All this covid stuff.

[SorenR]

Originally Posted by maxustaxus

@4v6



I pretty much agree with you totally.

My profession was as an academic, (Principle Lecturer in Social and Forensic Psychology), a very heavily statistics based discipline. I spent a career assessing data related to human behaviour.

bla bla bla...

Yes I am a sceptic. Not of covid or vaccines…but of people’s good judgement in the face of hyped existential threats!

"Social and Forensic Psychology" ... That is something with dead people, right?

So do I understand it so that you don't care if doctors are wearing masks when you undergo surgery? Because "masks don't work" ??

[maxustaxus]

Originally Posted by SorenR

So do I understand it so that you don't care if doctors are wearing masks when you undergo surgery? Because "masks don't work" ??

You notice I was very carfeul in my words. What I said was: "the efficiency of ordinary mask use in the sorts of situations it is mandated is very weak"

I.e., I am not refering to medical quality masks of the type used by surgeons in an operating theatre. That is a different debate I think.

My implication is that a face covering or ordinary mask in a supermarket is not effective. Good ventilation would be a better apporach I understand.

You see the problem here...it is hard to debate this topic if we are not precise in our terms.

And people who work with the dying/dead people do not have a monopoly on undertsanding the widfer costs of applying pandemic measures that are less than effective.

[SorenR]

Originally Posted by maxustaxus

You notice I was very carfeul in my words. What I said was: "the efficiency of ordinary mask use in the sorts of situations it is mandated is very weak"

I.e., I am not refering to medical quality masks of the type used by surgeons in an operating theatre. That is a different debate I think.

My implication is that a face covering or ordinary mask in a supermarket is not effective. Good ventilation would be a better apporach I understand.

You see the problem here...it is hard to debate this topic if we are not precise in our terms.

And people who work with the dying/dead people do not have a monopoly on undertsanding the widfer costs of applying pandemic measures that are less than effective.

If you want personal protection from a mask you should use the N95. The standard masks are for protecting 3'rd party from YOU spreading virus. Which is why it is important WE ALL use them!

Your primary defence is alchohol and/or water & soap. That is common knowledge.

The plastic screens some people use are only good if someone spits on you or an absess bursts.

[maxustaxus]

Originally Posted by SorenR

If you want personal protection from a mask you should use the N95.

Yes, and these types are not mandated nor in common use by the general public, and I personally do not want such protection anyway. I would regard it as entirely disproportionate response to the actual risk I face. I do not see fear as a virtue.

Originally Posted by SorenR

The standard masks are for protecting 3'rd party from YOU spreading virus. Which is why it is important WE ALL use them!

I don't agree that it is clinically important that WE ALL use them. As I say, I have yet to see a random controlled study showing they are effective in reducing either spread or acquisition of virus in the ordinary locations where their use is mandated by the general public.

If you know of such a study, I would be happy to review it. If it shows a greater than moderate significant effect size given the criteria above (i.e., a valid test of masks as they are used in ordinary practice), then I would happily concede that they are effective.

Mind you, I have indicated I believe responses to Covid should be proportionate to the risk of mortality, if that risk is low (which I believe it is), then mask wearing becomes little more than symbolic compliance whether or not they are effective. Which is actually quite unhealthy in a free society.

[BackintheFold]

Originally Posted by maxustaxus

1-Yes, and these types are not mandated nor in common use by the general public, and I personally do not want such protection anyway. I would regard it as entirely disproportionate response to the actual risk I face.







2-I don't agree that it is clinically important that WE ALL use them.



3-If you know of such a study, I would be happy to review it.



4-Mind you, I have indicated I believe responses to Covid should be proportionate to the risk of mortality, if that risk is low .

1-So you would happily sit in an underground carriage full of covid + passengers?
Do you have some power to detect who has covid and who hasn’t?
Does this tie-in with your cost-benefit argument, and if so, what value do you place on a 90 year old’s life? And your children, and other’s children? And your own life?

