How is lockdown working where you are?

[snaark]

I know I've discounted Sars-COV-2 in other threads, but there's some real reasons to be concerned about the long term progression of the pandemic.

It infects ACE2 receptors. It attacks the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the brain. Many survivors of the more severe cases are left with permanent damage (reduced mental capacity, reduced lung capacity) or debilitating effects potentially years (if SARS is anything to go by, at least). People are asymptomatic spreaders for days after being infected. The antibody titer decays fast, which means you may get it in winter, and get it again in summer or fall. Without mutation. Some people are killed through cytokine storms (strong immune response), some people are killed by the disease itself.

There's the possibility this will become endemic, without a vaccine, and sweep through the population culling 20% of the people over 70, year after year.

It could very easily mutate into a more deadly form. Because it's an RNA retrovirus, it's going to be very mutation prone.

Almost all of that is true, but it doesn't seem to be very mutation prone - actually compared to influenza it mutates very slowly. But as you pointed out, this may not even matter.

[sparrow]

Bet you guys are glad Trudeau and Co. is preventing fat, stupid disease bags from coming up there for a bit, huh?

For now, yes.

[babihutan]

Bet you guys are glad Trudeau and Co. is preventing fat, stupid disease bags from coming up there for a bit, huh?

For now, yes.

I’m so bummed out by that decision, I’ve decided to cross a closed Canada/US border from Canada INTO the US, endure a 4-phase interrogation at the border and WITH my family. I made it into God’s country and we roam wild and free spreading Canadian propaganda.

Texas seems to be where NY was in Mid April. NYC is crowded and sometimes you have places where 6 people live in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Italy is the same way. We picture Italian villas but many Italian houses and apartments resemble a clown car, but with better food and clothes.

So if Trump, Like Cuomo, screwed up initially, does that mean he is doing better now at containing the virus?

Is there really evidence the economy is not hit in the long run when we face a percentage death rate? If so, what?

Also, if I were to use an example of Open Vs. Closed I would use California's rising rate of infection Vs. Whomever is open. NY State has been managed fairly well with very little help from the Feds, and in fact we had a Navy Hospital ship that no one could figure out how to get admitted to and they would not take non-covid emergency cases...which would have helped existing Hospitals.

Also another long term fuck up was Bloomberg and Cuomo presided over the shutting down of 3 hospitals in the NYC area, one of which was turned into Luxury West Village Rentals. Not smart to get rid of Hospitals in favor of Real Estate interests.

The fuck-ups at the Federal level go back to the Obama administration - Bush became convinced that a pandemic was going to happen so began a stockpiling program, which the Obama admin liquidated (no, I'm not blaming Obama). CDC then had their budget cut under Trump. WHO became the lackey running dogs of China, so while China was welding people shut in apartment buildings and bulldozing roads so people couldn't enter or leave impacted cities, WHO was saying person to person transmission for Sars-COV-2 was still infrequent and China had it under control. China's official death count is almost certainly 2-3 orders of magnitude under reality. Back in late Feb, a chart floating around showing China mobile subscribers over the past 24 months showed continuous growth until December, then there was a 6 or 7 million decline (cumulative) in subscribers through January.

Italy tends to not do so well with the flu either. Their death rates tend to be higher than the US. Stands to reason, they have the 2nd oldest population in the world, next to Japan, and flu and covid hits old people particularly hard, absent any other considerations like policy / health care systems.

From an epidemiology point of view, the chance to contain this left the barn in January, maybe even December. Plenty of evidence that it was community spread (endemic) in Seattle area by end of January. Containment measures like lockdowns, masks, are attempts to lower the R0 in order to "flatten the curve" so the medical system doesn't collapse, but it won't eradicate the transmission of Sars-COV-2. We are long past that tipping point. The only thing that stops this is: herd immunity (and people have to catch it for the society to develop herd immunity), or a vaccine, which is still months away. I told my wife back in February that this will go pandemic, we'll probably catch it, and we'll probably be fine, but maybe not. You make your choices and take your chances. If the CFR was 3-5% I'd be a little less nonchalant, but with a CFR of 0.6% - it's concerning, but not end of the world kind of thing. The Black Plague killed 1/3 of the European population. And for the record, I was exposed 8 days ago - little Father's day get together, my brother in law's wife's brother came to visit my brother in law, tested positive on Tuesday, brother in law and his wife are now both symptomatic, test results still pending). My family is asymptomatic, and I think we are in the clear since it's been 8 days, but you never know (I also think we had it back in early March when we went to Disney right before it shut down, or earlier in Feb when I was traveling for work, or late January when one of my coworkers returned from Spring Festival in Wuhan). Despite being an early believer back in January, but mid-April I was Wuflu fatigued out and stopped wearing a mask. Fuck it. Herd immunity doesn't happen by itself.

