As for the cultural difference, I believe in Asian cultures it also has in the past been a warning to others that you are sick as a courtesy, but I might be wrong on that one. Regardless, it can't HURT for everyone to wear a mask.
Yes, it actually can hurt. Could people actually read what experts have to say on the subject before proffering their off-the-cuff opinions?
That's not even counting the fact that everyone wearing masks would exacerbate the already existing shortage of N95 masks that are desperately needed by real medical workers.
If you truly believe that there are no differences between how people think depending on where they are, cultural nuances, religions, or family traditions and that pointing out those differences is racist, then I have to say that I respectfully disagree with you. I won't be debating this with you anymore so I'm just going to agree to disagree with you.
There are differences in how people think when all of those things are the same.
I genuinely hope you come to understand what was wrong with saying that wet markets are indicative of a fundamental divide in mindset between "the west" and "the east" (even aside from the fact we don't actually know the transmission had anything to do with eating anything - if it had spread from pangolins as was formerly speculated, for instance, their primary value is their scales).
masks can create a false sense of security. After all, we know of other times where safety measures have led people to take more risks — not fewer.
I don't agree with lying to people in order to protect them. This lying for your own good seems to be the only reason cited in your article.
Well, it's just as likely to take the virus more seriously if they see people with masks. This visual reminder of the pandemic would be less likely to call it a hoax.
The WHO lying and saying "masks bad" to protect the supply has endangered countless lives.
If more people worse masks, it would not have spread so readily among misinformed population and healthcare workers would not need as many masks.
Honestly, the question of whether people outside of medical workers should wear masks is hard for me to answer. Encouraging people to buy them could produce a key shortage among medical workers (and which would happen at the worst possible time), so that's a meaningful risk. If people wear them in public, it will spread awareness. If people overestimate how much safety they grant you, people with masks won't practice social distancing as much. Finally, we don't really know exactly how beneficial they are for preventing the spread of COVID, partly because non-medical workers are less likely to use them properly. I don't think this issue is particularly clear cut.
I just wish the government was trying to get more masks produced overall. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to commission more; they're not made of super rare materials and we can muster the money to compensate whichever manufacturers we might order to produce extra masks.
Let me translate: People more likely to vote Republican should be able to vote by mail. Everyone else shouldn't be allowed to:
Actually I'm a bit surprised USA aren't yet implementing the online voting.
We were supposed to have a referendum in a couple weeks to instate Putin as tsar vote for amendments to Constitution, but after the quarantine had struck, there began talks about doing it online via e-government site.
It's a pity you've forgotten or never knew that a) the state before then was also authoritarian, b) it is not freedom when the government actively works to enrich the wealthy and shield them from consequences, it is merely another form of slavery, and c) a significant problem with the government you refer to is that the cage wasn't safe and those things were not guaranteed.
The difference is that in capitalist state you are free to gamble to exploit or be exploited (with odds influenced by your personal attributes and skills), while in USSR there was only the second option.
I don't agree with lying to people in order to protect them. This lying for your own good seems to be the only reason cited in your article.
Well, it's just as likely to take the virus more seriously if they see people with masks. This visual reminder of the pandemic would be less likely to call it a hoax.
The WHO lying and saying "masks bad" to protect the supply has endangered countless lives.
What precisely are your credentials that you disagree with the conclusions of a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics who has actually read research on the subject? From where comes your certainty?
All you have is your amateur deductions. Amateur deductions just like yours are responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings around the world and will continue to be responsible for the deaths of many more. This is not the time for them. This crisis has in fact proven emphatically how dangerous amateur deductions are.
Present your credentials and your published scientific literature, and then I will take your opinion on what is the best course of action in the midst of a public health crisis seriously. Until then, you are Donald Trump, and like him, your opinion that scientists and researchers don't know anything and your "common sense" is clearly right is useless at best and actively dangerous at worst.
As for the cultural difference, I believe in Asian cultures it also has in the past been a warning to others that you are sick as a courtesy, but I might be wrong on that one. Regardless, it can't HURT for everyone to wear a mask.
Yes, it actually can hurt. Could people actually read what experts have to say on the subject before proffering their off-the-cuff opinions?
That's not even counting the fact that everyone wearing masks would exacerbate the already existing shortage of N95 masks that are desperately needed by real medical workers.
NO ONE is suggesting people walk around with N95 masks, or even manufactured ones. Almost ALL the suggestions are to make your own out of fabric and cloth. I certainly have never suggested this. And people wouldn't be able to find a box of masks if they tried at this point. The CDC has recommended people wear them when out in public. Whether or not people take more risks because the mask makes them feel "more safe" is on them I guess. If it makes thousands of people think they can go hang out at BBQs then yeah, that would be a problem. My take on it is that you use it in the rare, essential instances you have to venture out in public among others. From the CDC:
It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.
