The mask is the crucifix of the left. It’s a symbol of allegiance, a religious symbol. A gang symbol. Catholics have crucifixes, Muslims have Head scarves, and secular leftists have masks. I’m an old school atheist, raised in a very religious household-- I know a religion when I see one.
Some religions tolerate debate as long as the contestants share the same theological fantasy. Many millions have died when the fantasies differ between the religious groups doing the debating with rocks, swords, guns, diseases.
Between Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot, the Twentieth Century saw more human slaughter than ALL of the religious pogroms COMBINED! Yet we still promote their ideologies on college campuses country wide.
Wear a Che t-shirt and it is cool, don't wear a mask and you get excluded!
The same people in control of the CDC, the World Economic Forum elites, are in control of all the ubiquitous propaganda re: the source of covid, the border, Hunter Biden laptop, Russian collusion with Trump, police behavior, crime, Ukraine, etc. Their lies on masking are only the tip of the iceberg. The Biden admin is their puppet.
That is true of many causes for debate not just religion. People who are different fight. Tolerance is pretty much a myth. Looking at the US today I am of the opinion that we never evolved past a feudal mentality. Especially the self-professed "elite".
I would say "tribal mentality". Feudalism was one of the ways of trying to rise above it, actually. It allowed the organization of at least some tribal groups to work collectively to offset the power of monarchs and other totalitarians. Not great to be a serf, but in those times even worse for everyone to be serfs except for one monarch. Fukuyama has an interesting discussion on feudal societies and their differences in different parts of the world over time. Russia was apparently one of the worst places to be because there the feudal powers aligned themselves with the Czar and both oppressed the serfs. In India the caste system effectively separated religious from political power and prevented a true monarch from ever arising in the first place. And China never had a feudal state at all, having discovered how to invent a bureaucratic State very early on which they never then abandoned. European feudalism was not a bad thing in it's time.
History does not support what you say. In the past anyone deviating from church doctrine was called a heretic and burnt at the stake. Today they just kick them out of the church.
I do actually have a history degree and what I would call a bit of relevant experience but that really doesn't matter. Most folks who point to the violence caused by religion tend to ignore all the wars and violence caused by things other than religion (what's the death toll from nationalism, communism, and nazism in the 20th century alone?). So is it religion or something else in human nature at work? Even the 30 Years War ended with Catholic France pitted against Catholic Hapsburgs. I doubt Richelieu was motivated by religion there.
Are you saying because secular wars are bloody, we should ignore the crimes of religion? Read Will Durant. He said, before WW II, that the invasion of Indian by Islam was probably the bloodiest period in human history. The Islamist slaughtered and estimated 50 million Indians.
I think you should be reading more history. The history of religion is paved with blood.
Religions are basically one of the solutions human beings have come up with to the problem of organizing and operating a tribe effectively larger than a few hundred people. The reason they need to find such a solution is that if they don't they will be overrun and wiped off the face of the earth by those who have like the Neanderthals and Denisovians.
The enforced respect for (often others'/ and, esp. "the powerful's) dogmatically held belief relates to all these across the board.
When dogma is an inherent aspect of religiously-held doctrine, it's no use saying that "something else " is at work here. The same things are at work in nationalism, communism, Nazism and other "isms".
That they are not all always the vehicles of mass murder is hardly a selling-point. And, while, with respect to "nationalism", a very good case may be made for its indispensibility in any conceivable modern society such as we know them, that same cannot be said for Communism, for Nazism, or for any of the Catholic or Protestant organized religious -or other non-religious cult-like sects.
The sect of the Face-Mask is one which we not only _can_ dispense with, it's one which we're far better off dispensing with--the sooner, the better.
Now, very significantly, none of that prevents _your_ personal preference to wear a face-mask (or go about on crutches, or wear a HAZ-mat suit) wherever and whenever you please (except perhaps in banks).
Lonesome - you really must TRY to get out of the age of witch burnings and religious wars. They obviously strengthen your hatred of Christianity argument - but are seriously out of date . My qualification is that I am ordained and have been for years and most of us would welcome you in the front door and never call you a heretic or burn you at the stake. Get your head out of your history books which seem only to be keeping you many years in the pass. Come on down AND we won't even ask you for money -
If you are so tolerant, loving and forgiving, how come you condemn me as hating Christianity. You have no idea what my religious beliefs are or if I hate religion. I simply quote real history and all of a sudden I hate Christianity. I never mention Christianity in my post. I could just as easily been talking about Islam or the Aztec or Mayan religions.
You are the insulting bigot no me. I just quoted history. You on the other hand quote your hatred and bigotry.
I found it deeply insulting and hurtful. and you call yourself a Christian and a minister at that. If your response is any indication tolerance and love, I would love to see what your sermons are like.
Don't say, "and never call you a heretic or burn you at the stake" until you've read Victor Klemperer's "LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen (1947) ( "The Language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's Notebook" )
Those memoirs were written within what is still "living memory".
You don't know who you'll "burn at the stake" until "not burning them" means immediate and dire risk of your life and everyone you most care about.
Where's all our learning from history? Where's our firm grasp of the fact that, after all, we _never_ _definitively_ learn anything from history and we never shall?
Expect more pandemics and more useless impositions of public health's "science"-driven stupidity, just to be "on the safe side".
I take his reference to witch trials and the Inquisition as symbolic for the large number of such historical occurrences throughout a very broad span of human history (of which I also have read a great deal and continue to do so). This tolerant welcome mat you describe is real,certainly. But surely you recognize it is also extremely recent? The Muslims were also quite tolerant of other small minority religions in their midst in the heyday of their ascendance - for awhile. Then they weren't and everything degenerated into horrible wars, largely driven by tribal affiliations. We are in fact the same human beings. Evolution is very slow.
That may be true but the inquisitors put out the rumor they were God's messengers and doing God's work.
According to historians, "Nationalism and the idea of a nation-state emerged at the end of the 18th century in Europe. The idea was related to a movement among a group of people with shared identities, whose aim was to achieve, maintain and claim the sovereignty of the nation."
The religious wars and the Inquisition were centuries before nationalism.
What I don't understand is how many people are reluctant to admit religion was responsible for so much blood and suffering and it stifled the advancement of civilization. If you don't believe me, ask Galileo.
The Spanish Inquisition as a particularly "spanish" & _"nationalist"_ phenomenon!? That's the first time I've come upon that thesis. (This is surely some doctoral candidate's work in history)
It would not have occurred to me to see the Sp. Inq.-- a pogram directed by a church centered in Rome-- and done in a royal kingdom!, as a candidate for a "nationalist" work of social experimentation in persecution. ¡Ay, caramba!
For awhile. Then the Reformation occurred. And while some churches oust those who do not follow the doctrine of that particular church, others tolerate everything.
The byline alone identifies this as an opinion piece crowing about the “debunking” of masks. Masks are useful when worn correctly. Many scientists are critical of Cochrane Review’s methods. And nothing reported in this article from scientists who disagree with its methods or conclusions. Do better, Free Press. We don’t want another news outlet which puts the political axe to grind before the journalism.
My spouse is a highly cited medical researcher who has followed the data from both the U.S. and other countries since the beginning of the Covid outbreak. Early on, he agreed with the suppressed Great Barrington Declaration and the many medical skeptics, based on data. Regarding masks, he determined that at best an n95 mask completely taped to the face might or might not help, but that anything less was just face decor and signaling.
He concluded early on that natural immunity due to Covid infection was extremely important, and was being inexplicably dismissed by government. He advised that we not get further vaccinations after the initial round because of what have been later substantiated concerns hinted at in the data.
He is the real thing, an informed medical scientist. What actual scientists believe, and what they purportedly believe according to the major press outlets, are two very different things. The Free Press is far more reliable as a news source than the New York Times, the WaPo, the Guardian, etc.
and preventing their vitally important immune systems from developing normally and effectively--by routine daily life's exposure to the world in which they live--or try to live.
If these were crutches instead of face-masks and all of us, especially children, were required to go about using them, there'd be a far, far greater outcry and a far greater appreciation of the nature of this insanity.
When helicopter moms spray down surfaces with 99.9% germ killing sprays, they aren't doing their kids and favors. People like me and most of the people on this BBS grew up in germ filled environment and it either killed us or made us stronger, Nietzsche, by strengthening our immune system.
Slightly related: severe peanut allergies are rare in Israel, and it is hypothesized the ubiquitous use of Bamba (peanut snack) given to babies once they start on solid food is responsible.
That's a good point, LP, that others have echoed. Human immune defenses evolve to handle new threats, and exposure makes the immune system more robust (I'm assuming one isn't immuno-compromised or immuno-senescent).
What isn't yet discussed and doesn't appear to have yet been studied is this: who weathers viruses like COVID better, the person who has regular exposure to such pathogens and whose immune system evolves to manage them, or the person who isolates themselves and masks up (if you believe they help) and thus has little or no opportunity to develop natural immunities?
As has been pointed out elsewhere, it really doesn't matter how well they work under "controlled conditions" if nobody in the real world wears them that way. And if when they go home or to their friends they don't wear them at all or rub elbows with others who don't. And that's the real world. And that's why they don't "work" and never will.
Science doesn't work by popular vote. If it did, we'd still be doing Newtonian physics and building Ptolemaic models of the solar system.
By “many scientists” you mean some unspecified scientists who haven’t published any randomized controlled trials on the subject. Cochran examined 78 published randomized controlled trials, but we should believe you, because you randomly assert something about “many scientists” and with no citations? Cochran is by far the most complete, thorough, and definitive study on this matter, but it’s not up to your standards, eh?
One of the many things that grated during Covid was that the press would put a microphone in front of any physician as long as they were a deranged masker calling for more mandates.
Today, as it should have alway's been, masking is an optional personal choice. But like every other topic of important American social/political concern it was politicized, propagandized and weaponized for the benefit of criminal finance. It became an instrument of fear, confusion and division to the point that Covid was almost a secondary reality. Meanwhile the looting of American tax dollar's continued/continue's without accountability or reason.
I believe it's the opposite, isn't it? Surgical teams wear them to protect the patient who is usually not wearing one. They are trying to keep from infecting open wounds.
The Covid particles check their GPS and if they're in a lab they just turn around.
A more likely explanation is that people don't wear the right ones, or don't wear them properly. (I remember lots of people that don't wear them around their nose.
Now whether they do that because they believe they're useless or not, this potentially taints the analysis of whether they could work if everyone wore them properly. Whether that's feasible, I'm not sure.
Masks are useless at the population level. trying to put a square peg in a round hole is a waste of time. Mandated to make the govt look like they were “doing something”. Action Bias in full force.
"Do Better" is the sanctimonious judgement term of the brainwashed leftist. I have long since learned to ignore anybody who uses that disgusting, uncouth, demand.
Also, there is a difference between CDC mask mandates and how masking was mishandled as a matter of public policy and the effectiveness of masks on an individual basis. The elderly, the vulnerable and those who wish to reduce the spread of viruses should still wear masks in crowded indoor spaces.
The only real benefit that masks offer to the elderly like me, is to cover the wrinkles at the bottom of the face - do up the eyes with mascara and you can pass for 20 years younger. Otherwise, no thanks.
My impression is the best thing the elderly can do is limit the amount of contact they have with other people in general during the season when respiratory viruses are flying around.
As a thought: A lot of "..we the people.." consternation around American social/political concern spring's from the intentional confusion and mixed messaging emanating from our pay to play, rule's for thee not for me, elected political leadership. Which is, totally compromised by rigged game capitalist's. This conversation and thousand's more like it talk around that reality when we all know it to be core to most of our problem's. It's a power dynamic and our indignation is a cover for our inner world belief that we have none.
I've read every study I could find on masking, starting around June of 2020, so the Cochrane study (which reviewed the same studies) came as no surprise. Masks may be "useful", as you say, T&T, but with respect to viral spread their benefit is negligible, with the best support coming from the Bangladesh study being rather modest.
The studies that support masking only worked when combined with handwashing and distancing.
The hairdresser study that the CDC cited as "proof" early in the pandemic outbreak was an embarrassment that no high school science student would submit. Personally, I find the politicization of public health to be intolerable.
But I agree on the political axe that exerts itself on everything, and in the case of public health, from both sides of the political spectrum - politicized on the progressive side during the pandemic in its censure of opposing opinions, and politicized now by the Right as more facts are uncovered as to how apparently wrong everyone (the CDC) was. Masks have become missiles. The pushback everywhere since Covid on the mask mandates and the vaccine itself has been huge. The benefit of hindsight makes it even more acute. The 'I told you so' syndrome is upon us. Except for the force of the backlash, I have no issue with that.
The problem I have is going forward. We basically have such high public distrust on the scientific/medical establishment that when the next virus arrives on our door step, because it will, we will not be in a position as a society to agree on any authority's guidance (such as it is..) as to what to do.
And this will be decisive and very painful - because the next virus could be a version of H5N1, Marburg, Ebola...with morbidity outcomes far worse than Covid.
Postmortems are great, but if all they do is entrench positions on opposing political sides and not form a consensus as to what went wrong and how to correct it without acrimony, then we will not be in a good place.
“politicized now by the Right as more facts are uncovered as to how apparently wrong everyone (the CDC) was”
The facts were ALWAYS there but we weren’t allowed to see them (unless you really looked hard). The power hungry proponents of worthless mandates, censorship and their enabling lapdog “scientists” need to be exposed, shamed and stripped of their authority.
Lee is hard core left, and like most of them will not admit fault unless there's a way to spin it as "well it's both sides."
Lee, the truth isn't a political issue, and it's coincidence that the truth was with the right wing the whole time. That's a call for self reflection, not equivocation.
Anthony, my point does not take sides - I want us to take heed of the future. Do you actually want our country's wretched response to Covid replicated when we're dealing with something far worse? And if we distrust authorities to such an extant, isn't that where we're headed?
Yes, you are right. That's the unfortunate result of the CDC and government generally mishandling the crisis. There is indeed a need to restore trust in our public health agencies, but it has to come from them. They've been wrong about not only masking, but natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, vaccine side effects, other potential remedies, the origins of the virus, etc.
We really need them to "come clean", be honest about what they got right and wrong, and lay out how they will do better. This will be needed to restore trust. We're rightly asking Norfolk Southern to clean up their mistakes in East Palestine - don't we have a right to ask our own public agency to do the same?
Re: ..."We basically have such high public distrust on the scientific/medical establishment that when the next virus arrives on our door step, because it will, we will not be in a position as a society to agree on any authority's guidance (such as it is..) as to what to do.
"And this will be decisive and very painful - because the next virus could be a version of H5N1, Marburg, Ebola...with morbidity outcomes far worse than Covid. " ...
Actually, he's not right. This worry is a preposterous one. People are _always_ ready to panic in the direction of a blind, mistaken leap into the arms of authority's greater control over them--I refer in that to the vast majority of the public, not the few wiser, reflective people who saw a panic and tried to counsel against it.
In _any_future case where the public's acceptance of measures to suppress transmission is justifiable and necessary, you shall find the overwhelming majority of the public quite ready to obey their masters' voice(s). A handful of stubborn resisters won't alter the effectiveness of the majority's cooperation. A 75+ % mask co-operation was always going to have been sufficient. Not satisfied with voluntary co-operation, the authorities thew their ill-considered weight around, to disastrous effect.
You reply is interesting. Without confidence in the CDC because of their mishandling of Covid, how will a large portion of the American public in a future pandemic believe that their 'acceptance of measures to suppress transmission is justifiable and necessary'?
I’m not buying that argument. There is no equivalency. All they have to do is tell the truth in the first place. The authorities, displayed their bigotry towards people who questioned them, and then it was proven that the authorities were dishonest and incompetent. The Morris argument is polite but wrong.
Your point that 'it was proven that the authorities were dishonest and incompetent' tells me that there's a strong chance you won't listen to them again the next time, that what they say is 'the truth' won't be believed in.
Thus my point that the future looks dire when a future deadlier pandemic strikes, with a segment of the country so distrustful.
Thank you for the encouragement not to give up! With kids at school in Manhattan I feel like I’m fighting for sanity on all fronts. I used to be considered radical now I am considered a throwback conservative. Except in this thread where I’m seen as Fauci’s damp apologist. My views haven’t changed - society certainly has.
People living in deep blue cities are way more into masks than the rest of us. Doesn't mean everyone. We just flew on two flights yesterday. Both 100% full. First one was for nearly 5 hours. I'd say (anecdotal - I did not take a careful count), about 20% of the passengers were wearing some sort of face contraption, sometimes two of them. Many of these maskers were in mask families: mom-dad-teens-toddlers all had them on. Those were flights to/in California. Today, we fly on to Idaho Falls. I expect 5% at most to be maskers, and those will be elderly.
Just landed. My 5% guess was too high. There was not a single masker on a100% full Boeing 737. Really makes a difference depending on where people live in the country.
Society's change was late in coming and after great damage had been done and that change came only after hard experience's damage had rudely disabused the fantasy-views peddled by governent-and-industry-colluding interests and dutifully gobbled up by an obedient and unduly trusting public.
Society wised up. It was as refreshing as it was rare.
You have my sympathy. Trying to do right by kids is terrifying. I cannot imagine what it is like now when the "experts" are so befuddled and the elected leadership is so besotted.
Perhaps not lie to them. Not a single HEALTHY child in the USA had died from Covid2 when I last looked. They don't need masks. Now if there are seriously ill kids, then yes, mask them up, vaccinate them, or better yet try to build up their immune system so when they get better they can withstand the inevitable infection from respiratory viruses. You aren't actually protecting kids when you mask them, just keeping their immune systems from maturing.
I read the entire article in your link. As with any controversial subject it muddied the waters as it should. I did like one statement in the opinion piece and that was, "The scientific “arc” of mask discovery is ongoing. Science is always evolving." That statement alone buttresses the Cochrane study.
The Cochrane piece challenged the CDC and NIH both government agencies. We should always be skeptical of the government especially when the government's top officer, the ever senile Joe, is pushing masks. What else is the CDC and the NIH going to say about masks and keep their jobs?
What do you, Nati, want? Based on two people's opinions, should we completely discount the Cochrane study as bunk or should we believe the government and the piece you give as proof that Cochrane is wrong?
Back to, "The scientific “arc” of mask discovery is ongoing. Science is always evolving." I believe this 100%.. Now if can we get the climate change fanatics to believe it. I am tired of hearing those ignoramuses saying "the science is settled.
LP that is the whole truth and nothing but the TRUTH. They/Them the mobsters,the Democrats, the technocrats, the oligarchs and every piece of scrap in America had to get rid of President Trump. To this very day they are still trying to get rid of Trump and are in a state of sheer meltdown at the thought of him running again. Please say hi to your MD mate and thank him for his brilliant assessment of Covid and the masks bullsh.. story we were forced to endure. Also curious what did he think of the vaccines? Thanks again for a great post.
It presented the Cochrane study. It was a meta review. Do you challenge its findings or are you just sorry there is not respected Cochrane-like approach for you lefties?
If some nitwit Democrat leader told the faithful they should stop clipping their toenails and start biting them off, you would see Dems like the lemmings they are with their foot in their mouths.
Why is the FP not allowed to take a side or have an opinion? That would be absurd. The point of the FP from everything I've been able to gather is that it is a platform for the airing of opinions worth considering which are being suppressed elsewhere. The problem with the MSM is that they not only have opinions, but they work in lockstep to prevent other opinions from being heard.
Facts are established by observing replication in observable outcomes. Thats literally how actual science works. Opinion is thinking something that hasn't been proven true might be true. Facts, which have no human bias and simply are what they are, are observed in actual outcomes. This article was almost entirely reporting on observed actual outcomes.
The CDC printed a meta-analysis in May 2020 that found “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” For those who argue that’s the flu and not covid yes, while technically correct that is true, but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent spread of even smaller coronavirus aerosols?
Then there is Swiss Policy Research. They have been publishing on this from day one. They go further by specifically debunking the faux study methodology. You can see prior versions of reports and this group continually updates.
Then there is the Brownstone Institute which gathered and indexed over 170 studies and articles on the ineffectiveness and observed real world failure of Masks.
Ian Miller’s book, which I have read, and is a great source documented observed outcomes and his references are easily checked.
Many of us have said from the beginning the masks don’t work and they do harm based on the replicated observed outcomes as documented by thousands of actual experts and observed by tens of millions of thinking adults even prior to Covid. No change in observable outcomes happened during covid - didn't work before and still don't work. If you have had observed evidence to the contrary, you would have long ago shared it.
We have all learned hard lessons being wrong in life - it's part of the human experience, so I understand the frustration/ humiliation of those who went all in on masks. What I don’t understand is the complete inability to grow up and eat some humble pie. It’s never fun, but it's what separates adults from toddlers. Actual toddlers are adorable, so their ignorance is genuinely very cute. Adults with the intellectual maturity of toddlers are not, which is the maturity level of those still worrying about trying to make others wear masks or get injected with novel medical products. If it's just about convincing others, again the lack of evidence is going to make that a fruitless and annoying endeavor.
