Mask mandate on Federal property, including WMNF

[Mike P.]

Rocket,

Your viewpoint are just conspiracy talking points and not actionable. Scott Atlas & Rand Paul would be proud.

How do you protect the vulernable, solution? virtually all doctors and nurses come into contact with the elderly. Even pediatricians as children in today's society are raised not just by their 35 year old parents but their are some living with grandparents or older adoptative parents. Some work in Family Medicine offices

They believe 50% of the spread is being done by asymptomatic carriers who don't feel sick. So your 3rd point is just silly. In states where rigorous testing has been the norm, infection rates once things were identified have been amongst the best while places with little testing per capita have exploded. Yes NYC and the elderly in the tristate area and WA where it was first identified are bad, however those numbers have improved once we realized what was going on, by not testing, you would encourage going back into darkness. How would you protect the elderly? Those in homes already are basically prisoners' & they are depressed too. Testing all the people they come into contact with is necessary to keep C-19 out of the homes.

I agree, social distancing is the best thing to do. I'm not a fan of interstate travel bans myself, however, they are in place for more reasons than just keeping from going where the _ _ _ _ I want. (if we travel, then we need hotels, restaurants and services where social distancing are not possible and cleaning isn't more than changing linens and passing the vacuum over the floor for 400 or 500 rooms every day.

As we saw with the quick spread of C-19, regardless of one's thought of America First or being just one world, as far as social animals and trade, we are one planet. The China travel restriction early in 2020 was poorly conceived. As we saw, people in many developed countries did business in China, Europeans went there, then came to the NY Metro airports and vacationed or did business here, we didn't shut down European travel until it was too late.

Your 6th point happens to coincide when local climates make staying outside uncomfortable. (if we eliminate all buildings I've solved people being indoors, it's not the answer though)

Schools, businesses, restaurants, bars, movie theatres were not built for social distancing. Opening it all back can't be done while maintaining distancing. (Cruises, ) If we open everything back up, we'll all come into contact with someone who works with the elderly, or a family member of someone who works with the elderly.

Point 8 is another conspiracy point. Fat people have lived into their 90's diabetics have lived long lives, people with HBP, and other ailments have lived long lives and all of a sudden, they start dropping when a new variable is added and you want to ignore that it's there because it's convenient. if you want to add, fat man dies of C-19 fine, downs syndrome man dies of C-19 fine but you can't pretend it doesn't exist. (The talking point that Hospitals were paid more was untrue)

Study HVAC, nice, what needs to happen is most buildings would need gutting and complete overhauls of the system, they were not built to filter air is such a manner to pull air away from people before it interacts with other people and filter it through sufficient screens and put it back into the building. (Again your stay home unless if you are sick does nothing to stem asymptomatic spread)

Buildings, especially 40, 50 and some older than that schools and buildings were never designed for holding these types of systems. BTW, you'll either have to close or completed alter every historic building in the country to put in state of the Art HVAC. Historical Societies, historically aren't big fans of gutting historical buildings for State of the Art HVAC. (Okay the oldest ones you can just leave all the windows open all the time regardless if it's -10 or 110. Your other option is opening all windows in all buildings. I don't foresee the 90th floor of the Empire State building having open windows anytime soon. )

Airlines have been better at this the system for moving air was in place in order to allow cabin pressurization. (You can't distance on a plane though)

Love your closing comment, I think I heard that somewhere last year by someone who recently was evicted from his home after four years. So, will it be going away by Easter, shall we open up the churches to 100% capacity and start the choirs all up standing next to each other singing

 

[peakbagger]

I used to have a southern contractor that would come up to work in Berlin. He was laid back with a Louisiana accent. He observed once when we got dragged into an illogical debate "Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It". In this case repetition of selective facts does not constitute the truth.

 

[hikerbrian]

This is what compliance by those tasked with enforcing mask mandates on public transportation looks like. Care to guess which way **** rolls?

View attachment 6586

OMG, I haven't ridden the commuter rail in 10 months, but that photo puts me right back there, the sounds (ka-tunk ka-tunk...ka-tunk ka-tunk), the smell, the sway of the cars. Holy moly. I can't really say I'm looking forward to getting back on that train (literally).

 

[Tom Rankin]

It will be interesting to see how schools function after 100 days. In most places here, for middle school and up, they are in a hybrid situation, no lunches, less than 50% of students so spacing is okay. The buildings were not built for 100% capacity and allowing for spacing.

I saw on the tube last night, the CDC says kids should go back to school, it's pretty much the safest place for them. Just avoid indoor sports...