The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.
Not that the CDC has been a paragon of anything during this crisis, but that is more because they have been kneecapped by the Administration who is in charge of them. Regardless this is what I plan on using when I finally have to venture out to the store and pharmacy next week. I don't see much benefit to wearing one when I go for a walk since I have no intention of coming anywhere near another person, and can reasonably expect to be successful in that goal with 99.9% certainty based on where I live, my route, and keeping my eyes peeled for other pedestrians. If the guidelines change, I will alter my behavior.
The difference is that in capitalist state you are free to gamble to exploit or be exploited (with odds influenced by your personal attributes and skills), while in USSR there was only the second option.
The people in the Party could make that gamble.
But the problem here isn't whether modern capitalist states are better than the USSR (generally they are, sure), but that a) you are assuming there are only two fundamental options, and b) you are assuming "exploit or be exploited" is a necessary or desirable way for a society to operate.
NO ONE is suggesting people walk around with N95 masks, or even manufactured ones. Almost ALL the suggestions are to make your own out of fabric and cloth. I certainly have never suggested this. And people wouldn't be able to find a box of masks if they tried at this point.
People are buying (and hoarding) those masks right now. They are available in pharmacies because some people actually need them (but of course now have trouble getting them due to the upswing in demand). It is not difficult to find articles on this.
If you think people aren't going to buy more N95 masks just because of the CDC advising homemade ones, I'm afraid the real world contradicted you long before this post (or the CDC's advice). People are perfectly well aware those masks are "better" than homemade ones.
NO ONE is suggesting people walk around with N95 masks, or even manufactured ones. Almost ALL the suggestions are to make your own out of fabric and cloth. I certainly have never suggested this. And people wouldn't be able to find a box of masks if they tried at this point.
People are buying (and hoarding) those masks right now. They are available in pharmacies because some people actually need them (but of course now have trouble getting them due to the upswing in demand). It is not difficult to find articles on this.
If you think people aren't going to buy more N95 masks just because of the CDC advising homemade ones, I'm afraid the real world contradicted you long before this post (or the CDC's advice). People are perfectly well aware those masks are "better" than homemade ones.
People are hoarding toilet paper as well. I'm not going to stop using mine because of that fact. I don't see why responsible homemade mask use, recommended by national health officials, should be discouraged because some people are taking advantage of the situation and being selfish. If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone act like they're supposed to be acting, I would. We wouldn't be where we are.
When this first happened, there was a needless run on certain goods. The suggestion seems to be that advising mandatory mask use will do more harm than good because it results in further selfish behavior. I still don't see how that makes an individual wearing a cloth mask some kind of pariah. If even one cough doesn't spray droplets on a store shelf, that could be a case avoided.
Unlike most of the population, I knew this was coming for 2 or 3 weeks before it happened. I didn't raid my local stores. Every day leading up to what I saw as inevitable looking at the numbers overseas, I would buy a small package of toilet paper on Monday, couple rolls of paper towels on Tuesday, 3 or 4 cans of soup on Wednesday. Rinse, repeat every day for 3 weeks. Maybe if the majority of the country hadn't been lulled into an idiotic sense of false security, and had acted in advance, none of this would be taking place. But that's America. They'll do the right thing after exhausting every other option.
I don't agree with lying to people in order to protect them. This lying for your own good seems to be the only reason cited in your article.
Well, it's just as likely to take the virus more seriously if they see people with masks. This visual reminder of the pandemic would be less likely to call it a hoax.
The WHO lying and saying "masks bad" to protect the supply has endangered countless lives.
What precisely are your credentials that you disagree with the conclusions of a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics who has actually read research on the subject? From where comes your certainty?
All you have is your amateur deductions. Amateur deductions just like yours are responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings around the world and will continue to be responsible for the deaths of many more. This is not the time for them. This crisis has in fact proven emphatically how dangerous amateur deductions are.
Present your credentials and your published scientific literature, and then I will take your opinion on what is the best course of action in the midst of a public health crisis seriously. Until then, you are Donald Trump, and like him, your opinion that scientists and researchers don't know anything and your "common sense" is clearly right is useless at best and actively dangerous at worst.
You are either being purposefully insulting or accidentally. Either way, gotta say I'm not a fan.
Did you miss where those scientific and scholarly minds have changed their mind and are now saying what has been obvious the whole time - people should wear masks.
I'm saying they should not have lied to us in the beginning. People have died. Millions are infected because they lied to us. If they hadn't lied, fewer people would be dead.
I'm saying they should not have lied to us in the beginning. People have died. Millions are infected because they lied to us. If they hadn't lied, fewer people would be dead.
I'm not sure *that* is true.