But do we really even need studies? NO It’s not OK for scared people to demand everyone conform to their desires. We learn from people making different choices and seeing what works, what doesn’t, and what tradeoffs we are comfortable with as individuals. Freedom does not end where another’s fear begins. To compel behavior of others there must be a proven positive compelling reason and claiming that we must all be dehumanized with covered faces demands actual evidence of significant benefit and there is simply none. That has not existed for a single day. Do I care if someone else wants to wear a mask? Not at all. Will I wear a mask for their benefit? Not going to happen, and if you start throwing a temper tantrum and threatening me because I won't wear your fear or share your religion of fake virtue, at that point, I will absolutely make fun of you for being obviously of low intelligence and ridiculously gullible because the observed outcomes are what they are no matter the simple-minded semantics another engages in their own mind. Something that can’t work won't work which is why masks didn’t work. I am a live and let live, but that goes both ways.
Your response started great, factual and to the point, I stopped reading when you started preaching and being condescending.
I don't have the time to respond to everything in your response but here are a couple.
"This article was almost entirely reporting on observed actual outcomes."
I wasn't sure if you were serious, but the article title ("The Real Science on Masks: They Make No Difference") then the very first line, "We now have the most authoritative estimate of the value provided by wearing masks during the pandemic: approximately zero." Lot of facts there, lol. The Cochrane analysis did not make any conclusions, it stated there was no evidence of effectiveness based on the RCTs they used for the analysis. That is not the same as there is evidence of ineffectiveness of masking.
"but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent spread of even smaller coronavirus aerosols?" covid is much more contagious.
The RCTs were conducted to quantify the benefit of masks and they found the benefit was zero impact on the spread of the virus. That's not an opinion, that's an observable quantified outcome - there is no evidence masks work thus quantifying the "benefit" of mask wearing at zero in reducing the spread. If there had been a benefit in reducing the spread, it would have been measurable (aka quantifiable).
The lead author has given numerous interviews in plain English saying the things don't work to clarify for lay people who seem to be misunderstanding the standard limitations statements as the study conclusion. The conclusion of the metanalysis is actually "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks." and "The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection."
While I could chalk the first part of your statement to mere lack of familiarity with meta-analysis in general, I must admit I actually laughed at your final statement. Masks are a physical intervention. The ability of a mask to filter an aerosol is a matter of physics. Masks aren't magical objects which independently determine if it's worth the mask's time to filter a viral particle based on how contagious it is. Masks filter particles (aerosols) based on the size of the particle; not how harmful particular particles are to the wearer. They are made of fibers not computer chips.
There was an even more interesting study which concluded those still masking want to do so because they assess that they are less physically attractive than those who don't wear masks. In light of that new evidence, perhaps you should consider if there aren't non-viral reasons you are so attached to masking despite the overwhelming observed outcomes which show in replication that they don't really do anything to prevent viral spread. Study below for reference
The Cochrane study is about as unbiased as one can get. So far, the only non-laughable response to it has been "but it doesn't prove they don't work at all if used in ways nobody in the real world is willing to use them". So what? The other side is what we have been hearing for a couple years now. Enough.
The Cochrane "study" is an meta analysis of other studies that used RCT based on influenza. The "study" did not make any conclusions the author of the reposted article on TFP did.
Yes the analysis did make conclusions. "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks." and "The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection." Direct quotes from the study. Influenza particles are larger than coronavirus so if it can't filter influenza, it can't filter coronavirus,
One of my first red flags was the absolute certainty of expression used by the "experts". If it was a truly novel virus there was much they could not have known. It would have been okay for them to say that.
I'd go much further: it would have been much better for them to have said that. They could have backed up when evidence emerged which refuted their initial positions. Because of the way they dug in they had no choice but to dig deeper.
Well one bedrock of science is the discipline of physics. Viral particles aerosolized do not get caught or blocked by surgical masks.
N 95 are much better and when adhered to give some measurable benefit. To validate this one can review the original hospital out break in Wuhan reported Jan/Feb 2021.
From the looks of it looks like TFP is succumbing to its subscriber base, which tends to lean right. It's got the same issue as MSM, appease the base or go out of business.
Shri Shahpurkar, don't whine about the alleged bias of the subscriber base, make an argument that can stand up to scrutiny. Go ahead, try.
This subscriber base leans in the direction of facts and reason. Maybe you should try that instead of your tired Leftist ideology. I know that you are not used to getting pushback. But the world is changing.
Read the article I posted. The meta review averaged out different parameters. If n95 works but surgical masks didn't, it would lump them up. Similarly for wearing masks some of the time.
I'm not sure I'm following. Do you think that the points made and links made were incorrect?
Let's take one example from the article with a link to a rerun of the meta-analysis if you remove less contagious viruses (flu) - it suddenly showed that masks worked.
The problem is (and I don't blame Cochrane for making some mistakes there) it's hard to identify the right questions and the confounding variables.
This is a 'research methods' error, backed up by data you can easily verify yourself
As much as we would all like to hang our hats on this, Shri is correct. Even the authors stated that better trials should be done ( ensuring somehow that the masked stay masked and wear it properly). But it is a start.
Yes, Deb, funny how that works. This sad situation is a result of Leftist post-structuralist ideology that believes that all disputes are about ideology, not facts and reason. Thus, if you disagree with me, you "lean right." End of story.
Pretty pathetic, really. But the times, they are a'changin.'
But, but, but... "our statistics _show_" that "everyone who thinks differently than we do _has_ to lean right." (Based on aerial reconnaissance videos using gyroscopically controlled measurements).
Mmm, no, I don't get that sense at all. I'm a liberal, non-woke, and while most of the commenters here definitely lean right, I don't see TFP as "succumbing" to any of us, liberal or conservative, Woke or MAGA. It's why I like reading TFP, for the different points of view from the writers and the commenters.
Having been a bonafide member of the MSM for decades before turning to crime novels, I know the difference. TFP is not pandering to anyone.
We’ve been utterly inundated with mask propaganda for three years without debate from our trusted officials. Somehow I don’t think this one article from The Free Press is going to appease anyone. People following data, trends and scientists willing to consider both sides have known the mask NPI was handled poorly from day one and used as a political wedge.
Have you read the Cochrane Reviews? You should. And this is the problem, making a scientific inquiry into a political one. Try reading tom jefferson’s catalogue of work before claiming your tribe on this one. If it werent for him, the CDC would pump you full of Tamiflu every winter.
Those bloggers are government suck ups. One a self-identified CDC contractor. Seriously, get a clue. They do not bite the hand that feeds them. They are conflicted and compromised.
The 'nuanced' approach should used by individuals to decide whether or not they want to wear a mask. To make a broad public policy on mandating masks, experts have to look at the conclusions of major studies and make a determination as to whether there is clear, convincing, affirmative evidence for mandating masks. You are changing the subject to ignore what appears to be a major conclusive review that there is no such evidence.
It's obvious from your callous response you don't know the Cochrane methodology or their conclusion. This is a quote from the excellent article Nati posted. “no evidence of a difference” is different from “evidence of no difference.”
This isn’t a left or right issue. I was a democrat all my life and still consider myself liberal in the classic sense and yet I and many others disagree with mask mandates. Thst doesn’t mean you can’t wear your mask! You do you.
Have you seen woody harleson’s SNL monologue? It speaks to those of us who aren’t left or right … check it out! Very interesting.
Vernon, it most definitely is "left or right isssue." It became one when Trump opposed mandatory masking, and thus made wearing one the ultimate in virtue signaling. If "you do you" had been the policy, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Yes, I saw Woody's monologue...he just said all the stuff that we knew to be true two years ago but would get you canceled by Twitter, et al--i.e., the Lefist establishment-- if you said it.
Sorry my response was confusing. I meant that a lot of us who question covid restrictions (and TFP readers in general) aren't necessarily on the left or the right.
That may be true about Trump. Personally I believe that current public policy is made by considering what Trump would do and doing the opposite. But that is the public policy makers. The same is not necessarily true of We the People. It seems to me that it is sort of a rural/urban divide and the more urbanite the individual the more pro-mask.
I'm saying that the base here isn't conservative or even "right" whatever that means now. I'm saying that we are all over the political spectrum, and what unites us (IMO) is that we question the mainstream narrative, in this case, the narrative around Covid interventions like mask mandates.
There have been plenty of articles that commentators have disagreed with, and vocally. I'm not sure TFP are pandering to anyone. This is a topic that the mainstream media have covered one way, and now TFP is covering it another way. The alternative perspective is so important!
If it "looks" like that, it may be because TFP is not a full service media organization but instead covers a small number of interesting, important stories that are not serviced properly or carefully or AT ALL with nuance by the MSM. Since the MSM is a combination of progressive Left ideology plus Democratic Party communications, both the stories that meet the criteria above (what TFP chooses to cover) and the points of view presented (since the standard Narrative version is from the Left) will make it seem like TFP and its subscribers lean right. It's not real, it's an illusion created by the need to react to a corrupt and dysfunctional media environment.
Whatever you want to call what Fox News does from the other direction, it is obviously not doing what TFP is doing.
You are correct I cannot conclude with absolute certainty but based on the trend of articles lately that are right leaning, my opinion is they are selling out to their subscribers. It's economics 101 and a question of survival.
Agree with your explanation of TFP's role in Medialand: it's a boutique news service that covers stories ignored and twisted by MSM. That said, the commentariat does lean right. That's not an issue for me, because I'm here to see what thoughtful righties have to say about things, and most of TFP's commenters are thoughtful. But that they lean right is indisputable.
Disagree that "MSM is a combination of progressive Left ideology plus Democratic Party communications." Fox, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and Associated Press are MSM. No one would accuse them of being Democratic Party shills. MSM should not be a convenient shorthand for "unholy progressives."
I use MSM as shorthand for "all the mainstream media except Fox and WSJ", which everyone I know does also. Obv Fox is its own thing and was created in response to the whole cable news environment catering to liberals, leaving a massive amount of $ sitting on the sidewalk. WSJ is the only other major news org that is not prog Left/ DNC - the news half is relatively neutral while the opinion pages are obviously conservative.
The point is the MSM (in my usage) sets the media narratives for the country. Not Fox, not WSJ, not anyone else. The narratives are set by NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. Reinforced by the rest (LAT, other city papers, PBS, NPR, etc). And yes every single one of those outlets is a Dem shill. Much of conservative media is just writing something in reaction to the current media narratives.
AP is Left biased just like the rest (check their recent "style guide" updates) but not front and center in Narrative building. CSM is an interesting case that doesn’t really fit in anywhere, but I don’t think of them as having a large enough audience to count in this discussion. As an aside, when I took a Russian Studies class in college (back in the pre internet days) the prof asked us to subscribe to CSM to get global news coverage that you could not from regular US media. The only other option might have been BBC (legendary Left bias but, unlike NPR, still producing a product resembling news), but less easy to access in those days.
No one can stand in the light of real cost benefit anymore if it doesn’t align with their tribe. You are right there are no firm conclusions about most things Covid. Both sides doubling down into nonsense BUT the damage the left and health institutions have done to trust is egregious. That’s generational damage now that didn’t have to be that way. The fact that the Cochrane mask review was suppressed in 2020 should make any honest intellectual pause.....
By all means, dare away. Your voice is important and one of the many I follow. But I can count the number of leftists on this board on one hand; the majority is center right, right, and far right, the latter by self-proclaimed identification.
I don't regard any of that as "bad," because most here argue their points quite well and I learn much from you. But the board is, as a whole, right-leaning, not left-leaning.
I guess that's my sense as well, if I had to opine. Like you, I just focus on the issue at hand and try to evaluate the arguments on their merit, regardless of the subject. What in my view has happened in recent years is that the progressive left has become unmoored from reality and common sense, and has become very intolerant of other views. In effect, the 50 yard line - the idea that both sides have comparably equal merit to their arguments on an issue - has been moved to the 20 yard line. So suddenly a lot of us who consider ourselves non-aligned are on the "right" of that new divide that comprises 80 of the 100 yards on the field.
There is no "left/right". Though we're forced to pretend that's the conversation. International criminal finance rigged the game and in the process destroyed capitalism. It is funding Marxist "woke" (utopian ideologue's) who are using CCP/fascist tactic's (D.E.I commissariat etc.) to disassemble national government's. The aim is the installation of a new world monarchy (Piketty/CAPITAL) based on the total capture of finance, labor, supply chains and all natural resources. The perp's, like Hitler, Stalin and Mao represent pathology not politic's. (megalomaniacal narcissism).
Today's article about Covid, masking and lockdown's is important. But the fact is that the masking/Covid crisis was successfully manipulated to weaken America unity, destroy small business, further cripple American education, conflate revolution with criminal assault and make further inroad's toward limiting American free speech and movement. The American Constitutional Republic and her citizen's are under assault. There is no "side". Only "..we the people..", the Constitution and the Bill of Right's it contain's.
At best, the question of do masks work to prevent the spread of Covid is unanswered. At worst there is a very powerful meta-analysis that suggests they don‘t. Why would we mandate a treatment when we don‘t know if it works? Especially in small children who don‘t really get sick from Covid and who clearly are suffering harmful effects of masks? The answer: ideology. Ideologues should do better.
The lockdowns were also unanswered they didn’t have science on that either, just like climate change the science is shoddy, but hey let’s smack the people around the world as much as possible the ELITE can do it
It certainly is more nuanced and much more sophisticated and virtuous sounding. Just like Rochelle. It’s always appreciated when people are nuanced as they force oppression on citizenry.
Masks are useless against a 0.1mic viral pathogen. Always have been and always will be. For whatever reason you wish to wear a mask or mandate others wear masks, please stop claiming it has anything to do with preventing the spread of a virus that is 100 times smaller than a cigarette smoke particle.
Unfortunately; I have no love for the pop-culture claptrap and politics that is purported to be “science” today. Its like everyone completely forgot all of human history and the thousands of pandemics that have come before. No, somehow, this one was different?
Its sad; actually, how quickly our entire “modern” society reverted to the same stupid masking, social distancing, exiling, quarantine and shunning protocols that every society since the early Romans to 20th Century Americans have used to try and stop the spread of viruses. With the exact same results. It never works, and every time it is attempted the claim that those who comply are “enlightened” and those who refuse to comply are “heretics”….its depressing…and the lifeless bodies of the enlightened and the heretic share the same funeral pyre…every time. 😢
Its obviously a political panacea because the truth is that viruses have over a billion years of evolution on our pathetic understanding of this biosphere, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.
Man believes he is all powerful and viruses are here to remind us that we are not. But that doesn’t win political campaigns, does it?
When did we Americans become so afraid of losing convenience that we threw away all our hard fought liberties and protections against government overreach overnight? Is that what happened to other societies as they became rich and prosperous throughout history?
I think that is a good topic for a FreePress article someday.
I disagree with this article. There is simply too much evidence they don't work and only theoretical pontificating they might.
The CDC printed a meta-analysis in May 2020 that found “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” For those who argue that’s the flu and not covid yes, while technically correct that is true, but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent smaller coronavirus aerosols?
Then there is Swiss Policy Research. They have been publishing on this from day one. They go further by specifically debunking the faux studies. You can see prior versions of reports and this group continually updates. Are Face Masks Effective?
It’s possible if I drop a ball 10 times in a row it “might” not always hit the ground, but lacking evidence that our observation of the effects of gravity is very incorrect, the ball will hit the ground all 10 times. It’s not hyperbole to say if you drop a normal ball it’ll hit the ground. It’s an observation. It’s not hyperbole to say masks don’t work to slow the spread, it’s an observation.
Even N95 masks don’t filter to the tiny size of a viral coronavirus aerosol. It’s physics. It doesn’t matter if it’s cloth, N95, tissue, surgical. None of them have observable real world benefit. Why differentiate that which isn’t that different?
At best the N95 stops enough if the larger particles to buy a person 15 minutes until an infectious dose - if it’s properly fitted on a hairless face. Possibly. But until it’s shown to actually accomplish that in replication it’s more accurate to observe that the masks people actually wear don’t work.
I’ve actually seen where people tested and proved gas masks work in combination with a hazmat suit. Tiny studies but replicated outcomes. But common language usage doesn’t include gas masks in the term “make” when discussing coronavirus. It’s much easier to have a debate in plain language while the semantics arguments appear meant to do little more than distract from the actual substantive debate.
Detailing the mask would make sense if there was a large difference in observed outcomes, but there isn’t. Nuance is different than semantics games, and lacking a clear reason to differentiate types of masks, demanding descriptors of masks in this discussion is semantics not nuance.
My kids school (private) delighted me as a data person that they installed a non ozone air purifier in every classroom by August 2020 - when they opened maskless in person. Nobody died. Infection rates weren’t above community spread. 1,250 loved students got to keep learning in person while maintaining their mental health, academic excellence, and pursuit of knowledge.
Why? Air filtration and ventilation actually work. Rather well. No arguing semantics or searching for minuscule benefits that are lost completely in real world implementation. All this arguing over nit picking incalculably tiny theoretical yet not observed potential benefits of masks has done little more than distract everyone from the reality it’s a silly conversation to have when any potential benefit is so tiny as to be meaningless in practice. Much less harmful mitigation, that isn’t dehumanizing, has been known to work from the start. There is a reason high risk medical exam and treatment rooms have long had negative ventilation - it works!!! Why would we keep wasting resources to find some tiny benefit that isn’t observable in practice when all this money could have gone towards technology that demonstrably actually works in real life?
Nati, what you're really saying is that, despite many studies, of which NONE show signficant benefits for masks, "anything is possible". Yes, that's true, but you don't mandate behavior based on what might be true but for which there is no proof whatsoever. That's what the government did.
You mentioned it in your reply, "nuanced." There was no nuance when we heard over and over again from political leaders and health officials that we MUST wear masks, #science. Such arguments have no nuance. FYI, I wore masks a lot, and always complied with mandates.
On this subject they should not, because there's no nuance. The evidence is overwhelmingly against mask mandates, and our federal health agencies made damaging recommendations based on fraudulent science. They have crippled the health and learning of a whole generation of children with no justification and are entirely unrepentant even when their "science" is exposed as fraudulent.
Asking Nati a valid question won't get you an answer. It won't get you an answer at all.
In my post above, I asked him a valid question and all I got was the sound of crickets. I find this typical of the left. you pin them down and ask for a response, they either don't answer or they curse you for asking.
I disagree Nati. The FP is only reporting what the Cochrane study said. RCT's are the only way to determine efficacy. It is also pointing out the lack of "science" at the CDC even after they have been proven wrong on issues such as natural immunity and masking.
The Substack article you reference makes the commonsense observation that our knowledge continues to evolve on the subject. But in making her case, the author cites a study as proof and provides a link. Here's what her own source of support says: "Conclusions: The study indicates that N95 filtering facepiece respirators may not achieve the expected protection level against bacteria and viruses. "
You left this out "When a virus is less contagious, an effect is harder to detect. Many of the RCTs evaluated influenza, which is far less contagious than COVID-19. This means that if we combine them, the impact of masks may be underestimated."
Ms. Jetelina is a consultant to CDC. She's an academic who depends on government funding for her work. So, Nati (we've seen your trolling here before), you gonna trust her "voice"? Think she'd bite the hand that feeds her?
The simple FACT is that masks DID NOT reduce mortality. Period. Sweden had a lower death rate than most of Europe and all but about five States in the US.
This was all commonly accepted as obvious everywhere as late as February 2020.
The whole thing was a colossal and stupid but planned mistake.
When it became clear that vaccines didn’t prevent transmission, and the truth could not be hidden, there was a quick pivot to “but they prevent serious illness”.
Clinging to mask efficacy a lot harder, because ordinary experience can’t prove they didn’t work. Funny how that works. When people can see BS with their own eyes, it gets dropped a lot faster.
I live in Manhattan. The virtue signaling, mask-shaming/scolding was horrendous. ie if I was running outside in Central Park at 6am without a mask completely covering my face I would get scolded, and people would veer far away from me. I have friends who even admitted they mask up because they want to show solidarity and they “care”. Many still do.
People were scared. For themselves. For their elderly parents. For their babies. I can understand the 'aim for ~zero chance' approach even if I don't always agree with it.
I could see it in the beginning. We were all scared. But as more info became available we should have evolved our policy. Instead it became politicized and those invested in early policy errors didn’t want to admit defeat so it became the law of the land. And to question “The Science” meant you were a fascist.
"Scared" is not the word you want there. The word you want is "panicked". Nothing less describes what was going on. A state of panic is just about the worst condition in which to formulate public health policy. There is no excuse for that.
You should be grateful that emergency medical first-responders (or well-trained soldiers in combat) resolutely defy the natural impulse to panic when "lots of people are dying" ---just those occasions when the imperative is to keep "lots more people from dying _NEEDLESSLY_"
(Capitalized to help emphasize the point you're so challenged to grasp.)
Scared because a propaganda network lied and spread fear on behalf of political entities that wanted power and control over a terrified populace. The whole thing was horrific.
Scared for their babies? We knew from day one that COVID was not a threat to babies. Your comment is just more evidence that our health care leaders utterly failed to communicate real science or show genuine leadership.
I understand that. And I fully agree that mitigating all risk is impossible. But at the time early on when hospitals deleting bed counts, I think it made sense.
Forcing people in 'optional environments' is a different story.
My feeling was why worry about somebody else who wasn’t masked up, if you were why would you worry about anybody else. The world change a long time ago, those people still trapped in that mindset are being gaslighted by the Dems and the United Nations to pay for all and sundry, while not giving a rats ass about the people here in America. One last ? When do the F16’s leave for the Ukraine?
“... why worry about somebody else who wasn’t masked up, ...” Because the masks work so much better when we’re BOTH wearing masks. It’s exponential, not linear. Think SYNERGY...
