Think it through
One category of evidence comes from laboratory studies of respiratory droplets and the ability of various masks to block them. An experiment using high-speed video found that hundreds of droplets ranging from 20 to 500 micrometers were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the mouth was covered by a damp washcloth. Another study of people who had influenza or the common cold found that wearing a surgical mask significantly reduced the amount of these respiratory viruses emitted in droplets and aerosols.
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. //
“Three W’s to ward off COVID-19:” wearing a mask, washing your hands, and watching your distance.
“But of the three, the most important thing is wearing a mask,” he said. Compared to wearing a mask, cleaning your iPhone or wiping down your groceries are “just distractors.” There’s little evidence that fomites (contaminated surfaces) are a major source of transmission, whereas there is a lot of evidence of transmission through inhaled droplets, said Chin-Hong.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo received another round of backlash on Tuesday over his repeated attacks on Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Florida, and his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Despite being lumped into a category with other states that have increased COVID-19 cases, Florida is doing far better than New York, and the U.S. average.
curated by Marilyn M. Singleton, M.D., J.D. Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Note: A COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) particle is 0.125 micrometers (μm); influenza virus size is 0.08 – 0.12 μm; a human hair is about 150 μm. *1 nm = 0.001 micron; 1000 nm = 1 micron; Micrometer (μm) is the preferred name for micron (an older term) […] //
Conclusion: Wearing masks will not reduce SARS-CoV-2.
N95 masks protect health care workers, but are not recommended for source control transmission.
Surgical masks are better than cloth but not very efficient at preventing emissions from infected patients.
Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as personal protective equipment (PPE).
“Masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security. If masks had been the solution in Asia, shouldn’t they have stopped the pandemic before it spread elsewhere?” //
Advice to decision makers on the use of masks for healthy people in community settings
As described above, the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks.”
Chins up.
The New York Times ignored a serious factor in claiming a massive COVID-19 spike: Way more states are reporting hospitalizations now than at the April peak.
You've heard 'The numbers don't lie,' right? //
And here’s a head-scratcher, from RS contributor Brad Slager July 14th:
Local news channel Fox 35 in Orlando pored through the individual reports from labs across the state and found that an alarming number of these clinics are reporting 100% positive results with coronavirus tests. This defies the running averages seen in most areas, which typically are 85-90% lower. The station contacted a number of the clinics reporting these wildly high figures with one of them announcing that their report of 98% positive results should have in fact been only 9.4%.
Knaves or poltroons? Not that it makes any difference //
The question that has been puzzling me for some time is that if the CDC was deliberately attempting to sabotage the US response to the Wuhan virus and damage President Trump’s reelection chances, how would they act differently than they have so far? The answer, sadly, is that they would act precisely the way they have performed so far. Quite honestly, I’m not really sure which is worse; the nation’s premier public health agency being so enmeshed in partisan politics that it is willing to kill large numbers of people to win or the CDC being so blindingly incompetent that it killed a crap-ton of people because it can’t find its ass with both hands.
The latest blunder, and possibly the final straw is the discovery that CDC has been lumping positive tests for Wuhan virus and antibodies into one number: //
When told how the CDC chose to lump the results of both tests together, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute Ashish Jha told The Atlantic, “You’ve got to be kidding me … How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.”
Exactly so. But if you were trying to create a narrative of an out-of-control pandemic, one that was possibly deadly, what better way do that than include the results of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who have had Wuhan and likely didn’t even know they’d ever been infected into the current count of active cases?
How widespread is this lunacy? //
Reporter asks Orange Co Fla health official if the two COVID deaths listed as in their 20s had any underlying conditions. Reply:
“The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident.”
Pure gold...
Case Fatality Rate (CFR), Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), and Crude Mortality Rate (CMR) latest estimates for the COVID-19 disease from the SARS-CoV-2 virus originating from Wuhan, China
At least half the nation has been fully convinced that we’re experiencing some kind of unprecedented healthcare crisis. But the latest data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics tells a very different story.
1.5 Million Healthcare Jobs Were Eliminated at the Height of the Supposed COVID-19 Hospital Surge. Biggest Scam Ever.
In April, during the supposed height of the COVID-19 epidemic, healthcare jobs declined by almost 1.5 million! Some of those jobs came back in May and June AFTER the supposed coronavirus epidemic peaked. But overall, at the end of last month we were still down a whopping 850,000 healthcare jobs since March 1.