There are like 1.5 million cases reported in the world (There could and probably are far more, but the sake of a conversation, if you're going to use numbers - we should use something concrete). I dont think the experts who have suggested not wearing masks are responsible for millions of infections or deaths. I also dont think they were actively lying.
Is it possible they are wrong? Sure. Experts and scientists can all be wrong, and are constantly trying to reevaluate and re-test their own findings to that end. Is that happening here? Dont know enough about it.
It has died down in the news some recently, but the horrific mask shortage that is prevalent in the hospital system right now was a huge issue. Healthcare workers were having to reuse their probably medically uncleared masks for a week or more at a time,, essentially stripping away a vital form of protection. Most of that was because our healthcare system (and the world's at large, mind you) seemed to be completely unprepared for the mask demand. A not insubstantial part of that were people buying them up when and where possible.
My brother has a few of those masks. He's had them for a few years, because he paints miniatures and used them to protect himself. I know they are commercially available.
To be clear, I also have sympathy with the other side of this argument. If everyone wore the appropriate type of mask, and no one's behavior changed as a result, it seems to me like that would be a net benefit (provided it also did not reduce the stockpile of the important type of masks that Healthcare workers need). Hopefully, this is an issue where the population can be educated into keeping up appropriate social distancing behavior, and that by the *next* wave.
Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot and other stores have stopped selling n95 masks to the public. If you know where I can get one, let me know lol. Pulling masks from shelves could have been done before you tell people to wear masks. This should have been done in the beginning, there is no convincing reason given to tell people to not wear masks. The best reason we've seen is "people might think it's safe when it's not". That's an incredibly weak argument and it could just as easily be argued that masks would be a visual reminder of the danger facing us. The supply concern should not be an issue because we have and could have at any time restricted the sale of medical grade masks. Downplaying the threat and suggesting people not wear masks has caused the virus to spread.
Har de har.
Trump was asked today about starting up the economy again without a robust testing system in place. He said one would be "nice, but not necessary". 1000% wrong. Without the testing system, we are doomed to simply re-do what we are doing now. I have no doubt he has been told this, but doesn't care. Without massive testing, we can't change shit. Redfield, the political head of the CDC, is a disgrace for going along with this BS. You want your precious economy back?? You're gonna have to make the majority of Americans feel like they aren't walking into a minefield. I have absolutely no confidence that will ever not be the case at this rate, with this leadership. There is no plan. It's 24-hour news cycle whims.
You can "re-open" (or claim to) whatever you want. Those of us who have been correct about this from the beginning aren't sacrificing loved ones because Donald Trump says so. The same people who have been taking it seriously from the beginning will continue to do so, and the rest of the lemmings who were TOTALLY WRONG about this from jump street can offer themselves up. Of course, the problem there is they likely will be killing others.
Trump was asked today about starting up the economy again without a robust testing system in place. He said one would be "nice, but not necessary". 1000% wrong. Without the testing system, we are doomed to simply re-do what we are doing now. I have no doubt he has been told this, but doesn't care. Without massive testing, we can't change shit. Redfield, the political head of the CDC, is a disgrace for going along with this BS. You want your precious economy back?? You're gonna have to make the majority of Americans feel like they aren't walking into a minefield. I have absolutely no confidence that will ever not be the case at this rate, with this leadership. There is no plan. It's 24-hour news cycle whims.
You can "re-open" (or claim to) whatever you want. Those of us who have been correct about this from the beginning aren't sacrificing loved ones because Donald Trump says so. The same people who have been taking it seriously from the beginning will continue to do so, and the rest of the lemmings who were TOTALLY WRONG about this from jump street can offer themselves up. Of course, the problem there is they likely will be killing others.
Contrast that to Trudeau saying life isn’t going to be going back to normal until a vaccine is found.
And as prevalent as globalism is, even if America all went back to work tomorrow, they’d have no one to sell these goods to.
Crap like this has always been to keep the market from completely crashing. Remember, Trump had already said this will all blow over by Easter which is this weekend.
Trump was asked today about starting up the economy again without a robust testing system in place. He said one would be "nice, but not necessary". 1000% wrong. Without the testing system, we are doomed to simply re-do what we are doing now. I have no doubt he has been told this, but doesn't care. Without massive testing, we can't change shit. Redfield, the political head of the CDC, is a disgrace for going along with this BS. You want your precious economy back?? You're gonna have to make the majority of Americans feel like they aren't walking into a minefield. I have absolutely no confidence that will ever not be the case at this rate, with this leadership. There is no plan. It's 24-hour news cycle whims.
You can "re-open" (or claim to) whatever you want. Those of us who have been correct about this from the beginning aren't sacrificing loved ones because Donald Trump says so. The same people who have been taking it seriously from the beginning will continue to do so, and the rest of the lemmings who were TOTALLY WRONG about this from jump street can offer themselves up. Of course, the problem there is they likely will be killing others.