I have the same experience. And people still mask and attach a lot more meaning to it than simple means of hygiene. It is a party card you display to like minded. I was yelled in the street by a woman on another side: “Mack up” and in Central Park walking on a path with nobody in vicinity. And many continue wearing masks with pride just as they brag how many boosters they got. Intolerance and fanaticism spread quicker than COVID, and I see no end to this virus in sight.
You are spot on. Last fall, I went on a trip with my siblings, all of whom are progressives. They sporadically, without apparent reason, wore masks. I abstained. After returning from a small gathering which the rest of us did not attend, one brother proudly announced that a new acquaintance praised him for wearing a mask because it showed he cared about other people. My other siblings/in-law nodded while shooting sideways glances at my always uncovered face.
So yes, wearing masks is yet another way to virtue-signal while doing absolutely nothing.
Yep, very true. Virtue signaling is wide spread in our lives. Yesterday my husband and I spotted a couple of middle aged white women walking in Central Park both wearing nice knitted scarves with slogans “protect Black Lives” or something to that effect. They looked very content like they have fulfilled their mission. Maybe volunteering to work with black teenagers or at a soup kitchen would help more.
The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.” Almost instantly the issue took on an inordinate significance such that covering one’s face became an eccentric phylactery henceforth adopted en masse by proselytizers of The Science™. It wasn’t much later that one could empirically verify that masks had evolved from a basic, precautionary mitigation strategy with very questionable efficacy to a badge of political allegiance and moral superiority that has proved stubbornly in vogue.
Didn't Trump get Covid? and many the people at his gatherings get Covid? and Dear Boris, PM of Britian, get Covid? But maybe that had nothing to so with not wearing masks.
Every mask wearer I know has had covid. Everyone is eventually going to get covid, if they haven't gotten it already. It is one of those viruses that humanity is just going to have to adjust to. Thank you Chinese lab bunglers. Can we please have international agreements outlawing gain-of-function research? It's evidently like nuclear weapons. There need to be some controls.
Sadly, churches who insisted on closing for months and then insisted on everyone wearing masks for another year as well as sitting in individual pews , lost many members they could not afford to lose and many will never regain them. As a retired minister of a very liberal denomination, i saw firsthand the disaster that was Covid - some of my friends had to leave the ministry all together since there was not enough money to pay them. For some this may be a good thing but it proved too me that even a religion that has been around for 2000 years cannot compete with the new guys on the block. Sadly, fear can inspire their adherents much more than ours.
I saw the same thing in my community. In addition, it was a disaster in terms of divisiveness which was heartbreaking.
Fortunately, we decided early on to re-open as quickly as possible while still trying to keep people "safe." Sadly, we picked up many folks from other churches who stayed closed and "online" for as long as possible. "Online worship" (while extremely helpful for people like my 90 year old father) is a terrible substitute for corporate worship and fellowship.
On the bright side, it does seem like church attendance is picking up again in our community, especially among younger people. I think the natural human desire for community and transcendence has been so starved since 2020 that more and more people are considering "religion."
There is bound to be a gigantic swing back to conservative views about government as a result of the catastrophe of the last couple of years but in fact that swing will be due to an even more vast swing to conservative views about culture, which is where religion lives and breathes
Just this morning saw this comment elsewhere, talking about that very religion or more accurately, cult of the American left. Which, while always disgusting and horrific (read the history of the Democratic Party from Day 1 to right now and ask yourself how you could ever have anything to do with them at all), has become entirely deranged:
"...it is closer to a religious failure.... like a millenialist shouting the world is gonna end on xy day of year z and they crowded all around the shouter way out in some corn field in Iowa........ and then xy day of year z came and went and all they got for their efforts was a bunch of trampled corn stalks and some buck shot thrown at them by the farmer
their gospel source nbc abc cbs nytimes cnn msnbc washpost TOLD THEM THE TRUTH and of course
THEY MUST OBEY THE HOLY GOSPEL OR BE COUNTED AMONG THE UNCLEAN
But now their own gospel source... which they knew was purely deceitful and speaks with forked tongue of government since the days of WMD at the least.... now their own gospel source is forcing them to face the reality that all along, the Unclean have been correct about virtually every single facet of the entire episode.... masks... lockdowns... source of the plague.... natural immunity...
It is, certainly, a chance for them to get Woke about what the media has done to them.
And not only on the subject of that 99.98% thing they got so wound up about that they threw away as many freedoms and liberties as they could get their hands on. "
Climate hysteria and gender dysphoria enabling are no different. This will someday be known as the age of pseudo science masquerading as "The Science" in order to steer the masses toward the desired fire of the elitist class.
Very well put. First it was "wash your hands every 15 minutes" because, you know, viruses are spread like bacteria through touching things. Then it was wear cloth over your nose and mouth, because, you know, viruses travel in huge droplets infected people spit at you. At least they stayed away from swinging dead cats over our head for protection from the plague.
I just discovered this weekend some businesses still require their employees to wear them. Unbelievable.
What's astonishing about all this to me is that it is entrenched the most strongly among educated people, who should have been taught somewhere in their educations how to reject this sort of fallacious and obviously flawed thinking. But they were manifestly in reality taught conformity to Designated Experts. If you put a lab coat on someone, and build them up in the media, they could be used to convince such people of anything.
Couldn't agree more. Was in high school when covid started and I am now in university. The masks I see are easy identifiers of who is a hard core lefty.
We knew this too. The Boston Globe and the WSJ had article that came out today and yesterday respectively about the virus coming from a lab. Globe article is titled -
“Lab leak most likely caused pandemic, Energy Department says”
Yet it won’t allow it’s readers to comment on the story. Hilarious. Are we still protecting China?
All because we had to make Trump look bad and get him out of office.
It really took us 3 years to find out Covid came from a lab? THREE years? That is beyond pathetic.
What do you mean "took us 3 years"? I've known (to the extent historical retrospective knowledge is possible) that it came from the WIV for years. You probably did to. So unless you're putting yourself forward as a representative of the American "mainstream" media, I don't think "us" is the appropriate pronoun there.
Yip its beyond pathetic in fact I think it was treason, however it was politically correct it got rid of the Republicans and DJT and gave us a rabid party of losers to run our country I hope we have all learned a good lesson.
Same here. I was in healthcare (administrative, not clinical) for 30 years and was responsible for overseeing many disaster situations, including our hospital being the epicenter for the 2003 West Nile Virus epidemic. The CDC camped out in our parking lot for almost two months.
I was advising family that the precautions were over the top and that we were being misled. I didn't even get into the lab leak, which was obviously going to be a proven as the source, but concentrated of mask efficacy, and the need to keep their kids in school. I was a supporter on the elective use of the 'vaccine' until the results started to come in, when I advised that it only be used for 60+ years of age, or significant comorbidities. I'm not sure I'd even advise for those patients anymore.
My SIL, a nurse, drank all of the Kool-Aid, and it got to the point where we couldn't even talk anymore. She convinced the entire family to follow religiously, all of the CDC recommendations, and I quit discussing the topic with family.
I still don't bring up the topic, even though I've been vindicated.
Most people are not interested in an indifferent sort of truth. They are interested in social belonging. What they call "beliefs" are ritualistic recitations, not conclusions based on their own assessment of information from competing sources.
They genuinely do not understand that people with opposing views are not necessarily also reciting, to "belong" to another side. (Many ARE doing that.)
So the facts are not the issue to them. It is that you took the "other" side. They don't understand that there is any other way of looking at it, and they are not aware they are doing it. It is like paranoia. If you show a paranoid person evidence that their delusions are factually incorrect, they merely see this as evidence that you are one of their persecutors.
For all those who dismiss the idea that humans 'need' to believe in something, to belong somewhere (aka religion), the COVID experience has proven this in spades.
If have to understand the ideology of the left and everything drilled down from them. There is not much different from them and their counterparts in the CCP. Power and control is everything!
Note that liberals who pushed mandates, lockdowns and masking will never apologize and never change. Why? Because we never made them pay a price for it. Fear is a very potent motivator.
Sounds very similar to someone I know who's daughter works in one of Fauci's labs. Family get-togethers have become strained affairs with very few topics that can be safely discussed. They have another problem as well, in that the daughter's husband is a non-gluten vegan who scolds anyone should their butter knife contaminate the butter by touching a piece of bread. Adds another dimension to the madness.
When I met my wife she lived with a gluten free guy and his girlfriend.
They religiously believed no amount of cleaning or sanitizing could get gluten 'contamination' off of knives, dishes, utensils and counters.
The girlfriend, who wasn't even gluten intolerant, was the enforcer of the rules. She appeared into the kitchen whenever my wife was cooking to make sure she was fully 'compliant'.
So my wife started having all her meals at my place and we quickly fell in love and she moved in with me.
I guess I should be grateful for the gluten police :)
Cool story. An MD told me once that the percentage of the population that is testably gluten intolerant is very small. The percentage who think or at least say they are is orders of magnitude larger.
Let's be real about this. Remember in 2020 when a group of geneticists issued an open letter proclaiming that the Covid-19 virus could not have been genetically engineered? But what they conspicuously left out was "genetically altered" or "gain of function." I'm now thinking that this was a deliberate and knowing lie in the service of China. They all need to be rounded up and forced to talk. All the better if we find Fauci was behind it.
It was, and there have been several articles exposing the campaign that was launched to shut those folks down, spearheaded by Fauci, Collins and the WHO.
I'm thinking that while CHINA accidently leaked the virus (and I'm even beginning to think that it wasn't an accident) most of the malfeasance was on the part of US agencies, both in the development of this virus, and the massive coverup that followed.
It's good to see that the NYT and WaPo are at least beginning to retract some of their former positions. Maybe they can even devote some time to exposing the entire scope of the crime, from funding research to covering up the outcomes of their disaster.
EDIT: I should clarify, when I say I'm beginning to think that the release wasn't an accident, I'm not thinking it was an act of war, but a pharma driven act to release a virus that they had already been working on a 'vaccine' for. Consistent with the Project Veritas video.
Same. My mother did this to me, and she’s a geneticist who specialized in retroviruses and coronaviruses in particular. She splices genes, she builds the software the computers use for the data models. And she was so nasty and condescending to me when I suggested the circumstantial evidence alone pretty strongly indicated a lab leak. Since then, it just isn’t talked about.
There is an apparent epidemic of reliance on appeal to authority fallacy in the sciences. Anyone with any amount of education in the field should have known the difference between experimental and proven.
My explanation is that the egos of those in the sciences was exposed (another white savior fallacy). They wanted to believe they could save the world. Clearly, many in the field were given enough information to buy into that. Don't blame your family, blame those that intentionally misled your family.
Excellent comment. Doctors are the worst at having their decisions questioned. I spent 30 years working with them, and their egos are quite fragile for many, but certainly not all.
A lot of people in science, especially the social sciences, have become intoxicated by science's role as one of the only remaining "truth telling" institutions. This leads them to believe that things are true because "Science says" which inevitably leads them to trying to game what science says, in the cult like hope that by forcing the truth telling institution to repeat what they want to be true, they will manifest it as actually being true. It's not fundamentally different than any other form of sympathetic magic.
Good story, Rabid, and all too familiar. Don't ever expect any apologies or mea culpas from your relatives. If they are like some people in my circle, their fragile egos could not handle being so wrong about something so important. So they will deny it, more or less forever. Quite sad, really.
I'm willing to go with bungling. It's hard to believe they would deliberately leak it in their own country, especially given that it isn't the country whos Pharma benefited. But the opportunism was certainly seized, wasn't it? Never let a good disaster go to waste.
It's possible. Maybe I'm a skeptic but I wouldn't put anything past the CCP government. Maybe they are interested in developing antiviral drugs? Bio warfare?
Remember the "bat lady"? That doctor who ran their Wuhan Virology lab? She's disappeared, hasn't she? That's not a sign that she was doing what they wanted her to do. That's what they do to screw-ups - like some of those corporate executives that screwed up and caused a big ruckus with children dying from eating toothpaste contaminated with ethylene glycol, or the milk formula business. They took those guys out and summarily shot them.
On the other hand, they did disappear that opthamologist who first reported that there was a new virus going around. So I guess there is some mixed evidence here.
of course it was created and enhanced in the lab...of course it was released on purpose...and of course it was an act of war...stop looking at 21st century warfare thru the lens of 20th century warfare
Yeah Rabid I know exactly what you talking about. It’s like shtum now, before it was OMG you haven’t been vaccinated don’t come near me, I can tell you I have taken their advice I give them a wide berth and I’m not even missing them!
Because, unlike Elizabeth's mother, our liberal friends didn't even have scientific backgrounds. They simply "believed." And, in the case of Elizabeth's condescending mom, nobody said they were splicing genes. They were simply doing gain of function work. And they were either very careless or deliberately venal.
I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the rest of the country has moved on. There are no mask mandates at any level of government on any side of the aisle anywhere in America. There are no mask mandates in most private businesses, public and private schools, nor in all transportation.
LCT's Covid position, like the CDC's, isn’t based on health concerns, rather it’s based on their politics and their need to display their ultra liberal bona fides publicly and loudly. This is why they are among the very last employers of any kind or sort that have these draconian demands still in place.
The face mask is the red MAGA hat for left wing nut jobs.
I was an extra on a very popular HBO series recently and it was the same. We had to wear masks the entire day, every day, any time the cameras weren’t rolling. Oh, except for the principle actors. They never wore masks on set, ever. Apparently masks don’t matter if you’re famous.
I hear you. It's everywhere in the arts. I had a similar experience as an extra on the network show. We spent three days on a New Jersey soundstage, everybody masked except the stars.
I was laughing looking at the Camelot press from the other day; 30 actors, +15 more creatives and administrative people from Lincoln Center, none of them masked. On the other half of the same room 25 photographers and reporters all of the masked.
Since this is all about virtue signaling and not health, the arts venues all have different rules for the audience and for backstage workers. Across the city even as audience mandates were lifted, people working backstage continue to mask and test. Many still do.
Appears more like marking and distinguishing the privileged from the non-privileged. I remember seeing photos of the Met Gala. The beautiful people were unmasked. The plebes were masked.
And that is what the modern world is becoming in a nutshell. They want everyone living in "15 minute cities" that they (hope they) won't live in themselves. They want nobody flying but them in their private jets. They don't want anyone living in the greenbelts so they can pretend they are Rousseau in the state of nature when they happen to visit there - if they ever do. It's serfdom all over again. The Enclosure Acts of Britain in every sphere of activity. Each controlled by a relatively small number of people for their own benefit and that of their reciprocal friends.
You work in the arts in NYC. Progressivism is their religion. They are all zealots and lunatics. I saw them masked yesterday - walking around outside on a nice sunny afternoon.
Most of the work that pays real wages in the city for musicians is under union contracts. The orchestra at Lincoln Center theater will be under a Union
contract. Local 802, the musicians union, might as well be a dog on its back, belly up. If you're playing Broadway shows, there is no elsewhere.
Having said that, it's worth noticing that everyone else at Lincoln Center, that's the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, the ballet, not to mention Carnegie Hall, all of them have ceased mask mandates, & ceased vaccination checks etc.
This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk.
It has been terribly depressing to see the arts fall into the hysteria and groupthink so utterly. I nearly never to go arts and cultural events anymore, because I don’t want to feel like I’m attending a progressive church service. The shows are now all virtue signaling sermons anyway. I went to a play in Atlanta in late 2022, and that company was STILL enforcing masks for audience members. There were 6 people in the audience, and I only stayed because I had a friend in the show, otherwise I would have walked away. I refuse to reward lunacy any longer.
Yep. I’m not going back to the Kennedy Center or any other washington theater or movie theater that demanded masks. I’m not even bothering to check what they are doing now.
Good for you! The more people resist, the more the cost will be placed on the backs of these lunatics. When have they ever put up their own money for anything?
The left is determined to suck the joy out of the arts. They need to apologize for the mere existence of classical music, so this draping of players on a lit stage is a great optic for publicly demonstrating, as you say, their liberal bona fides. I’m sorry you practiced your cello every day since you were three for this BS.
You have to understand that not everybody can do that. It would be nice if circumstance allowed people to afford that. The single moms may be struggling to make ends meet. That said you sometime have to do what you need to do to survive. You don’t have to like it if you have to eat.
maybe in some charles dickens novel, but not in 2023 america with record low unemployment. there are huge numbers of jobs out there, no need to trade in your soul
"I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated."
(end quote)
Two key factors "connect" the facts related here: "lawyers advice on liability" and "money"-- or, rather, one thing: "money".
You're going to wear the silly mask because you need your work and its income. The audience doesn't have to wear the silly masks because the box-office (theatre management) knows that, if they tried to require them, there'd be too many empty seats.
I feel for your plight. I've recently re-read Edward Dusenberre's* memoir, "Beethoven for a Later Age" (2016)
This is why I think it’s key for somebody to put together whatever research there is on adverse health effects of masks. That would give the poor orchestra and the “help” in restaurants etc. some leverage. I’m really glad that this piece brings that up a few times, but details would help: “As the Cochrane reviewers disapprovingly note, few of the clinical trials of masks even bothered to collect data on the harmful effects on subjects”
I cannot help wondering if there are other angles of attack--things which could offer much better leverage in altering these deplorable circumstances--that haven't been thought of, investigated. And, honestly, I don't know what they are.
A better understanding of the effective "pressure points" could help to learn more about how to get effective change sooner than simply leaving such a destructive set of circumstances to degenerate until a change becomes impossible to resist. I think Management are making decisions based on cost-benefit analyses. Their advisors are telling them that the "safe course" is to do what everyone else is doing and keep mask-use in the rules of user, client, access. Restaurants are much less inclined to do this because there is often v. significant competition driving them to keep the customer-base happy. But a symphony orchestra or art gallery or large museum isn't so sensitive to the people visiting--small ticket holders.
They _are_ however, very concerned to keep on the good side of their wealthy donors. How may that lever be approached? If these wealthy donors could be made to think seriously about the genuine hardships which these rules imply for so many people whose livelihoods depend on their submitting to utterly useless mask-requirements, maybe their consciences could be pricked enough to get them to start raising this issue in the formal and informal meetings, telephone calls, video chats, Zoom meetings.
How can that be approached? It seems reasonable to suppose that there are people well enough acquainted with this social arena to know where the possibilities are for a campaign to get the wealthy donor class to develop a better moral awareness of what they're subsidizing.
I'm about as far from that social scene as one can get.
I'm so sorry. And I can well imagine it's hard to turn down an opportunity to play in something like that, or that it could even be a career-limiting decision. I had to go to an retinal specialist recently that involved several visits. This specialist runs a big office with about three patients in play at any given time. There are maybe seven or eight staff assisting in all this. I was forced to wear a mask or not be admitted. When I complained that my N95 mask was steaming up my glasses that they required me to wear for one part of the eye exam, an assistant literally taped it to my face. It was very hard to breath through. At one point the double masked assistant was having trouble with hers and I commented that it must be difficult to wear that eight hours a day. She had a mini-explosion of expressed frustration with it, saying sometimes she felt like she was going to pass out because it would get half saturated with moisture. But she reined it in quickly and back to business. Doesn't want to lose her job, I expect.
Thanks for sharing your story, Peter. Yes, funny how New Yorkers--who, in general, arrogantly presume that they are light years ahead of the rest of us in terms of taste and sophistication--were such suckers for the COVID party line. And like most Leftists, not too good at admitting that they were wrong. Played by the authorities like the rubes they assume the rest of the country to be.
Hi Skinny, I’m am not a Us citizen and I do not live in the US. At least in my perspective this has been much more a control issue, it goes way beyond the democrats/republican divide.
As a healthcare provider myself, who has been out since mid 2021 after having my first child, and able to follow different sources of thought in the medical world- it has made me question everything I’ve ever learned and everything we do in medicine. Shockingly though, my colleagues who are still in the hospitals don’t get time to do their own research and believe everything that is fed to them- which comes from these agencies. I started to think I was crazy for so long and now it’s so nice to see I was not... It has really amazed me how very intelligent people who can be so duped.
I hear you about starting to question everything, I’m still working in healthcare and have to bite my tongue almost every shift when supposedly highly credentialed coworkers make extremely ignorant statements when it comes to COVID, masking and the vaccines.
I can't think of an industry that took a bigger hit to its reputation during this pandemic than medicine. It's a damn shame. I was a dutiful patient for the most part, but today I tend to regard anything a doctor says as an advisory.
It’s not just COVID…I don’t know if I’m on the right track or not, but our FOOD and what’s deemed healthy or not, what really contributes to heart disease (cholesterol?) and how to lower it? I feel like I was fed a line regarding my cholesterol #’s recently and it makes me want to find a new Dr.
Lots of intelligent people in Germany were duped starting a century ago. Some managed to escape the dogma being foisted, but history - when it's not being re-written - tells us what came of that time. Much has changed since then in what we know and what we can do with the knowledge gained while at the same time human nature's changed not one tiny bit.
I used to think that because I listened to NPR on my 12 minute commute I was among the informed. Now, of course that makes me feel sheepish! But there are a ton of people who live in that space.
Don't look at the medical staff, examine the Administrators who are trying to cover their legal asses by forcing staff to mask up!
I've been to quite a few doctors' offices in my work capacity and have found that not ALL offices adhere to the maskification. In fact, while working in a waiting room before patience arrived, the office manager stormed out of her office and demanded that I HAD to wear a mask! I looked around the room and stated that it was completely empty, but she said wear it or get out! I complied, but didn't cover my nose.