Moreover, in January thru June of every year from 2010 through 2019, U.S. healthcare jobs increased slightly every single month. That 1.5 million decline in April is the first time in 11 years that any month in the first half of the year hasn’t seen the number of healthcare jobs increase.
Though there has been some media coverage of the fact that our hospitals are empty and our healthcare workers are being furloughed in mass numbers, the big national media haven’t made any attempt to make sure the American people are aware of these stunning and crucial facts. //
jhg1995 • 24 minutes ago
I'm not sure that you're reading the flu mortality rate correctly. The CDC page you linked includes a chart that says that the "Mortality Rate" for people 18-49 is 1.8 per 100,000 people. That is not the 1.8% that you report. It's .0018%. Unless I'm missing something, which always is possible.
The media is salivating this morning over COVID cases in Florida, but it is not a symptom of the coronavirus; more like a side effect of their obsession with slandering the state, and its Governor, Ron DeSantis. Yesterday, Florida set a new record when it reported the highest single-day increase in coronavirus cases by any state since the outbreak. This jarring announcement requires a significant amount of analysis, but let us first get the hysteria out of the way.
Florida hit an alarming one-day high on Sunday with 15,300 new coronavirus cases, shattering both the state and national record for new cases reported since the start of the pandemic. With Sunday’s staggering surge in new cases, Florida eclipsed New York’s coronavirus peak of 12,274 cases on April 4.
”Alarming’’, ”shattering’’, ”staggering”, and other brash words are going to be used throughout the day, but the details are what matters. While that number does make the eyes pop open there is some sound reasoning behind it. Florida has this spike in caseloads as a result of a massive explosion of tests being conducted. The sharp increase arrived as over 135,000 tests were conducted on Saturday, so yes, while more cases are recorded it is a result of widespread testing.
So the cause and effect are explainable. Here is where things get more encouraging. While the number of tests mushroomed the positivity is actually decreasing as a percentage.
Evan Axelbank Fox13
@EvanAxelbank
Florida reports a record 15k cases on massive day of testing
Positivity drops to 11 percent
Nationwide COVID-19 Metrics since April 1.
7-day average lines
They put politics over people. ///
Media lied, people died
The media should stop "fact-checking" things that aren't false. //
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
There is a rise in Coronavirus cases because our testing is so massive and so good, far bigger and better than any other country. This is great news, but even better news is that death, and the death rate, is DOWN. Also, younger people, who get better much easier and faster!
Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
Not true, per Asst. Health Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir: "There is no question that the more testing you get, the more you will uncover – but we do believe this is a real increase in cases, because the percent positivities are going up."
Jake, those two statements aren’t contradictory. ALL of the following are true:
testing is UP.
rate of positivity is UP.
total cases are UP.
fatality rate is DOWN.
deaths are DOWN.
We will defeat this virus.
Based on what we’ve observed since the start of the Covid pandemic, it’s apparent the medical establishment wants Covid to look worse than it is. And now, with states enacting contact tracing programs, that practice is continuing.
Everything 'flattening the curve' represented has been abandoned and now thousands have needlessly died, millions are out of work, and cities are burning. //
Flattening the curve made two assumptions. First, it assumed that a certain amount of deaths and infections were inevitable and the best we could do was delay the process. No one promoting flattening the curve talked of stopping the disease; there were no graphs showing that if we locked down, infections would go straight to zero.
Second, flattening the curve was always shown with the same level of flattening: just enough to not overwhelm the health-care system. This was a tacit admission that flattening the curve would be painful and that it would not be beneficial to flatten the curve beyond the level needed to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system.
Flattening the curve was the bait. Next came the switch.
It didn’t take long for the “flattening the curve” storyline to be abandoned. For example, California had more than 26,000 hospital beds available for coronavirus patients, but they locked down when they had about 200 coronavirus hospitalizations on March 20. That was less than 1 percent of their coronavirus hospital capacity. It quickly became clear that the California hospital system was not under threat, yet the lockdowns remained and “flatten the curve” was abandoned in favor of “suppress at all costs.” //
The narrative of flattening the curve was almost silently replaced with “lockdowns save lives.” Many early shutdowns resulted in over-suppression, which meant any subsequent opening would be accompanied by an increase in cases and hospitalizations.
