I saw a YouTube video showing the experiment in early March. The results are shockingly obvious in the video. When the researcher used a simple cloth face cover, nearly all the droplets were blocked.
This evidence is only relevant if COVID-19 is transmitted by droplets from a person’s mouth. It is.
Based on the available evidence, including the recent publications mentioned above, WHO continues to recommend droplet and contact precautions for those people caring for COVID-19 patients
NOTE: the evidence of droplet transmission and covering effectiveness against respiratory transmission (ldo) was all available in early March 2020.
Johnny,
Did you read the goddam article you cited so pompously?
It says:
public health authorities like the World Health Organization and the CDC initially advised against wearing masks, saying there was little evidence that it would help prevent people from getting sick.
The slightest gloss of that rationale reveals its contradictions. WHO/CDC (both with “experts” that should be given absolutely ZERO credence at face value) said don’t wear masks b/c no evidently of asymptomatic spread, then they changed their minds based on “studies beginning to show”
asymptomatic spread might be occurring.
Uhhhhhhh:
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said in mid-February that asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus was possible. Furthermore, studies from as early as January showed cases of coronavirus spreading amongst people with no symptoms.
LOLOLOLOL REDFIELD. The damn surgeon general said this a couple weeks after the damn CDC said asymptomatic spread was possible (even that was a lie; it was proven in January studies):
Perhaps the most dramatic pronouncement about not wearing masks - because it was made by the top public health official in the United States and went out to the world - came on Feb. 29, when the U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted, “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”
Back to reality: a fascinating recent article on a potentially game-changing preventative treatment.
In a study of human cells growing in lab dishes, described in a preprint (not peer-reviewed or published in a journal yet), he and his colleagues also found that SARS-CoV-2 “prevents the vast amount” of interferon genes from turning on. But when cells growing in lab dishes received the interferon IFN-1 before exposure to the coronavirus, “the virus has a difficult time replicating.”>
After a few days, the amount of virus in infected but interferon-treated cells was 1,000- to 10,000-fold lower than in infected cells not pre-treated with interferon. (The original SARS virus, in contrast, is insensitive to interferon.)
The discovery that SARS-CoV-2 strongly suppresses infected cells’ production of interferons has raised an intriguing possibility: that taking interferons might prevent severe Covid-19 or even prevent it in the first place, said Vineet Menachery of the University of Texas Medical Branch
Also explains why the disease ravages older folks and folks with co-morbidities:
In elderly people, as well as those with diabetes, heart disease, and other underlying conditions, the call-to-arms part of the immune system is weaker than in younger, healthier people, even before the coronavirus arrives. That reduces even further the cells’ ability to knock down virus replication with interferons, and imbalances the immune system toward the dangerous inflammatory response.
Once a year the Chinese foreign minister holds a highly-orchestrated press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress. The questions are vetted and the answers prepared so the responses can be seen as a clear message from Beijing to the world.
Wang Yi said he hoped American people’s lives would soon return to normal but that it was “regrettable that a political virus [was] also spreading in the US, jumping at any opportunity to attack and slander China”.
He called on the US to stop “wasting precious time”, adding that people were dreaming if they thought China would pay compensation for damage caused by the pandemic.
The foreign minister also defended the World Health Organization, saying those countries which had ignored its advice were now “paying a heavy price”.
I’ve traveled quite a bit, the Kotor bay and the Adriatic coast of Montenegro are among one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen on this earth. The seafood is great too. It would be a great lifestyle.
I do think, to some extent, the media here is overblowing the protests. Outrage is like a drug, and it drives views. Sometimes in the era of Trump I feel like I need a daily dose of anger just to get my fix.
Ultimately has there been a protest in the US with more than a few hundred people? Even if every state had 10 of then already with 1,000 unique people each, that’s 500K people out of 330M, or 15 hundredths of one percent. In reality the protesters are way less than that.
But it gets mainstreamed and then everyone starts thinking that a huge chunk of people are so convinced that it’s safe.
Then some states reopen and OMG it’s a packed bar! By golly that’s 100 people who feel safe!