Contrast that to Trudeau saying life isn’t going to be going back to normal until a vaccine is found.
And as prevalent as globalism is, even if America all went back to work tomorrow, they’d have no one to sell these goods to.
Crap like this has always been to keep the market from completely crashing. Remember, Trump had already said this will all blow over by Easter which is this weekend.
And this was all what that hydroxychloroquine stuff has been about. A quick miracle fix so that we can be forced back to work and back to making money for billionaires.
Nearly a third of people in the United States haven't paid rent the first week of April. Trump's talking about bailing out Cruise lines and Big Oil and sending the country back to business as usual while people are dropping dead. The US accounts for one-quarter of Covid-19 deaths worldwide and Trump's demanding we go back to work. Hell some red states are still not shut down and are spreading the virus willy nilly right now, prolonging this thing. Hey some of us may die, but that's a price the GOP's willing to pay. Gotta protect the market. https://finance.yahoo.com/video/nearly-1-3-u-tenants-153811424.html
You are either being purposefully insulting or accidentally. Either way, gotta say I'm not a fan.
I'm not a fan of uncredentialed amateurs telling professionals they don't know what they're talking about in their field of expertise. And I'm even less of one now that it is causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.
This obnoxious culture where loudmouth amateurs dismiss expert opinion leads directly to the body counts in Britain and the United States. It leads to anti-vaxxers, too, and a host of other things. People are dying because of this. Enough is enough.
Did you miss where those scientific and scholarly minds have changed their mind and are now saying what has been obvious the whole time - people should wear masks.
The CDC changing its advice does not equate to "those scientific and scholarly minds" changing them. The CDC is not a consensus, it is one agency in one country. Nothing has changed about the scientific consensus - there isn't one.
Again, from where exactly is this confidence in thinking you know better than actual scientists who have actually studied the data? Do you go around telling aerospace engineers how they ought to design a rocket? Do you give helpful advice to your dentist on how to perform root canals?
I'm saying they should not have lied to us in the beginning. People have died. Millions are infected because they lied to us. If they hadn't lied, fewer people would be dead.
If you're going to keep saying the CDC lied, then please link to some actual evidence they did so. On precisely what do you place this repeated assertion? Their own explanation is they're recommending masks now due to asymptomatic cases.
People are hoarding toilet paper as well. I'm not going to stop using mine because of that fact. I don't see why responsible homemade mask use, recommended by national health officials, should be discouraged because some people are taking advantage of the situation and being selfish. If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone act like they're supposed to be acting, I would. We wouldn't be where we are.
People whose business is saving lives have to deal with the world as it is, not what they might wish it to be. The simple fact is that the more people wear masks, the greater strain that will place on N95 masks. That is a harm that has to be taken into account, particularly at this point where medical personnel have been infected and even died due to lack of proper protective equipment.
Is it enough harm to make advising mandatory mask wearing an unwise move? I can't answer that question, and most likely neither can anyone else here.
When this first happened, there was a needless run on certain goods. The suggestion seems to be that advising mandatory mask use will do more harm than good because it results in further selfish behavior. I still don't see how that makes an individual wearing a cloth mask some kind of pariah. If even one cough doesn't spray droplets on a store shelf, that could be a case avoided.
If you would actually read up on this rather than just strawmanning, you would realise the anti-mask argument contains much more than that, and is backed by considerable evidence (so is the pro-mask side, that is why there isn't a consensus).
Or, you know, you could just trust that maybe scientists and professors who've studied the subject know far, far more about it than you do - and if they can't reach a broad consensus on the data, you are not going to settle the debate. You could learn to accept, as the article I posted suggests, that sometimes you will just not know enough to even make informed guesses. It is not an admission of failure - it is an acceptance of reality.
If you're going to keep saying the CDC lied, then please link to some actual evidence they did so. On precisely what do you place this repeated assertion? Their own explanation is they're recommending masks now due to asymptomatic cases.
So they didn't realize there were asymptomatic cases before last week? Or they were issuing bad advice before?
There have been reports of people with mild cases/asymptomatic infecting others since the beginning of the outbreak. Remember the first cases in the US in December of Janauary that were called "community spread" and how the first cases in Washington were people who didn't even travel to one of the infection hotspots? How do you think those cases spread? Even among the very first cases here in America we knew asymptomatic or people with minor symptoms spreading the virus.
I get your concern about anti-vax and bad faith advice on the Internet. But sometimes bad "expert advice" is bad advice. It can never be criticized?
Whatever the reason, the initial mask advice was clearly wrong and has done a lot of damage to attitudes and people have died directly because of this advice driving the spread in the USA. The US has one of the worst responses to the pandemic and the greatest amount of deaths in the entire world. While it's great that the CDC fixed their story but the original "masks bad" narrative, which went well with bad advice on certain news outlets downplaying the threat, has done a lot of damage. This bad advice is still on people's mind. It's tough to uncork that genie. Mistakes were made. Our response has been god awful and not just the supply chain.