 

[Tom Rankin]

school back in session was probably the predominant cause of the increase in Covid cases. I have yet to see any data proving or disproving that masks work, or don't work, to stop the spread of the virus.

See my previous post...

 

[Mike P.]

I saw on the tube last night, the CDC says kids should go back to school, it's pretty much the safest place for them. Just avoid indoor sports...

Safe for kids? Are you testing them all at regular intervals? How do you know they aren't all infected, are you testing them all? if we all lost our sense of taste and had a fever and flu symptoms, it would be easier, they don't though. We know a lot of spread is done asymptomatically, we have no idea how many of them are going home infecting their parents, their teachers, bus drivers and then those adults go home and infect their families. Are the kids being taught by other kids. How many teachers or janitors getting sick or passing is acceptable? One GA school district lost three teachers.

While the kids may be safe, is the rest of the system? Our school system has had a couple of classes go remote and the Elementary school was remote for two weeks due to cases. Same with my wife's system which has been hybrid also.

Police, the military, Fire Personal knew their was a risk of life in their professions. Teaching, working at the grocery store, making your latte, isn't supposed to be a life or death occupation

 

[maineguy]

Safe for kids? Are you testing them all at regular intervals? How do you know they aren't all infected, are you testing them all? if we all lost our sense of taste and had a fever and flu symptoms, it would be easier, they don't though. We know a lot of spread is done asymptomatically, we have no idea how many of them are going home infecting their parents, their teachers, bus drivers and then those adults go home and infect their families. Are the kids being taught by other kids. How many teachers or janitors getting sick or passing is acceptable? One GA school district lost three teachers.

While the kids may be safe, is the rest of the system? Our school system has had a couple of classes go remote and the Elementary school was remote for two weeks due to cases. Same with my wife's system which has been hybrid also.

Police, the military, Fire Personal knew their was a risk of life in their professions. Teaching, working at the grocery store, making your latte, isn't supposed to be a life or death occupation

Although a "selective fact" I garnered this in about 15 seconds with google.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...kely-not-driving-household-covid-19-outbreaks

 

[egilbe]

See my previous post...

College kids, too. Last year after Spring break, you could map the mini outbreaks throughout the nation as the kids traveled back and forth to home and school.

 

[Mike P.]

Although a "selective fact" I garnered this in about 15 seconds with google.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...kely-not-driving-household-covid-19-outbreaks

Did you read the article, with a limited data set, they made some hypothesis, Two paragraphs clearly end with a disclaimer on the size of their data set. Fact in this case is a theory.

"However, such a hypothesis requires validation across a larger and more diverse dataset."

Or

The small number of clusters with child index cases, however, precluded definitive conclusions.

With superior immune systems than the elderly, in general, children would be more likely to be asymptomatic. Can anyone tell me what percentage of the children have been tested?

 

[maineguy]

Did you read the article, with a limited data set, they made some hypothesis, Two paragraphs clearly end with a disclaimer on the size of their data set. Fact in this case is a theory.

"However, such a hypothesis requires validation across a larger and more diverse dataset."

Or

The small number of clusters with child index cases, however, precluded definitive conclusions.

With superior immune systems than the elderly, in general, children would be more likely to be asymptomatic. Can anyone tell me what percentage of the children have been tested?

Gimme a break. It's ALL theory. You have "definitive data that has been validated across a diverse data set" that supports your opinion? If so, then post it.

 

[Bob]

Your viewpoint are just conspiracy talking points and not actionable. Scott Atlas & Rand Paul would be proud.

that should be Dr. Rand Paul

 

[TJsName]

Learning how to reason and debate is a good life skill. Logic isn't political. Helpful website: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

If a bunch of very confident mediocre white guys people yelling into a computer isn't your thing, I suggest consider going for a hike.

 

[skiguy]

I used to have a southern contractor that would come up to work in Berlin. He was laid back with a Louisiana accent. He observed once when we got dragged into an illogical debate "Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It". In this case repetition of selective facts does not constitute the truth.

Most excellent! I don't think that blind pig I mentioned about in a related thread looking for an acorn in a pile of mud found any yet.

 

[Mike P.]

Gimme a break. It's ALL theory. You have "definitive data that has been validated across a diverse data set" that supports your opinion? If so, then post it.

That's the point, until we test the majority of children, saying they are safe for older adults to hang around with 20 to 30 in a room and hundreds of them passing each other in the halls, saying they are safe is a hopeful guess. How many dead teachers or janitors is okay?

