I think the masks and social distancing have done a lot to reduce the flu this year. I don't expect masks to stay around forever in the US, (although they were common in some Asian countries before Covid). However I'd like to see customs like shaking hands go the way of the 8-track tape. Just eliminating that single custom and allowing some telecommuting in offices to reduce density, would probably stop a lot of people from catching any type of virus including the flu.

Oh please.

I had covid, the variant too. Symptoms lasted for 3 days and I was back to sprinting on my home treadmill and lifting weights in my spare bedroom 4 days later. I wouldn't be surprised if they took a sample size of overweight Americans that had breathing and fatigue issues before covid.

I am glad I got it over with actually since I walk around with 0 fear. Can't believe I had to waste 1 year of my life thinking of Covid. Better off to get it day 1 and move on. My only regret was not getting covid back in march 2020 so that I could live freely back then as I do now.

The under 50 age group with no pre existing conditions having nothing to fear.

I for one fear being the transmission factor that gets someone vulnerable killed.

And that's why I still wear masks and limit my travel (though to lesser extent than recommended by CDC) despite having gotten my first shot and having antibodies even before that shot.

That's just stupid. Odds of killing someone are less than 1 in 500 if you transmit it given that you're not around geriatrics. Odds that you could be contagious in an entire year given antibodies are 1 in 1000 or less.

So you're majorly altering your behavior for a 1 in 500,000 chance per year while likely doing things that are > 1 in 500,000 per year and not giving it a second thought. That's getting close to peak clown.

Also, why on Earth are you getting a shot this early in the vaccination program when you already have antibodies?? You're literally depriving people who need it and whose life would be saved. You selfishly getting a shot when you already have antibodies has FAR higher odds (>10x) of killing someone than living your life normally.

You continue the grand tradition of being wrong about everything you post.

it's group behavior. If we dont masks then odds of killing many people are 1.

Having waited my turn, I'm getting jabbed in a few days. It's very selfish because a care worker in a poor country needs the jab much more. I'm also having a nice dinner.

Clarify your point here for me.

We know most of the people who have died are in the 'vulnerable' grouping.

Are you saying if all the people they end up having to be around, on occasions who are transmitting the virus are all properly masked it still would not have benefitted them and reduced the death rate in that grouping?

Although I think he erred a bit in his math, he is saying that the people he was talking about have a one in 500,000 chance of killing someone in a year if they choose not to wear a mask. And that they are willing to do other activities that have a greater chance of killing someone. But this is a pot odds poker problem.

What is being left out is how much distress mask wearing causes someone. No one denies that those who are greatly distressed should be allowed to be unmasked if the odds are indeed that high. What is not discussed is those people who are moderately distressed. There are such people and those who barely mind masks should probably give them some air even as they themselves mask up.

Most of the moderate distress diminsishes rapidly.

Maybe we should call it the iterated mask wearing dilemma

Is this still seriously being discussed in USA? Is it because people from USA have such bad health? Wearing a mask + serious distress is like <2% of the population. If it's more, that's people abusing that rule to not wear a mask.

peak clown here because if I can do simple things that don't really bother me (wear a mask, social distance) and these things can save ONE life.... I see no down side.

the clowns....really... are the people that are uncomfortable wearing a mask. Seriously, it is the easiest thing to do.

One life? You have to be kidding.

If everyone wore a mask in 2018 it would have saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. Did you?

More than that. If masks worked as well as the data deniers claim, they would have saved 40,000 lives by wearing them for three months during flu season since the R of flu is a lot lower than covid.

Your evidence for any of these statements? Any at all that is not subject to the usual questions about sample size and anecdote as evidence? I hope you're right, but only time will tell.

I'm pretty sure people are wildly misinterpreting what King Spew said. He is saying if as an individual he could prevent a single death by taking these actions then it's a trivial decision. It would be pretty psychopathic not to take the actions if it is a minor inconvenience and would on average save as much as one life. Most people would choose to take such actions if the average number of deaths prevented was orders of magnitude less than one life, which is evidenced by the fact that lots of people are happy to wear a mask/social distance at the moment.

Also the relative R of flu/Covid is essentially irrelevant when deducing how many flu deaths would be prevented by mask wearing. The only relevant factor is how effective wearing masks is at reducing the rate, which is only really dependent on the normal infection vector of the disease. If there is any correlation at all I would expect mask wearing to have a proportionally larger impact on a disease with a higher R value; there would probably be exceptions but the exponential nature of spread means this would normally be the case. Therefore if we assume the infection vectors of flu/Covid are very similar then wearing masks would be less effective at preventing spread of flu than at preventing spread of Covid.

They understood what he said lol

You don't need to clarify something so basic

There are a lot of things you can do to save 1 life but you don't/won't

This has never been a moral argument so stop making it one

The worst thing that ever happened was letting only Doctors/Epidemiologist control this

I can't blame them since it is their job to save lives at the cost of everything else (lol unless they don't pay their hospital fees) but this was never only a "save all lives" situation

You need to take everything into consideration and they never did

You can prevent a single death by doing a great number of things. Alcohol kills 100K people a year and adds a few million life years of misery to human existence in the US each year; being a teetotaler and encouraging your friends not to drink is going to save far more lives than being a virtue signalling cuck who wears a mask. But few do that (a very few; Trump is the only celebrity I can think of who actively discourages drinking).