Yet, since the flatten-the-curve notion that infections were inevitable has been abandoned, any uptick in cases is now spun by most of the media as apocalyptic. This can be seen in Florida, where cases are surging and ABC, CNN, and CBS all frequently report record numbers of cases. This ignores the fact that Florida has more hospital beds available now for potential patients than before the pandemic started. //
The greatest tragedy associated with abandoning flattening the curve to suppress at all costs is the massive number of non-coronavirus deaths that are a direct result of the lockdowns. The New York Times found that almost one-third of the excess deaths in New York and New Jersey were not from coronavirus. It’s almost impossible to make a reasonable estimate at this point, but my calculations put this number around 30,000.
Flattening the curve was sound logic when it was originally presented, and remains so today. That’s why so many people across the political spectrum originally bought into the idea. The change from flatten-the-curve to stop-the-virus-at-all-costs, however, has been a disaster. More than 40 million people have lost their jobs. The related angst and associated lack of social opportunities created a dry forest that exploded in flames when George Floyd was killed. Moreover, deaths of despair and child abuse are both likely rising as a result.
We must reject the largest, most destructive bait and switch ever enacted and return to the principles of flattening the curve. We must accept that nature can be brutal and more infections will happen. Yet we must push through. We must strive to reopen our society as much as possible and only implement mitigation efforts to the extent needed to avoid a clearly imminent threat of overwhelming hospitals.
Before government shut the nation down, Americans ate half their meals outside home. The farmers who served restaurants and cafeterias are dumping meat, veggies, and milk. And it's going to get worse. //
America’s food system is cracking.
People are still eating, farmers are still farming, and grocery stores are still open, but in areas around the country, shoppers looking for meat, milk, and other products find empty shelves and limits on what they can purchase — all while farmers from coast to coast are forced to dump milk, plow up vegetables, and euthanize livestock. So what’s happening, and why?
There isn’t a simple answer: No single issue that can be cured by safety gear and precautions, or “phase 1” reopenings. Yes, sick workers in tight conditions are causing a jam-up in processing plants. And yes, a shortage of access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and the threat of employee lawsuits compounds those risks. But the broader problem appears to lie in an unbelievably rapid shift in Americans’ eating habits, and thereby the American food economy, compounded by a draconian reaction and lack of dependable information from elected government.
“You’ve got to remember, it’s a finely tuned system,” John Rieley, a former Sysco food company sales rep and a current councilman for the nation’s top chicken farming county, Sussex Country, Delaware, told The Federalist. That’s usually a good thing — unless you need to play a different note. //
While in the mid-1980s, Americans still spent the majority of their food budget at retail grocery stores, that number has steadily declined, and in 2010, eating-out spending surpassed at-home for the first time. At the opening of 2020, Rieley estimates, only “40 percent of what farmers produced may have gone into retail.”
“Prior to [coronavirus], the majority of Americans would eat at least half of their meals away from home. A lot of people eating lunch and dinner away from home, or breakfast and lunch, and then you go out to dinner on the weekends, so all that production was geared toward food service, which is generally speaking a different size of animal, a different size of chicken.” //
Fast food does “70 percent of their business out the drive-up window,” Quality Milk Sales group CFO/COO Rance Miles tells The Federalist. “Of course, the drive-up window is still open, but places like McDonald’s, their total sales are down 30 percent; when you take a place like Subway, their sales are down 40 percent. I think it’s a combination that you say, ‘Well, we have this equipment that will do nuggets and strips, but that’s not what people are buying right now — they want chicken in the grocery store and we don’t have enough capacity for that. We have plenty of poultry, we just don’t have enough capacity. And then maybe some of that capacity we do have is shut down because of Covid cases.'”
“If this is going to be the new normal forever, they would go ahead and make the changes and everything would be fine eventually,” Rieley says, “but because the governors keep saying, ‘Two more weeks, just two more weeks, just two more weeks.’ They’re not going to put the investment into retooling the plants and then just have to change it back.”