5 ms·

> We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to COVID patients past a certain point because we have to put a dollar figure on it (i.e. triage

> We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to COVID patients past a certain point because we have to put a dollar figure on it (i.e. triage) That's not how triage works. > similarly the fact we have $1200 'solutions' to COVID that could probably wipe it out without vaccines if we could get everyone the tech, but we can't 'afford' it, What is this mysterious cure? > or that masks do not protect you like wearing a gas mask through a chlorine cloud, rather, they're minimally protective but nevertheless we believe 'do make difference' and we want people to wear them, so we don't talk about it in detail, rather, just suggest or require them as policy in some locales. That's a known fact. Masks don't really protect the wearer unless it's a properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol emitted which reduces the chances of transmitting it to other people. They protect a group of people if most wear them by limiting transmission. That's high school level biology.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> Masks don't really protect the wearer unless it's a properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol emitted which reduces the chances of transmitting it to other people. They protect a group of people if most wear them by limiting transmission. Many people seem to respond to this with a line of thought akin to Why would I take on a minor inconvenience merely to help save the lives of other people? Surprisingly few seem to think I'd better get some N95 masks then. They've been in ready supply for months.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Wearing a properly fitted one isn't comfortable at all. Regular masks work great if everyone is wearing them correctly.
jollybean 5y ago
--- "That's not how triage works." Triage: "the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties." Seems exactly like triage. --- "What is this mysterious cure?" Monoclonal Antibodies are a very effective treatment that we would use almost ubiquitously were it not for the cost. If they were $1 and easily administered, they are in some ways as effective as vaccines, and pragmatically 'could be the first order solution' " there was a significant reduction in COVID-related hospitalization or death of 71.3% (1.3% vs. 4.6%; p<0.0001) in the 2,400 mg group and 70.4% (1.0% vs. 3.2%) in the 1,200 mg group, as compared to placebo." [1] 70% effective, taken at onset of symptoms, is more protective than my current AZ vaccine. But at $1200 ea. we can only use it in specialized scenarios. FYI - 100% of 'Rich Americans' will have access to this if they contract COVID and want to take it - but only a minority of poor and middle class Americans will. If the Media ever wanted to highlight this discrepancy, there might be a revolution, but it's not in anyone's best interest at this point, i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It'. --- "Mask Protection Are a Known Fact" No, it's not, in the minds of most people, and the specific facts are purposefully avoided in the interest in the simple, basic communication of: "Wear Your Mask" which is in the public interest. My parents and everyone in my family get jitters if 'one person in vicinity' isn't wearing a proper mask, because their 'instinct' is more along the 'N95 belief'. 'One person without a mask' is along the lines of 'working in a smokey nihgtclub for a week'. While not good, it's probably not going to hurt you. If everyone worked in smoke-filled nightclubs, it wold cause harm for sure, just like if we all didn't wear masks, R0 would nudge up. The 'Public Communication' on masks has definitely not been nuanced to the point wherein they spend time going into the details, and so the resulting 'common understanding' isn't perfectly consistent with reality. And it gets much better: Vaccines kill. We knew this, and we have a better understanding of it now, but even the most 'transparent' Public Health communicators completely avoid the subject. The visceral impact of 'So and So Died from a Vaccine', even as we know that on the whole, the vaccines are effectively safe and we want people to take them, is just to much. A single anecdote of 'someone dying' is easily enough for anti-vaxxers to propagandize and misrepresent the materiality of risk. Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard to find. That is basically a level of 'transparency' that is basically a problem for the 'Public Good' and basically that information is actively suppressed. Maybe not 100% hidden, but absolutely suppressed i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It' [1] https://www.idsociety.org/covid-19-real-time-learning-network/therapeutics-and-interventions/immunomodulators/# https://www.idsociety.org/covid-19-real-time-learning-networ...
- newaccount74 5y ago
  > Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard to find. The Paul Ehrlich institute for example publishes exact numbers of possibly vaccine related deaths. What more do you want? Do you want them to publish names and photos of every person that died after getting vaccinated?
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Does it have data on the country in which I live, or just Germany? But that's besides the point. The issue is 'Communications'. How many times has Dr. Fauci gone on TV and talked about all the people have died from vaccines? How often has even even communicated that it's lethal? How many vignettes has CNN done on the 'terrible tragedy bestowed on the family when their child died of a vaccine?' Zero. Because that's a 'Truth' that the public 'Cannot Handle'. If we focused any amount on the people dying from vaccines, even though it's rare and rationally it would not change policy ... the anti-vaxx movement would have a field day with it and it would cause harm. Now, they're not lying, but their definitely not going to present us with all the ugly details. They're going to present us with some basic facts, and their recommended policy. If you really want to find the info on the number of dead from vaccines, you can dig, and maybe come up with something. In a Public Emergency, this issue is even more acute. Obviously it's a challenge and you need incredible integrity in the system, otherwise, data gets manipulated for naked political reasons (i.e. elections, not health outcome) and we pay the price in lives, which by the way I think has happened to some extent in the US. 'Data' and 'Communications' are separate things.
- antiterra 5y ago
  Public health is hard. How important is the truth if you know lying will save millions and millions of lives? Of course you can’t lie too much, or people will ignore you even when you tell the truth. What if your research on the disease model of alcoholism shows it to both be effective and a fantastical fabrication? Is it noble to publish this? Is it elitist to selectively distribute this knowledge? As for masks— when I reviewed the research last, there were clear benefits in the case of SARS-CoV-1, especially when compared to influenza (which appears to be unaffected by surgical masks.) So, the interesting and, perhaps, less controversial discussion is what sort of masking we would do if we were talking about a pandemic where the body of research data very strongly implied zero (or even slightly negative) effectiveness with masks for that specific contagion. And then the same scenario with a very high effectiveness. I’m not sure we would do anything different either way, and everyone would feel smugly correct while arguing based on the title of studies rather than their content.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

> Masks don't really protect the wearer unless it's a properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol emitted which reduces the chances of transmitting it to other people. They protect a group of people if most wear them by limiting transmission. Many people seem to respond to this with a line of thought akin to Why would I take on a minor inconvenience merely to help save the lives of other people? Surprisingly few seem to think I'd better get some N95 masks then. They've been in ready supply for months.

