5 ms·

1.5m excess deaths in the US alone. "from COVID" or "with COVID," however you want to slice it. The obvious factor is the global pandemic from a novel airborne

1.5m excess deaths in the US alone. "from COVID" or "with COVID," however you want to slice it. The obvious factor is the global pandemic from a novel airborne virus. The conspiracy thinking assuming some sinister ulterior motive from government actions is just a harmful trope, and wrong.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
briandon 4y ago
Setting the injections aside for a moment, let's consider other pandemic-era government actions, like the non-pharmaceutical interventions. None of them worked and it was clear from the beginning that they were not going to ameliorate covid's impact. Loose-fitting surgical masks do not meaningfully impede the spread of aerosol-borne viruses. Even N95s have been found to show no additional benefit compared to surgical masks in pre-covid research that compared influenza rates among procedure-mask-wearing healthcare workers and healthcare workers wearing N95s. People seem to forget that the uselessness of masks against covid was known early on, then experts were trotted out to hypothesize (incorrectly but authoritatively) that covid was actually droplet-borne so that the mask-orders being imposed would have some air of legitimacy. Many deluded people still believe that surgical masks are useful against covid. Then there were the capacity limits for businesses and forced closures of non-megacorp businesses. And the stickers on the floor at arbitrary, pointless intervals. Pointless because covid is, as we knew from the beginning, pretended to forget for a while when "experts" falsely asserted the droplet nonsense, and know once more... aerosol-borne. Replication-competent covid virions can linger in the air for literally hours. And the contact-tracing charade. And forced quarantine (not a thing in the USA but did happen in many other nations that were supposedly following "the science"), sometimes simply for alleged exposure to a PCR-positive "case". During the covid pandemic, most citizens of nations that actively tried to "fight" the pandemic were deceived and abused relentlessly and shamelessly by those in authority, abetted by many experts. Those who dissented were falsely labeled kooks, deplatformed, and targeted for destruction. I cannot read the minds of government officials in every country that imposed these sorts of unscientific and harmful alleged public health measures on their populations and tell you why they did it but I can tell you that it was obvious to many with relevant expertise or a rational mind and a willingness to look into what was being done and compare it to most nations' preexisting response plans for epidemics of viral respiratory illnesses and with the published literature with an open mind, even at the time when some were panicking, and know that they did not make sense and would not help.
- ninjagoo 4y ago
  Do you have any actual evidence for masks being ineffective? You keep saying they're ineffective, but you're not providing any evidence for that claim. Or for any of your other claims that non-pharmaceutical interventions are ineffective. Those are quite the extraordinary claims, in opposition to epidemiologists. You do know what extraordinary claims require, correct? In contrast, here is a report on the CDC's website on mask effectiveness for Covid: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm That report contradicts your claims of ineffectiveness ("uselessness of masks" etc.) as well as the relative effectiveness of various types of masks. On top of the lack of evidence for any of your claims, you accuse people of being deluded if they disagree. You call contact-tracing a charade, in opposition to epidemiologists. Those are just two examples among multiple others. So. Is there a reason for this incendiary rhetoric and gish-galloping in your posts?
  - briandon 4y ago
    You've lived through the past several years and seen the complete failure of all of the NPIs. Are you just refusing to acknowledge it? Clinging to a covidian version of the "stabbed in the back" myth where if some people had just masked harder or gotten injected sooner, covid could have been extinguished? Did you even search for any peer-reviewed papers about surgical mask effectiveness against covid? Here's a model study that aligns closely with what we've all observed in real life (i.e. rooms full of masked people spreading and getting covid): "Effectiveness of Face Masks in Preventing Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2" https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00637-20 https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00637-20 "IMPORTANCE Airborne simulation experiments showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective SARS-CoV-2 droplets/aerosols; however, medical masks (surgical masks and even N95 masks) could not completely block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed." Here's the clinical study that found no difference between N95s and surgical masks: "N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel: A Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31479137/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31479137/ "Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza." Now, how many replication-competent virions need to make it around, through, etc. a face covering in order to initiate an infection? The answer is one. And you're aware that covid infections can be initiated via the exposed regions of mucous membrane around your eyes (ocular mucous membrane), right? Have you been wearing a full-facepiece respirator with N100 filters installed when you went outdoors? No, I know. You think that stopping some virions, 60% or even 30%, must be useful. And we'll all pretend that eyes aren't a significant route of infection because we can't get the rubes to all wear ski goggles everywhere all the time. As the saying goes, it's much easier to con someone than to get them to admit later that they've been conned.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