The same fact-free psychopaths who continue to insist that masks do something, that they are needed, that lament the lack of mandates, that ignore inconvenient truths are operating from THE SAME playbook and are often the same people who are currently professing climate-weather-doom and are demanding vast changes in modern life - NOT OPTIONAL - to 'save the world'
That these lunatics currently inhabit positions such as Energy Minister of Germany, CDC Director of the USA, Chief if the IEA, UN Secretary General, and various heads of countless agencies all over the world only fills me with dread
I mean, I'd wear one if the science supported it and I had risk factors. But I'd wear it properly and I'll continue to try to educate people on how masks work so that people will actually get a benefit that is more than a dopamine hit.
During WW II, the US Navy issued "Shark Repellent" to its aviators flying in the Pacific theater even though the Navy brass knew that the repellent was actually worthless. It was issued to calm the fears of aviators shot down and floating in the water. To give our current CDC leadership some credit, perhaps they thought that the mask mandates would calm the public's fears and prevent mass hysteria. Of course, this would have had the opposite effect as people realized that the experts who demanded that we "follow the science" were lying to us all along. One wonders what else they are lying to us about "out of an abundance of caution"? Global warming?
That response is understandible, but the issue with masks is that, instead of shark repellent doing nothing, what if it actually baited the sharks in? That's what being comfortable did with masks. Vulnerable people believed it worked, ran errands all over town, and actually increased their risk of death.
As I sit here reading this article working night shift as a RN in an Emergency Room, I am once again reminded that for most of the COVID pandemic, how we have responded to it has been devoid of strong scientific backing. I despise wearing a mask and it’s frustrating to have to keep wearing them for 12 hour shifts because the CDC and most healthcare systems believe in the magical thinking that they actually do anything. Underneath the current presidential administration, I have little hope that masks will go away in healthcare.
I recently had an appointment with my endocrinologist. Checked their website and emails to see if they were requiring masks in the office... nothing. When I arrived, I saw a sign at the door saying that masks were required. I immediately turned around and called to cancel my appointment. If a healthcare professional can't learn something so basic, I don't trust their ability to provide good care.
Where I live in SE Wisconsin, it's the same except for dentist's offices. Even in settings that are barely or very marginally "medical" like optometrists. It's not any kind of state or local policy, or even CDC policy, it's federal (i.e. Biden) policy. Federal funding for these places has been made contingent on having a mask requirement. I'm sure in Cali the state gov't plays a role, but here in WI we ended mask mandates almost 2 years ago and this is still going on.
Not only that... if a medical provider doesn’t agree and speaks up and it’s not in California’s definition of science- that person can lose their license.. this is a new law that just went through
The madness is mind boggling. After a bad calcium test I, was advised to take an echo/stress test on a treadmill - wearing a MASK! Utter insanity, especially with even the fabulously corrupt WHO advising against wearing a mask when exercising.
I had physical therapy last fall including aqua therapy - and I had to wear a mask even while in the pool. Couldn't blame the PTs, they weren't making the policy. Utterly ridiculous. I have some health providers that to this day, I have no idea what they look like. If I were to run into them out in public I would never recognize them.
I don't believe that the CDC and these healthcare systems still believe in the magical thinking. I believe that they're too hubristic to admit they were wrong and how wrong they were, because they view such an admission as a threat to their prestige and power. The people making the decisions to continue to force masking are more bureaucrats than they are scientists or doctors.
I agree. I've been working from home since March 2020. That and the fact that I live in Florida meant that I had to deal with masking relatively little compared to many. I patronized only restaurants that didn't require it and avoided places that did. That said, I always felt sorry for people, such as fast food workers and other low-paid, entry-level workers, who were required to wear those masks for long periods of time for a job that doesn't even pay well. Many lacked the qualifications to leave and so had to stay and put up with the requirement if they wanted to work.
Only time I ever wore a mask was on a plane when forced. I knew they did nothing. I'm in medicine as are all of my family. I refused to go along with the political theatre of masking. Fauci was more than an imbecile. His refusal to acknowledge early stage interventions like antibiotics, HCQ, and IV treatments, etc. cost thousands of lives. My father in-law is a nursing home directors and lost very few patients during the height of the most threatening outbreak early on while others died in droves. The difference was early intervention. No other disease state on this planet calls for people to do nothing until they are so sick they need to be hospitalized. Our public health apparatus completely failed our citizens and the worst part is they fail to acknowledge it even now. It is your responsibility to do you homework because those who are supposed to save you will not. There is no courage among most of the medical establishment or our political leaders. You are on your own to make sure you have a physician with courage that does his/her own research and doesn't bow to the NIH and CDC.
"No other disease state on this planet calls for people to do nothing until they are so sick they need to be hospitalized." This has always been one of the most remarkable failures of the US response. I’ve never been able to understand it. WSJ had an article a while back about how doctors in places like India were responding to Covid, throwing everything they could think of at it and seeing what combinations of treatments had an effect. Here it’s like the whole public health system thought if we try to treat this, it helps Trump cause Trump says try this or try that. So they just put their heads in the sand and watched people die instead. And they expect trust and respect now? Sorry no.
For fun go to Our World in Data, pull up the data explorer for Covid death rates, and compare US to India.
You also have to realize that any death was treated as Covid. Hospitals would test, if the dead person was positive for Covid it was registered as Covid even if they died in a motorcycle accident. Why? Money. Always follow the money.
This was not a happenstance or an accident. The big Pharma message, “wait for the vaccine” was delayed and less effective in places like India or those that didn’t speak English as much, e.g. Japan, South America. In many of those places early intervention made all the difference.
He was craven. In his first public appearance he said what he really believed - that masks wouldn't protect anybody, that they were "theater". His exact word. I still remember it. Then he flipped soon afterward. I never believed another thing he said after that.
The damage the people like Rochelle Walensky have done to both, peoples faith in science and the institutions in which we are supposed to trust to give us unbiased information, is truly incalculable.
Further, when you merge these occurrences, with the mis/dis/malinformation censorship they are trying to inculcate in every institution possible, it becomes clear that their goal is not to inform, but to control. They no longer need to develop rational, well-considered arguments, when they can simply dictate what you WILL believe and ensure everything else is marked as "lies", according to the government censors. And then, those "lies" will get you fired from your job, banned from the public square and eventually, if they are able to institute social credit scores as the World Economic Forum wants, they will be able to control your life, in totality.
They value power over all else. In fact, to these fiends, there is nothing else other than power.
If you look at the modern world, through the paradigm that modern Liberalism is, fundamentally, an anti-human ideology, everything makes sense.
What has happened to America? In the America of the past, somebody ordering you to wear a face diaper would have been told to "go F yourself. " Now the sheep not only obey but exult in their obedience. All the COVID orders - mandatory vaccination, masks, distancing, limited gatherings, etc. have been patent bullshit. All calling for massive civil disobedience if not open revolution. But we got - a craven and servile obedience.
So what is left about covid that hasn’t proven to be totally false? WSJ this week reports the origin was a lab leak. Masks definitively don’t work. Vaccines aren’t actually vaccines (and ‘wear off’ in a matter of months). Lock downs proven to be ineffective and actually harmful. Small business can’t stay open but big businesses can. What was actually proven to be true and effective that public health told us?
I like what you said about the Covid vaccines actually not being vaccines. You are 100% correct. They are “shots” that wear off over time - similar to a flu shot. Whether or not someone believes in this Covid treatment or not, calling this a vaccine rather than a shot was a bad decision as vaccines generally are one or two shots then done. Poorly handled.
You just made his point. Mutating viruses can’t be vaccinated against like polio. By the time you make a vaccine, the virus has mutated or isn’t the prevalent one. However THESE shots wore off within MONTHS so even if the virus didn’t mutate it wasn’t going to work - and they KNEW it. They also knew that children didn’t need it, that of course natural immunity is better and that there were serious side effects. They knew this all. That’s what we are “on about,” as you put it.
These are the most annoying articles ever written. We’ve known this for decades. And not a few decades. Many, many decades. Ask any person with even the tiniest understanding of fluid or thermodynamics and they will laugh in your face at the suggestion a cloth mask can stop an airborne virus. It’s insulting and insanely embarrassing that we’re still doing this.
Oh, that and that every piece of medical literature, including an actual lawsuit between the largest medical center in Canada and its freaking nurses, had not only known/proven this but litigated it in court.
It makes my head want to explode how passionately we’re trying to become dumber for the sake of acceptance by morons
I swim with a PhD Engineer who during the 1990s produced science related to filtering and masks. He also is an editor of a major engineering journal that covers filtering. Early on in the pandemic he told me that the evidence is that masks don't mitigate respiratory viruses. I didn't really believe him, so I asked him for some citations. He sent me a bunch. Turns out he was correctly telling me what the current science said. So, yes, for at least a generation the science has demonstrated that masks don't mitigate respiratory viruses.
It also just speaks a fundamental failure of societal disposition regarding burden of proof. American culture has completely flipped to guilty until proven innocent. Somehow, in the flip of five seconds of unwarranted panic (never forget, we knew in March that COVID-19 had been found in multiple places in January, AT THE LATEST (it was, after all, named "COVID-*19*), and the average age of death in Italy, where everyone was freaking out, was 83 years old) we just completely threw out our baseline and accepted a brand-new baseline. If you want someone to wear a mask, ask them nicely and if they say yes, great. Otherwise, PROVE to them that they should. instead, we went the opposite. One very dumb person trying to pretend like they knew what they were talking about said "yeah, sure, everyone wear masks" and then we spent THREE YEARS proving they didn't work. That's so backwards it's unfathomable.
I'd opine it was traditional political theatre. It was the same reason we went running into Afghanistan after 9/11. Something like every single political decision is made for two purposes; 1. self-enrichment, or 2. to get reelected (so they can self-enrich later). Sadly, in America today (though there's an argument for why I'll make at the bottom of this) a huge part of getting reelected is "doing something." I made a long argument about this in a stack I wrote, but fundamentally politicians and public health can't actually do anything to improve outcomes from an airborne respiratory virus. But that doesn't mean they can't *DO SOMETHING*. And a lot of angry lefties actually think government is Mommy and therefore needed mommy to DO SOMETHING and so they threw them a bone in the form of masking.
Government is, by definition, regressive. It can only make things worse. But the hypothesis is some "worse" is better than others. Someone murders someone, society is worse off by losing the labor of said individual, but losing that labor is worth the cost of them not murdering another person, so we use regressive societal structures to remove their labor.
An argument could be made, that the regression of masks are/were worth it if they worked. Anyone willing to do even 5 minutes of reading knew they didn't/couldn't work, but MOST people didn't do that work, and so politicans saw a chance to *DO SOMETHING* that was a less "worse" version of "worse," and so they did. I think the control thing was WAY overblown. I lived in three different places over the course of COVID and the freedom loving places weren't masking and no one cared, the tyranny loving (lefty...) places were all masking because the majority of people living there wanted them and would have been masking anyway, and the middle places were in the middle.
There was a LOT that went on during covid that was about control, I don't think masks were one of them.
To the "mommy please do something" point above, I've argued a lot that federal income taxes are the worst mistake in US history and are/is its undoing as a once great nation (we're now much closer to Russia and one day will settle in as the Netherlands with more farm land). A big part of that is that's REASONABLE for people to expect the government to act as mommy and made everything okay. When you take THE FIRST DOLLAR of my labor, there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't expect you to do everything for me. I'm not only paying you for it, I'm paying you for it with my first dollar. Millenials are the first generation where basically every paycheck we've had in our life had taxes taken out of it before we ever received our payment. That this is a "dependent" generation isn't surprising at all. We're matching our leaders. They borrow and spend at an outlandish rate how could we not expect that in return they'd give us everything? Isn't that the deal...?
It's complete horesh*t of course, but it's, sadly, not "unreasonable."
All this knowledge including all the evidence of harm caused by masks to your personal health (bacteria, viruses, inhibited breathing, less oxygen etc.) needs to be rebroadcast in forms that help the poor musicians, nurses etc. get out from under those mask mandates in their professions.
What's funny is the number of people who did know flued dynamics, who I could walk through the issues, who STILL said "at least I can do something to help" which was absurd because what they were doing wasn't helping at all. In fact, it was making it more dangerous. This issue with Risk Compensation is captured well in this essay:
The mask was the only visible way to show that the “pandemic” was happening. When 96% of people with Covid showed no symptoms and the average age of those dying was 81, the government needed something to remind everyone they needed to be scared. I try to assume those still wearing masks are immuno-compromised, but they’re generally hyper scared or morally superior moonbats.
High time we have a national discussion about SCIENCE. What it actually means. How it is never settled. How rigorous testing and data collection are critical. How it is bigger than any one person no matter what their title. Let us always remember that many of our fellow citizens called for shaming, firing and even locking up people who decided not to be be vaccinated or to wear masks. And to be very clear: I chose to be vaccinated and I wear an N95 because of my own circumstances. From the outset I sought medical advice and I looked for data and statistics, both very hard to come by . Whether half of this nation learned any lessons about science and that it does not mix well with politics remains to be seen.
As the eminent physicist Richard Feynman remarked, the science is never settled, as continued questioning is the essence of science. Fauci, in contrast, is a braying moron. And a very corrupt one, at that.
Most importantly, true science depends on the ability of individual scientists to question and, if possible, disprove the "consensus" views. Censorship and science are incompatible. May we forever be blessed with "deniers."
“When people say they “trust the science,” what they presumably mean is that science is rational, empirical, rigorous, receptive to new information, sensitive to competing concerns and risks. Also: humble, transparent, open to criticism, honest about what it doesn’t know, willing to admit error.”
Past science confirmed again- add more to the Bayesian level of certainty. Regarding government response- somehow coronavirus is the virus uniquely susceptible to masks? These folks need firing.
The mask is the crucifix of the left. It’s a symbol of allegiance, a religious symbol. A gang symbol. Catholics have crucifixes, Muslims have Head scarves, and secular leftists have masks. I’m an old school atheist, raised in a very religious household-- I know a religion when I see one.
Not so much a religion as a cult. A religion can tolerate debate. A cult does not.
Some religions tolerate debate as long as the contestants share the same theological fantasy. Many millions have died when the fantasies differ between the religious groups doing the debating with rocks, swords, guns, diseases.
Between Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot, the Twentieth Century saw more human slaughter than ALL of the religious pogroms COMBINED! Yet we still promote their ideologies on college campuses country wide.
Wear a Che t-shirt and it is cool, don't wear a mask and you get excluded!
The same people in control of the CDC, the World Economic Forum elites, are in control of all the ubiquitous propaganda re: the source of covid, the border, Hunter Biden laptop, Russian collusion with Trump, police behavior, crime, Ukraine, etc. Their lies on masking are only the tip of the iceberg. The Biden admin is their puppet.
Che was a psychopathic murder. In his memoirs he said he liked killing people.
That is true of many causes for debate not just religion. People who are different fight. Tolerance is pretty much a myth. Looking at the US today I am of the opinion that we never evolved past a feudal mentality. Especially the self-professed "elite".
Most of us did. For a time. But "progressivism" is definitionally Orwellian; it is defined as an effort to replace progress with what came before.
Including tribalism.
I would say "tribal mentality". Feudalism was one of the ways of trying to rise above it, actually. It allowed the organization of at least some tribal groups to work collectively to offset the power of monarchs and other totalitarians. Not great to be a serf, but in those times even worse for everyone to be serfs except for one monarch. Fukuyama has an interesting discussion on feudal societies and their differences in different parts of the world over time. Russia was apparently one of the worst places to be because there the feudal powers aligned themselves with the Czar and both oppressed the serfs. In India the caste system effectively separated religious from political power and prevented a true monarch from ever arising in the first place. And China never had a feudal state at all, having discovered how to invent a bureaucratic State very early on which they never then abandoned. European feudalism was not a bad thing in it's time.
History does not support what you say. In the past anyone deviating from church doctrine was called a heretic and burnt at the stake. Today they just kick them out of the church.
I can only say: read more history.
I do. I have a degree in it. What are your qualifications?
Are you saying the inquisition, the witch burnings and the religious wars (the Thirty Years War) never happened?
I do actually have a history degree and what I would call a bit of relevant experience but that really doesn't matter. Most folks who point to the violence caused by religion tend to ignore all the wars and violence caused by things other than religion (what's the death toll from nationalism, communism, and nazism in the 20th century alone?). So is it religion or something else in human nature at work? Even the 30 Years War ended with Catholic France pitted against Catholic Hapsburgs. I doubt Richelieu was motivated by religion there.
Are you saying because secular wars are bloody, we should ignore the crimes of religion? Read Will Durant. He said, before WW II, that the invasion of Indian by Islam was probably the bloodiest period in human history. The Islamist slaughtered and estimated 50 million Indians.
I think you should be reading more history. The history of religion is paved with blood.
Religions are basically one of the solutions human beings have come up with to the problem of organizing and operating a tribe effectively larger than a few hundred people. The reason they need to find such a solution is that if they don't they will be overrun and wiped off the face of the earth by those who have like the Neanderthals and Denisovians.
The enforced respect for (often others'/ and, esp. "the powerful's) dogmatically held belief relates to all these across the board.
When dogma is an inherent aspect of religiously-held doctrine, it's no use saying that "something else " is at work here. The same things are at work in nationalism, communism, Nazism and other "isms".
That they are not all always the vehicles of mass murder is hardly a selling-point. And, while, with respect to "nationalism", a very good case may be made for its indispensibility in any conceivable modern society such as we know them, that same cannot be said for Communism, for Nazism, or for any of the Catholic or Protestant organized religious -or other non-religious cult-like sects.
The sect of the Face-Mask is one which we not only _can_ dispense with, it's one which we're far better off dispensing with--the sooner, the better.
Now, very significantly, none of that prevents _your_ personal preference to wear a face-mask (or go about on crutches, or wear a HAZ-mat suit) wherever and whenever you please (except perhaps in banks).
Lonesome - you really must TRY to get out of the age of witch burnings and religious wars. They obviously strengthen your hatred of Christianity argument - but are seriously out of date . My qualification is that I am ordained and have been for years and most of us would welcome you in the front door and never call you a heretic or burn you at the stake. Get your head out of your history books which seem only to be keeping you many years in the pass. Come on down AND we won't even ask you for money -
If you are so tolerant, loving and forgiving, how come you condemn me as hating Christianity. You have no idea what my religious beliefs are or if I hate religion. I simply quote real history and all of a sudden I hate Christianity. I never mention Christianity in my post. I could just as easily been talking about Islam or the Aztec or Mayan religions.
You are the insulting bigot no me. I just quoted history. You on the other hand quote your hatred and bigotry.
I found it deeply insulting and hurtful. and you call yourself a Christian and a minister at that. If your response is any indication tolerance and love, I would love to see what your sermons are like.
Don't say, "and never call you a heretic or burn you at the stake" until you've read Victor Klemperer's "LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen (1947) ( "The Language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's Notebook" )
Those memoirs were written within what is still "living memory".
You don't know who you'll "burn at the stake" until "not burning them" means immediate and dire risk of your life and everyone you most care about.
Where's all our learning from history? Where's our firm grasp of the fact that, after all, we _never_ _definitively_ learn anything from history and we never shall?
Expect more pandemics and more useless impositions of public health's "science"-driven stupidity, just to be "on the safe side".
I take his reference to witch trials and the Inquisition as symbolic for the large number of such historical occurrences throughout a very broad span of human history (of which I also have read a great deal and continue to do so). This tolerant welcome mat you describe is real,certainly. But surely you recognize it is also extremely recent? The Muslims were also quite tolerant of other small minority religions in their midst in the heyday of their ascendance - for awhile. Then they weren't and everything degenerated into horrible wars, largely driven by tribal affiliations. We are in fact the same human beings. Evolution is very slow.
Well, Rev, you might want to look into the Russian Orthodox Church, the ideological underpinnings of Putin's seeking to restore a Greater Russia.
The Spaniah Inquisition had as much to do with nationalism as it di with religion, like many of the other supposed religious atrocities of the period.
That may be true but the inquisitors put out the rumor they were God's messengers and doing God's work.
According to historians, "Nationalism and the idea of a nation-state emerged at the end of the 18th century in Europe. The idea was related to a movement among a group of people with shared identities, whose aim was to achieve, maintain and claim the sovereignty of the nation."
The religious wars and the Inquisition were centuries before nationalism.
What I don't understand is how many people are reluctant to admit religion was responsible for so much blood and suffering and it stifled the advancement of civilization. If you don't believe me, ask Galileo.
The Spanish Inquisition as a particularly "spanish" & _"nationalist"_ phenomenon!? That's the first time I've come upon that thesis. (This is surely some doctoral candidate's work in history)
It would not have occurred to me to see the Sp. Inq.-- a pogram directed by a church centered in Rome-- and done in a royal kingdom!, as a candidate for a "nationalist" work of social experimentation in persecution. ¡Ay, caramba!
For awhile. Then the Reformation occurred. And while some churches oust those who do not follow the doctrine of that particular church, others tolerate everything.
Depends on the religion.
Up until recently I would have likely agreed with you. But now we even have Buddhists massacring non-Buddhists in Burma. Oops, I mean Myanmar.
I'd say religion isn't a bad term. Because it's religious psychology that underpins it all as this essay captures.