I get your concern about anti-vax and bad faith advice on the Internet. But sometimes bad "expert advice" is bad advice. It can never be criticized?
First off, you determine if the expert in question is actually qualified to answer the questions. Lots of "bad expert advice" is people opining on subjects they actually aren't qualified to be touted as an expert of.
Second, you look to see if there is a substantial body of experts who do support a different take in the data. If there isn't, that's a warning sign.
Third, you retain the humility to understand that your gut hunches are just that, not facts. There is never any good reason to be certain you are right on a scientific question you do not have the training or experience to professionally address. Beliefs that can't be falsified are not scientific beliefs.
Fourth, if you really think all the scientists are wrong, then you do the work and show them they are. Scientific consensus is overturned by repeatable, verifiable data - not gut hunches. It has been done.
Whatever the reason, the initial mask advice was clearly wrong and has done a lot of damage to attitudes and people have died directly because of this advice driving the spread in the USA.
You continue to say this, and it continues to be a supposition, not a fact. There is, again, no scientific consensus that noninfected people wearing masks is a necessity or even helpful.
It may be in the future enough analysis will show your conclusion that masks should have been recommended from the beginning is correct. But even if it is, that will not retroactively make that conclusion scientific.
I've been to at least a dozen Good Friday masses in my life. Was an altar boy for at least 4 or 5 of them. Literally never heard anyone utter the words "Happy Good Friday" in my life. It is, for all intents and purposes, more accurately described as "crucifixion day". It's a day of somber reflection and mourning. Well, I guess it used to be. I don't know what kind of warped bullshit is being peddled in the churches these people go to. Guess it fits though. Trump wants to sacrifice them all the same way Jesus sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Except gathering in your local mega-church is Golgotha, with crosses and nails set up for everyone.
This is how easy Canada is making it. 48-hours from application to bank account. In light of that, has ANYONE seen their $1200.00 here yet??:
No - but I did see that the fed has pump 2 trillion more into the economy to help stabilize the markets. Hard to square when apparently it's too expensive to have universal healthcare, or fight climate change, or even making university tuition free.
A more cynical person might assume the price tag on those things above isnt the real reason why the GOP doesnt want to pursue them.
This is how easy Canada is making it. 48-hours from application to bank account. In light of that, has ANYONE seen their $1200.00 here yet??:
No - but I did see that the fed has pump 2 trillion more into the economy to help stabilize the markets. Hard to square when apparently it's too expensive to have universal healthcare, or fight climate change, or even making university tuition free.
A more cynical person might assume the price tag on those things above isnt the real reason why the GOP doesnt want to pursue them.
I don't know how the "we can't pay for it" argument can possibly survive after this, but it will. Not that blue dog Democrats won't help. I did see that Biden has incorporated moving Medicare eligibility to 60 instead of 65 into his platform. Since even the proposals of Warren and Sanders were phased in exactly like this, it strikes me as simply committing to the first step that will be way harder to argue against politically.
There is, again, no scientific consensus that noninfected people wearing masks is a necessity or even helpful.
Yes, we got that already, professor - there's no need for potential non-symptomatic carriers to wear masks to reduce the spread to healthy populace. We got that.
You continue to say this, and it continues to be a supposition, not a fact. There is, again, no scientific consensus that noninfected people wearing masks is a necessity or even helpful.
You are totally right. But there's a little huge problem there and it's why the advice should have been for everyone to wear masks this whole time. Wait for it.
If we could just be sure that the non-infected people don't wear masks that'd be great. But how do we know if a person is non-infected? We don't test enough people do we?
There's asymptomatic carriers and people spreading the disease unknowingly or with minor symptoms. Maybe they don't think they're infected. Maybe they don't have sick days at their mcjob.
Therefore, I propose to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that it's a no-brainer that the advice should have been to wear masks from the beginning. The advice not to wear masks has been harmful. Scientific advisors in a lot of other countries, particularly in East Asia, advised citizens to immediately to wear masks and aren't having the horrific response, the very worst in the world, that we are having here in America.
Therefore, I propose to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that it's a no-brainer that the advice should have been to wear masks from the beginning. The advice not to wear masks has been harmful. Scientific advisors in a lot of other countries, particularly in East Asia, advised citizens to immediately to wear masks and aren't having the horrific response, the very worst in the world, that we are having here in America.
Correlation does not imply causation.
I dont think I can agree that anything is a no-brainer if there isnt sufficient consensus on the topic. In this case, I actually think you two are arguing mostly over two different things - which complicates the matter further (and then, sometimes speaking in absolute terms that generally cannot be defended).
