All I knows is that some Americans, who seem to have a commonality in politics view, have decided to turn on the lemming light and refuse to get the vaccine. This is the only country in the world that has vaccine availability for everyone and anyone for free who wants it, but yet has people saying no for some odd reason.

I’m just waiting for the omega variant to surface, cause brain mutation and turn those into human eating zombies (aka maze runner)

It might be time to invest in some personal protection.

I'm with you. People lose at poker, keep playing, and we like it.

Pretty straightforward, masks work to reduce the spread of airborne pathogens. Probably doesn't fit your definition of "study" though.

https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...ared-this-year

Perhaps--just perhaps--the negative reactions you receive could be due to moronic statements such as that the CDC "makes up numbers out of thin air." And how do YOU know that, O Sage?

If masks worked to stop covid, they would have WORKED. They didn't. We have all the data we need on that front.

The reason is simple, and to be found in any discussion of medical hygiene not corrupted by politics: in order to work, a mask has to a) actually stop the airborne pathogen in question (no, your craft project mask doesn't do ****) and b) be put on and removed as part of a gloving and hand washing process to prevent transfer of pathogens to the mask as you put it on and from the mask as you take it off.

The masks have done nothing because wearing masks was never intended to do anything except force blind compliance for an obviously stupid policy.

If this was actually a dangerous pathogen (say, SARS), we would be using N95 masks and gloves. It's not, and we aren't because everyone from the top down knows it's not.

What breathtaking ignorance you show.

A mask works (or, as you put it, WORKS) because it lessens the transmission of disease--it doesn't stop it altogether. By your idiotic metric, though, it's all or nothing. By your reasoning, we shouldn't have fire departments because some buildings will burn down no matter what. By your thinking, we shouldn't have hospitals because people are going to die regardless. A ship shouldn't have lifeboats because...oh, never mind. I'm talking to an idiot, trying to convince him to not be an idiot. Futile exercise.

(For the information of the non-brain-dead, standard masks reduce transmission of the virus by 70% compared to not wearing a mask at all.)

What benefit accrues to those who you believe only want to force blind compliance of wearing masks?

You know COVID-19 is officially named SARS-CoV-2?

Of course you don't!

We could have had manufacturers in our country mass produce N95s but the previous president, and the current one for that matter, totally ****ed that up.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/

Includes references to several studies, such as:

"Masks were shown to have protective efficacies in excess of 80% against clinical influenza‐like‐illness (Macintyre et al., 2008)."

Good question. Maybe because a respected scientist and vaccine developer from the US tweeted it yesterday.

I will post the link below, but allow me first to point out that even Public Health Officials from other countries are following this account. So it's certainly not regarded as any kind of 'alternative source', but rather highly reputable and knowledgeable:

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/s...11487020609537

Here we can read that:

- CDC is basing their theory on vaccinated people spreading the virus as easily as unvaccinated, on an Indian study that has not passed peer-review and is currently not approved in the US.

- They are also claiming the following about mask usage: Source Control = 60% effective. Personal protection: 20-30% effective.

No source has been given for the mask efficiency numbers, so unless they actually come up with one it's hard to draw any other conclusions that the numbers have been made up. Or at least spiked to look better for such a report, to push through their narrative (whatever that might be).

Doesn't that bother you (or anyone living in the US), that your own Public Health Department uses such flimsy sources - or no sources at all - to make a drastic change to the life of 50% of the population? (the vaccinated ones). Especially since they 2.5 months ago said that vaccinated people does not pose a risk - at a time where the Delta variant was very well known and had started to surge also in the US.

So what changed? New knowledge one must presume - but if so, why are they placing their trust in this vague report from India that's not even approved, and not giving up their sources for this amazing mask efficiency?

Had masks been this efficient we would after all had seen the effect all over the world in countries with high mask compliance.

As is typical with recent domestic misinformation campaigns, they focus on a single detail then lie by exclusion. The leaked CDC presentation (PDF link) listed multiple data sources pointing to vaccinated viral loads being the same as unvaccinated, both international (India) and domestic. From the presentation:

• (Page 16) India report of lower cycle threshold (Ct) values in Delta breakthrough cases in HCW (n=47, mean Ct 16.5) compared to non-Delta breakthrough cases (n=22, mean Ct 19); also larger cluster size with Delta breakthrough
• (Page 17) Breakthrough cases reported to national passive surveillance have lower Ct values by 3 cycles (~10-fold increase in viral load) for Delta (Ct=18, n=19) compared with Alpha (Ct=21, n=207) and other lineages (Ct=21, n=251)
• (Page 17) Barnstable County, MA, outbreak: No difference in mean Ct values in vaccinated and unvaccinated cases [median among vaccinated (n=80): 21.9; unvaccinated (n=65): 21.5]

There are existing studies, which I linked to earlier today (post)

Can anyone confirm this from first hand observation at a Vegas casino?

Fair enough, but there are also very reputable reviews showing no real effect of the wearing of masks compared to not using them. One random more recent example:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7...gl0LIyFURfvmcI

My question was more on whether the CDC have any proper updated, recent studies, that shows the number of effectiveness that they claimed in the updated guidelines. Guess we just have to wait and see when/if the report gets published in full.

Also, I couldn't help noticing that you are referring the source I mentioned as "domestic misinformation campaigns". That could not be further from the truth, as I have no interest in spreading conspiracy theories. I just find it interesting to see a top scientist with a lot of expertise regarding vaccines and viruses in general, pretty much slaughter the CDC's findings.

