Bad News Thread
- Thread starter kickingandscreaming
- Start date
The Professor
No one can answer your “Masks work, right?” question. You are asking for a boolean answer to a non-boolean question. It’s no more meaningful than asking whether a goalie blocks goals- and insisting that the only possible answers are “yes” and “no”.
Masks reduce the probability of transmission. That’s all. They do not come close to eliminating transmission.
The argument for masks, distance, and moving things outside has nothing to do with eliminating transmission. If you try to think of it in those terms, you will never get your head around it.
All of these measures work by reducing transmission. The goal isn’t zero. Zero isn’t even possible. The goal is to keep cutting transmission in half until it is less than one.
This is why public health officials can‘t just let you go away and do your thing. What good does it do if 70% of us are busy cutting our transmission, while 30% of you keep spreading disease? The disease will continue to spread, because, no matter what the rest of us do, your 30% is enough to keep transmission above 1.
Desert Hound
DA
BINGO!
You're funny, a couple weeks ago I tried to get you to stipulate to the fact that there is no reliable evidence that masks work, as I was willing to stipulate to the fact that there is no reliable evidence that masks don't work. You adamantly refused. I'm glad you've finally come around, but somehow I don't think its sincere and more a convenient change in opinion to rebut the argument at hand.
BTW I had to look "boolean" up to refresh my memory on what it meant. Of course I agree with you that we don't know "yes or no" whether masks work. It's a big "maybe" and I'm glad you're finally conceding that point...or not.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Dad$'s Mask Mea Culpa
Bruddah IZ
DA
Circle
Bruddah IZ
DA
The Whirling Dervish have stamina.
There is reliable evidence that masks reduce the transmission rate of airborne diseases. Is that what you mean by "masks work"?
You still have the wrong answer.
The answer isn't "Maybe". There is not doubt about it. We know that masks reduce the odds of transmission.
The correct answer is "Somewhat.". Masks reduce the odds of transmission, but they do not reduce it to near zero.
IDK is there reliable evidence of that? Whether masks work or not is a better question for Dad4. I know there is evidence masks reduce the spray of respiratory droplets (bigger no shit). But beyond that i haven't seen anything compelling but I'm open to have my mind changed.
Glitterhater
SILVER ELITE
This thread. OMG.
btw I've tried to get Dominic to canx my account to no avail- anyone know how to achieve that??
btw I've tried to get Dominic to canx my account to no avail- anyone know how to achieve that??
You can just stop posting.
Turn off the power, get up from your now-blank screen, put on your shoes, and take a walk around the neighborhood. How many trees are there? How many different types? How big does a shrub have to be to be* considered to be** a tree?
*grammatically correct repeated phrase "to be"
**another "to be" separated from the others by a single word
Hüsker Dü
DA
So all over the place everyman for himself. Sounds like a Republican solution.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
@Glitterhater - Embrace the crazy, GH. Don't leave us. As with any population, increasing isolation leads to increasing extremism. I believe you are the last one around who will still come on this thread and say, "You guys still debating masks?". Do your part and continue to fight extremism. It's your patriotic duty.
@kickingandscreaming Hey bro, did you get any lotto tickets for the shot? This is some kind of weird, right? Let's just be honest. Andrew is offering anyone from NY a free scratch for a chance at $5,000,000 and some other prizes if they Vax. I personally think this is going to get a lot worse. Gayle over at CBS had a chat with the Dr. F and it was so weird, yet kind of scary.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the initiative which will reward a $5 million first prize - down to the smallest amount of $20, which means "The chances of winning something in this program is one in nine," according to Cuomo's announcement wherein he further declared "everyone wins" given the efforts toward herd immunity. The pilot program starts Monday and is for those individuals who will receive either their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab at select designated locations.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the initiative which will reward a $5 million first prize - down to the smallest amount of $20, which means "The chances of winning something in this program is one in nine," according to Cuomo's announcement wherein he further declared "everyone wins" given the efforts toward herd immunity. The pilot program starts Monday and is for those individuals who will receive either their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab at select designated locations.