Scientists pretty much have to assume that everybody else is a dumbass. That's why their predictions are often so dire. It's not that they're 'lying' per se, it's that they have to present the worst possible scenarios just to get people to listen...
Comments
Yes, it actually can hurt. Could people actually read what experts have to say on the subject before proffering their off-the-cuff opinions?
That's not even counting the fact that everyone wearing masks would exacerbate the already existing shortage of N95 masks that are desperately needed by real medical workers.
There are differences in how people think when all of those things are the same.
I genuinely hope you come to understand what was wrong with saying that wet markets are indicative of a fundamental divide in mindset between "the west" and "the east" (even aside from the fact we don't actually know the transmission had anything to do with eating anything - if it had spread from pangolins as was formerly speculated, for instance, their primary value is their scales).
I don't agree with lying to people in order to protect them. This lying for your own good seems to be the only reason cited in your article.
Well, it's just as likely to take the virus more seriously if they see people with masks. This visual reminder of the pandemic would be less likely to call it a hoax.
The WHO lying and saying "masks bad" to protect the supply has endangered countless lives.
If more people worse masks, it would not have spread so readily among misinformed population and healthcare workers would not need as many masks.
I just wish the government was trying to get more masks produced overall. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to commission more; they're not made of super rare materials and we can muster the money to compensate whichever manufacturers we might order to produce extra masks.
We were supposed to have a referendum in a couple weeks to instate Putin as tsar vote for amendments to Constitution, but after the quarantine had struck, there began talks about doing it online via e-government site.
The difference is that in capitalist state you are free to gamble to exploit or be exploited (with odds influenced by your personal attributes and skills), while in USSR there was only the second option.
What precisely are your credentials that you disagree with the conclusions of a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics who has actually read research on the subject? From where comes your certainty?
All you have is your amateur deductions. Amateur deductions just like yours are responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings around the world and will continue to be responsible for the deaths of many more. This is not the time for them. This crisis has in fact proven emphatically how dangerous amateur deductions are.
Present your credentials and your published scientific literature, and then I will take your opinion on what is the best course of action in the midst of a public health crisis seriously. Until then, you are Donald Trump, and like him, your opinion that scientists and researchers don't know anything and your "common sense" is clearly right is useless at best and actively dangerous at worst.
NO ONE is suggesting people walk around with N95 masks, or even manufactured ones. Almost ALL the suggestions are to make your own out of fabric and cloth. I certainly have never suggested this. And people wouldn't be able to find a box of masks if they tried at this point. The CDC has recommended people wear them when out in public. Whether or not people take more risks because the mask makes them feel "more safe" is on them I guess. If it makes thousands of people think they can go hang out at BBQs then yeah, that would be a problem. My take on it is that you use it in the rare, essential instances you have to venture out in public among others. From the CDC:
It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.
The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.
Not that the CDC has been a paragon of anything during this crisis, but that is more because they have been kneecapped by the Administration who is in charge of them. Regardless this is what I plan on using when I finally have to venture out to the store and pharmacy next week. I don't see much benefit to wearing one when I go for a walk since I have no intention of coming anywhere near another person, and can reasonably expect to be successful in that goal with 99.9% certainty based on where I live, my route, and keeping my eyes peeled for other pedestrians. If the guidelines change, I will alter my behavior.
The people in the Party could make that gamble.
But the problem here isn't whether modern capitalist states are better than the USSR (generally they are, sure), but that a) you are assuming there are only two fundamental options, and b) you are assuming "exploit or be exploited" is a necessary or desirable way for a society to operate.
People are buying (and hoarding) those masks right now. They are available in pharmacies because some people actually need them (but of course now have trouble getting them due to the upswing in demand). It is not difficult to find articles on this.
If you think people aren't going to buy more N95 masks just because of the CDC advising homemade ones, I'm afraid the real world contradicted you long before this post (or the CDC's advice). People are perfectly well aware those masks are "better" than homemade ones.
People are hoarding toilet paper as well. I'm not going to stop using mine because of that fact. I don't see why responsible homemade mask use, recommended by national health officials, should be discouraged because some people are taking advantage of the situation and being selfish. If I could wave a magic wand and make everyone act like they're supposed to be acting, I would. We wouldn't be where we are.
When this first happened, there was a needless run on certain goods. The suggestion seems to be that advising mandatory mask use will do more harm than good because it results in further selfish behavior. I still don't see how that makes an individual wearing a cloth mask some kind of pariah. If even one cough doesn't spray droplets on a store shelf, that could be a case avoided.
Unlike most of the population, I knew this was coming for 2 or 3 weeks before it happened. I didn't raid my local stores. Every day leading up to what I saw as inevitable looking at the numbers overseas, I would buy a small package of toilet paper on Monday, couple rolls of paper towels on Tuesday, 3 or 4 cans of soup on Wednesday. Rinse, repeat every day for 3 weeks. Maybe if the majority of the country hadn't been lulled into an idiotic sense of false security, and had acted in advance, none of this would be taking place. But that's America. They'll do the right thing after exhausting every other option.
