiculous edicts like, put your mask o
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Re: Yes we are (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that the US is now run by oligarchs that Trump himself picked, I don't really understand your comment.
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You're like every anti-vaxxer lunatic rolled into one. The only thing you missed was the part about taking lots of horse dewormer.
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Here ya go [thisamericanlife.org]: "A surprising amount of the emotion driving this movement has to do with ivermectin. You probably remember ivermectin, the horse drug. People started taking huge doses to cure themselves of COVID at one point. But the science says ivermectin doesn't work for COVID. It's an amazing drug for other things like parasites, not COVID. ...
"upset that the hospital didn't offer ivermectin and other alternative medicines to patients who wanted it to treat COVID. ... we had people getting up there crying
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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Key problem areas appear to be (1) the toxicity of the spike protein—both from the virus and also when produced by gene codes in the novel COVID-19 mRNA and adenovectorDNA vaccines [1,2], hence the novel term ‘spikeopathy’; (2) inflammatory properties of certain lipid-nanoparticles used to ferry mRNA [3]; (3) N1-methylpseudouridine in the synthetic mRNA that causes long-lasting action [4]; (4) widespread biodistribution of the mRNA [5] and DNA [6,7] codes via the lipid-nanoparticle and the viral-vector carrier matrices, respectively and (5) the problem of human cells producing a foreign protein in our ribosomes that can engender autoimmunity https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
Vaccines typically don't use live viruses because you want the vaccine to be less harmful than actually getting the sickness. Except in this case, the vaccine appears to do most of what the virus does. It was not supposed to leave the injection site. There isn'
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"How about taking each issue as they come instead of speciously labeling people?"
How about no? How about not falling into the trap of letting 'perfect' be the enemy of 'good'?
When I hear anti-vax horseshit I'll call it out and I don't care if you or anyone else has an issue with it.
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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Actually the infamous review essentially concluded that given inconsistent adherence, we can't conclude that mask *mandates* work. There is little doubt that the correct masks, properly worn, are effective.
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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Or to wear the masks the wrong way, sometimes deliberately.
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Yes, this is a key factor: it only really works if everyone does it. Even just a few carriers/spreaders is all it takes to undo the work of the other 99%.
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There is "little doubt that masks work".
Excuse me, there are huge doubts that a paper face mask stops a viral infection spread via water vapor. In fact, it is physically impossible for a paper mask to impede it. This has nothing to do with how well you wear masks, or how many people do or do not wear them. If all it took for biological research labs to be safe from escaped airborne viruses were to wear paper masks, they sure could save a lot of money on purification systems, full body suits, containment pr
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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there are huge doubts that a paper face mask stops a viral infection spread via water vapor. In fact, it is physically impossible for a paper mask to impede it.
Either you're confused, or I am--masks aren't made of paper. I believe they're 3D meshes of charged plastic fibers, pressed into sheets, which are usually layered to make a mask.
Re: There is vast doubt and lots of proof (Score:2)
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The only time I caught Covid was wearing TWO masks on an airline ...."
Well, there's your problem. Or maybe not. With all due respect to your background in infectious diseases, I have to point out that you don't know when you were infected. "Symptoms may appear [cdc.gov] 2-14 days after exposure to the virus." You're thinking of the airplane because that was unusual, but you could have been infected in a vehicle going to the airport, at the airport, at home, or any other place where there are, you know, people.
"Didn't matter, even an n-95 with careful application is like a 2% reductio
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Jesus Christ we've know about isolating and closing public places down during pandemics longer than we've known what caused pandemics
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Yes, 20-20 hindsight with coal-colored glasses helps. Imagine you are the head of CDC and a pandemic strikes hard in a month. You know it is a virus. You have no vaccines, you have no idea how it is transmitted but it does appear to first affect the respiratory systems, it is lethal in horrifying ways.
You as CDC-Head: Remain calm people, there's nothing you can do. Please try to die peacefully and not get excited.
Real CDC-Head who has a PhD and can think: Don't let the virus kill as many people as it likes.
Re: Yes we are (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Yes we are (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of people who fail to understand this always amazes me.
It's simple physics in terms of particle/mist containment: literally anything that blocks droplets to any degree is going to be a positive factor in lowering airborne transmission.
Re:Such a sad statement (Score:4, Informative)
Masking does not PREVENT transmission.
Pretending that "total prevention by masking only" was the scientific claim here is quite the straw man argument.
You still have to do other things (like reducing exposure in other ways) for best results.
If I get offered a chance to reduce transmission risk by 10-25% [nih.gov], I'll take that chance.
Re: Such a sad statement (Score:3)
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Damn you're dense.
As someone below stated, "Masking when ill reduces transmission. Masking does not PREVENT transmission."
Sorry that this is too difficult for you to grasp. You probably shoulda stayed in school, huh?
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Why not just say, "this is what we know about the virus" and "these are the options." Nope, it was "you have to get thi
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It was made political by the same liberal authoritarians that make everything political. They tell you what to do based on their view of the world that they're trying to impose upon you.
News for you, sport: this is true of every successful politician and most authority figures. They have power because they have the will to power (among other things including pure luck). Some people don't feel a need to boss everybody around, but some do, and the ones who do tend to end up in those positions. It isn't limited to liberals, whatever you may think that means.
"'you have to get this vaccine or lose your job.'" Was that the "liberal authoritarians"? Or was it a decision made by employers?
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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N95 is next to worthless. Except maybe if you're trying to build an immunity to something (like in The Princess Bride). N/P100 are affordable, there shouldn't be N95 or N99.
Re: Yes we are (Score:2)
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We make laws about having more than a certain amount of alcohol in your bloodstream while driving, even though some people could in theory safely drive while slightly intoxicated, and might not even harm themselves if they cause an accident.
Maybe review the science on this one, since there's a clear 10-25% reduction in risk [nih.gov] when properly wearing a
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>media tends to paint school closures as radically unpopular,
I mean... they were. If you were still working, you suddenly had daycare issues. Your kid, if the social type (like most are) started going squirrely. An entire cohort has higher levels of anxiety and social retardation. There were negative effects on academic performance.
My kids got lucky, they're more introverted than most and with a dad in IT to set them up, actually did better in school while never leaving the house.
But 'unpopular' and
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School closures are unpopular with employers.