Exactly. "They did it because they can" is another asinine argument I've heard.

Clearly the mask mandate is to mind control us for when they're ready to EAT US, THEN THEY'LL HAVE ALL THE FOOD THEY NEED!!

p.s. soylent green is people.

I was referring to the politically-motivated misinformation hit pieces that are focusing exclusively on the Indian study and failing to disclose the other references in the CDC slide deck. They're constantly looking for any reason to discredit the CDC. And I'm no fan of how the CDC has handled this pandemic, starting from the testing fiasco. But I treat each situation individually and try to avoid narratives that put them in a box (either negative or positive).

I'm sure there are some well-meaning scientists discussing the Indian study but they're making the same exclusionary error as disinformation parties, albeit unintentionally. Then it becomes an echo chamber, where legitimate but misinformed sources get repeated by those with an agenda.

As for the masks, the article you linked seems to focus mostly on the benefit of surgical masks vs N95, and is also focused on health-care situations, which are much more intensive than casual interactions in society. For example, if a mask is 70% effective that implies it will fail to prevent the spread of virus 30% of the time in typical situations. In health-care scenarios the occurrence of exposures is much higher, which means those 30% failures will compound over time.

As for any claim of new evidence of mask efficacy, I'm not sure. But there are existing studies that show efficacy, and when those are combined with the new data out about Delta I don't understand the push-back against prophylactic mask usage. No question wearing masks suck - but the alternative sucks more.

I visited several Vegas casinos in May after I was fully vaccinated, and every place was rocking, well into the night in fact. It was a boisterous atmosphere, even more than usual.

One thing I noticed compared to last year (when I visited briefly in September, but got the hell back out) was that people were actually wearing masks--I'd say 90-95% compared to the previous 50% at best. There was much less of the "I'm holding a drink so I can just sit here with my mask pulled down" and "I'm puffing on a stink-stick, so you can't make me wear a mask" mentality. I really don't think that the casinos were making any enforcement efforts whatsoever, during either visit.

Wearing a mask didn't seem to existentially traumatize the casinos' customers. I didn't see anyone's head explode from wearing a mask. And yes, there was a lot of shouting at the crap tables, in the sports book, etc. People were having a really good time. With masks on!!!!!!!!

Yes, as all truly informed people know, mask mandates are just an evil mind-control conspiracy by the Deep State. Because as everyone knows, once someone dons a face mask, you can make them do anything you want.

This works extremely well in conjunction with the Bill Gates microchips that are cleverly concealed within each vaccine shot.

We liberals are coming to get you and there's nothing you can do about it. BWA HA HA HA HAAAA!!

Lol, I don’t know when in may you went but it’s truly incredible how you are able to shape your observations to fit your political world view. When the glass was up casinos were truly miserable places to be. If you went after restrictions stopped it was a great time to be in Vegas but I would say the amount of people wearing masks was somewhere between every 1/3-1/4 person. If you took last week, I’d say that number is down to 10% of people. I would imagine enforcement will really determine the overall atmosphere but if I lived out of town I would delay the trip just from a fun perspective.

Y’all need to cut the CDC some slack. They can’t predict the future, they are just doing their best effort to make reasonable recommendations that will help mitigate the spread of COVID.

Mask mandates are pretty much the least invasive thing they can possibly suggest. Personally, I think cloth masks are almost useless for prevention, but the act of wearing a mask definitely makes you more cognizant of your situation when it comes to pandemic etiquette. I would’ve liked to see the mandates be for surgical masks at minimum and ideally for N95/KN95 equivalent masks, and wish trump would’ve pushed to get people quality masks in the mail early.


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Not even remotely what she said

From what I read, KN95 is crap compared to N95. I bought some N95 masks from Amazon a few weeks back and now prices almost doubled since new mandate.

When people refer to SARS, they are not referring to COVID. Diseases are allowed to have common names, and anyone who's not trying to confused matters understands which is which.

SARS has a mortality rate of about 15%. COVID has a mortality rate (without vaccination) of about 0.3% if you don't count asymptomatic cases, and about 1/3 to 1/5 that if you do.

BIG difference.
If either of them though there was any real danger in this, of course they would have. That they did not (and no one is seriously discussing it) tells you what they think the risk level actually is.

Bonus tip for you: prefacing stupid nonsense with "lol" doesn't make it any less stupid or nonsensical.

You're telling me you know more about my experiences during my trip than I do. Oooooookay. Then surely you know what I had for dinner each evening? Please remind me. What games did I play? Where did I stay? What was my room number?

I get it---you went stumbling, whine whine sob sob, through the casinos because you, poor widdle baby, had to wear a mask. You were, by your own account, miserable. Therefore everyone else must have been miserable, too.

Taking about "shaping your observations," lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, sis boom bah!

So it's just a coincidence that the current surge of new cases in the US started when public policies around masks and indoor spaces were set aside. Gotcha!

And since masks and hygiene don't work to stop the spread of infectious pathogens, be sure to insist at your next surgery that the surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses and rest of the surgical team performing your operation don't wear their masks or disinfect their hands. Should go splendidly for ya!

The truth is that KN95 masks work. They work extremely well, albeit not perfectly. And ever since the first couple of surges of 2020, KN95s have been and continue to be available for purchase by the general public.

You're full of ****. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32234451/