You are either being purposefully insulting or accidentally. Either way, gotta say I'm not a fan.
Did you miss where those scientific and scholarly minds have changed their mind and are now saying what has been obvious the whole time - people should wear masks.
I'm saying they should not have lied to us in the beginning. People have died. Millions are infected because they lied to us. If they hadn't lied, fewer people would be dead.
I'm not sure *that* is true.
There are like 1.5 million cases reported in the world (There could and probably are far more, but the sake of a conversation, if you're going to use numbers - we should use something concrete). I dont think the experts who have suggested not wearing masks are responsible for millions of infections or deaths. I also dont think they were actively lying.
Is it possible they are wrong? Sure. Experts and scientists can all be wrong, and are constantly trying to reevaluate and re-test their own findings to that end. Is that happening here? Dont know enough about it.
It has died down in the news some recently, but the horrific mask shortage that is prevalent in the hospital system right now was a huge issue. Healthcare workers were having to reuse their probably medically uncleared masks for a week or more at a time,, essentially stripping away a vital form of protection. Most of that was because our healthcare system (and the world's at large, mind you) seemed to be completely unprepared for the mask demand. A not insubstantial part of that were people buying them up when and where possible.
My brother has a few of those masks. He's had them for a few years, because he paints miniatures and used them to protect himself. I know they are commercially available.
To be clear, I also have sympathy with the other side of this argument. If everyone wore the appropriate type of mask, and no one's behavior changed as a result, it seems to me like that would be a net benefit (provided it also did not reduce the stockpile of the important type of masks that Healthcare workers need). Hopefully, this is an issue where the population can be educated into keeping up appropriate social distancing behavior, and that by the *next* wave.
Har de har.
You can "re-open" (or claim to) whatever you want. Those of us who have been correct about this from the beginning aren't sacrificing loved ones because Donald Trump says so. The same people who have been taking it seriously from the beginning will continue to do so, and the rest of the lemmings who were TOTALLY WRONG about this from jump street can offer themselves up. Of course, the problem there is they likely will be killing others.
Contrast that to Trudeau saying life isn’t going to be going back to normal until a vaccine is found.
And as prevalent as globalism is, even if America all went back to work tomorrow, they’d have no one to sell these goods to.
Crap like this has always been to keep the market from completely crashing. Remember, Trump had already said this will all blow over by Easter which is this weekend.
And this was all what that hydroxychloroquine stuff has been about. A quick miracle fix so that we can be forced back to work and back to making money for billionaires.
Nearly a third of people in the United States haven't paid rent the first week of April. Trump's talking about bailing out Cruise lines and Big Oil and sending the country back to business as usual while people are dropping dead. The US accounts for one-quarter of Covid-19 deaths worldwide and Trump's demanding we go back to work. Hell some red states are still not shut down and are spreading the virus willy nilly right now, prolonging this thing. Hey some of us may die, but that's a price the GOP's willing to pay. Gotta protect the market.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/nearly-1-3-u-tenants-153811424.html
I'm not a fan of uncredentialed amateurs telling professionals they don't know what they're talking about in their field of expertise. And I'm even less of one now that it is causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.
This obnoxious culture where loudmouth amateurs dismiss expert opinion leads directly to the body counts in Britain and the United States. It leads to anti-vaxxers, too, and a host of other things. People are dying because of this. Enough is enough.
The CDC changing its advice does not equate to "those scientific and scholarly minds" changing them. The CDC is not a consensus, it is one agency in one country. Nothing has changed about the scientific consensus - there isn't one.
Again, from where exactly is this confidence in thinking you know better than actual scientists who have actually studied the data? Do you go around telling aerospace engineers how they ought to design a rocket? Do you give helpful advice to your dentist on how to perform root canals?
If you're going to keep saying the CDC lied, then please link to some actual evidence they did so. On precisely what do you place this repeated assertion? Their own explanation is they're recommending masks now due to asymptomatic cases.
People whose business is saving lives have to deal with the world as it is, not what they might wish it to be. The simple fact is that the more people wear masks, the greater strain that will place on N95 masks. That is a harm that has to be taken into account, particularly at this point where medical personnel have been infected and even died due to lack of proper protective equipment.
Is it enough harm to make advising mandatory mask wearing an unwise move? I can't answer that question, and most likely neither can anyone else here.
If you would actually read up on this rather than just strawmanning, you would realise the anti-mask argument contains much more than that, and is backed by considerable evidence (so is the pro-mask side, that is why there isn't a consensus).