2-why not? If it reduces transmission, what are you disagreeing with? If I am covid +, do you agree that I should reduce the likelihood of transmission by wearing a standard mask that prevents infected droplets from being breathed out into (say) shops or offices where ventilation cannot be used?

3-would this involve using known carriers of covid being required to wander about in the general public while being monitored as to how many people become infected? How exactly could you do a controlled study without deliberately exposing the general public to the risks? I think you are requesting the impossible.

4-if (for argument!!) I assess your risk of mortality to be high, but because I don’t need a retired academic such as yourself and nor does anyone else, I assess the effect of your death on my life to be minimal (while the death of a neurologist treating my family member would have a major effect on me) are you happy to be allowed to die now if the cost of saving your life is more than I want to spend?

Who makes these judgments on the value of your life? And my life? Why bother vaccinating the elderly who are going to die of something soon anyway? What benefit do they bring to me specifically, or society generally?
The elderly seem to use more than their fair share of the health service and rarely pay more into society than the working population don’t they?
Surely a cost benefit analysis would require them to die?
Does it make a difference to the analysis If the age when the elderly are expected to voluntarily die off is reduced to one year less than your age?

I’m going to resist responding further in this thread-I see similar threads dominating many forums and it just creates division in members unnecessarily. The written word can be misconstrued. There are multiple caveats to what I’m saying here, but I’m not prepared to spend the time setting them all out. Where I have objected to other statements, others will
Object to mine. In each case saying “what I meant was…” may alter the persons argument substantially, so this forum is not the best way to make a point.







Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BackintheFold]

Originally Posted by maxustaxus;

You see the problem here...it is hard to debate this topic if we are not precise in our terms.

Exactly.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tractor Dave]

Originally Posted by BackintheFold

Worth checking those dates. I had a nasty flu like thing on Christmas day 2019-so I am sure of the date-but am sure (despite a work colleague repeatedly suggesting I had Covid) that it was just a strain of flu.
See https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/

January 29th 2020

The UK’s first two patients test positive for Coronavirus after two Chinese nationals from the same family staying at a hotel in York fall ill.
A plane evacuating Britons from Wuhan arrives at RAF Brize Norton. Passengers go into a 14 day quarantine at a specialist hospital on Merseyside.

It's now been established that the first known UK covid cases started in December 2019.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...untry-12203040

[SorenR]

Originally Posted by maxustaxus;


You see the problem here...it is hard to debate this topic if we are not precise in our terms.

Originally Posted by BackintheFold

Exactly.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't let him/her fool you. Unfortunately there are a number of seemingly very intelligent persons gatering up a following from sounding and expressing themselves in a way that appear they know what they are dealing with. Well, they don't!

The latest stunt they do in Denmark (where PCR tests and vaccination are 112% free) is create FB groups with thousands of members and cordinate "attacks" booking appointments for tests - done electronically - and then not showing up. Simply because they are unhappy about the way goverment is dealing with Covid. That means that people who NEED tests cannot get them.

Contrary to other contries the health authorities in Denmark sequence the majority of all PCR tests done to track Covid variations and mutations. Yes, they are able to tell you the approximate location where you got infected!

They have also started testing waste water to narrow down neighbourhoods and townships where infection is above average.

The 3 simple rules are:

Keep your distance (6 feet)
Wash your hands often (water & soap or alchohol)
Wear a mask in public (if a brain surgeon can wear a mask for 32 hours, so can you. They are not superhumans.)

And...

Get a test if someone you visited show symtoms.
Get vaccinated!

[4v6]

Originally Posted by SorenR

The 3 simple rules are:

Keep your distance (6 feet)
Wash your hands often (water & soap or alchohol)
Wear a mask in public (if a brain surgeon can wear a mask for 32 hours, so can you. They are not superhumans.)

And...