As we keep seeing these scenes, social proof starts to take hold… People start to think that it’s fine to go walk the boardwalk without a mask and share some fries and shit.
It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill collecting more and more snow. Humans are hard wired to think there is safety in numbers and go with the crowd. This is why you’ll almost always see a few long lines at a toll plaza and often one or two with few/no cars. People don’t even think or process it, they just get in line with everyone else.
No that’s about exactly how bad I thought it was at the time. I recall posting that it was hard to believe they were that stupid and it almost had to be intentional.
If you wanted to go for herd immunity, what better way to seed infections all over the country?
In fact, random thing that just popped into my head. Trump often refers to herd immunity as “herd” or “the herd.” Can anyone think of an example of him shortening something like that if he doesn’t like the word/idea/strategy?
He says “the hydroxy” a lot, but I don’t think I’ve heard him call the virus “the corona.” I feel like there are other examples but I’m blanking right now. If that’s a thing, him calling it “the herd” would be a huge indicator that’s the strategy, full stop. (As if it isn’t obvious enough.)
I admittedly skimmed that, but if the only way they’re determining that kids did or did not spread it in the household is positive tests, that’s a huge problem because most places weren’t testing kids for most of the pandemic since everyone thought they were either immune or immune to the symptoms/effects.
Can’t find what you don’t test for…
Not having kids, logically it seems like the Kawasaki thing is rare enough that it shouldn’t be as big of a factor as kids spreading COVID-19 asymptomatically. I’m pretty sure studies have shown a correlation between school closings and reduced spread. But of I had kids, I’d probably have the doors chained shut on my home and be up in arms over the idea of sending them to school.
Let me try to help JT out here by simplifying a bit what I think he’s getting at.
We know kids can get it. We know they can get serious effects, which appear to be very rare and also appear to lag infection by even longer than the typical COVID symptoms (making it harder to track). We have NO clue about long-term effects, either in severity or frequency. Experts think the risks are low, but another way to put that is “We currently have no evidence of severe long-term effects being particularly prevalent in kids.”
Well, no shit, it’s been a few months. How the hell would we know? BUT we will almost certainly know an order of magnitude more about all of that in 6-12 months, maybe several orders of magnitude more. Seems like erring on the side of being very cautious with kids is prudent as a parent.
Like if your opponent exposes his hand on the turn every time, you probably shouldn’t go too crazy on the flop.
They aren’t making sincere arguments, ever. Each “rebuttal” is a response developed in isolation without any consideration or care for previous arguments they’ve raised.
Wearing a mask doesn’t make you invincible i.e. you’re ‘probably’ safer 2m (8ft) away from someone without wearing a mask than you are within 2ft of them and wearing a mask.
There are reports that Covid-19 is 100x more likely to enter via the eyes than other viruses.
So, if you’re covering the outside of your mask, and possibly inside with Covid, then touching mask when removing, then touching face, having a rub of the eyes may well increase the likelihood of it passing through eyes.
Hence, the initial and most important message about soapy handwashing and not touching your face.
Not saying I don’t agree with masks, just alot of infections will be caused by the inevitable getting too close and infection transfer from mask (t-shirt) removal.
No parent is going to buy into this. The vaccine risk reward ratio is very high on the reward side. Get this shot and YOUR child will avoid measles, etc. At a cost of a very minimal risk of side effects.
Vs send YOUR kid to school as some kind of society benefit with NO health benefit to YOUR child but at some small but not minuscule risk to YOUR child.
Good luck with that sales pitch. And this is 2 months in on high levels of infection. What is the time lag for other impacts to show- this thing impacts organs all over the body, we should be treating it with a lot more respect for the high potential for long term health effects we can’t see yet?
Early on I was theoretically in favor of taking 20-30 year olds and locking them away for two months with all the alcohol and condoms they could consume (Olympic village if you will). Develop a herd immunity in the highly mobile and an immune workforce. I never thought it was practical or realistic to implement. But even then you are sentencing 1-2 per 10,000 to death and 20-40 to serious cases. Now with more knowledge it’s really stupid both in terms of long term health effects but also uncertainty over long lasting immunity.
