COVID-19

[JohnRoberts]

Local supermarket is selling masks at cost ,or so they claim , 36 euros for 50 ,

Retail for proper 3M N95 masks is something like $1.50 (apparently sales of these are restricted to health professionals and affected by demand).

Chinese spit masks are obviously cheaper.

JR

I wore the same mask for two months on my trips to the supermarket ,
kept it in a plastic food container with a wad of tissue doused down with hand sanitiser ,
I take full advantage of the free ethanol sanitiser on entrance and exit to the store still ,
not just one push of the button , more like ten , around a table spoon ,rubbed all over the hands and forearms .

Interesting point raised about the Japanese fasting thing , a friend who lived there swears by it , makes plenty of sense to run the tank dry every so often , like was mentioned for the vast majority of our existance food wasnt a simple swipe of a cash card away , dedication and skill was required to land the quarry , the the effort/reward complex got hijacked by sugar and sh*te and look where its landed us up ,a bunch of blobby bottomed tail draging pill heads susceptible to a euthanasing virus 

 

[Whoops]

Fauci has now admitted that we were lied to early on about masks.  This is rather concerning as it undermines public confidence in what officials say further preventing an effective response.

Personally, based on scientific evidence it was clear to me since the beginning that WHO and Governments worldwide were lying  about the use of masks.
I really agree with you that it undermines public confidence is what officials say.

 

[kambo]

Personally, based on scientific evidence it was clear to me since the beginning that WHO and Governments worldwide were lying  about the use of masks.
I really agree with you that it undermines public confidence is what officials say.

goooood morning people  ;D ;D ;D
not every government, and not every health official lied!
CDC and WHO lied big time...
masks was mentotary in Turkey, and in many other countries!
and those people are still in charge, and they dont get penalty for it!
ohhh i forgot,,, they are supported by democrats... so thats fine!
and some idiots are still talking about learning from mistakes.... there is no mistake...

 

[kambo]

Fauci has now admitted that we were lied to early on about masks. 

i knew he was lying all this time with CNN team,
do you have a link for this admitted info?

 

[Script]

ohhh i forgot,,, they are supported by...

and opposed by... ... some of who blatantly refuse to...

 

[kambo]

and opposed by... ... some of who blatantly refuse to...

refusing to do something is different, lying and supporting that lie is different!

 

[boji]

With a little bit of digging, one can find truckloads of data on severe acute respiratory illness outbreaks in the past, and what did and did not work during containments.  Aside from the painfully obvious  statistical benefit to placing a particulate-catching square in front of one's breathing holes during a respiratory-spreading outbreak, for the WHO and CDC to actively promote the uselessness or outright danger of using masks, then after some time completely reverse course on this advice, should lead to some speculative conclusions:  They wanted to test the power of contraindication and media reach,  measure how easily persuaded and/or complacent certain areas of the world are,  or they wanted it to spread a little bit because it would guarantee windfall funding for the next decade. The quantity of past information, pamphlets, and scientific material on safety and containment methods during the sars outbreaks of 2002 and 2004, and H1N1 of 2009, should cast more doubt on intentions than competency.

 

[john12ax7]

The reason given for discouraging mask use was due to their short supply for medical professionals. I still find this to be terrible  advice and public policy. They should have simply said wear a DIY mask when out in public and save the N95 for the medical community. Would have helped a LOT.

https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus

"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."

 

[Script]

The reason given for discouraging mask use was due to their short supply for medical professionals.

+1

I still find this to be terrible  advice and public policy. They should have simply said wear a DIY mask when out in public

Absolutely -- It really is 'Thanks for nothing, WHO'.  But then again, look at how many people did just that : they DIY'ed face coverings (--while others, encouraged by leading figures, felt comfortable in believing it's all meaningless--) But everybody called for distancing, no ?

Still, the decision to not allow the few N95's available worldwide to be wasted was a sensible call ( that is, wasted by us, people who mostly don't know or did not know back then how to use those masks correctly anyway ). The healthcare infrastructures needed to be protected. Question of logistics. Sad but simple.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Guys please keep the partisan blather in the COVID politics thread.  There is still enough actual health information that is worth maintaining a reasonable S/N ratio here for.

===

I speculated from early on that official mask policy was surely affected by availability... No government official wants to create public panic by advising practices that are impossible to follow.

It seems there is no shortage of misinformation spread to promote various agendas or just out of simple ignorance. Let's try to keep it more rigorous and less partisan in this thread.

JR

PS; I realize the impossibility of herding cats on the internet. We do get a number of smart contributions here, but don't let them get drowned out by all the political noise, like everything else in life.. If we keep the political blather over in the politics thread, less inflamed forum members might be able to use this thread as a resource without being offended.