Get a test if someone you visited show symtoms.
Get vaccinated!

This is where problems begin when challenging whats been mandated and the reasons why.

Rule 1, the 6 foot rule.
Social distancing guidelines are based on scientific studies from over 100 years ago not exactly making them current.
The six-foot rule was originally proposed in 1897 by Carl Flügge, a German bacteriologist who studied the movement patterns of fluid droplets expelled from the mouth when speaking, coughing, or sneezing.
In his research, he found that visible fluid droplets containing pathogens travel about six feet.

In the 1940’s, there was a study of a bacterium called haemolytic streptococci that confirmed Flügge’s original findings which shows that most bacteria-containing droplets stay close to their source.
It also finds that a minority (10%) of people produce droplets that can travel as far as 9.5 feet away.

The belief that six feet is a safe distance is shown in recent studies to prove this belief wrong.
A recent review of 10 studies on droplet emissions showed that in eight of the 10 studies respiratory droplets can travel farther than six feet.
Small droplets from a sneeze indoors for example can travel up to 8 metres.
More important than distance is exposure time.

https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance...iaa189/5820886

Not only that but different droplet sizes also carry pathogens, with the smaller sizes being present in the air for much longer than the immediate larger particle fallout.

That brings us onto the mental disorders of mask silliness.
Medical masks are utlised in a surgical setting in order to prevent physical droplets from falling into the surgical field, ie into a patient on the table.
That they do.
What they dont do is prevent bi directional transmission of pathogens that are smaller than the mesh size of the mask of which there are many.
The average size of a cv19 virus is iirc around 1 micron whith the smallest mesh size of the best consumer grade or medical mask being 80 microns.
Particle sizes under 80 microns are not trapped and simply flow out or in through the mesh.
There is a static effect where some of the particulates get pulled out of suspension and entrained into the mask fibres however real world observations from places such as scotland and wales that have a continued mandate to wear them compared to england didnt dont show a definitive drop in infections due to wearing them, in fact in England infections lowered, the mask effect isnt statistically significant and to my mind is utterly pointless and simply a comfort blanket and a symbol of compliance.

Also against the ideology of masks is the issue of saturation.
When you wear a mask, the fabric becomes moist due to respiration.
The pathogens then become evaporated (in moisture droplets) back into the airstream due to the heat of your breath, ready to be rebreathed by all and sundry.
All that effectively happened for those pathogens that were stopped was a delay in transmission.
Then youve got the fact that the kinds of masks being sold are fabric and have pretty much zero effect due to even larger mesh sizes than a surgical mask and incorrect fitment or infrequent replacement and more frequent readjustments and its a policy of placebo than real effect.
If you look on ANY mask, theres a disclaimer, "Does not protect against Covid19 This item is not personal pretective equipment".
Im reminded of a paint sprayer using a dust mask to paint a car with isocyantes.
Particle sizes are trapped, the toxic vapour is not.

The wearing of masks other than an air fed type with full face seal and proper biological air filtration is obviously pointless, in my opinion.

People are wearing these silly things to feel safe rather than BEING safe which is a dangerous thing for any future pandemic.

Washing your hands is fine and is a recognized part of hygeine.
I dont subscribe to testing for a disease that has a 99.7% survival rate.
I also dont subscribe to being a gunea pig for a so called vaccine that is only approved for emergency use, that is still in testing until 2023, whose manufacturers are exempted for liabilty for injuries and who have applied to have all their data supressed for 75 years.
So for a vaccine that still allows infection, development of and transmission of a disease with breakthrough isnt instilling much in the way of confidence here.

My current infection has been beaten in just 3 days with no issues, not really worth closing down the world for or spiralling into a panic over.
Suppose Ill have to state, Im not anti vaccine, Ive had all my previous stuff Im just anti this one, its all been rushed and just has too many issues to be placing my trust in it.

Take care all.

[SorenR]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tp0zB904Mc

QED !