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/religion-as-a-psychology
And certainly not science, which progresses only in the course of disputes and deliberations. It is a party dogma.
Have you lived in the Middle East.....categorically untrue on an individual basis but in aggregate yes.
Now you're being a troll. ;-)
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/do-masks-work?utm_medium=reader2 has a more nuanced review. I think TheFP is making a rather lazy one dimensional answer when there is none.
It should do better
The byline alone identifies this as an opinion piece crowing about the “debunking” of masks. Masks are useful when worn correctly. Many scientists are critical of Cochrane Review’s methods. And nothing reported in this article from scientists who disagree with its methods or conclusions. Do better, Free Press. We don’t want another news outlet which puts the political axe to grind before the journalism.
My spouse is a highly cited medical researcher who has followed the data from both the U.S. and other countries since the beginning of the Covid outbreak. Early on, he agreed with the suppressed Great Barrington Declaration and the many medical skeptics, based on data. Regarding masks, he determined that at best an n95 mask completely taped to the face might or might not help, but that anything less was just face decor and signaling.
He concluded early on that natural immunity due to Covid infection was extremely important, and was being inexplicably dismissed by government. He advised that we not get further vaccinations after the initial round because of what have been later substantiated concerns hinted at in the data.
He is the real thing, an informed medical scientist. What actual scientists believe, and what they purportedly believe according to the major press outlets, are two very different things. The Free Press is far more reliable as a news source than the New York Times, the WaPo, the Guardian, etc.
Yes. The physician I know best (my spouse) knew all of the above as well…but was not allowed to advise patients accordingly.
Amen, Alice!
"Masks are useful when worn correctly"
Yea, they do a great job of preventing kids learning how to read, speak and learn.
and preventing their vitally important immune systems from developing normally and effectively--by routine daily life's exposure to the world in which they live--or try to live.
If these were crutches instead of face-masks and all of us, especially children, were required to go about using them, there'd be a far, far greater outcry and a far greater appreciation of the nature of this insanity.
When helicopter moms spray down surfaces with 99.9% germ killing sprays, they aren't doing their kids and favors. People like me and most of the people on this BBS grew up in germ filled environment and it either killed us or made us stronger, Nietzsche, by strengthening our immune system.
I think one of the reasons I rarely get sick as an adult is twofold:
1. As a kid I played in the dirt, and we had dogs climbing all over us all the time tracking in god knows what.
2. As an adult, I get vaccines when necessary. I get the flu shot every year ever since getting an extremely nasty case (hospital) in my 20s.
So far, I haven't gotten COVID or, if I did, I didn't notice it. I wore masks early on when not much was known, but after being vaccinated I stopped.
Slightly related: severe peanut allergies are rare in Israel, and it is hypothesized the ubiquitous use of Bamba (peanut snack) given to babies once they start on solid food is responsible.
That's a good point, LP, that others have echoed. Human immune defenses evolve to handle new threats, and exposure makes the immune system more robust (I'm assuming one isn't immuno-compromised or immuno-senescent).
What isn't yet discussed and doesn't appear to have yet been studied is this: who weathers viruses like COVID better, the person who has regular exposure to such pathogens and whose immune system evolves to manage them, or the person who isolates themselves and masks up (if you believe they help) and thus has little or no opportunity to develop natural immunities?
"Masks are useful when worn correctly."
So we should have repeatable RCT studies to back that up. Where are they?
"Many scientists…" Now you sound like a modern journalist.
"many scientists" is what is called a glittering generality in English 101.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, it really doesn't matter how well they work under "controlled conditions" if nobody in the real world wears them that way. And if when they go home or to their friends they don't wear them at all or rub elbows with others who don't. And that's the real world. And that's why they don't "work" and never will.
Science doesn't work by popular vote. If it did, we'd still be doing Newtonian physics and building Ptolemaic models of the solar system.
By “many scientists” you mean some unspecified scientists who haven’t published any randomized controlled trials on the subject. Cochran examined 78 published randomized controlled trials, but we should believe you, because you randomly assert something about “many scientists” and with no citations? Cochran is by far the most complete, thorough, and definitive study on this matter, but it’s not up to your standards, eh?
One of the many things that grated during Covid was that the press would put a microphone in front of any physician as long as they were a deranged masker calling for more mandates.
Today, as it should have alway's been, masking is an optional personal choice. But like every other topic of important American social/political concern it was politicized, propagandized and weaponized for the benefit of criminal finance. It became an instrument of fear, confusion and division to the point that Covid was almost a secondary reality. Meanwhile the looting of American tax dollar's continued/continue's without accountability or reason.
"Masks are useful when worn correctly."
--when worn correctly in a sterile environment of the kind for which they were devised in the first place: a surgical operating theatre, for example.
They're useless everywhere else except as talismans for the superstitions of the pseudo-science faithful.
For that matter, there’s not a whole lot of evidence they do anything productive in a surgical environment either.
Masks are a spit- and sneeze-guard for the wearer. They don't do anything to protect those on the receiving end of the spit and the sneezes.
I believe it's the opposite, isn't it? Surgical teams wear them to protect the patient who is usually not wearing one. They are trying to keep from infecting open wounds.
"pseudo-science faithful." Oh, you mean Democrats.
The Covid particles check their GPS and if they're in a lab they just turn around.
A more likely explanation is that people don't wear the right ones, or don't wear them properly. (I remember lots of people that don't wear them around their nose.
Now whether they do that because they believe they're useless or not, this potentially taints the analysis of whether they could work if everyone wore them properly. Whether that's feasible, I'm not sure.
Masks are useless at the population level. trying to put a square peg in a round hole is a waste of time. Mandated to make the govt look like they were “doing something”. Action Bias in full force.
"Do Better" is the sanctimonious judgement term of the brainwashed leftist. I have long since learned to ignore anybody who uses that disgusting, uncouth, demand.
That'd be "Time and Tide".
Also, there is a difference between CDC mask mandates and how masking was mishandled as a matter of public policy and the effectiveness of masks on an individual basis. The elderly, the vulnerable and those who wish to reduce the spread of viruses should still wear masks in crowded indoor spaces.
The only real benefit that masks offer to the elderly like me, is to cover the wrinkles at the bottom of the face - do up the eyes with mascara and you can pass for 20 years younger. Otherwise, no thanks.
Cite a source of reliable data? Can you? Or is this just a feeling you have?
"The elderly, the vulnerable and those who wish to reduce the spread of viruses should still wear masks in crowded indoor spaces."
But the data says, NOT
My impression is the best thing the elderly can do is limit the amount of contact they have with other people in general during the season when respiratory viruses are flying around.
It's a choice.
As a thought: A lot of "..we the people.." consternation around American social/political concern spring's from the intentional confusion and mixed messaging emanating from our pay to play, rule's for thee not for me, elected political leadership. Which is, totally compromised by rigged game capitalist's. This conversation and thousand's more like it talk around that reality when we all know it to be core to most of our problem's. It's a power dynamic and our indignation is a cover for our inner world belief that we have none.
Right
I've read every study I could find on masking, starting around June of 2020, so the Cochrane study (which reviewed the same studies) came as no surprise. Masks may be "useful", as you say, T&T, but with respect to viral spread their benefit is negligible, with the best support coming from the Bangladesh study being rather modest.
The studies that support masking only worked when combined with handwashing and distancing.
The hairdresser study that the CDC cited as "proof" early in the pandemic outbreak was an embarrassment that no high school science student would submit. Personally, I find the politicization of public health to be intolerable.
I'm neutral on the mask mandate thing.
But I agree on the political axe that exerts itself on everything, and in the case of public health, from both sides of the political spectrum - politicized on the progressive side during the pandemic in its censure of opposing opinions, and politicized now by the Right as more facts are uncovered as to how apparently wrong everyone (the CDC) was. Masks have become missiles. The pushback everywhere since Covid on the mask mandates and the vaccine itself has been huge. The benefit of hindsight makes it even more acute. The 'I told you so' syndrome is upon us. Except for the force of the backlash, I have no issue with that.
The problem I have is going forward. We basically have such high public distrust on the scientific/medical establishment that when the next virus arrives on our door step, because it will, we will not be in a position as a society to agree on any authority's guidance (such as it is..) as to what to do.
And this will be decisive and very painful - because the next virus could be a version of H5N1, Marburg, Ebola...with morbidity outcomes far worse than Covid.
Postmortems are great, but if all they do is entrench positions on opposing political sides and not form a consensus as to what went wrong and how to correct it without acrimony, then we will not be in a good place.
And that could be soon..
“politicized now by the Right as more facts are uncovered as to how apparently wrong everyone (the CDC) was”
The facts were ALWAYS there but we weren’t allowed to see them (unless you really looked hard). The power hungry proponents of worthless mandates, censorship and their enabling lapdog “scientists” need to be exposed, shamed and stripped of their authority.
Lee is hard core left, and like most of them will not admit fault unless there's a way to spin it as "well it's both sides."
Lee, the truth isn't a political issue, and it's coincidence that the truth was with the right wing the whole time. That's a call for self reflection, not equivocation.
Anthony, my point does not take sides - I want us to take heed of the future. Do you actually want our country's wretched response to Covid replicated when we're dealing with something far worse? And if we distrust authorities to such an extant, isn't that where we're headed?
Hard left? No, I'd say hard realist..
You, sir, have just made my point. '..stripped of their authority.'
Instead of the incessant anger, some basic good faith and non finger pointing analysis is what we're all gonna need going forward.
With that kind of attitude, I hope you know who to listen to when the next big one comes..
Yes, you are right. That's the unfortunate result of the CDC and government generally mishandling the crisis. There is indeed a need to restore trust in our public health agencies, but it has to come from them. They've been wrong about not only masking, but natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, vaccine side effects, other potential remedies, the origins of the virus, etc.
We really need them to "come clean", be honest about what they got right and wrong, and lay out how they will do better. This will be needed to restore trust. We're rightly asking Norfolk Southern to clean up their mistakes in East Palestine - don't we have a right to ask our own public agency to do the same?
Re: ..."We basically have such high public distrust on the scientific/medical establishment that when the next virus arrives on our door step, because it will, we will not be in a position as a society to agree on any authority's guidance (such as it is..) as to what to do.
"And this will be decisive and very painful - because the next virus could be a version of H5N1, Marburg, Ebola...with morbidity outcomes far worse than Covid. " ...
Actually, he's not right. This worry is a preposterous one. People are _always_ ready to panic in the direction of a blind, mistaken leap into the arms of authority's greater control over them--I refer in that to the vast majority of the public, not the few wiser, reflective people who saw a panic and tried to counsel against it.
In _any_future case where the public's acceptance of measures to suppress transmission is justifiable and necessary, you shall find the overwhelming majority of the public quite ready to obey their masters' voice(s). A handful of stubborn resisters won't alter the effectiveness of the majority's cooperation. A 75+ % mask co-operation was always going to have been sufficient. Not satisfied with voluntary co-operation, the authorities thew their ill-considered weight around, to disastrous effect.
You reply is interesting. Without confidence in the CDC because of their mishandling of Covid, how will a large portion of the American public in a future pandemic believe that their 'acceptance of measures to suppress transmission is justifiable and necessary'?
I’m not buying that argument. There is no equivalency. All they have to do is tell the truth in the first place. The authorities, displayed their bigotry towards people who questioned them, and then it was proven that the authorities were dishonest and incompetent. The Morris argument is polite but wrong.
Your point that 'it was proven that the authorities were dishonest and incompetent' tells me that there's a strong chance you won't listen to them again the next time, that what they say is 'the truth' won't be believed in.
Thus my point that the future looks dire when a future deadlier pandemic strikes, with a segment of the country so distrustful.
Yup, nailed it!
I can’t wait for the day when we collectively stop using “Do better” as the universal finger-waggle.
What are masks useful for?
Can we agree they are not useful for airborne respiratory viruses?
T and T: don’t give up! Masks are good!
Thank you for the encouragement not to give up! With kids at school in Manhattan I feel like I’m fighting for sanity on all fronts. I used to be considered radical now I am considered a throwback conservative. Except in this thread where I’m seen as Fauci’s damp apologist. My views haven’t changed - society certainly has.
Whoopsie, I was being sarcastic. I feel bad now, because you were so polite and sincere. I do not think you are correct.
People living in deep blue cities are way more into masks than the rest of us. Doesn't mean everyone. We just flew on two flights yesterday. Both 100% full. First one was for nearly 5 hours. I'd say (anecdotal - I did not take a careful count), about 20% of the passengers were wearing some sort of face contraption, sometimes two of them. Many of these maskers were in mask families: mom-dad-teens-toddlers all had them on. Those were flights to/in California. Today, we fly on to Idaho Falls. I expect 5% at most to be maskers, and those will be elderly.
Just landed. My 5% guess was too high. There was not a single masker on a100% full Boeing 737. Really makes a difference depending on where people live in the country.
And both the case and death rates are comparable in both destinations.
Society's change was late in coming and after great damage had been done and that change came only after hard experience's damage had rudely disabused the fantasy-views peddled by governent-and-industry-colluding interests and dutifully gobbled up by an obedient and unduly trusting public.
Society wised up. It was as refreshing as it was rare.
You have my sympathy. Trying to do right by kids is terrifying. I cannot imagine what it is like now when the "experts" are so befuddled and the elected leadership is so besotted.
Perhaps not lie to them. Not a single HEALTHY child in the USA had died from Covid2 when I last looked. They don't need masks. Now if there are seriously ill kids, then yes, mask them up, vaccinate them, or better yet try to build up their immune system so when they get better they can withstand the inevitable infection from respiratory viruses. You aren't actually protecting kids when you mask them, just keeping their immune systems from maturing.
Craven. I think that is the perfect word for much of our "leadership".
I appreciate your comment
Exactly.
I read the entire article in your link. As with any controversial subject it muddied the waters as it should. I did like one statement in the opinion piece and that was, "The scientific “arc” of mask discovery is ongoing. Science is always evolving." That statement alone buttresses the Cochrane study.
The Cochrane piece challenged the CDC and NIH both government agencies. We should always be skeptical of the government especially when the government's top officer, the ever senile Joe, is pushing masks. What else is the CDC and the NIH going to say about masks and keep their jobs?
What do you, Nati, want? Based on two people's opinions, should we completely discount the Cochrane study as bunk or should we believe the government and the piece you give as proof that Cochrane is wrong?
Back to, "The scientific “arc” of mask discovery is ongoing. Science is always evolving." I believe this 100%.. Now if can we get the climate change fanatics to believe it. I am tired of hearing those ignoramuses saying "the science is settled.
I sent this FP article out to me friends, one of which is an MD. here is his response:
"The only purpose of the mask was a visual reminder of Covid, and to undermined the Trump presidency and the US economy. They were very successful."
I agree with him 100%.
LP that is the whole truth and nothing but the TRUTH. They/Them the mobsters,the Democrats, the technocrats, the oligarchs and every piece of scrap in America had to get rid of President Trump. To this very day they are still trying to get rid of Trump and are in a state of sheer meltdown at the thought of him running again. Please say hi to your MD mate and thank him for his brilliant assessment of Covid and the masks bullsh.. story we were forced to endure. Also curious what did he think of the vaccines? Thanks again for a great post.
Everyone will all have an opinion regardless of the proof or the lack thereof, the reporting needs to be unbiased. This TFP report was one sided.
It presented the Cochrane study. It was a meta review. Do you challenge its findings or are you just sorry there is not respected Cochrane-like approach for you lefties?
If some nitwit Democrat leader told the faithful they should stop clipping their toenails and start biting them off, you would see Dems like the lemmings they are with their foot in their mouths.
Ha! With that you've shown how you're unwilling to hear a different point of view.
It didn't just present the Cochrane "study", it opinionated and that is taking a side, how is that different from MSM?
Why is the FP not allowed to take a side or have an opinion? That would be absurd. The point of the FP from everything I've been able to gather is that it is a platform for the airing of opinions worth considering which are being suppressed elsewhere. The problem with the MSM is that they not only have opinions, but they work in lockstep to prevent other opinions from being heard.
Cochrane = Evidence based analysis
MSM = Ideologically biases stories
Facts are established by observing replication in observable outcomes. Thats literally how actual science works. Opinion is thinking something that hasn't been proven true might be true. Facts, which have no human bias and simply are what they are, are observed in actual outcomes. This article was almost entirely reporting on observed actual outcomes.
The CDC printed a meta-analysis in May 2020 that found “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” For those who argue that’s the flu and not covid yes, while technically correct that is true, but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent spread of even smaller coronavirus aerosols?
Ref: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
Then there is Swiss Policy Research. They have been publishing on this from day one. They go further by specifically debunking the faux study methodology. You can see prior versions of reports and this group continually updates.
https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
Then there is the Brownstone Institute which gathered and indexed over 170 studies and articles on the ineffectiveness and observed real world failure of Masks.
https://brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
Ian Miller’s book, which I have read, and is a great source documented observed outcomes and his references are easily checked.
Many of us have said from the beginning the masks don’t work and they do harm based on the replicated observed outcomes as documented by thousands of actual experts and observed by tens of millions of thinking adults even prior to Covid. No change in observable outcomes happened during covid - didn't work before and still don't work. If you have had observed evidence to the contrary, you would have long ago shared it.
We have all learned hard lessons being wrong in life - it's part of the human experience, so I understand the frustration/ humiliation of those who went all in on masks. What I don’t understand is the complete inability to grow up and eat some humble pie. It’s never fun, but it's what separates adults from toddlers. Actual toddlers are adorable, so their ignorance is genuinely very cute. Adults with the intellectual maturity of toddlers are not, which is the maturity level of those still worrying about trying to make others wear masks or get injected with novel medical products. If it's just about convincing others, again the lack of evidence is going to make that a fruitless and annoying endeavor.
But do we really even need studies? NO It’s not OK for scared people to demand everyone conform to their desires. We learn from people making different choices and seeing what works, what doesn’t, and what tradeoffs we are comfortable with as individuals. Freedom does not end where another’s fear begins. To compel behavior of others there must be a proven positive compelling reason and claiming that we must all be dehumanized with covered faces demands actual evidence of significant benefit and there is simply none. That has not existed for a single day. Do I care if someone else wants to wear a mask? Not at all. Will I wear a mask for their benefit? Not going to happen, and if you start throwing a temper tantrum and threatening me because I won't wear your fear or share your religion of fake virtue, at that point, I will absolutely make fun of you for being obviously of low intelligence and ridiculously gullible because the observed outcomes are what they are no matter the simple-minded semantics another engages in their own mind. Something that can’t work won't work which is why masks didn’t work. I am a live and let live, but that goes both ways.
Your response started great, factual and to the point, I stopped reading when you started preaching and being condescending.
I don't have the time to respond to everything in your response but here are a couple.
"This article was almost entirely reporting on observed actual outcomes."
I wasn't sure if you were serious, but the article title ("The Real Science on Masks: They Make No Difference") then the very first line, "We now have the most authoritative estimate of the value provided by wearing masks during the pandemic: approximately zero." Lot of facts there, lol. The Cochrane analysis did not make any conclusions, it stated there was no evidence of effectiveness based on the RCTs they used for the analysis. That is not the same as there is evidence of ineffectiveness of masking.
"but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent spread of even smaller coronavirus aerosols?" covid is much more contagious.
The RCTs were conducted to quantify the benefit of masks and they found the benefit was zero impact on the spread of the virus. That's not an opinion, that's an observable quantified outcome - there is no evidence masks work thus quantifying the "benefit" of mask wearing at zero in reducing the spread. If there had been a benefit in reducing the spread, it would have been measurable (aka quantifiable).
The lead author has given numerous interviews in plain English saying the things don't work to clarify for lay people who seem to be misunderstanding the standard limitations statements as the study conclusion. The conclusion of the metanalysis is actually "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks." and "The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection."
While I could chalk the first part of your statement to mere lack of familiarity with meta-analysis in general, I must admit I actually laughed at your final statement. Masks are a physical intervention. The ability of a mask to filter an aerosol is a matter of physics. Masks aren't magical objects which independently determine if it's worth the mask's time to filter a viral particle based on how contagious it is. Masks filter particles (aerosols) based on the size of the particle; not how harmful particular particles are to the wearer. They are made of fibers not computer chips.
There was an even more interesting study which concluded those still masking want to do so because they assess that they are less physically attractive than those who don't wear masks. In light of that new evidence, perhaps you should consider if there aren't non-viral reasons you are so attached to masking despite the overwhelming observed outcomes which show in replication that they don't really do anything to prevent viral spread. Study below for reference
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1084941/full
We got a lot of the other side during 2020 and 2021. In fact Zuckerburg, Dorset and others shut down this side completely. No questions allowed.
The Cochrane study is about as unbiased as one can get. So far, the only non-laughable response to it has been "but it doesn't prove they don't work at all if used in ways nobody in the real world is willing to use them". So what? The other side is what we have been hearing for a couple years now. Enough.
The Cochrane "study" is an meta analysis of other studies that used RCT based on influenza. The "study" did not make any conclusions the author of the reposted article on TFP did.
Yes the analysis did make conclusions. "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks." and "The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection." Direct quotes from the study. Influenza particles are larger than coronavirus so if it can't filter influenza, it can't filter coronavirus,
One of my first red flags was the absolute certainty of expression used by the "experts". If it was a truly novel virus there was much they could not have known. It would have been okay for them to say that.
I'd go much further: it would have been much better for them to have said that. They could have backed up when evidence emerged which refuted their initial positions. Because of the way they dug in they had no choice but to dig deeper.