At least this thread has not spilled over into others.@Glitterhater - Embrace the crazy, GH. Don't leave us. As with any population, increasing isolation leads to increasing extremism. I believe you are the last one around who will still come on this thread and say, "You guys still debating masks?". Do your part and continue to fight extremism. It's your patriotic duty.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
As @dad4 states, we can easily see from excess deaths that many more people have died from COVID than would have died if COVID didn't exist. Of course, @watfly wasn't arguing that people weren't dying from COVID, just that the number may be overcounted as it appears to be in children. With that in mind, the recent behavior of the relationship between cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has changed in a way that is inconsistent with our most at risk of dying from COVID getting vaccinated at a very high rate.
Except for very early in the pandemic when testing was difficult to get, the graphs correlate pretty well with hospitalizations lagging cases by about a week or two and deaths lagging hospitalizations by about a week. However, since mid-April, we have had a 60% drop in cases/day and only a 22% drop in deaths per day. (762-595)/762. Hospitalizations are down 30%. Typically, the lag was about 3 weeks from case to death, and we are over 4 weeks into the drop in cases with no sign of deaths dropping at a corresponding rate to what we have seen previously in the pandemic. I can think of three reasons this is occurring. I am sure there are others. I'd have added that maybe the lag is longer, but then why do hospitalizations still appear to follow the pattern and deaths don't. The inconsistency is that those most at risk are vaccinated at a very high rate, so the death/case should be going down and not up as it has the past few weeks.
1) We are significantly under-reporting cases. I could see this happening to some extent as many who are getting COVID now are younger, have few symptoms or symptoms that are no more than a mild cold. Maybe they aren't testing.
2) We are reaching the "floor" of those dying from COVID faster than the graph indicates and those dying with COVID are having a significant effect on the deaths/case as the number of deaths from COVID has dropped. As an example, if we assume that 300 people die per day with COVID instead of from COVID, the drop in deaths per day from COVID over the same time period I mentioned above would be 36% instead of 22% ((762-300) - (595 - 300)) / (762 - 300). The same assumption (300 people per day dying with COVID instead of from COVID) in January would have had a much smaller effect on the rate of death as the number of deaths was much higher.
Except for very early in the pandemic when testing was difficult to get, the graphs correlate pretty well with hospitalizations lagging cases by about a week or two and deaths lagging hospitalizations by about a week. However, since mid-April, we have had a 60% drop in cases/day and only a 22% drop in deaths per day. (762-595)/762. Hospitalizations are down 30%. Typically, the lag was about 3 weeks from case to death, and we are over 4 weeks into the drop in cases with no sign of deaths dropping at a corresponding rate to what we have seen previously in the pandemic. I can think of three reasons this is occurring. I am sure there are others. I'd have added that maybe the lag is longer, but then why do hospitalizations still appear to follow the pattern and deaths don't. The inconsistency is that those most at risk are vaccinated at a very high rate, so the death/case should be going down and not up as it has the past few weeks.
1) We are significantly under-reporting cases. I could see this happening to some extent as many who are getting COVID now are younger, have few symptoms or symptoms that are no more than a mild cold. Maybe they aren't testing.
2) We are reaching the "floor" of those dying from COVID faster than the graph indicates and those dying with COVID are having a significant effect on the deaths/case as the number of deaths from COVID has dropped. As an example, if we assume that 300 people die per day with COVID instead of from COVID, the drop in deaths per day from COVID over the same time period I mentioned above would be 36% instead of 22% ((762-300) - (595 - 300)) / (762 - 300). The same assumption (300 people per day dying with COVID instead of from COVID) in January would have had a much smaller effect on the rate of death as the number of deaths was much higher.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
Do I qualify since I got my vaccine? Seems like I'd have to get a second shot in NY. My expected return is negative if that's the case. Now if I can do it online and take a picture of my card, I'm happy to roll the dice. Also, shouldn't everyone who got a vaccine qualify? Again, procrastination wins the day.
Depending on your risk factors and how highly you personally value your life, you might be money up already.