Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

With all due respect, I think this is an overreaction. His statement, although simplified, is inherently supportable by argument. After all, religion is commonly defined as a system of beliefs and one of the primary goals of education is to impart impart knowledge. While there are overlaps and possible semantic arguments to the contrary, I find his comment valid and in no way a religious shot. Substituting the subjects in his statement further demonstrates the point: "I said belief was for education, knowledge comes from religion."

 

He has historically mocked people of faith. This was a benign comment compared.

But religion is literally a subject taught even in secular settings and seminaries are full of highly educated people continuing their journey.

He has been pretty clear with his disdain for "the fairy tail believing...bigots ...who lack reason... and lack education."...all of those have been subjects of his posts previously.

Its offensive. Again, I like Dan, but on this subject he is out of line.

 

He said, 'I said belief was for religion, knowledge comes from education.'. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. In fact I agree with it. Religion is based on faith, not factual evidence.

 

70% of Maryland adults have received at least 1 shot

 

Circumstantial evidence is still evedence.

 

That's tremendous. Looks like nationwide we have 62% having received one shot. Seven day avg of daily doses is nosediving, but we're still at 1.5 million.

 

It's very weak evidence.

 

My guess is you haven't really reviewed much of it in depth, and what you have seen you simply dismiss as something else.

 

Interesting WaPo analysis looking at unvaccinated people as a subset of the population. Sorry if it doesn't paint the rosy picture you were hoping for, but data doesn't lie. And the data says, among the unvaccinated, COVID-19 are as high as ever, suggesting we are nowhere near herd immunity. If we were, COVID-19 rates would be falling for the unvaccinated too.

Also in the article, another warning about variants, and how some are effecting children at higher rates. And how the virus is still raging across the planet, which is still cause for concern. You know, the actual science material that some like to laugh at.

 

The India variant has made its way onto US shores and is spreading fast. Data shows the variant spreads 60% faster than others, according to the story.

 

Nothing like Fauci telling the truth before the "truth" changed...

 

One, Fauci was worried there would be a run on masks, and there wouldn't be enough for healthcare workers and other Frontline, critical care people. And he was right. Remember the PPE shortage stories?

At the time of the above announcement, early studies were inconclusive about mass mask wearing. But by the end of March 2020, new studies were showing the general public wearing masks to be an effective way of slowing the spread of COVID-19. Given new information, it's not shocking Fauci changed his mind. It's called the scientific method. Follow the evidence. People who are so dogmatic that they never change their minds regardless of new evidence don't make good scientists.

 

This was a personal email. Not a public discussion. There was zero SCIENTIFIC studies that show that were done from Feb 2020 to May 2020 that brought NEW info on masks. You keep thinking masks work. The ONLY masks that work are N95 and like masks. Go read the only RCT mask study released in the last year and get back to me. You and others don't follow science. That's the joke. Just wait til Fauci has to admit he knew Covid was from the Wuhan lab. Those emails are out there and of course the US Media really did a great job following that story last year...

 

It is fascinating how determined people are to misunderstand the basic function of the non-N95 masks. Fauci clearly stated in the email that the masks don't protect the wearer, but rather the people around the wearer.

The RCT mask study said the same thing as Fauci. Yet people will bring it up as proof that Fauci was wrong.

 

Masks don't work significantly at all. That data is clear. It is a very very small advantage to wear a mask IF you are symptomatic with Covid. Otherwise masks don't help. Not sure why the push back. IF masks worked, we would have massive differences in the areas where mask usage is heavy versus mask usage that is light.

 

The link I posted was a new mask study posted end of March, 2020. Think it was only coincidence that Fauci and the CDC changed its opinion on public mask wearing in early April, 2020? Try reading for a change, instead of making up your mind and ignoring all facts that don't fit your narrative.

You seem to think a scientist changing his/her mind on a subject once new, scientific studies are published that bring new information to light is some sort of revelation. It isn't. It's called following the scientific method.

If you need more about the mask argument, here's a good article:

Rutherford was more blunt. The legitimate concern that the limited supply of surgical masks and N95 respirators should be saved for health care workers should not have prevented more nuanced messaging about the benefits of masking. “We should have told people to wear cloth masks right off the bat,” he said.

But the strongest evidence in favor of masks come from studies of real-world scenarios. “The most important thing are the epidemiologic data,” said Rutherford. Because it would be unethical to assign people to not wear a mask during a pandemic, the epidemiological evidence has come from so-called “experiments of nature.”

A recent study published in Health Affairs, for example, compared the COVID-19 growth rate before and after mask mandates in 15 states and the District of Columbia. It found that mask mandates led to a slowdown in daily COVID-19 growth rate, which became more apparent over time. The first five days after a mandate, the daily growth rate slowed by 0.9 percentage-points compared to the five days prior to the mandate; at three weeks, the daily growth rate had slowed by 2 percentage-points.
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Also in the article is this link, which compiled all the evidence in favor of wearing masks, published April 10, 2020. I might try reading Section 4, which list results of Mask Efficacy Studies.

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Those "studies" are awesome. Here is proof that masks "work".














I have tons more.

 

Wrong again. The data shows that if only 50% of the population is wearing a mask, the benefit is small. But if 80% to 90% are wearing masks, there is a clear benefit. 100%, and it might have been possible to eliminate COVID completely in certain areas. From this study.

Stutt et al. (37) explain that it is impossible to get accurate experimental evidence for potential control interventions, but that this problem can be approached by using mathematical modeling tools to provide a framework to aid rational decision-making. They used two complementary modeling approaches to test the effectiveness of mask wearing. Their models show that mask use by the public could significantly reduce the rate of COVID-19 spread, prevent further disease waves, and allow less stringent lockdown measures. The effect is greatest when 100% of the public wear face masks. They found that, with a policy that all individuals must wear a mask all of the time, a median effective COVID-19 Re of below 1 could be reached, even with mask effectiveness of 50% (for R0 = 2.2) or of 75% (for R0 = 4).

Kai et al. (38) presented two models for predicting the impact of universal mask wearing. Both models showed a significant impact under (near) universal masking when at least 80% of a population is wearing masks, versus minimal impact when only 50% or less of the population is wearing masks. Their models estimated that 80 to 90% masking would eventually eliminate the disease. They also looked at an empirical dataset, finding a very strong correlation between early universal masking and successful suppression of daily case growth rates and/or reduction from peak daily case growth rates, as predicted by their theoretical simulations.​

 

That "study" is wrong. You put crap into a model and you get crap out. Look at real world data. Some people will believe anything.