5 ms·

Right, but if deaths are the same even with extra precautions in place, don't you think it would be much worse without?

djsumdog 6y ago
Weird assumption. There is new evidence showing masks don't seem to really have that significant an impact on getting infections: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 ..may still prevent transmission based on the new CDC guidelines, but I don't think they based those on any actual studies. Honestly the rules are all dumb, random and arbitrary at this point. People keep yelling "science" when it's really just new superstition.
- spurgu 6y ago
  Masks, social distancing, restrictions on public events, people working from home, the list goes on.
  - guscost 6y ago
    Balance with missed heart bypasses, cancer screenings, emergency stroke interventions, and increased stress, and interrupted vaccine programs, and alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and that list goes on too.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      Very true. I wrote this on the secondary effects a few months back (https://battlepenguin.com/politics/secondary-effects/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/secondary-effects/) and I think people are totally missing all the secondary effects. When cancer detection rates go down, it doesn't mean cancers went down, it means people aren't coming in for their regular mammograms and colonoscopies. 5 months can mean the different between an early treatable cancer with a 5+ year survival rate and a stage 3 malignancy with the survival rate dropping by 1/3. Five years from now, we'll look back and be able to see the massive secondary deaths from cancer, heart disease/obesity (people stuck inside all day), depression/suicide and others. This will not be a time of honor.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        They're not missing the secondary effects. There's constant attention on those effects. > Across the world, rates for attempted suicide are growing dangerously amid the continued lockdowns This is incorrect. Realtime monitoring data have not shown an increase yet in deaths by suicide. These are early figures, and we do need to guard against rises in future. But there has not been an increase. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.full?ijkey=NDYZgh6xGYgX9az&keytype=ref https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.full?ijkey=NDYZgh6... http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=51861 http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=51861
- kissiel 6y ago
  I started reading this paper and found this important bits: > During the study period (3 April to 2 June 2020) This is the period where almost all of Europe saw a decline in daily-new-cases, mainly due to people starting to take this thing seriously. And still, the study has shown that masked worked: > The primary outcome occurred in 42 participants (1.8%) in the mask group and 53 (2.1%) in the control group.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  That study was done in Denmark, where national guidelines on social distancing appear to be more uniformly applied & followed than in the US. It may be the case that, properly social distanced, masks add little to protection. However, given lax or non-existing distancing measures in some places in the US masks could make a larger difference. Anecdotally it appears that states with less social distancing & mask usage, on average, are experiencing worse spikes at the moment. Of course the question is whether it's lack of masks and/or distancing that's the cause. Unfortunately, lack of social distancing & lack of mask wearing appear to be closely correlated in the US so it is difficult to disentangle. What we do know for sure is that masks can prevent a certain amount of exhalation droplets, and there are plenty of other studies that point to their efficacy [0]. Given reasonable evidence in one direction, less evidence in the other, but perhaps still a lack of consensus, it seems like taking a very simple step that could save lives is still the prudent & responsible step to take. [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109231v5 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109231v... Other decisions on things like which businesses are able to stay open, which closed etc., do seem arbitrary at points. However, if lines have to be drawn somewhere, edge cases close to those lines may always seem inequitable. Personally my main criticism is that we don't have stronger guidelines that deal with more detailed scenarios at the Fed level, that states left to their own devices are often no more consistent, and municipalities are often left to try & figure it out themselves.

Weird assumption. There is new evidence showing masks don't seem to really have that significant an impact on getting infections: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 ..may still prevent transmission based on the new CDC guidelines, but I don't think they based those on any actual studies. Honestly the rules are all dumb, random and arbitrary at this point. People keep yelling "science" when it's really just new superstition.

spurgu 6y ago
Masks, social distancing, restrictions on public events, people working from home, the list goes on.
- guscost 6y ago
  Balance with missed heart bypasses, cancer screenings, emergency stroke interventions, and increased stress, and interrupted vaccine programs, and alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and that list goes on too.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    Very true. I wrote this on the secondary effects a few months back (https://battlepenguin.com/politics/secondary-effects/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/secondary-effects/) and I think people are totally missing all the secondary effects. When cancer detection rates go down, it doesn't mean cancers went down, it means people aren't coming in for their regular mammograms and colonoscopies. 5 months can mean the different between an early treatable cancer with a 5+ year survival rate and a stage 3 malignancy with the survival rate dropping by 1/3. Five years from now, we'll look back and be able to see the massive secondary deaths from cancer, heart disease/obesity (people stuck inside all day), depression/suicide and others. This will not be a time of honor.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      They're not missing the secondary effects. There's constant attention on those effects. > Across the world, rates for attempted suicide are growing dangerously amid the continued lockdowns This is incorrect. Realtime monitoring data have not shown an increase yet in deaths by suicide. These are early figures, and we do need to guard against rises in future. But there has not been an increase. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.full?ijkey=NDYZgh6xGYgX9az&keytype=ref https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.full?ijkey=NDYZgh6... http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=51861 http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=51861
kissiel 6y ago
I started reading this paper and found this important bits: > During the study period (3 April to 2 June 2020) This is the period where almost all of Europe saw a decline in daily-new-cases, mainly due to people starting to take this thing seriously. And still, the study has shown that masked worked: > The primary outcome occurred in 42 participants (1.8%) in the mask group and 53 (2.1%) in the control group.
ineedasername 6y ago
That study was done in Denmark, where national guidelines on social distancing appear to be more uniformly applied & followed than in the US. It may be the case that, properly social distanced, masks add little to protection. However, given lax or non-existing distancing measures in some places in the US masks could make a larger difference. Anecdotally it appears that states with less social distancing & mask usage, on average, are experiencing worse spikes at the moment. Of course the question is whether it's lack of masks and/or distancing that's the cause. Unfortunately, lack of social distancing & lack of mask wearing appear to be closely correlated in the US so it is difficult to disentangle. What we do know for sure is that masks can prevent a certain amount of exhalation droplets, and there are plenty of other studies that point to their efficacy [0]. Given reasonable evidence in one direction, less evidence in the other, but perhaps still a lack of consensus, it seems like taking a very simple step that could save lives is still the prudent & responsible step to take. [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109231v5 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109231v... Other decisions on things like which businesses are able to stay open, which closed etc., do seem arbitrary at points. However, if lines have to be drawn somewhere, edge cases close to those lines may always seem inequitable. Personally my main criticism is that we don't have stronger guidelines that deal with more detailed scenarios at the Fed level, that states left to their own devices are often no more consistent, and municipalities are often left to try & figure it out themselves.