I’ve been tracking this virus since middish January and have been very surprised by the lack of foresight by most people and countries. That was smart of you to get out of the stock market then! I was watching it continually rise to new heights while scratching my head.

And as for government numbers of virus cases, it’s all bullshit. Whatever the official number of cases are, multiply that multifold. This in turn would mean that the actual death rate would also be much lower than stated. I’ve also been hearing that most hospitals count Covid as the cause of death even for people who die of x number of diseases but happen to test positive for Covid.

[el3so]

Mandatory masks from tomorrow onward in shops, public areas and wherever. Guess all this sh!t 'll last a bit longer...

Can't complain.

[MJK]

Let's see how everybody feels about masks in a year or so when we are still stuck with them. By then, those who decide such things will be pushing the boundaries and masks will be required for cave divers who can't social distance and airlines will be retrofitting aircraft passenger emergency masks with big baggies you pull over your head first, then your child's. Meanwhile everyone with "It's not a mask, it's love" on their rash bordered lips should clip on a pulse oximeter and watch their blood oxygen plummet to below 80%. Oxygenating your blood and venting waste gases is so selfish. Be a trend setter and out virtue signal everyone else by posting the lowest blood oxygen levels ever recorded. When your rosacea transitions to gangrene it will prove your love for your fellow man and get you mucho likes. Don't stop at driving alone with your windows up and a mask on; shop for toothpaste with the highest fluoride content. Spray Roundup directly on your bread, some of it might have washed off during refining.

It's like Pier Paolo Pasolini and Quentin Tarantino are taking turns directing the end of the world between spliffs of spice and rails of ketamine while the people I care about are indignant that I won't join them in a cameo in this fucking nightmare.

[el3so]

Any light fabric covering nose and mouth is allowed so you could wear a scarf instead of a mask. Feel free to tell me how those will also kill people.

[MJK]

First off, I tend to tread lightly around you Mr. el3so as you seem to be well grounded and not prone to needless confrontation; and I tend to re-examine anything I have posted if I get pushback from those whose opinions I respect or those who have shown themselves to be somewhat sober and reflective.

Having said that, I went looking for several YT vids that highlighted what I said here only to find that they now 'violate YouTube's terms of service', meaning that they were not politically correct and have been memory holed. I would invite you to clip on a pulse oximeter and have a look for yourself; my current employer(well, one of them) mandates masks while inside the facilities they own. They provide both cloth and disposable masks of the medical type. (My boss fished a cloth one out of a gallon baggie with his bare hands and offered it to me) With the N95 paper masks my blood ox. levels went down to 79-82%, low enough that an ambulance crew would have put me on oxygen if they saw those numbers.

Back to your point, single layer cloth masks/wraps/scarves do NOT contain respiratory droplets. They may allow breathing but they do not protect the wearer or others, so what is the point of wearing them other to conform and virtue signal? I saw a woman at Fred Meyer wearing a beautiful crocheted mask for God's sake. N95 masks do not filter virus sized particles either. Everyone touches the outside of their masks no matter what the composition, the CDC will tell you that now that mask is compromised and should be replaced/washed because you can now draw in any viral particles on the outer surface. Once infected, masks increase the viral load that you would be shedding otherwise. Everyone I see with a bandana or scarf is tugging away and adjusting them constantly barehanded, far from a sink where they could wash up first as advised by the CDC. And if they had gloves on, what diff would that make? The gloves are compromised as a tool to adjust your mask as soon as you touch anything.

If you were inferring that I can keep the Karens and Nancys at bay by wearing something that is useless for what it is being mandated for, point taken. The links below are not as good as those that are now gone but address my point while still pushing the official narrative.

http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/disease ... risks/mask

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1435/rr-40

Let me reiterate, when I see that you have gigged someone I usually agree so I had to reexamine my position on this. It is still a waking nightmare of Orwellian proportions and the masks/scarves are semaphores of compliance.

[el3so]

MJK, I'm just some asshole on the internet without a medical degree.
Didn't mean to attack you but c'mon, you seriously believe those masks surgeons wear in operating rooms cut down on oxygen intake or cause gangreen or pose any other serious health risk? Same for scarves/shemaghs/etc. People have been wearing them for extended periods of time without averse effects. Gas masks are different.

It's a numbers game IMO.
If they can get 80% of the population to wear some sort of covering that'll at least stop phlegm/snot/droplets from getting onto groceries/hands/doorknobs, it'll cut down on the transmission. If people continue to keep their distance, wash their hands, keep an eye on symptoms and so on, overall spread of disease is bound to go down and the medical system will not get swamped. All those numbers add up to less people dying preventable deaths. Which we apparently all agreed on is a good thing.