 

[boji]

The reason given for discouraging mask use was due to their short supply for medical professionals

No interest in angling for a political point, but yes there were formal reasons given on supply chain issues that made total sense. However there were also many information sources I watched repeat over and over the message that using them was 'more harmful than good'.  In most cases, the news outlets said they were getting this information from either WHO or CDC sources.  I'll keep this kind of talk on the other thread now. Strike this and previous point if you wish mods, to keep the thread clean (I'd move them over there if I could).

 

[JohnRoberts]

No interest in angling for a political point, but yes there were formal reasons given on supply chain issues that made total sense. However there were also many information sources I watched repeat over and over the message that using them was 'more harmful than good'.  In most cases, the news outlets said they were getting this information from either WHO or CDC sources.  I'll keep this kind of talk on the other thread now. Strike this and previous point if you wish mods, to keep the thread clean (I'd move them over there if I could).

WHO and CDC had their own different misinformation issues...  Question everything.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Read that red cross is offering free covid anti-body tests to blood donations, as a promotion to get more fresh blood.

No word about them using this for  "convalescent plasma"  strategies, since the blood could still be infectious.  They probably need to do this anyhow just to protect the blood supply. Clever to use it as an inducement to get more donations.

JR 

 

[Script]

Read that red cross is offering free covid anti-body tests to blood donations, as a promotion to get more fresh blood.

Smart. And makes a lot of sense.

 

[scott2000]

So Orange County FL has a mandatory face mask order now....

I hear the line to the civic center in Orlando is 3 hours at times.... Has been for at least the past 2 weeks from what I've been told....

Hospitalizations are up in Orange County..... higher than they've ever been


June22

"As of Monday, 115 patients with COVID-19 were being treated at Orange County hospitals, according to information shared by Orange County health department officials.

That’s 51 more cases than the week before and 85 more than the week of May 17.

Health systems told the county “their numbers were higher than ever before,” said Dr. Raul Pino, health officer at the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, in an email on Monday."

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-coronavirus-orlando-hospitalizations-masking-policies-20200622-mg6obdwj6japlm2fsauqxwvvey-story.html


Interesting turn of events from 2 months ago in April...

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/04/13/orange-county-mayor-says-he-wont-require-residents-to-wear-face-masks/



April 13

"Orange County mayor says he won’t require residents to wear face masks
Order would be too difficult to enforce

As of Monday morning, there are 1,017 COVID-19 patients in Orange County"


Weird....

 

[Bo Deadly]

Face masks and social distancing works very well at suppressing transmission of even a highly contagious virus like covid. That's one of the main things we learned from all of this. Here in NJ people were pretty lax about masks and distancing until about the beginning of April when the numbers started to shoot upward. Ever since, people have been pretty serious about it. I'm quite surprised by it actually. Even little kids riding their bikes around outside and people waking in the park have masks probably more than 50% of the time. Most stores and restaurants are pretty locked down. Even today, to pickup food at a restaurant, you pay in advance online or over the phone, go to door, wait at a distance for someone to come out, call our your name and then hand you the food all while wearing gloves and a mask. Now the numbers in NJ are waaaaay down. We've had only a couple hundered new cases a day here.

So my point is, all of this is a function of masks and distancing. As soon as it got nice out and places relaxed the rules, you get increases. Now that they're seeing a spike in cases I suspect people will start being a little more diligent and, in two weeks, you'll see the numbers drop.

 

[scott2000]

Yeah.... The crappy part (aside from the obvious weird reporting)  is a ton of businesses are now closing up again because people are testing positive who work there ..

This thing seems it's going to be like Frank's hot sauce.....

edit....also curious about the implications of this "life in a bubble" method.... The studies out about antibodies being present in the mucous membranes and not in the blood are not being talked about hardly.  How might we be affecting these defense systems... Just curious.... Decades of methodology flipped back and forth over a few short months is just hard to adjust to I suppose...

 

[scott2000]

Pretty cool.. wondering when these would be around....

Looks like they averaged 2015-2019 years and compared to this year.....

I'm curious what comparing a straight 2018 to 2020 year would look like....

It's a bit weird to navigate for a while and see what's really going on with the numbers but neat...

The 11th chart is fascinating to me....

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

 

[JohnRoberts]

Increased community spread was expected from reopening the economy.

Death rates are probably more important than infection rates. Health professionals are surely monitoring all this.

At least one administration official has confirmed that they are stockpiling supplies (this isn't over till its over).

An expected next wave could hit in Sept? but the future hasn't happened yet so can't be predicted with any certainty.

JR

PS: Drug companies are talking about making an inhaled version  of remdesivar (anti viral) for outpatient use.

 

[Script]

Drug companies are talking about making an inhaled version  of remdesivar (anti viral) for outpatient use.

Yes, it requires less of the stuff and takes it directly to where it's needed, they say. Injection dosage 1 = inhalation dosage 3.
Equals patient treatable tripled. However, this med more effective in early stage of infection, it seems.

Other medication
Blood thinners against clotting