This is an extremely odd reply to my post.

I was replying to your underlying point:

As I said in reply: "I have no idea where you're getting this 'rounding error' idea, unless you're relying simply on the one graph you posted about one small time range in one health region." I then provided you with data about Covid cases, from the province whose approach you were questioning. Why you've come back with data about deaths, from an unnamed jurisdiction, I have no idea. It's not relevant to your earlier point that I was disputing, and it doesn't seem especially relevant to whether or not kids should be vaccinated. As you know, mass vaccination is about stopping the spread, as much as anything.

I don't know what the struggle is, when I've provided data that shows this is not true.

This is a point that makes more sense, as I mentioned in my last post, when I said: "I know I've heard before that some experts feel transmission from kids is lower, so that also needs to be factored in to prioritization. But I don't think that changes things to the point where they can be left out of vaccinations, unless you have data to show otherwise." I'm not convinced either way on this point, as there has been much discussion about lower transmissibility with kids, but I've not seen any hard numbers on this. Data in our schools here seems to indicate transmissibility is lower, but not insignificant.

I should have been cleared Bobo, as I was not offering that reply to 'counter' what you said. I was actually happy to get your last post and consider it into my knowledge base as I thought all your points dug deeper and gave better insights.

When I quoted you and O.A.F.K. there is was not to counter either of you but to make sure you got a notice of that posting in the hopes you would reply and I could more 'supportive' or 'countervailing' insights on that specific post.

Not posting this to mock as it is sad. I am posting this to point out how short sighted, selfish and ignorant people can be who hold these views.

Fair enough, but that still leaves me a little confused about this part:

The bolded part especially, since I think I provided evidence that directly contradicts this. For the remainder, I'm wondering what evidence you're basing that on, if any. I ask not because I necessarily believe you have that all wrong, but because I'm genuinely interested in data if you have it.

I think i can answer that this way best...

"...Admittedly a lot of the data I looking at is coming from the BFI thread and a certain poster who I know has a real penchant for combing thru mountains of data and ONLY then posting the stuff that supports his position. So I try to take it with massive grains of salt and try to verify myself where I can...."

Which, any such 'accepted' perception repeated from that place can only result in...

Transmissibility by kids definitely is not insignificant. And even if it is lower than transmissibility by adults, it is still imperative that kids get vaccinated.

In many states, if infections rise above a certain level, restrictions will be put in place. It doesn't matter whether any of us believes (correctly or incorrectly) that the risk level is tolerable if the infections are disproportionately among younger people who are unlikely to get seriously ill or die.

That fact alone is enough to make me eager to get kids vaccinated as soon as possible.

I'm well aware that my personal anecdotes are not data, but I find the bolded a little tough to swallow. I had COVID before vaccines were available, and I'm nearly certain that I caught it from my daughter. I wasn't hospitalized, but I was sicker than I have been in at least a decade.

It probably will be difficult or impossible to vaccinate kids that regularly interact with parents, extended family, teachers, etc. who are not vaccinated. In other words, if you don't want (or can't be bothered) to get vaccinated as an adult, then you probably don't want (or don't care if) the children around you to get vaccinated either.

On that note, BC takes what I believe is a rather unique approach to this IMO:

https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthli...d-immunization

And this isn't something new for Covid; I believe it has been in place since 2008.

Never forget

Yup. Never forget that when we're in a pandemic, expert advice changes as we learn more. Although I'm not sure who would forget common sense like that.

I can't even imagine what sort of garbage I would find if I scrolled through PardonAssange@LaLaLarueFrench75

Just ask the campfire dude - he will never forget.

Too be fair that is one of the only legit criticisms against Fauci and the CDC from that time frame.

Most of the others do in fact fall under the 'science evolves with data' and it really is stupid to try and quote a Fauci or CDC position 'pre data' with one 'post data', as Rand Paul and others try to do, suggesting that any 'change in position' proves they were wrong or not to be trusted. It is because they will change with data they are to be trusted.