I'd be happy to see a study on how many of each age group have been tested and how many are repetitive. (Other's I'm sure would like to see that based on gender and ethnicity also) I've seen few test when I've been (5 or 6 times) where the tests conducted in front of me are being done in the back doors where young children are required to sit, but that is a tiny sampling, I'd love real numbers. I'd love to be proven wrong with real numbers.

CT has over 5.5M tests conducted so far. That's in about 10 months? We have about 3.5M people.

Data from last week according to this site, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028731/covid19-tests-select-countries-worldwide/ show while we lead the world in testing, we haven't even reached 1 test per person. We know politicians, pro athletes, and medical professionals and others have been tested many times, (CT is approx 1.57 test per resident but we know some are tested often and some have not)

The fact that China and India are south of 25% of their population being tested, I'd be hard pressed to believe any comment that they would make saying they have it under control. In China, if we believe what we are told, they can just lock areas down tightly because no one is running around saying they have rights. (well not for long)

 

[dave.m]

I grew up in a religiously fundamentalist context which is relevant here because I've seen this movie before. I recall a 4 hour car trip where my uncle tried to convince me non-stop that the Earth is 6500 years old. 4 very long hours.

I should mention that this uncle holds a PhD in Chemistry from Princeton.

I've long lost the links but once upon a time I gave a darn and tried to think through how to close this gap and I found 2 papers that sort of stopped that. One was an article out of cognitive psychology that tested the hypothesis that education levels correlated to acceptance of science. Turned out to not be true - there is no such correlation. However, they did find a strong correlation between education and the strength of conviction of a person's acceptance or rejection of science. The study also demonstrated a strong correlation between the rejection of science and a person's self-identification as a member of a conservative religious or political group. This is pretty consistent with Jonathan Haidt's results on the cognition of morality in which he characterize of people fitting on a spectrum from people with strong affiliation to the tribe and its ideas (cognitive conservatives - his term) and people who are open to outsiders and new ideas (cognitive liberals - his term).

The other more troubling paper was from some French authors in anthropology IIRC and they argued that cognitive dissonance was a human trait that was produced by evolutionary adaptation during early human life in small tribes in hostile environments. They argued that in these conditions, survival of the individual meant avoiding being banished from the tribe, so cognitive dissonance - the ability to rationalize the acceptance of the tribe's ideas in the face of contrary evidence - is a survival mechanism.

This little dust-up about the efficacy of masks (really?) fits into a larger cultural split that is global in scope and that goes back through time. I'm not against you all trying to change minds. Just noting how steep of an uphill climb it is.

Masks and Covid are just a warm up drill for the real conversation.

 

[rocket21]

That's the point, until we test the majority of children, saying they are safe for older adults to hang around with 20 to 30 in a room and hundreds of them passing each other in the halls, saying they are safe is a hopeful guess. How many dead teachers or janitors is okay?

Considering the tests are point-in-time, you'd be proposing to do this to a majority of children on a regular basis?

And, if the masks are so effective in the mask-mandated-schools, then why does the testing even matter?

 

[DayTrip]

False premise. As the data clearly show, mask mandates are not preventing the killing "a few million people."

1. Protect the vulnerable. The most vulnerable, particularly those in nursing homes, continue to die in the largest numbers. Obviously we can't just keep repeating the same actions and hoping for a different result.
2. Encourage distance and being outdoors. We learned this with the Spanish Flu.
3. If you feel sick, stay at home, but not with a ridiculous quarantine period. There are many out there who don't want to be shut-ins for 10-14 days every time they get a sniffle.
4. Stop the shut downs, interstate travel bans, and stay-at-home orders. The orders have not been obeyed, nor have they been effective. The suicides, drug abuse, physical abuse, and destruction of businesses are devastating.
5. Dump the mask mandates. They're clearly not the silver bullet to stopping the spread of the virus, but they spreading division (whether directly through my-body-my-choice, or less directly by hiding something called a smile, which goes a long way in civil communication). Perhaps more crucially, they provide a false sense of security, leading people to go out in public who are sick because 'it's okay, we're all wearing masks.'
6. Study HVAC. There seems to be a correlation with heating (northeast spread last winter/this winter) and cooling (southern spread last summer).
7. Reduce testing and testing thresholds. Focus on those needing medical attention and those who are in contact with the vulnerable. Otherwise, stop testing the healthy and stop using such a high cycle threshold. Government appears to be looking into this now.
8. Change the metrics. Stop automatically counting deaths as COVID just because the victim was COVID positive. In addition, stop reporting cases and deaths on an ever-growing basis and start using years/seasons (such as with the flu). Government appears to be looking into this now.