Well one bedrock of science is the discipline of physics. Viral particles aerosolized do not get caught or blocked by surgical masks.
N 95 are much better and when adhered to give some measurable benefit. To validate this one can review the original hospital out break in Wuhan reported Jan/Feb 2021.
But- for population masking is a farce.
From the looks of it looks like TFP is succumbing to its subscriber base, which tends to lean right. It's got the same issue as MSM, appease the base or go out of business.
Shri Shahpurkar, don't whine about the alleged bias of the subscriber base, make an argument that can stand up to scrutiny. Go ahead, try.
This subscriber base leans in the direction of facts and reason. Maybe you should try that instead of your tired Leftist ideology. I know that you are not used to getting pushback. But the world is changing.
Read the article I posted. The meta review averaged out different parameters. If n95 works but surgical masks didn't, it would lump them up. Similarly for wearing masks some of the time.
You want scrutiny. Go to that article:)
Nati, give me good reasons we should trust your article but not the Cochrane study?
I'm not sure I'm following. Do you think that the points made and links made were incorrect?
Let's take one example from the article with a link to a rerun of the meta-analysis if you remove less contagious viruses (flu) - it suddenly showed that masks worked.
The problem is (and I don't blame Cochrane for making some mistakes there) it's hard to identify the right questions and the confounding variables.
This is a 'research methods' error, backed up by data you can easily verify yourself
Maybe you should read the article Nati posted and let's see you lean in the direction of facts and reason.
As much as we would all like to hang our hats on this, Shri is correct. Even the authors stated that better trials should be done ( ensuring somehow that the masked stay masked and wear it properly). But it is a start.
Haha, everyone who thinks differently than me has to lean right.
Yes, Deb, funny how that works. This sad situation is a result of Leftist post-structuralist ideology that believes that all disputes are about ideology, not facts and reason. Thus, if you disagree with me, you "lean right." End of story.
Pretty pathetic, really. But the times, they are a'changin.'
You can't be right. Democrats are so tolerant and inclusive. They would never stereotype people.
My whole family had natural immunity. How shocked I was when the Dr in the ER told me it didn't apply. I had kidney stones in the middle of all this.
Ouch!
;^ )
But, but, but... "our statistics _show_" that "everyone who thinks differently than we do _has_ to lean right." (Based on aerial reconnaissance videos using gyroscopically controlled measurements).
Like Saddam Hussein's "WMD": "it's a slam-dunk!"
Mmm, no, I don't get that sense at all. I'm a liberal, non-woke, and while most of the commenters here definitely lean right, I don't see TFP as "succumbing" to any of us, liberal or conservative, Woke or MAGA. It's why I like reading TFP, for the different points of view from the writers and the commenters.
Having been a bonafide member of the MSM for decades before turning to crime novels, I know the difference. TFP is not pandering to anyone.
We’ve been utterly inundated with mask propaganda for three years without debate from our trusted officials. Somehow I don’t think this one article from The Free Press is going to appease anyone. People following data, trends and scientists willing to consider both sides have known the mask NPI was handled poorly from day one and used as a political wedge.
Yeah, funny how the mask Nazis, after three years of no pushback, now want to make sure "both sides" are heard
The studies done for masks ( not n95 or surgical) done in several European schools seem quite conclusive re those masks make no difference
Have you read the Cochrane Reviews? You should. And this is the problem, making a scientific inquiry into a political one. Try reading tom jefferson’s catalogue of work before claiming your tribe on this one. If it werent for him, the CDC would pump you full of Tamiflu every winter.
Try reading this from your high horse
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/do-masks-work?utm_medium=reader2
Those bloggers are government suck ups. One a self-identified CDC contractor. Seriously, get a clue. They do not bite the hand that feeds them. They are conflicted and compromised.
So Cochrane is wrong but these two people are right? Is that what you are saying?
We should completely discount Cochrane and go with these two people?
Are you nutz? I'm not saying Cochrane is right but I certainly don't swallow what these to unknowns are saying.
You do though.
What is that I hear, an answer or sounds of crickets?
Yeah I am starting to worry that might be the case
Thank you! for including the link to that very insightful and unbiased article. Too bad TFP did not publish that one.
TFP should learn from this.
"...an attempt to communicate important nuances and provide clarity to a story that is not yet done."
The 'nuanced' approach should used by individuals to decide whether or not they want to wear a mask. To make a broad public policy on mandating masks, experts have to look at the conclusions of major studies and make a determination as to whether there is clear, convincing, affirmative evidence for mandating masks. You are changing the subject to ignore what appears to be a major conclusive review that there is no such evidence.
Thank you! If masks work then wear one. Who cares what other people do? This obsession with policing the decisions of others is very disturbing.
It's obvious from your callous response you don't know the Cochrane methodology or their conclusion. This is a quote from the excellent article Nati posted. “no evidence of a difference” is different from “evidence of no difference.”
That's not a conclusive review.
This isn’t a left or right issue. I was a democrat all my life and still consider myself liberal in the classic sense and yet I and many others disagree with mask mandates. Thst doesn’t mean you can’t wear your mask! You do you.
Have you seen woody harleson’s SNL monologue? It speaks to those of us who aren’t left or right … check it out! Very interesting.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w8LX8MQMrag
Vernon, it most definitely is "left or right isssue." It became one when Trump opposed mandatory masking, and thus made wearing one the ultimate in virtue signaling. If "you do you" had been the policy, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Yes, I saw Woody's monologue...he just said all the stuff that we knew to be true two years ago but would get you canceled by Twitter, et al--i.e., the Lefist establishment-- if you said it.
Sorry my response was confusing. I meant that a lot of us who question covid restrictions (and TFP readers in general) aren't necessarily on the left or the right.
Point taken.
That may be true about Trump. Personally I believe that current public policy is made by considering what Trump would do and doing the opposite. But that is the public policy makers. The same is not necessarily true of We the People. It seems to me that it is sort of a rural/urban divide and the more urbanite the individual the more pro-mask.
You're right it should not be a political issue and I expected better from TFP than to pander to its base.
heh heh, nice try, Shri. But you are proving my point that you can't make a valid argument, you can only attribute differences in opinion to ideology.
Again, to be clear: the "base" of the FP are fair-minded, clear thinking people who are not blinded by ideology. You should try it sometime!
Funny, I was going to ask you to do the same.
I'm saying that the base here isn't conservative or even "right" whatever that means now. I'm saying that we are all over the political spectrum, and what unites us (IMO) is that we question the mainstream narrative, in this case, the narrative around Covid interventions like mask mandates.
There have been plenty of articles that commentators have disagreed with, and vocally. I'm not sure TFP are pandering to anyone. This is a topic that the mainstream media have covered one way, and now TFP is covering it another way. The alternative perspective is so important!
TFP absolutely is taking a side by posting an opinion piece.
Please don’t do that FP! Less opinion more journalism please!
If it "looks" like that, it may be because TFP is not a full service media organization but instead covers a small number of interesting, important stories that are not serviced properly or carefully or AT ALL with nuance by the MSM. Since the MSM is a combination of progressive Left ideology plus Democratic Party communications, both the stories that meet the criteria above (what TFP chooses to cover) and the points of view presented (since the standard Narrative version is from the Left) will make it seem like TFP and its subscribers lean right. It's not real, it's an illusion created by the need to react to a corrupt and dysfunctional media environment.
Whatever you want to call what Fox News does from the other direction, it is obviously not doing what TFP is doing.
You are correct I cannot conclude with absolute certainty but based on the trend of articles lately that are right leaning, my opinion is they are selling out to their subscribers. It's economics 101 and a question of survival.
Agree with your explanation of TFP's role in Medialand: it's a boutique news service that covers stories ignored and twisted by MSM. That said, the commentariat does lean right. That's not an issue for me, because I'm here to see what thoughtful righties have to say about things, and most of TFP's commenters are thoughtful. But that they lean right is indisputable.
Disagree that "MSM is a combination of progressive Left ideology plus Democratic Party communications." Fox, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and Associated Press are MSM. No one would accuse them of being Democratic Party shills. MSM should not be a convenient shorthand for "unholy progressives."
I use MSM as shorthand for "all the mainstream media except Fox and WSJ", which everyone I know does also. Obv Fox is its own thing and was created in response to the whole cable news environment catering to liberals, leaving a massive amount of $ sitting on the sidewalk. WSJ is the only other major news org that is not prog Left/ DNC - the news half is relatively neutral while the opinion pages are obviously conservative.
The point is the MSM (in my usage) sets the media narratives for the country. Not Fox, not WSJ, not anyone else. The narratives are set by NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. Reinforced by the rest (LAT, other city papers, PBS, NPR, etc). And yes every single one of those outlets is a Dem shill. Much of conservative media is just writing something in reaction to the current media narratives.
AP is Left biased just like the rest (check their recent "style guide" updates) but not front and center in Narrative building. CSM is an interesting case that doesn’t really fit in anywhere, but I don’t think of them as having a large enough audience to count in this discussion. As an aside, when I took a Russian Studies class in college (back in the pre internet days) the prof asked us to subscribe to CSM to get global news coverage that you could not from regular US media. The only other option might have been BBC (legendary Left bias but, unlike NPR, still producing a product resembling news), but less easy to access in those days.
No one can stand in the light of real cost benefit anymore if it doesn’t align with their tribe. You are right there are no firm conclusions about most things Covid. Both sides doubling down into nonsense BUT the damage the left and health institutions have done to trust is egregious. That’s generational damage now that didn’t have to be that way. The fact that the Cochrane mask review was suppressed in 2020 should make any honest intellectual pause.....
Generational damage will take time to reveal itself, calling the after effects of an pandemic an institutional failure is hasty.
No, we tend to lean into facts, not right or left, if I dare speak on behalf of my fellow subscribers.
By all means, dare away. Your voice is important and one of the many I follow. But I can count the number of leftists on this board on one hand; the majority is center right, right, and far right, the latter by self-proclaimed identification.
I don't regard any of that as "bad," because most here argue their points quite well and I learn much from you. But the board is, as a whole, right-leaning, not left-leaning.
I guess that's my sense as well, if I had to opine. Like you, I just focus on the issue at hand and try to evaluate the arguments on their merit, regardless of the subject. What in my view has happened in recent years is that the progressive left has become unmoored from reality and common sense, and has become very intolerant of other views. In effect, the 50 yard line - the idea that both sides have comparably equal merit to their arguments on an issue - has been moved to the 20 yard line. So suddenly a lot of us who consider ourselves non-aligned are on the "right" of that new divide that comprises 80 of the 100 yards on the field.
There is no "left/right". Though we're forced to pretend that's the conversation. International criminal finance rigged the game and in the process destroyed capitalism. It is funding Marxist "woke" (utopian ideologue's) who are using CCP/fascist tactic's (D.E.I commissariat etc.) to disassemble national government's. The aim is the installation of a new world monarchy (Piketty/CAPITAL) based on the total capture of finance, labor, supply chains and all natural resources. The perp's, like Hitler, Stalin and Mao represent pathology not politic's. (megalomaniacal narcissism).
Today's article about Covid, masking and lockdown's is important. But the fact is that the masking/Covid crisis was successfully manipulated to weaken America unity, destroy small business, further cripple American education, conflate revolution with criminal assault and make further inroad's toward limiting American free speech and movement. The American Constitutional Republic and her citizen's are under assault. There is no "side". Only "..we the people..", the Constitution and the Bill of Right's it contain's.
At best, the question of do masks work to prevent the spread of Covid is unanswered. At worst there is a very powerful meta-analysis that suggests they don‘t. Why would we mandate a treatment when we don‘t know if it works? Especially in small children who don‘t really get sick from Covid and who clearly are suffering harmful effects of masks? The answer: ideology. Ideologues should do better.
You could also ask why haven't the agencies responsible for the mask mandates run one single RCT on their effectiveness against the spread of Covid?
30,000 employees and they all had more pressing work during the pandemic??
I think it's blatantly obvious why they haven't.
The lockdowns were also unanswered they didn’t have science on that either, just like climate change the science is shoddy, but hey let’s smack the people around the world as much as possible the ELITE can do it
It certainly is more nuanced and much more sophisticated and virtuous sounding. Just like Rochelle. It’s always appreciated when people are nuanced as they force oppression on citizenry.
Claiming "nuance" is how they squirm their way out of being exposed for lies.
No. Masks at a population level and mandates are useless. Time to move on.
Mandates might be useless. Masks are not useless.
Masks are useless against a 0.1mic viral pathogen. Always have been and always will be. For whatever reason you wish to wear a mask or mandate others wear masks, please stop claiming it has anything to do with preventing the spread of a virus that is 100 times smaller than a cigarette smoke particle.
U are going to love the science behind social distancing, too.
I am aware.
Unfortunately; I have no love for the pop-culture claptrap and politics that is purported to be “science” today. Its like everyone completely forgot all of human history and the thousands of pandemics that have come before. No, somehow, this one was different?
Its sad; actually, how quickly our entire “modern” society reverted to the same stupid masking, social distancing, exiling, quarantine and shunning protocols that every society since the early Romans to 20th Century Americans have used to try and stop the spread of viruses. With the exact same results. It never works, and every time it is attempted the claim that those who comply are “enlightened” and those who refuse to comply are “heretics”….its depressing…and the lifeless bodies of the enlightened and the heretic share the same funeral pyre…every time. 😢
Its obviously a political panacea because the truth is that viruses have over a billion years of evolution on our pathetic understanding of this biosphere, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.
Man believes he is all powerful and viruses are here to remind us that we are not. But that doesn’t win political campaigns, does it?
When did we Americans become so afraid of losing convenience that we threw away all our hard fought liberties and protections against government overreach overnight? Is that what happened to other societies as they became rich and prosperous throughout history?
I think that is a good topic for a FreePress article someday.
I disagree with this article. There is simply too much evidence they don't work and only theoretical pontificating they might.
The CDC printed a meta-analysis in May 2020 that found “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” For those who argue that’s the flu and not covid yes, while technically correct that is true, but if it can’t work for the flu how is it going to work to prevent smaller coronavirus aerosols?
Ref: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
Then there is Swiss Policy Research. They have been publishing on this from day one. They go further by specifically debunking the faux studies. You can see prior versions of reports and this group continually updates. Are Face Masks Effective?
https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
Then there is the Brownstone Institute which gathered and indexed over 170 studies and articles on the ineffectiveness and observed real world failure of Masks. Ref https://brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
Far from finally, but read Ian Miller’s book, which I have read, and is a great source and his references are easily checked.
The article you posted offers no observed and replicated outcomes - it takes observed replication of something working to conclude it actually works.
Excellent post.
First of all. Appreciate the data-driven response. Need more discussion like yours :)
> I disagree with this article. There is simply too much evidence they don't work and only theoretical pontificating they might.
I think that is inaccurate. I think a more accurate statement is that we know they don't always work based on these RCT.
I also agree we can't say they DO work without more RCTs, and that hopefully time will tell.
But I think saying 'all masks are useless' is a hyperbole at best at this point.
It’s possible if I drop a ball 10 times in a row it “might” not always hit the ground, but lacking evidence that our observation of the effects of gravity is very incorrect, the ball will hit the ground all 10 times. It’s not hyperbole to say if you drop a normal ball it’ll hit the ground. It’s an observation. It’s not hyperbole to say masks don’t work to slow the spread, it’s an observation.
Even N95 masks don’t filter to the tiny size of a viral coronavirus aerosol. It’s physics. It doesn’t matter if it’s cloth, N95, tissue, surgical. None of them have observable real world benefit. Why differentiate that which isn’t that different?
At best the N95 stops enough if the larger particles to buy a person 15 minutes until an infectious dose - if it’s properly fitted on a hairless face. Possibly. But until it’s shown to actually accomplish that in replication it’s more accurate to observe that the masks people actually wear don’t work.
I’ve actually seen where people tested and proved gas masks work in combination with a hazmat suit. Tiny studies but replicated outcomes. But common language usage doesn’t include gas masks in the term “make” when discussing coronavirus. It’s much easier to have a debate in plain language while the semantics arguments appear meant to do little more than distract from the actual substantive debate.
Detailing the mask would make sense if there was a large difference in observed outcomes, but there isn’t. Nuance is different than semantics games, and lacking a clear reason to differentiate types of masks, demanding descriptors of masks in this discussion is semantics not nuance.
My kids school (private) delighted me as a data person that they installed a non ozone air purifier in every classroom by August 2020 - when they opened maskless in person. Nobody died. Infection rates weren’t above community spread. 1,250 loved students got to keep learning in person while maintaining their mental health, academic excellence, and pursuit of knowledge.
Why? Air filtration and ventilation actually work. Rather well. No arguing semantics or searching for minuscule benefits that are lost completely in real world implementation. All this arguing over nit picking incalculably tiny theoretical yet not observed potential benefits of masks has done little more than distract everyone from the reality it’s a silly conversation to have when any potential benefit is so tiny as to be meaningless in practice. Much less harmful mitigation, that isn’t dehumanizing, has been known to work from the start. There is a reason high risk medical exam and treatment rooms have long had negative ventilation - it works!!! Why would we keep wasting resources to find some tiny benefit that isn’t observable in practice when all this money could have gone towards technology that demonstrably actually works in real life?
Nati, what you're really saying is that, despite many studies, of which NONE show signficant benefits for masks, "anything is possible". Yes, that's true, but you don't mandate behavior based on what might be true but for which there is no proof whatsoever. That's what the government did.
You mentioned it in your reply, "nuanced." There was no nuance when we heard over and over again from political leaders and health officials that we MUST wear masks, #science. Such arguments have no nuance. FYI, I wore masks a lot, and always complied with mandates.
Did policy had very shitty communication strategy. Totally agree. Just because they weren't nuanced doesn't mean TheFP shouldn't be.
On this subject they should not, because there's no nuance. The evidence is overwhelmingly against mask mandates, and our federal health agencies made damaging recommendations based on fraudulent science. They have crippled the health and learning of a whole generation of children with no justification and are entirely unrepentant even when their "science" is exposed as fraudulent.
That's not the time for "nuance".
Asking Nati a valid question won't get you an answer. It won't get you an answer at all.
In my post above, I asked him a valid question and all I got was the sound of crickets. I find this typical of the left. you pin them down and ask for a response, they either don't answer or they curse you for asking.
I disagree Nati. The FP is only reporting what the Cochrane study said. RCT's are the only way to determine efficacy. It is also pointing out the lack of "science" at the CDC even after they have been proven wrong on issues such as natural immunity and masking.
The Substack article you reference makes the commonsense observation that our knowledge continues to evolve on the subject. But in making her case, the author cites a study as proof and provides a link. Here's what her own source of support says: "Conclusions: The study indicates that N95 filtering facepiece respirators may not achieve the expected protection level against bacteria and viruses. "
You left this out "When a virus is less contagious, an effect is harder to detect. Many of the RCTs evaluated influenza, which is far less contagious than COVID-19. This means that if we combine them, the impact of masks may be underestimated."
Ms. Jetelina is a consultant to CDC. She's an academic who depends on government funding for her work. So, Nati (we've seen your trolling here before), you gonna trust her "voice"? Think she'd bite the hand that feeds her?
> Ms. Jetelina is a consultant to CDC. She's an academic who depends on government funding for her work.
That's fair. That said, I would like to see counterpoints to the confounding variables she identified though.
Also, trolling :P
She's just presenting facts and leaving the reader to form an opinion, unlike this article reposted on TFP.
This IS an opinion piece. It just cites the basis for the opinions. What a novel approach.
Yes it is, by posting it my opinion is that TFP is taking a side.
So what?
I disagree.
The simple FACT is that masks DID NOT reduce mortality. Period. Sweden had a lower death rate than most of Europe and all but about five States in the US.
This was all commonly accepted as obvious everywhere as late as February 2020.
The whole thing was a colossal and stupid but planned mistake.
When it became clear that vaccines didn’t prevent transmission, and the truth could not be hidden, there was a quick pivot to “but they prevent serious illness”.
Clinging to mask efficacy a lot harder, because ordinary experience can’t prove they didn’t work. Funny how that works. When people can see BS with their own eyes, it gets dropped a lot faster.
I live in Manhattan. The virtue signaling, mask-shaming/scolding was horrendous. ie if I was running outside in Central Park at 6am without a mask completely covering my face I would get scolded, and people would veer far away from me. I have friends who even admitted they mask up because they want to show solidarity and they “care”. Many still do.
People were scared. For themselves. For their elderly parents. For their babies. I can understand the 'aim for ~zero chance' approach even if I don't always agree with it.
I could see it in the beginning. We were all scared. But as more info became available we should have evolved our policy. Instead it became politicized and those invested in early policy errors didn’t want to admit defeat so it became the law of the land. And to question “The Science” meant you were a fascist.
"Scared" is not the word you want there. The word you want is "panicked". Nothing less describes what was going on. A state of panic is just about the worst condition in which to formulate public health policy. There is no excuse for that.
Lots of people were dying. Yes they were scared and panicked.
You should be grateful that emergency medical first-responders (or well-trained soldiers in combat) resolutely defy the natural impulse to panic when "lots of people are dying" ---just those occasions when the imperative is to keep "lots more people from dying _NEEDLESSLY_"
(Capitalized to help emphasize the point you're so challenged to grasp.)
I'm very thankful for that.