briandon 4y ago

Setting the injections aside for a moment, let's consider other pandemic-era government actions, like the non-pharmaceutical interventions. None of them worked and it was clear from the beginning that they were not going to ameliorate covid's impact. Loose-fitting surgical masks do not meaningfully impede the spread of aerosol-borne viruses. Even N95s have been found to show no additional benefit compared to surgical masks in pre-covid research that compared influenza rates among procedure-mask-wearing healthcare workers and healthcare workers wearing N95s. People seem to forget that the uselessness of masks against covid was known early on, then experts were trotted out to hypothesize (incorrectly but authoritatively) that covid was actually droplet-borne so that the mask-orders being imposed would have some air of legitimacy. Many deluded people still believe that surgical masks are useful against covid. Then there were the capacity limits for businesses and forced closures of non-megacorp businesses. And the stickers on the floor at arbitrary, pointless intervals. Pointless because covid is, as we knew from the beginning, pretended to forget for a while when "experts" falsely asserted the droplet nonsense, and know once more... aerosol-borne. Replication-competent covid virions can linger in the air for literally hours. And the contact-tracing charade. And forced quarantine (not a thing in the USA but did happen in many other nations that were supposedly following "the science"), sometimes simply for alleged exposure to a PCR-positive "case". During the covid pandemic, most citizens of nations that actively tried to "fight" the pandemic were deceived and abused relentlessly and shamelessly by those in authority, abetted by many experts. Those who dissented were falsely labeled kooks, deplatformed, and targeted for destruction. I cannot read the minds of government officials in every country that imposed these sorts of unscientific and harmful alleged public health measures on their populations and tell you why they did it but I can tell you that it was obvious to many with relevant expertise or a rational mind and a willingness to look into what was being done and compare it to most nations' preexisting response plans for epidemics of viral respiratory illnesses and with the published literature with an open mind, even at the time when some were panicking, and know that they did not make sense and would not help.

ninjagoo 4y ago
Do you have any actual evidence for masks being ineffective? You keep saying they're ineffective, but you're not providing any evidence for that claim. Or for any of your other claims that non-pharmaceutical interventions are ineffective. Those are quite the extraordinary claims, in opposition to epidemiologists. You do know what extraordinary claims require, correct? In contrast, here is a report on the CDC's website on mask effectiveness for Covid: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm That report contradicts your claims of ineffectiveness ("uselessness of masks" etc.) as well as the relative effectiveness of various types of masks. On top of the lack of evidence for any of your claims, you accuse people of being deluded if they disagree. You call contact-tracing a charade, in opposition to epidemiologists. Those are just two examples among multiple others. So. Is there a reason for this incendiary rhetoric and gish-galloping in your posts?
- briandon 4y ago
  You've lived through the past several years and seen the complete failure of all of the NPIs. Are you just refusing to acknowledge it? Clinging to a covidian version of the "stabbed in the back" myth where if some people had just masked harder or gotten injected sooner, covid could have been extinguished? Did you even search for any peer-reviewed papers about surgical mask effectiveness against covid? Here's a model study that aligns closely with what we've all observed in real life (i.e. rooms full of masked people spreading and getting covid): "Effectiveness of Face Masks in Preventing Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2" https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00637-20 https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00637-20 "IMPORTANCE Airborne simulation experiments showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective SARS-CoV-2 droplets/aerosols; however, medical masks (surgical masks and even N95 masks) could not completely block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed." Here's the clinical study that found no difference between N95s and surgical masks: "N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel: A Randomized Clinical Trial" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31479137/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31479137/ "Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza." Now, how many replication-competent virions need to make it around, through, etc. a face covering in order to initiate an infection? The answer is one. And you're aware that covid infections can be initiated via the exposed regions of mucous membrane around your eyes (ocular mucous membrane), right? Have you been wearing a full-facepiece respirator with N100 filters installed when you went outdoors? No, I know. You think that stopping some virions, 60% or even 30%, must be useful. And we'll all pretend that eyes aren't a significant route of infection because we can't get the rubes to all wear ski goggles everywhere all the time. As the saying goes, it's much easier to con someone than to get them to admit later that they've been conned.