But the early 'mask' position I am quite sure was an early compromise with the Trump Team, who were so fearful of any shaking of public confidence making the Stock Market come down or crash in the run up to the election that they took this total anti-mask position and got Fauci and the CDC on board, by I think using the threat of the number of deaths that happen when jobs are lost type data.


At the time Fauci was stating that there was no data, (happy to be proven wrong here but I have looked and looked) that masks did not work.

At best you could take a neutral position and even then the neutral position should understand there is no downside to wearing a mask and finding out you did not need it after. There is a ton of downside to not wearing it and finding out you should have all along.

You hate to see it

Actually, there is a pretty huge potential downside to people rushing out and snapping up all the masks they can find.early in a pandemic, when you're concerned about supplies of medical equipment.

Agreed.

But that is terrible spin if the pretense now is 'Dr Fauci and the CDC were lying in saying that masks would not work, in an attempt to make sure the mask supply was protected for First responders'. (not saying that is what you are doing)

That simply was not reality. The US was not doing anything to try and gather up PPE during those months. I was buying N95 masks on Amazon and sending them to family members until they foolishly bought the lie and told me 'masks don't work'.

I was more than a little exasperated at them so easily putting aside common sense and continued to buy anyway since they were so readily available.

Charities were gathering up tons of them and shipping them, via Trumps state department planes back to China. An indictment on the blindness of the Trump team to not see the danger that the country that was the source of the PPE (China) was basically taking it all back, meaning there would be nothing soon left in America.

When in March there was finally an admission that masks worked and were needed, the former denial then swung over to shame. We, citizens, were not to use N95 as they were much needed by first responders. You would get looked at as selfish if you wore one. Thus the 'smart' and 'prepared' now had to not use them because everyone else CHOSE to be dumb on this.

I ended up donating all my N95 masks except for 1 to the local fire hall near my condo.


I can only hope the lesson learned is that 'yes science evolves but until it does you err on the side of caution and common sense'. At the next viral, respiratory pandemic you start FIRST with what I would call an over cautious approach, (masks, distancing, hand washing) and then you exclude things (such as hand washing is now basically excluded as key for covid) as you learn more. As the science evolves.

This is the approach the most successful Asian countries took due to their experiences and we need to learn from it.

I won't hate on Fauci for that one as I think the pressure from the Trump Admin was immense and unprecedented, and they made the case for 'compromise' while probably telling Fauci and crew if the economy collapsed it (and all the deaths from that) would be on them, if they did not find a way to play ball. I think the public health officials were thrust in to the role of also considering the Politics of it, which they should never be forced to do.

I believed then, and I still believe now, that early advice around masks was given (not just by Fauci, and not just in the US) for a few reasons:

1) They were not viewed as being especially effective
2) Worries about PPE shortage
3) Concern that people would not take other measures as seriously

Obviously the thinking on 1) shifted over time, and 2) eased over time. I think 3) is still an issue today, and the "masks, masks, masks" mantra has the potential to be harmful in future outbreaks and/or pandemics (which hopefully we'll never see, but I don't want to assume anything), just in that some people seem to be treating them as the most important precaution when I think there are far more important measures for both the public and our health care professionals - distancing, staying home when sick, working from home, contact tracing, etc. For example, I'm still blown away that there are so many places with outdoor mask mandates. Wearing masks outdoors in busy/crowded environments makes some sense to me - having to wear one all the time doesn't, except under extreme circumstances IMO.

I think we need to be careful about drawing too many firm conclusions early from country comparisons, but there's definitely some (and likely a lot) of truth to this. So my mind remains open to the possibility that masks are far more important than I'm suggesting above.

I like to believe that if tomorrow we have a new Pandemic Respiratory virus where they are UNSURE if the main transmission is breath or contact or both, that we will start with 'masks' and 'hand washing' and 'distancing' as the default and then remove any/all of them as the science proves they are unnecessary.

Seems a much better default position than starting with none of them and then only adding them once you have mass death.

I am not concerned with PPE shortages, if the default is to do nothing to gain, gather or shore up PPE by the gov't in the interim. Better citizens horde it then it get bought and shipped over seas, as happened.