Scared because a propaganda network lied and spread fear on behalf of political entities that wanted power and control over a terrified populace. The whole thing was horrific.
Scared for their babies? We knew from day one that COVID was not a threat to babies. Your comment is just more evidence that our health care leaders utterly failed to communicate real science or show genuine leadership.
I understand that. And I fully agree that mitigating all risk is impossible. But at the time early on when hospitals deleting bed counts, I think it made sense.
Forcing people in 'optional environments' is a different story.
NO!
My feeling was why worry about somebody else who wasn’t masked up, if you were why would you worry about anybody else. The world change a long time ago, those people still trapped in that mindset are being gaslighted by the Dems and the United Nations to pay for all and sundry, while not giving a rats ass about the people here in America. One last ? When do the F16’s leave for the Ukraine?
“... why worry about somebody else who wasn’t masked up, ...” Because the masks work so much better when we’re BOTH wearing masks. It’s exponential, not linear. Think SYNERGY...
I have the same experience. And people still mask and attach a lot more meaning to it than simple means of hygiene. It is a party card you display to like minded. I was yelled in the street by a woman on another side: “Mack up” and in Central Park walking on a path with nobody in vicinity. And many continue wearing masks with pride just as they brag how many boosters they got. Intolerance and fanaticism spread quicker than COVID, and I see no end to this virus in sight.
I think that same person yelled at me!
When was this. 2020? Different time. Wouldn’t happen now. Can’t say the right answer now should have/could have been known in 2020.
You are spot on. Last fall, I went on a trip with my siblings, all of whom are progressives. They sporadically, without apparent reason, wore masks. I abstained. After returning from a small gathering which the rest of us did not attend, one brother proudly announced that a new acquaintance praised him for wearing a mask because it showed he cared about other people. My other siblings/in-law nodded while shooting sideways glances at my always uncovered face.
So yes, wearing masks is yet another way to virtue-signal while doing absolutely nothing.
Yep, very true. Virtue signaling is wide spread in our lives. Yesterday my husband and I spotted a couple of middle aged white women walking in Central Park both wearing nice knitted scarves with slogans “protect Black Lives” or something to that effect. They looked very content like they have fulfilled their mission. Maybe volunteering to work with black teenagers or at a soup kitchen would help more.
The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.” Almost instantly the issue took on an inordinate significance such that covering one’s face became an eccentric phylactery henceforth adopted en masse by proselytizers of The Science™. It wasn’t much later that one could empirically verify that masks had evolved from a basic, precautionary mitigation strategy with very questionable efficacy to a badge of political allegiance and moral superiority that has proved stubbornly in vogue.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-fetishizing-of-masks
Didn't Trump get Covid? and many the people at his gatherings get Covid? and Dear Boris, PM of Britian, get Covid? But maybe that had nothing to so with not wearing masks.
Every mask wearer I know has had covid. Everyone is eventually going to get covid, if they haven't gotten it already. It is one of those viruses that humanity is just going to have to adjust to. Thank you Chinese lab bunglers. Can we please have international agreements outlawing gain-of-function research? It's evidently like nuclear weapons. There need to be some controls.
Spot on. It’s a holy right that includes a weird look of pious devotion when you now encounter an N-95 wearer in the Whole Foods aisle.
"holy rite", and you're right. That's what it is.
The N-95 masks are almost universally worn incorrectly.
Sadly, churches who insisted on closing for months and then insisted on everyone wearing masks for another year as well as sitting in individual pews , lost many members they could not afford to lose and many will never regain them. As a retired minister of a very liberal denomination, i saw firsthand the disaster that was Covid - some of my friends had to leave the ministry all together since there was not enough money to pay them. For some this may be a good thing but it proved too me that even a religion that has been around for 2000 years cannot compete with the new guys on the block. Sadly, fear can inspire their adherents much more than ours.
I saw the same thing in my community. In addition, it was a disaster in terms of divisiveness which was heartbreaking.
Fortunately, we decided early on to re-open as quickly as possible while still trying to keep people "safe." Sadly, we picked up many folks from other churches who stayed closed and "online" for as long as possible. "Online worship" (while extremely helpful for people like my 90 year old father) is a terrible substitute for corporate worship and fellowship.
On the bright side, it does seem like church attendance is picking up again in our community, especially among younger people. I think the natural human desire for community and transcendence has been so starved since 2020 that more and more people are considering "religion."
Grace and peace to you Dorothy.
There is bound to be a gigantic swing back to conservative views about government as a result of the catastrophe of the last couple of years but in fact that swing will be due to an even more vast swing to conservative views about culture, which is where religion lives and breathes
Just this morning saw this comment elsewhere, talking about that very religion or more accurately, cult of the American left. Which, while always disgusting and horrific (read the history of the Democratic Party from Day 1 to right now and ask yourself how you could ever have anything to do with them at all), has become entirely deranged:
"...it is closer to a religious failure.... like a millenialist shouting the world is gonna end on xy day of year z and they crowded all around the shouter way out in some corn field in Iowa........ and then xy day of year z came and went and all they got for their efforts was a bunch of trampled corn stalks and some buck shot thrown at them by the farmer
their gospel source nbc abc cbs nytimes cnn msnbc washpost TOLD THEM THE TRUTH and of course
THEY MUST OBEY THE HOLY GOSPEL OR BE COUNTED AMONG THE UNCLEAN
But now their own gospel source... which they knew was purely deceitful and speaks with forked tongue of government since the days of WMD at the least.... now their own gospel source is forcing them to face the reality that all along, the Unclean have been correct about virtually every single facet of the entire episode.... masks... lockdowns... source of the plague.... natural immunity...
It is, certainly, a chance for them to get Woke about what the media has done to them.
And not only on the subject of that 99.98% thing they got so wound up about that they threw away as many freedoms and liberties as they could get their hands on. "
Climate hysteria and gender dysphoria enabling are no different. This will someday be known as the age of pseudo science masquerading as "The Science" in order to steer the masses toward the desired fire of the elitist class.
Brilliant post Han thank you!
Very well put. First it was "wash your hands every 15 minutes" because, you know, viruses are spread like bacteria through touching things. Then it was wear cloth over your nose and mouth, because, you know, viruses travel in huge droplets infected people spit at you. At least they stayed away from swinging dead cats over our head for protection from the plague.
I just discovered this weekend some businesses still require their employees to wear them. Unbelievable.
What's astonishing about all this to me is that it is entrenched the most strongly among educated people, who should have been taught somewhere in their educations how to reject this sort of fallacious and obviously flawed thinking. But they were manifestly in reality taught conformity to Designated Experts. If you put a lab coat on someone, and build them up in the media, they could be used to convince such people of anything.
Couldn't agree more. Was in high school when covid started and I am now in university. The masks I see are easy identifiers of who is a hard core lefty.
I called it a talisman. Same thing but yes, they were treated like a talisman. A lucky rabbits foot to ward off 'evil spirits'
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
I believe for many it also became a sort of sexual fetish.
Like the great Wojo said on the TV cop show Barney Miller, "If it's in the Sears catalog, somebody somewhere has slept with it."
And righties have the red ball cap.
We knew this too. The Boston Globe and the WSJ had article that came out today and yesterday respectively about the virus coming from a lab. Globe article is titled -
“Lab leak most likely caused pandemic, Energy Department says”
Yet it won’t allow it’s readers to comment on the story. Hilarious. Are we still protecting China?
All because we had to make Trump look bad and get him out of office.
It really took us 3 years to find out Covid came from a lab? THREE years? That is beyond pathetic.
It was obvious two years ago.
What do you mean "took us 3 years"? I've known (to the extent historical retrospective knowledge is possible) that it came from the WIV for years. You probably did to. So unless you're putting yourself forward as a representative of the American "mainstream" media, I don't think "us" is the appropriate pronoun there.
I knew very quickly.
Yip its beyond pathetic in fact I think it was treason, however it was politically correct it got rid of the Republicans and DJT and gave us a rabid party of losers to run our country I hope we have all learned a good lesson.
Not all of us. Some of us knew from the very beginning. Wet market??? How f'ing insulting!
Occam's razor would suggest that an accidental lab leak is the best explanation. I said this from the outset, and I haven't changed my mind.
Same here. I was in healthcare (administrative, not clinical) for 30 years and was responsible for overseeing many disaster situations, including our hospital being the epicenter for the 2003 West Nile Virus epidemic. The CDC camped out in our parking lot for almost two months.
I was advising family that the precautions were over the top and that we were being misled. I didn't even get into the lab leak, which was obviously going to be a proven as the source, but concentrated of mask efficacy, and the need to keep their kids in school. I was a supporter on the elective use of the 'vaccine' until the results started to come in, when I advised that it only be used for 60+ years of age, or significant comorbidities. I'm not sure I'd even advise for those patients anymore.
My SIL, a nurse, drank all of the Kool-Aid, and it got to the point where we couldn't even talk anymore. She convinced the entire family to follow religiously, all of the CDC recommendations, and I quit discussing the topic with family.
I still don't bring up the topic, even though I've been vindicated.
Most people are not interested in an indifferent sort of truth. They are interested in social belonging. What they call "beliefs" are ritualistic recitations, not conclusions based on their own assessment of information from competing sources.
They genuinely do not understand that people with opposing views are not necessarily also reciting, to "belong" to another side. (Many ARE doing that.)
So the facts are not the issue to them. It is that you took the "other" side. They don't understand that there is any other way of looking at it, and they are not aware they are doing it. It is like paranoia. If you show a paranoid person evidence that their delusions are factually incorrect, they merely see this as evidence that you are one of their persecutors.
Great summary of where we are as a culture now.
For all those who dismiss the idea that humans 'need' to believe in something, to belong somewhere (aka religion), the COVID experience has proven this in spades.
If have to understand the ideology of the left and everything drilled down from them. There is not much different from them and their counterparts in the CCP. Power and control is everything!
Note that liberals who pushed mandates, lockdowns and masking will never apologize and never change. Why? Because we never made them pay a price for it. Fear is a very potent motivator.
A person who has converted to a cult cannot be reasoned with in the normal ways we use in society.
Sounds very similar to someone I know who's daughter works in one of Fauci's labs. Family get-togethers have become strained affairs with very few topics that can be safely discussed. They have another problem as well, in that the daughter's husband is a non-gluten vegan who scolds anyone should their butter knife contaminate the butter by touching a piece of bread. Adds another dimension to the madness.
When I met my wife she lived with a gluten free guy and his girlfriend.
They religiously believed no amount of cleaning or sanitizing could get gluten 'contamination' off of knives, dishes, utensils and counters.
The girlfriend, who wasn't even gluten intolerant, was the enforcer of the rules. She appeared into the kitchen whenever my wife was cooking to make sure she was fully 'compliant'.
So my wife started having all her meals at my place and we quickly fell in love and she moved in with me.
I guess I should be grateful for the gluten police :)
Cool story. An MD told me once that the percentage of the population that is testably gluten intolerant is very small. The percentage who think or at least say they are is orders of magnitude larger.
It’s pointless they still don’t get it!
And no doubt they all know you've been vindicated, but will never admit it.
Let's be real about this. Remember in 2020 when a group of geneticists issued an open letter proclaiming that the Covid-19 virus could not have been genetically engineered? But what they conspicuously left out was "genetically altered" or "gain of function." I'm now thinking that this was a deliberate and knowing lie in the service of China. They all need to be rounded up and forced to talk. All the better if we find Fauci was behind it.
It was, and there have been several articles exposing the campaign that was launched to shut those folks down, spearheaded by Fauci, Collins and the WHO.
I'm thinking that while CHINA accidently leaked the virus (and I'm even beginning to think that it wasn't an accident) most of the malfeasance was on the part of US agencies, both in the development of this virus, and the massive coverup that followed.
It's good to see that the NYT and WaPo are at least beginning to retract some of their former positions. Maybe they can even devote some time to exposing the entire scope of the crime, from funding research to covering up the outcomes of their disaster.
EDIT: I should clarify, when I say I'm beginning to think that the release wasn't an accident, I'm not thinking it was an act of war, but a pharma driven act to release a virus that they had already been working on a 'vaccine' for. Consistent with the Project Veritas video.
The NY Times has been lying since it published Walter Duranty's paean to Stalin.
Exactly there is nothing good about NYT or the Wapo.
one of the greatest events for the country would be for those outlets to go out of business entirely.
I would love a glance at Wallensky’s and Fauci’s bank accounts from three years ago vs today
They should be rounded up every single one of them and shlepped off to Rikers in fact Dr Fauci should be horsewhipped all the way there!
You could argue that Fauci has as much blood on his hands as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.
Am I correct in assuming that these relatives are die-hard COVID jabs and that they'd shank you for saying anything negative about the shots?
I, too, have encountered that memory hole. It is remarkable.
Same. My mother did this to me, and she’s a geneticist who specialized in retroviruses and coronaviruses in particular. She splices genes, she builds the software the computers use for the data models. And she was so nasty and condescending to me when I suggested the circumstantial evidence alone pretty strongly indicated a lab leak. Since then, it just isn’t talked about.
There is an apparent epidemic of reliance on appeal to authority fallacy in the sciences. Anyone with any amount of education in the field should have known the difference between experimental and proven.
My explanation is that the egos of those in the sciences was exposed (another white savior fallacy). They wanted to believe they could save the world. Clearly, many in the field were given enough information to buy into that. Don't blame your family, blame those that intentionally misled your family.
Excellent comment. Doctors are the worst at having their decisions questioned. I spent 30 years working with them, and their egos are quite fragile for many, but certainly not all.
Also an appeal to the ad populi fallacy. Climate "science" is full of this.
A lot of people in science, especially the social sciences, have become intoxicated by science's role as one of the only remaining "truth telling" institutions. This leads them to believe that things are true because "Science says" which inevitably leads them to trying to game what science says, in the cult like hope that by forcing the truth telling institution to repeat what they want to be true, they will manifest it as actually being true. It's not fundamentally different than any other form of sympathetic magic.
Good story, Rabid, and all too familiar. Don't ever expect any apologies or mea culpas from your relatives. If they are like some people in my circle, their fragile egos could not handle being so wrong about something so important. So they will deny it, more or less forever. Quite sad, really.
I am an RN and I always felt it was an intentional lab leak.
I'm willing to go with bungling. It's hard to believe they would deliberately leak it in their own country, especially given that it isn't the country whos Pharma benefited. But the opportunism was certainly seized, wasn't it? Never let a good disaster go to waste.
It's possible. Maybe I'm a skeptic but I wouldn't put anything past the CCP government. Maybe they are interested in developing antiviral drugs? Bio warfare?
Remember the "bat lady"? That doctor who ran their Wuhan Virology lab? She's disappeared, hasn't she? That's not a sign that she was doing what they wanted her to do. That's what they do to screw-ups - like some of those corporate executives that screwed up and caused a big ruckus with children dying from eating toothpaste contaminated with ethylene glycol, or the milk formula business. They took those guys out and summarily shot them.
On the other hand, they did disappear that opthamologist who first reported that there was a new virus going around. So I guess there is some mixed evidence here.
Cannot trust them unfortunately.
of course it was created and enhanced in the lab...of course it was released on purpose...and of course it was an act of war...stop looking at 21st century warfare thru the lens of 20th century warfare
Yeah Rabid I know exactly what you talking about. It’s like shtum now, before it was OMG you haven’t been vaccinated don’t come near me, I can tell you I have taken their advice I give them a wide berth and I’m not even missing them!
Yeah, vax shaming....maybe the most disgusting aspect of the whole scam.
Has anybody received an apology for this? I'm doing a poll.
We know people who lost their jobs over it - two fireman, as a matter of fact. More than just shaming.
Because, unlike Elizabeth's mother, our liberal friends didn't even have scientific backgrounds. They simply "believed." And, in the case of Elizabeth's condescending mom, nobody said they were splicing genes. They were simply doing gain of function work. And they were either very careless or deliberately venal.
I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the rest of the country has moved on. There are no mask mandates at any level of government on any side of the aisle anywhere in America. There are no mask mandates in most private businesses, public and private schools, nor in all transportation.
LCT's Covid position, like the CDC's, isn’t based on health concerns, rather it’s based on their politics and their need to display their ultra liberal bona fides publicly and loudly. This is why they are among the very last employers of any kind or sort that have these draconian demands still in place.
The face mask is the red MAGA hat for left wing nut jobs.
I was an extra on a very popular HBO series recently and it was the same. We had to wear masks the entire day, every day, any time the cameras weren’t rolling. Oh, except for the principle actors. They never wore masks on set, ever. Apparently masks don’t matter if you’re famous.
I hear you. It's everywhere in the arts. I had a similar experience as an extra on the network show. We spent three days on a New Jersey soundstage, everybody masked except the stars.
I was laughing looking at the Camelot press from the other day; 30 actors, +15 more creatives and administrative people from Lincoln Center, none of them masked. On the other half of the same room 25 photographers and reporters all of the masked.
It's virtue signaling, and it's disgusting.
I was at the NYC ballet last week. Masks not required but "strongly encouraged."
Few wore them. But those who did, did so virtuously.
Since this is all about virtue signaling and not health, the arts venues all have different rules for the audience and for backstage workers. Across the city even as audience mandates were lifted, people working backstage continue to mask and test. Many still do.
Yeah you said you were going did you enjoy the ballet?
Appears more like marking and distinguishing the privileged from the non-privileged. I remember seeing photos of the Met Gala. The beautiful people were unmasked. The plebes were masked.
IOW they are like dogs marking their territory? I think we should rename it submission signaling.
Interesting thought.
And that is what the modern world is becoming in a nutshell. They want everyone living in "15 minute cities" that they (hope they) won't live in themselves. They want nobody flying but them in their private jets. They don't want anyone living in the greenbelts so they can pretend they are Rousseau in the state of nature when they happen to visit there - if they ever do. It's serfdom all over again. The Enclosure Acts of Britain in every sphere of activity. Each controlled by a relatively small number of people for their own benefit and that of their reciprocal friends.
Your story is a great example of the elitism behind so much of the Left’s agenda. This is more about class than anything.
Natch'.
They are protecting the famous people from you. The analogy is with surgeons - they are the patients.
You work in the arts in NYC. Progressivism is their religion. They are all zealots and lunatics. I saw them masked yesterday - walking around outside on a nice sunny afternoon.
As an RN, it always amused me when I would see people with masks on while walking outside or while driving ALONE in their cars. Nuts.
Theresa,
how about this one:
women who use the personal pronoun "their" when referring to _one_ female individual or several individuals, _all_ of whom are _female_?
_That_ is herd-mentality on stilts.
"First they came for our traditional pronoun usage,..."
-------------------------------
P.S. I loved your profile-comment, "I don't know where I belong politically...".
You speak for millions of people in that.
Smack dab in the middle - where you are needed.
Sad
That speaks volumes to the politics of your benefactors.
And you are willing to work under these circumstances because....? You are clearly a gifted musician of a caliber to be employable elsewhere.
Most of the work that pays real wages in the city for musicians is under union contracts. The orchestra at Lincoln Center theater will be under a Union
contract. Local 802, the musicians union, might as well be a dog on its back, belly up. If you're playing Broadway shows, there is no elsewhere.
Having said that, it's worth noticing that everyone else at Lincoln Center, that's the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, the ballet, not to mention Carnegie Hall, all of them have ceased mask mandates, & ceased vaccination checks etc.
This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk.
"This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk."
having to work in an environment like that would be intolerable to me. you must have to lie constantly, about everything. how humiliating!
It has been terribly depressing to see the arts fall into the hysteria and groupthink so utterly. I nearly never to go arts and cultural events anymore, because I don’t want to feel like I’m attending a progressive church service. The shows are now all virtue signaling sermons anyway. I went to a play in Atlanta in late 2022, and that company was STILL enforcing masks for audience members. There were 6 people in the audience, and I only stayed because I had a friend in the show, otherwise I would have walked away. I refuse to reward lunacy any longer.
Yep. I’m not going back to the Kennedy Center or any other washington theater or movie theater that demanded masks. I’m not even bothering to check what they are doing now.
Good for you! The more people resist, the more the cost will be placed on the backs of these lunatics. When have they ever put up their own money for anything?
The left is determined to suck the joy out of the arts. They need to apologize for the mere existence of classical music, so this draping of players on a lit stage is a great optic for publicly demonstrating, as you say, their liberal bona fides. I’m sorry you practiced your cello every day since you were three for this BS.
I could never work for this employer, even if my dream job. If that isn’t total control over you, nothing is.
You have to understand that not everybody can do that. It would be nice if circumstance allowed people to afford that. The single moms may be struggling to make ends meet. That said you sometime have to do what you need to do to survive. You don’t have to like it if you have to eat.
" You don’t have to like it if you have to eat."
maybe in some charles dickens novel, but not in 2023 america with record low unemployment. there are huge numbers of jobs out there, no need to trade in your soul
Re: Peter Sachon's
(quote)
"I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated."
(end quote)
Two key factors "connect" the facts related here: "lawyers advice on liability" and "money"-- or, rather, one thing: "money".
You're going to wear the silly mask because you need your work and its income. The audience doesn't have to wear the silly masks because the box-office (theatre management) knows that, if they tried to require them, there'd be too many empty seats.
I feel for your plight. I've recently re-read Edward Dusenberre's* memoir, "Beethoven for a Later Age" (2016)
* (first violinist, Takács Quartet.)