A bit like how digging your latrine a distance away from the camp and boiling your water can be inferior substitutes for proper sewer and water-treatment facilities. Maybe there will always be people claiming it's too much of a hassle or how hot water can be more dangerous than the cold one "fresh" from a running river.

To each their own, free world and all, but continuing the analogy, if I get diarrhea, you can bet I'm going to take a shit in one of those contrarians' sleeping bags...

[Kurt]

I do not see wearing a mask as virtue signaling.

Someone who stops for a pedestrian is not saying "look at me! I am being virtuous!"

It is a way to reduce transmission. Since I do not know if people are COVID-19 carriers and they do not know if I am either (Hell, I do not know if I am) you wear a mask.

But the "signaling" it does provide is "who is the polite person here?" My wife and I were masked up and on a walk the other day and a woman was on the phone walking down the sidewalk and she saw us and put her mask on and continued talking.

She was a polite person. She is the kind of person who, if she farted, would excuse herself rather than grab someone by the head and waft it over to them.

In Wisconsin there is a campground that says "No masks" because they treat mask wearers as "an armed robbery in progress". They also noted that they would shoot armed robbers. So there is that kind of virtue signaling as well.

https://wkow.com/2020/05/18/wisconsin-c ... robberies/

[el3so]

But the "signaling" it does provide is "who is the polite person here?" My wife and I were masked up and on a walk the other day and a woman was on the phone walking down the sidewalk and she saw us and put her mask on and continued talking.

Common courtesy apparently isn't all that common.

In Wisconsin there is a campground that says "No masks" because they treat mask wearers as "an armed robbery in progress". They also noted that they would shoot armed robbers.

Sounds like an airtight legal argument. Wonder what there is to steal at a campground.

[MJK]

el3so and Kurt, I imagine that Zero Hedge isn't your cup of tea so to speak but I would ask you to read the following article and notice the names and positions of those involved in stating the ineffectiveness of masks. Of interest was Dr. Fauci stating the the use of masks is ' largely symbolic'. I would submit to you Kurt that the 'largely symbolic' wearing of masks is the very definition of virtue signaling. The theories of why this lockdown/mandatory masking is being pushed presented in the article do not matter to me; the real story here to me is the evidence and statements by those high up in the official pandemic hierarchy that the masks are not effective at preventing the spread of virus' passed by respiration. The rarity of spread by the asymptomatic is problematic also.

If you wanted to run an efficient police state and NOT collapse the economy you could just have legions of thermal gun packing heavies everywhere scanning for high temperature individuals. I could easily live with having the Karens of the world thermal gunning everyone and calling the FeverSquad; at least some of the businesses would survive that will go down for the count soon. Rather than masking those who are resistant to the idea the same employees tasked to check for masks could deny entrance to everyone with a temp over 100F.

"First they came for the feverish, but I was 98.6 so I said nothing..."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-real-purpose-lockdowns

[ROB]

Dr. Fauci stating the the use of masks is ' largely symbolic'.

No. He didn't.

[el3so]

virtue signaling

FWIW I do not have any black friends.

The theories of why this lockdown/mandatory masking is being pushed presented in the article do not matter to me; the real story here to me is the evidence and statements by those high up in the official pandemic hierarchy that the masks are not effective at preventing the spread of virus' passed by respiration. The rarity of spread by the asymptomatic is problematic also.

I bet the data will be amazing for the medical professionals in the near future.

Didn't understand what point the author was trying to make or which solution/measures he proposed but I can't take an article serious that both claims violations of some of the "Nelson Mandela rules" (sure apartheid was evil but solitary confinement of insurgency leaders seems like the humane approach) and quotes the late John McCain about his time as a POW in the context of measures taken during a pandemic.

Rather than masking those who are resistant to the idea the same employees tasked to check for masks could deny entrance to everyone with a temp over 100F.

Too many false positives and given asymptomatic carriers, false negatives as well. It's a contingency plan but seeing how it could and would be considered among others a violation of part of our privacy laws, there is push-back.
Masks only violate an old rule about people hiding their identity in the public space. Difference is no one will sue for the latter.

Politicians are about to go on summer break and the numbers have been for a while going up again. Guess we can say we tried...

[Kurt]

Dr. Fauci stating the the use of masks is ' largely symbolic'.

No. He didn't.

No, he did not. But if you apply what he DID say through the dipshit translator:

I want to protect myself and protect others and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing,

That plus

..not 100% effective

Becomes:

largely symbolic

They cannot quite figure out that someone who is honest and says something that is not 100% effective but is helpful is somehow not being paid by Bill Gates and part of the Deep State.

Houston's paper newpaper had something like 49 extra pages for obituaries. For the Know-Nothing Death Cult that means something that happened didn't happen.

[MJK]

Not sure who 'they' are but would be interested in the original source for Fauci's statement.