I think it is exactly because of the 'masks don't work', 'now they do' messaging that people did in fact lose confidence and not take measures seriously. Again something I think works better the other way around by starting with mask and losing it after, if not needed.


I am not that critical of Fauci and the CDC overall as i know Trump Admin put them in a horrible spot and I think they hoped (like too many) that they could manage the beast. But as Trump does so masterfully he gets everyone on side his positions/fabrications/lies at the beginning in the form of some type of compromise or loose defense but then once they take that bait and get hooked he demands more and more concessions and deeper involvement and complicity until the other person is corrupted. I am not complimentary of Trump but he does run a Master Class on subversions of others.

Earlier adoption of masks would have helped. But when they write the post-mortem on the U.S. response, I suspect that the most serious error will be the failure to implement more serious restrictions during the last week of February and the first two weeks of March. That was the critical window when the genie really got out of the bottle. COVID would have swept the country no matter what. But the worst of it would have been less acute and less taxing on health services if serious restrictions had been put in place during that period.

And the whole thing would have been less scary for people. Fear breeds irrational behavior and policy in both directions.

Unless you have plenty of tuna on hand there's really no optimal way to herd cats. I can't count the times I heard people saying something to the effect "I'll wear a mask" to justify going into an environment that maybe they wouldn't have without a mask, not really understanding that the masks don't do much. As one immunologist put it: all the covid particles in the entire world wouldn't even fill a coffee can. I wouldn't call that intuitive. Hard to say but masks may have caused more transmissions than they prevented if wearing them netted an increase in risk.

Certainly in the UK I was pointing out at the time that policy was beign driven by the reality of what could be done. That included PPE/mask advice because they were short of supplies. I dont seriously doubt the same effect in the USA, WHO etc as well. The fact the idiots weren't also doing everything possible to increase supply/availability is sadly not evidence of anything in this regard.

What happens is a translation between expert advice that an option is impossible in practice, to the political advice that it's not desirable. The terrible spin now is the pretense that things could have been done that were simply impossible at the time. Terrible because it goes against the very real need to be prepared for things to go very badly wrong.

This is the problem and it's a very hard conversation to have. The fact masks work in lessoning the risk of gettign infected in a given situation may well not be anywhwere enar enough to outweigh people getting into situation wearing masks they wouldn't have done without one.

I dont know what or how evidence of this is produced but the anecdotal experience I have screams that people would have been much safer if masks didn't exist.

He admitted he deliberately lied about mask.

In early February it is possible that they didn't know enough about Covid to know that masks were crucial to preventing the spread. South Korea did though because they had dealt with a SARS based virus previously.

The bigger problem for the US was that even if they did know how important masks were if they promoted wearing masks at that time, there would have been horrific shortages in hospitals and all medical care facilities. It is entirely possible that in some areas (like NY) hospitals could have become nonfunctional.

The Trump administration had turned down a US manufacturers request to make millions of masks at the beginning of the year and then they sent tons of PPE to China. So this exacerbated the situation.

The crazy thing is that if Trump had promoted mask wearing he would have made millions (MAGA masks would have sold like hotcakes) and easily would have won re-election. I am fairly certain that the single deciding factor in Trump's strategy was Rudi Guliani. When 9/11 struck NYC all the images of Rudi were without masks. Rudi claimed repeatedly that the air was safe (which it wasn't - Christine Todd Whitman ex Republican governor of NJ and then head of the EPA pleaded with him to stop and admit the air was fouled with deadly chemicals). And Rudi became a hero, America's Mayor. All because he refused to wear a mask. I'm guessing he advised Trump on how manly he would look not wearing a mask and we were off to the races.

Here in Thailand they are giving out tickets to people for not wearing masks while driving their scooters solo in 90 degree weather. When they say masks on at all times when outside your house, they mean it and I'd wager mask compliance is better than murica could ever hope for yet cases keep steadily rising.
Masks are not "crucial" in preventing spread otherwise our numbers would be plummeting because you'll almost never see another person without a mask on.
They may help a bit but not spending prolonged time indoors with other people is probably one of the biggest things to do.