Or, you know, you could just trust that maybe scientists and professors who've studied the subject know far, far more about it than you do - and if they can't reach a broad consensus on the data, you are not going to settle the debate. You could learn to accept, as the article I posted suggests, that sometimes you will just not know enough to even make informed guesses. It is not an admission of failure - it is an acceptance of reality.
So they didn't realize there were asymptomatic cases before last week? Or they were issuing bad advice before?
There have been reports of people with mild cases/asymptomatic infecting others since the beginning of the outbreak. Remember the first cases in the US in December of Janauary that were called "community spread" and how the first cases in Washington were people who didn't even travel to one of the infection hotspots? How do you think those cases spread? Even among the very first cases here in America we knew asymptomatic or people with minor symptoms spreading the virus.
I get your concern about anti-vax and bad faith advice on the Internet. But sometimes bad "expert advice" is bad advice. It can never be criticized?
Whatever the reason, the initial mask advice was clearly wrong and has done a lot of damage to attitudes and people have died directly because of this advice driving the spread in the USA. The US has one of the worst responses to the pandemic and the greatest amount of deaths in the entire world. While it's great that the CDC fixed their story but the original "masks bad" narrative, which went well with bad advice on certain news outlets downplaying the threat, has done a lot of damage. This bad advice is still on people's mind. It's tough to uncork that genie. Mistakes were made. Our response has been god awful and not just the supply chain.
They got more data, so they changed their conclusions. That, very literally, is how science works.
First off, you determine if the expert in question is actually qualified to answer the questions. Lots of "bad expert advice" is people opining on subjects they actually aren't qualified to be touted as an expert of.
Second, you look to see if there is a substantial body of experts who do support a different take in the data. If there isn't, that's a warning sign.
Third, you retain the humility to understand that your gut hunches are just that, not facts. There is never any good reason to be certain you are right on a scientific question you do not have the training or experience to professionally address. Beliefs that can't be falsified are not scientific beliefs.
Fourth, if you really think all the scientists are wrong, then you do the work and show them they are. Scientific consensus is overturned by repeatable, verifiable data - not gut hunches. It has been done.
This is the sort of crap this attitude of dismissal towards experts is enabling, and that's despite the fact his claim "I know how to read research papers too" actually does make him more qualified than most people.
You continue to say this, and it continues to be a supposition, not a fact. There is, again, no scientific consensus that noninfected people wearing masks is a necessity or even helpful.
It may be in the future enough analysis will show your conclusion that masks should have been recommended from the beginning is correct. But even if it is, that will not retroactively make that conclusion scientific.
And then we have example #4,265 of why religious right support of this guy is impossible to respect:
I've been to at least a dozen Good Friday masses in my life. Was an altar boy for at least 4 or 5 of them. Literally never heard anyone utter the words "Happy Good Friday" in my life. It is, for all intents and purposes, more accurately described as "crucifixion day". It's a day of somber reflection and mourning. Well, I guess it used to be. I don't know what kind of warped bullshit is being peddled in the churches these people go to. Guess it fits though. Trump wants to sacrifice them all the same way Jesus sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Except gathering in your local mega-church is Golgotha, with crosses and nails set up for everyone.
No - but I did see that the fed has pump 2 trillion more into the economy to help stabilize the markets. Hard to square when apparently it's too expensive to have universal healthcare, or fight climate change, or even making university tuition free.
A more cynical person might assume the price tag on those things above isnt the real reason why the GOP doesnt want to pursue them.
I don't know how the "we can't pay for it" argument can possibly survive after this, but it will. Not that blue dog Democrats won't help. I did see that Biden has incorporated moving Medicare eligibility to 60 instead of 65 into his platform. Since even the proposals of Warren and Sanders were phased in exactly like this, it strikes me as simply committing to the first step that will be way harder to argue against politically.
No but I got my unemployment. One of the benefits of filing early I guess. Doesn't look like it's gonna end this month.
Does PA have a week waiting period in most cases, or has it been waived??
You are totally right. But there's a little huge problem there and it's why the advice should have been for everyone to wear masks this whole time. Wait for it.
If we could just be sure that the non-infected people don't wear masks that'd be great. But how do we know if a person is non-infected? We don't test enough people do we?
There's asymptomatic carriers and people spreading the disease unknowingly or with minor symptoms. Maybe they don't think they're infected. Maybe they don't have sick days at their mcjob.
Therefore, I propose to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that it's a no-brainer that the advice should have been to wear masks from the beginning. The advice not to wear masks has been harmful. Scientific advisors in a lot of other countries, particularly in East Asia, advised citizens to immediately to wear masks and aren't having the horrific response, the very worst in the world, that we are having here in America.
Correlation does not imply causation.
I dont think I can agree that anything is a no-brainer if there isnt sufficient consensus on the topic. In this case, I actually think you two are arguing mostly over two different things - which complicates the matter further (and then, sometimes speaking in absolute terms that generally cannot be defended).