908B64B197 5y ago
Wearing a properly fitted one isn't comfortable at all. Regular masks work great if everyone is wearing them correctly.

jollybean 5y ago

--- "That's not how triage works." Triage: "the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties." Seems exactly like triage. --- "What is this mysterious cure?" Monoclonal Antibodies are a very effective treatment that we would use almost ubiquitously were it not for the cost. If they were $1 and easily administered, they are in some ways as effective as vaccines, and pragmatically 'could be the first order solution' " there was a significant reduction in COVID-related hospitalization or death of 71.3% (1.3% vs. 4.6%; p<0.0001) in the 2,400 mg group and 70.4% (1.0% vs. 3.2%) in the 1,200 mg group, as compared to placebo." [1] 70% effective, taken at onset of symptoms, is more protective than my current AZ vaccine. But at $1200 ea. we can only use it in specialized scenarios. FYI - 100% of 'Rich Americans' will have access to this if they contract COVID and want to take it - but only a minority of poor and middle class Americans will. If the Media ever wanted to highlight this discrepancy, there might be a revolution, but it's not in anyone's best interest at this point, i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It'. --- "Mask Protection Are a Known Fact" No, it's not, in the minds of most people, and the specific facts are purposefully avoided in the interest in the simple, basic communication of: "Wear Your Mask" which is in the public interest. My parents and everyone in my family get jitters if 'one person in vicinity' isn't wearing a proper mask, because their 'instinct' is more along the 'N95 belief'. 'One person without a mask' is along the lines of 'working in a smokey nihgtclub for a week'. While not good, it's probably not going to hurt you. If everyone worked in smoke-filled nightclubs, it wold cause harm for sure, just like if we all didn't wear masks, R0 would nudge up. The 'Public Communication' on masks has definitely not been nuanced to the point wherein they spend time going into the details, and so the resulting 'common understanding' isn't perfectly consistent with reality. And it gets much better: Vaccines kill. We knew this, and we have a better understanding of it now, but even the most 'transparent' Public Health communicators completely avoid the subject. The visceral impact of 'So and So Died from a Vaccine', even as we know that on the whole, the vaccines are effectively safe and we want people to take them, is just to much. A single anecdote of 'someone dying' is easily enough for anti-vaxxers to propagandize and misrepresent the materiality of risk. Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard to find. That is basically a level of 'transparency' that is basically a problem for the 'Public Good' and basically that information is actively suppressed. Maybe not 100% hidden, but absolutely suppressed i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It' [1] https://www.idsociety.org/covid-19-real-time-learning-network/therapeutics-and-interventions/immunomodulators/# https://www.idsociety.org/covid-19-real-time-learning-networ...

newaccount74 5y ago
> Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard to find. The Paul Ehrlich institute for example publishes exact numbers of possibly vaccine related deaths. What more do you want? Do you want them to publish names and photos of every person that died after getting vaccinated?
- jollybean 5y ago
  Does it have data on the country in which I live, or just Germany? But that's besides the point. The issue is 'Communications'. How many times has Dr. Fauci gone on TV and talked about all the people have died from vaccines? How often has even even communicated that it's lethal? How many vignettes has CNN done on the 'terrible tragedy bestowed on the family when their child died of a vaccine?' Zero. Because that's a 'Truth' that the public 'Cannot Handle'. If we focused any amount on the people dying from vaccines, even though it's rare and rationally it would not change policy ... the anti-vaxx movement would have a field day with it and it would cause harm. Now, they're not lying, but their definitely not going to present us with all the ugly details. They're going to present us with some basic facts, and their recommended policy. If you really want to find the info on the number of dead from vaccines, you can dig, and maybe come up with something. In a Public Emergency, this issue is even more acute. Obviously it's a challenge and you need incredible integrity in the system, otherwise, data gets manipulated for naked political reasons (i.e. elections, not health outcome) and we pay the price in lives, which by the way I think has happened to some extent in the US. 'Data' and 'Communications' are separate things.
antiterra 5y ago
Public health is hard. How important is the truth if you know lying will save millions and millions of lives? Of course you can’t lie too much, or people will ignore you even when you tell the truth. What if your research on the disease model of alcoholism shows it to both be effective and a fantastical fabrication? Is it noble to publish this? Is it elitist to selectively distribute this knowledge? As for masks— when I reviewed the research last, there were clear benefits in the case of SARS-CoV-1, especially when compared to influenza (which appears to be unaffected by surgical masks.) So, the interesting and, perhaps, less controversial discussion is what sort of masking we would do if we were talking about a pandemic where the body of research data very strongly implied zero (or even slightly negative) effectiveness with masks for that specific contagion. And then the same scenario with a very high effectiveness. I’m not sure we would do anything different either way, and everyone would feel smugly correct while arguing based on the title of studies rather than their content.