This is why I think it’s key for somebody to put together whatever research there is on adverse health effects of masks. That would give the poor orchestra and the “help” in restaurants etc. some leverage. I’m really glad that this piece brings that up a few times, but details would help: “As the Cochrane reviewers disapprovingly note, few of the clinical trials of masks even bothered to collect data on the harmful effects on subjects”
I think the orchestra just needs to say "no thank you". Then hand these jokers their instruments and then take their seat in the audience.
Sadly the way to stop this nonsense is to not buy tickets.
I cannot help wondering if there are other angles of attack--things which could offer much better leverage in altering these deplorable circumstances--that haven't been thought of, investigated. And, honestly, I don't know what they are.
A better understanding of the effective "pressure points" could help to learn more about how to get effective change sooner than simply leaving such a destructive set of circumstances to degenerate until a change becomes impossible to resist. I think Management are making decisions based on cost-benefit analyses. Their advisors are telling them that the "safe course" is to do what everyone else is doing and keep mask-use in the rules of user, client, access. Restaurants are much less inclined to do this because there is often v. significant competition driving them to keep the customer-base happy. But a symphony orchestra or art gallery or large museum isn't so sensitive to the people visiting--small ticket holders.
They _are_ however, very concerned to keep on the good side of their wealthy donors. How may that lever be approached? If these wealthy donors could be made to think seriously about the genuine hardships which these rules imply for so many people whose livelihoods depend on their submitting to utterly useless mask-requirements, maybe their consciences could be pricked enough to get them to start raising this issue in the formal and informal meetings, telephone calls, video chats, Zoom meetings.
How can that be approached? It seems reasonable to suppose that there are people well enough acquainted with this social arena to know where the possibilities are for a campaign to get the wealthy donor class to develop a better moral awareness of what they're subsidizing.
I'm about as far from that social scene as one can get.
Any ideas from the readers here?
I'm so sorry. And I can well imagine it's hard to turn down an opportunity to play in something like that, or that it could even be a career-limiting decision. I had to go to an retinal specialist recently that involved several visits. This specialist runs a big office with about three patients in play at any given time. There are maybe seven or eight staff assisting in all this. I was forced to wear a mask or not be admitted. When I complained that my N95 mask was steaming up my glasses that they required me to wear for one part of the eye exam, an assistant literally taped it to my face. It was very hard to breath through. At one point the double masked assistant was having trouble with hers and I commented that it must be difficult to wear that eight hours a day. She had a mini-explosion of expressed frustration with it, saying sometimes she felt like she was going to pass out because it would get half saturated with moisture. But she reined it in quickly and back to business. Doesn't want to lose her job, I expect.
Thanks for sharing your story, Peter. Yes, funny how New Yorkers--who, in general, arrogantly presume that they are light years ahead of the rest of us in terms of taste and sophistication--were such suckers for the COVID party line. And like most Leftists, not too good at admitting that they were wrong. Played by the authorities like the rubes they assume the rest of the country to be.
Little by little the whole narrative is falling a part...natural immunity, origins of the virus, masks, and soon to be the injectable products.
But Andre the Democrats have got 20 months to go till 2024 what are they going to deliver next to keep the power?
Hi Skinny, I’m am not a Us citizen and I do not live in the US. At least in my perspective this has been much more a control issue, it goes way beyond the democrats/republican divide.
systemic racism
As a healthcare provider myself, who has been out since mid 2021 after having my first child, and able to follow different sources of thought in the medical world- it has made me question everything I’ve ever learned and everything we do in medicine. Shockingly though, my colleagues who are still in the hospitals don’t get time to do their own research and believe everything that is fed to them- which comes from these agencies. I started to think I was crazy for so long and now it’s so nice to see I was not... It has really amazed me how very intelligent people who can be so duped.
I hear you about starting to question everything, I’m still working in healthcare and have to bite my tongue almost every shift when supposedly highly credentialed coworkers make extremely ignorant statements when it comes to COVID, masking and the vaccines.
And imagine what medicine and doctors will be like in 10-20 years after learning more in med school about DEI than anatomy
And this is the scariest comment on the entire thread
And think about it long and hard before surgery. Will the DEI SURGEON know the right foot from the left foot?
😂😂😂
I can't think of an industry that took a bigger hit to its reputation during this pandemic than medicine. It's a damn shame. I was a dutiful patient for the most part, but today I tend to regard anything a doctor says as an advisory.
It’s not just COVID…I don’t know if I’m on the right track or not, but our FOOD and what’s deemed healthy or not, what really contributes to heart disease (cholesterol?) and how to lower it? I feel like I was fed a line regarding my cholesterol #’s recently and it makes me want to find a new Dr.
You must find a new Dr it’s enough of the gaslighting we have to stand up to this madness!
Lots of intelligent people in Germany were duped starting a century ago. Some managed to escape the dogma being foisted, but history - when it's not being re-written - tells us what came of that time. Much has changed since then in what we know and what we can do with the knowledge gained while at the same time human nature's changed not one tiny bit.
We're being played with once more.
How can they be duped? I work in Biotech and saw this for what it was within a few months.
I used to think that because I listened to NPR on my 12 minute commute I was among the informed. Now, of course that makes me feel sheepish! But there are a ton of people who live in that space.
I quit listening to NPR a long time ago. How do you get truthful facts when they are funded by the government ?
Well, you don't. All things re-considered, right?
Don't look at the medical staff, examine the Administrators who are trying to cover their legal asses by forcing staff to mask up!
I've been to quite a few doctors' offices in my work capacity and have found that not ALL offices adhere to the maskification. In fact, while working in a waiting room before patience arrived, the office manager stormed out of her office and demanded that I HAD to wear a mask! I looked around the room and stated that it was completely empty, but she said wear it or get out! I complied, but didn't cover my nose.
It's about looking at the whole system. We just augered in and ignored the nuances. Masks do work....but not the way we wore them.
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
" It has really amazed me how very intelligent people who can be so duped"
They're the most vulnerable, knowing they're smart, they are less likely to question themselves
All I will say is this
The same fact-free psychopaths who continue to insist that masks do something, that they are needed, that lament the lack of mandates, that ignore inconvenient truths are operating from THE SAME playbook and are often the same people who are currently professing climate-weather-doom and are demanding vast changes in modern life - NOT OPTIONAL - to 'save the world'
That these lunatics currently inhabit positions such as Energy Minister of Germany, CDC Director of the USA, Chief if the IEA, UN Secretary General, and various heads of countless agencies all over the world only fills me with dread
The backlash cannot come swiftly enough
The issue is that masks DO work. Just not the way we wore them. They became a talisman instead.
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
I'd rather get covid 100 times then ever wear one of those despotic face coverings ever again. I do not care if they work or not.
I mean, I'd wear one if the science supported it and I had risk factors. But I'd wear it properly and I'll continue to try to educate people on how masks work so that people will actually get a benefit that is more than a dopamine hit.
We are in the minority soon!
During WW II, the US Navy issued "Shark Repellent" to its aviators flying in the Pacific theater even though the Navy brass knew that the repellent was actually worthless. It was issued to calm the fears of aviators shot down and floating in the water. To give our current CDC leadership some credit, perhaps they thought that the mask mandates would calm the public's fears and prevent mass hysteria. Of course, this would have had the opposite effect as people realized that the experts who demanded that we "follow the science" were lying to us all along. One wonders what else they are lying to us about "out of an abundance of caution"? Global warming?
It was good “broken windows” policy as they started the hysteria in the first place.
Placebo was the word I was looking for.
That response is understandible, but the issue with masks is that, instead of shark repellent doing nothing, what if it actually baited the sharks in? That's what being comfortable did with masks. Vulnerable people believed it worked, ran errands all over town, and actually increased their risk of death.
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
Omg, that anti-shark Bat Spray from Batman was a real military thing??
YES!
As I sit here reading this article working night shift as a RN in an Emergency Room, I am once again reminded that for most of the COVID pandemic, how we have responded to it has been devoid of strong scientific backing. I despise wearing a mask and it’s frustrating to have to keep wearing them for 12 hour shifts because the CDC and most healthcare systems believe in the magical thinking that they actually do anything. Underneath the current presidential administration, I have little hope that masks will go away in healthcare.
I recently had an appointment with my endocrinologist. Checked their website and emails to see if they were requiring masks in the office... nothing. When I arrived, I saw a sign at the door saying that masks were required. I immediately turned around and called to cancel my appointment. If a healthcare professional can't learn something so basic, I don't trust their ability to provide good care.
In California it is still mandated at every “medical” facility. Which means everything from eye exams to old folks homes still require them.
And, unfortunately, California has no shortage of mindless drones ready to enforce these worthless rules on anyone that might dare not comply.
Where I live in SE Wisconsin, it's the same except for dentist's offices. Even in settings that are barely or very marginally "medical" like optometrists. It's not any kind of state or local policy, or even CDC policy, it's federal (i.e. Biden) policy. Federal funding for these places has been made contingent on having a mask requirement. I'm sure in Cali the state gov't plays a role, but here in WI we ended mask mandates almost 2 years ago and this is still going on.
Not only that... if a medical provider doesn’t agree and speaks up and it’s not in California’s definition of science- that person can lose their license.. this is a new law that just went through
The madness is mind boggling. After a bad calcium test I, was advised to take an echo/stress test on a treadmill - wearing a MASK! Utter insanity, especially with even the fabulously corrupt WHO advising against wearing a mask when exercising.
I had physical therapy last fall including aqua therapy - and I had to wear a mask even while in the pool. Couldn't blame the PTs, they weren't making the policy. Utterly ridiculous. I have some health providers that to this day, I have no idea what they look like. If I were to run into them out in public I would never recognize them.
I don't believe that the CDC and these healthcare systems still believe in the magical thinking. I believe that they're too hubristic to admit they were wrong and how wrong they were, because they view such an admission as a threat to their prestige and power. The people making the decisions to continue to force masking are more bureaucrats than they are scientists or doctors.
When you are playing God there is no reason to doubt yourself.
It's abusive. Wearing those things for hours on end is torture. And it's always been clear that the rich don't have to wear them.
I agree. I've been working from home since March 2020. That and the fact that I live in Florida meant that I had to deal with masking relatively little compared to many. I patronized only restaurants that didn't require it and avoided places that did. That said, I always felt sorry for people, such as fast food workers and other low-paid, entry-level workers, who were required to wear those masks for long periods of time for a job that doesn't even pay well. Many lacked the qualifications to leave and so had to stay and put up with the requirement if they wanted to work.
Only time I ever wore a mask was on a plane when forced. I knew they did nothing. I'm in medicine as are all of my family. I refused to go along with the political theatre of masking. Fauci was more than an imbecile. His refusal to acknowledge early stage interventions like antibiotics, HCQ, and IV treatments, etc. cost thousands of lives. My father in-law is a nursing home directors and lost very few patients during the height of the most threatening outbreak early on while others died in droves. The difference was early intervention. No other disease state on this planet calls for people to do nothing until they are so sick they need to be hospitalized. Our public health apparatus completely failed our citizens and the worst part is they fail to acknowledge it even now. It is your responsibility to do you homework because those who are supposed to save you will not. There is no courage among most of the medical establishment or our political leaders. You are on your own to make sure you have a physician with courage that does his/her own research and doesn't bow to the NIH and CDC.
"No other disease state on this planet calls for people to do nothing until they are so sick they need to be hospitalized." This has always been one of the most remarkable failures of the US response. I’ve never been able to understand it. WSJ had an article a while back about how doctors in places like India were responding to Covid, throwing everything they could think of at it and seeing what combinations of treatments had an effect. Here it’s like the whole public health system thought if we try to treat this, it helps Trump cause Trump says try this or try that. So they just put their heads in the sand and watched people die instead. And they expect trust and respect now? Sorry no.
For fun go to Our World in Data, pull up the data explorer for Covid death rates, and compare US to India.
You also have to realize that any death was treated as Covid. Hospitals would test, if the dead person was positive for Covid it was registered as Covid even if they died in a motorcycle accident. Why? Money. Always follow the money.
The Govt provided a powerful incentive to hospitals to misdiagnose cause of death - they gave them money for covid deaths.
This was not a happenstance or an accident. The big Pharma message, “wait for the vaccine” was delayed and less effective in places like India or those that didn’t speak English as much, e.g. Japan, South America. In many of those places early intervention made all the difference.
He was craven. In his first public appearance he said what he really believed - that masks wouldn't protect anybody, that they were "theater". His exact word. I still remember it. Then he flipped soon afterward. I never believed another thing he said after that.
What was the early intervention that the nursing home did to protect its residents?
The damage the people like Rochelle Walensky have done to both, peoples faith in science and the institutions in which we are supposed to trust to give us unbiased information, is truly incalculable.
Further, when you merge these occurrences, with the mis/dis/malinformation censorship they are trying to inculcate in every institution possible, it becomes clear that their goal is not to inform, but to control. They no longer need to develop rational, well-considered arguments, when they can simply dictate what you WILL believe and ensure everything else is marked as "lies", according to the government censors. And then, those "lies" will get you fired from your job, banned from the public square and eventually, if they are able to institute social credit scores as the World Economic Forum wants, they will be able to control your life, in totality.
They value power over all else. In fact, to these fiends, there is nothing else other than power.
If you look at the modern world, through the paradigm that modern Liberalism is, fundamentally, an anti-human ideology, everything makes sense.
Read more about my perspective on this topic here: https://www.gordoncomstock.com/p/modern-liberalism-is-an-anti-human
What has happened to America? In the America of the past, somebody ordering you to wear a face diaper would have been told to "go F yourself. " Now the sheep not only obey but exult in their obedience. All the COVID orders - mandatory vaccination, masks, distancing, limited gatherings, etc. have been patent bullshit. All calling for massive civil disobedience if not open revolution. But we got - a craven and servile obedience.
We are being conditioned to turn into communist China. This is how they run their country.
And may I remind you, for over ten years BLM proudly declared themselves a communist revolutionary movement.
Vivek wants to take apart our useless government agencies - I hope he wins and I hope he starts with the CDC.
So what is left about covid that hasn’t proven to be totally false? WSJ this week reports the origin was a lab leak. Masks definitively don’t work. Vaccines aren’t actually vaccines (and ‘wear off’ in a matter of months). Lock downs proven to be ineffective and actually harmful. Small business can’t stay open but big businesses can. What was actually proven to be true and effective that public health told us?
Proper handwashing seems to be effective!
Hi John,
I like what you said about the Covid vaccines actually not being vaccines. You are 100% correct. They are “shots” that wear off over time - similar to a flu shot. Whether or not someone believes in this Covid treatment or not, calling this a vaccine rather than a shot was a bad decision as vaccines generally are one or two shots then done. Poorly handled.
What in the world are yall on about. All vaccines "wear off" - they always have, especially if they inoculate against rapidly mutating diseases.
This is why people have to get flu shots every year.
You just made his point. Mutating viruses can’t be vaccinated against like polio. By the time you make a vaccine, the virus has mutated or isn’t the prevalent one. However THESE shots wore off within MONTHS so even if the virus didn’t mutate it wasn’t going to work - and they KNEW it. They also knew that children didn’t need it, that of course natural immunity is better and that there were serious side effects. They knew this all. That’s what we are “on about,” as you put it.
Well, all vaccines *can* wear off. I suppose not all of them do in practical terms, e.g. you only need one rabies shot for lifelong protection. Still
These are the most annoying articles ever written. We’ve known this for decades. And not a few decades. Many, many decades. Ask any person with even the tiniest understanding of fluid or thermodynamics and they will laugh in your face at the suggestion a cloth mask can stop an airborne virus. It’s insulting and insanely embarrassing that we’re still doing this.
Oh, that and that every piece of medical literature, including an actual lawsuit between the largest medical center in Canada and its freaking nurses, had not only known/proven this but litigated it in court.
It makes my head want to explode how passionately we’re trying to become dumber for the sake of acceptance by morons
I swim with a PhD Engineer who during the 1990s produced science related to filtering and masks. He also is an editor of a major engineering journal that covers filtering. Early on in the pandemic he told me that the evidence is that masks don't mitigate respiratory viruses. I didn't really believe him, so I asked him for some citations. He sent me a bunch. Turns out he was correctly telling me what the current science said. So, yes, for at least a generation the science has demonstrated that masks don't mitigate respiratory viruses.
It also just speaks a fundamental failure of societal disposition regarding burden of proof. American culture has completely flipped to guilty until proven innocent. Somehow, in the flip of five seconds of unwarranted panic (never forget, we knew in March that COVID-19 had been found in multiple places in January, AT THE LATEST (it was, after all, named "COVID-*19*), and the average age of death in Italy, where everyone was freaking out, was 83 years old) we just completely threw out our baseline and accepted a brand-new baseline. If you want someone to wear a mask, ask them nicely and if they say yes, great. Otherwise, PROVE to them that they should. instead, we went the opposite. One very dumb person trying to pretend like they knew what they were talking about said "yeah, sure, everyone wear masks" and then we spent THREE YEARS proving they didn't work. That's so backwards it's unfathomable.
Masking was never about public health, it was about control. When one acknowledges tbat fact, it is very fathomable.
I'd opine it was traditional political theatre. It was the same reason we went running into Afghanistan after 9/11. Something like every single political decision is made for two purposes; 1. self-enrichment, or 2. to get reelected (so they can self-enrich later). Sadly, in America today (though there's an argument for why I'll make at the bottom of this) a huge part of getting reelected is "doing something." I made a long argument about this in a stack I wrote, but fundamentally politicians and public health can't actually do anything to improve outcomes from an airborne respiratory virus. But that doesn't mean they can't *DO SOMETHING*. And a lot of angry lefties actually think government is Mommy and therefore needed mommy to DO SOMETHING and so they threw them a bone in the form of masking.
Government is, by definition, regressive. It can only make things worse. But the hypothesis is some "worse" is better than others. Someone murders someone, society is worse off by losing the labor of said individual, but losing that labor is worth the cost of them not murdering another person, so we use regressive societal structures to remove their labor.
An argument could be made, that the regression of masks are/were worth it if they worked. Anyone willing to do even 5 minutes of reading knew they didn't/couldn't work, but MOST people didn't do that work, and so politicans saw a chance to *DO SOMETHING* that was a less "worse" version of "worse," and so they did. I think the control thing was WAY overblown. I lived in three different places over the course of COVID and the freedom loving places weren't masking and no one cared, the tyranny loving (lefty...) places were all masking because the majority of people living there wanted them and would have been masking anyway, and the middle places were in the middle.
There was a LOT that went on during covid that was about control, I don't think masks were one of them.
To the "mommy please do something" point above, I've argued a lot that federal income taxes are the worst mistake in US history and are/is its undoing as a once great nation (we're now much closer to Russia and one day will settle in as the Netherlands with more farm land). A big part of that is that's REASONABLE for people to expect the government to act as mommy and made everything okay. When you take THE FIRST DOLLAR of my labor, there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't expect you to do everything for me. I'm not only paying you for it, I'm paying you for it with my first dollar. Millenials are the first generation where basically every paycheck we've had in our life had taxes taken out of it before we ever received our payment. That this is a "dependent" generation isn't surprising at all. We're matching our leaders. They borrow and spend at an outlandish rate how could we not expect that in return they'd give us everything? Isn't that the deal...?
It's complete horesh*t of course, but it's, sadly, not "unreasonable."
All this knowledge including all the evidence of harm caused by masks to your personal health (bacteria, viruses, inhibited breathing, less oxygen etc.) needs to be rebroadcast in forms that help the poor musicians, nurses etc. get out from under those mask mandates in their professions.
Like using chain link fencing as a mosquito net.
What's funny is the number of people who did know flued dynamics, who I could walk through the issues, who STILL said "at least I can do something to help" which was absurd because what they were doing wasn't helping at all. In fact, it was making it more dangerous. This issue with Risk Compensation is captured well in this essay:
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
The mask was the only visible way to show that the “pandemic” was happening. When 96% of people with Covid showed no symptoms and the average age of those dying was 81, the government needed something to remind everyone they needed to be scared. I try to assume those still wearing masks are immuno-compromised, but they’re generally hyper scared or morally superior moonbats.
High time we have a national discussion about SCIENCE. What it actually means. How it is never settled. How rigorous testing and data collection are critical. How it is bigger than any one person no matter what their title. Let us always remember that many of our fellow citizens called for shaming, firing and even locking up people who decided not to be be vaccinated or to wear masks. And to be very clear: I chose to be vaccinated and I wear an N95 because of my own circumstances. From the outset I sought medical advice and I looked for data and statistics, both very hard to come by . Whether half of this nation learned any lessons about science and that it does not mix well with politics remains to be seen.
As the eminent physicist Richard Feynman remarked, the science is never settled, as continued questioning is the essence of science. Fauci, in contrast, is a braying moron. And a very corrupt one, at that.
Most importantly, true science depends on the ability of individual scientists to question and, if possible, disprove the "consensus" views. Censorship and science are incompatible. May we forever be blessed with "deniers."
There is no way to DENY the truth in your post. :-)
https://polymathicbeing.substack.com/p/masks-do-work
“When people say they “trust the science,” what they presumably mean is that science is rational, empirical, rigorous, receptive to new information, sensitive to competing concerns and risks. Also: humble, transparent, open to criticism, honest about what it doesn’t know, willing to admit error.”
Past science confirmed again- add more to the Bayesian level of certainty. Regarding government response- somehow coronavirus is the virus uniquely susceptible to masks? These folks need firing.