In any event, history suggests the case load will decrease significantly in the northeast in a few months when warmer weather returns. I hope this is the last wave and that the death and destruction comes to an end.

Thanks for this clarification. I largely agree to an extent with everything you're saying here except that you're taking it from the point of view of how it impacts mental health and the economy, which is directly at odds with what makes sense for spreading the virus. And that's the problem. Weighing $$$ versus deaths. The things that work for each of these things are polar opposites.

Testing obviously prevents nothing but it gives us valuable information to react in a timely manner to what is going on and the lack there of I feel has played a huge role in our failure to get a handle on this. Countries that aggressively tested, did tracing, etc were far more successful at controlling the spread than the US has been.

And on the masks I just think there is a big gap/misunderstanding between saying that mask mandates are "not effective". As this and other threads of late have discussed ad-nauseum, masks do have some efficacy in preventing the spread. That efficacy depends of course on what the mask is made out of (N95 versus a t-shirt), wearing it properly, etc, etc. As I understand your viewpoint, you are saying that if there were zero mask mandates and no one wore masks from day one we would be in the exact same place we are now. I would disagree with that. Are the mandates 100% effective? Absolutely not. Are they 80%? 60%? 40%? I don't know what that number is but I feel it is well North of 0% and in that context I would say that mask mandates are "working". Definitely not shutting down the pandemic but helping.

I don't think the mandate part of this is the issue. I think the lack of proper masks is. If hypothetically we all had N95 masks from day one of these mandates do you think the results would be the same? I'm sure it wouldn't. And of course there are all the "mask free" loop holes put in place to keep the economy from totally imploding. That is not masks or mask mandates. I guess I'm splitting hairs by saying that the mandates work provided we execute them effectively but because we are not executing them effectively they don't work. I wonder what Yogi Bera's thoughts on this would be if he were still around? I think the mask mandates have helped, have made this situation better than it could have been otherwise but could certainly have been done better with the right availability of proper masks and better enforcement.

 

[sierra]

The worst part of this Pandemic is how it divides us as a Nation. I cannot even talk to some close relatives about any of this, for fear of causing bad blood. The division by political party in the country has not helped either. One side denies there is a problem, the other sights how bad it is. As with most divisive topics, the right answer lies somewhere in the middle, but neither side is interested in a compromise, pride and ego are in the way. In my opinion vaccines are the key. Once 75 to 80 percent of the population gets them, we will come out the other side. But, once again, that number may not be achievable as many people are anti vaccine. I never got a Flu shot, don't think I've ever had the Flu, so why bother? But this virus has me concerned and I will take my spot in line when my number is called for the vaccine. My opinion on mask for what's it's worth. They do not stop the virus, the numbers prove it. I don't think that's the principle behind them anyway. They are to slow it down, by slowing it down, hopefully the system will not be overwhelmed. If you think about it, on two occasions many states were close to capacity, yet the hospitals managed the numbers, not that it was easy. Mask, social distancing and the vaccine, to me those three things are the key. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my opinion anyway. P.S. One stat that really hit me was this, take the number of Covid19 deaths and cut it in half. Half were either very old or compromised in another way. I'm in no way making light of those deaths, but it does put the virus in a different light if your willing to look.

 

[rocket21]

I don't think the mandate part of this is the issue. I think the lack of proper masks is. If hypothetically we all had N95 masks from day one of these mandates do you think the results would be the same? I'm sure it wouldn't.

N95 masks are said to provide protection to the wearer when handled properly (e.g. by a trained medical professional) and frequently disinfected/replaced. N95 masks do not stop the spread of COVID-19 to others.

 

[Mike P.]

Considering the tests are point-in-time, you'd be proposing to do this to a majority of children on a regular basis?

And, if the masks are so effective in the mask-mandated-schools, then why does the testing even matter?

Date of the picture and test? Granted, early first gen test felt very invasive, I had one. Since then, they have changed and are not nearly invasive. Please go back to Breitbart for additional instructions. How many test have you had? So yes, I'd look at regularly giving them current testing.

And if you read what I said, I'm more of a proponent for social distancing and since schools were not built to only hold the amount of students and teachers and have really wide halls and huge classrooms to allow social distancing, the hybrid model, while not ideal, seems to be an idea that is working for many, not all though. Ideally test like the Abbott test that offers quicker results but too many false responses would have been improved.

In our local HS, more than 50% of the Senior Class made the honor role. My son is adapting fairly well, however I know some of his peers are not. It would nice if we had enough vaccines to get all teachers/school employees, etc., vaccinated on weekends in February so they could go back on March 1st.