Wearing a mask during flu season would also do this; no one does it.

Each 5% of personal Western discretionary spending you give up to the poorest poor would also save lives (of the malnourished and diseased poor), few give a ****. You're typing here virtue signalling rather than spending that time working to earn money to save a life, what are you, a psychopath?
The fact they aren't is evidenced by the fact that they don't do it for flu season and a million other things which have higher life saving ability than wearing a mask all the time for a year.

Um no. The opposite is true. If R is low then the all deaths can be stopped with minor efforts (because R<1 means the exponential dies); if R is high it's likely going to go through the population no matter what you do, and masks are just a loser sideshow; it's lockdowns and restrictions that do the work.

And indeed, we saw that play out exactly in Europe, where people masked up like nutters, believing they worked, before deaths soared and they went into hard lockdown for months (which was the only thing that slowed it); masks did exactly jack **** to stop covid.
This makes no sense whatsoever just on its face. Add in the fact that flus involve a lot more sneezing and coughing and it's lolwtfbbq reasoning. The fact that the flu has disappeared also disproves your reasoning; masks and distancing have put flu deaths to zero and done jack **** for covid deaths.

Your complete lack of reasoning here shows you're a brainwashed participant in a covid mask religion, rather than soberly looking at actions which do (and don't) save lives and make sense from a cost/benefit perspective.

I suspect we are going to see flu taken a lot more seriously. We already had an increasing vaccine programme before covid but now there is far more public interest in preventable deaths and taboos about changing behavior have been shattered.

In any case, one mistake does not justify another. The failure to take flu deaths seriously because it was 'out of sight out of mind' for most people is not a reason for not taking covid deaths seriously now we are very aware of it.

You can stop there

I'm not 100% sold on masks and I do think social distancing measures are far more effective. I suspect many more people got Covid from ignoring social distancing while wearing a mask, than did from not wearing a mask while adhering to social distancing. I think certain social distancing procedures should be continued to help reduce spread of flu and other viruses... eliminating the custom of handshakes being the first and most obvious. But other things like encouraging telecommuting and reducing density in offices makes sense also from a public health standpoint.

However this debate is not about masks specifically. There is a contingent of Covid deniers (both ITT and in the population generally) who consistently mock all attempts to control or reduce the spread of the virus. They consistently cite stats (usually inflated or just plain wrong) about how miniscule the threat from Covid is. They toss out solutions like "isolate the olds" as if we had a quarantine island where we could ship everyone over 65 and everyone with underlying conditions, so the rest of us could keep living without any inconvenience or change to our routines. Zero concern given to the obvious scientific fact that the more vectors of transmission, the more eventual cases among the most vulnerable, and therefore the more deaths. Zero collectivism, zero willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

First of all, you're an impact denier. Using terms like "inconvenience" and "change to our routines", you're deliberately denying the fact that covid mitigation strategies have done tremendous damage. The global severely poor have increased by 200 million due to covid. $10 trillion dollars have been lost according to the IMF. People, especially children, have missed out a normal year of schooling and social development they'll never get back. Your disgusting immoral denial of the impacts of covid mitigations as merely "inconvenience" mean you lose all moral high ground, and in fact are a substantially worse person than the people the covid "deniers" you're trying to moralize against.

You haven't done this analysis and you don't know this. Turkey is a country that has locked up its olds and forced them to stay home, for example. Here's how they're doing:



Two options:

1. Forcibly lock up everyone
2. Forcibly lock up the olds and the people lazy/stupid enough to have given themselves diabetes and obesity

Which one is saner?
Who should sacrifice and why is a legitimate question. Should a poor black kid who's struggling already, miss on a year of schooling they'll never get back so that a dementia-ridden 82 year old who doesn't know where she is can cling onto life another two years?

Should 200 million young people go into extreme malnourished poverty and have their brain development permanently damaged so that a fat 60 year old who was too lazy to work out can keep being a fat 60 year old?

Should 270 million people give up a normal year of life they'll never get back, have their plans and dreams and friendships and relationships and businesses and childhood development interrupted, to potentially give a fraction of very old people - mostly the sickest with the lowest quality of life and fewest years to live - another few years of life at best?

These aren't trivial questions and you're framing it like they are in a way that indicates that the restriction aren't personally affecting you much and you're happy to moralize about what other people should do and how they suffer and trivialize large scale loss and damage as an "inconvenience".

you are mentally ill

having a scared society is 100x worse than any benefits that result from doing these stupid procedures

most people hate working from home

there is a reason suicides doubled and mental health cases rose by 300%

You think humans want to socially distance just to save a few people from the flu? you're ****ing crazy

Back to the alcohol analogy.

Obesity argument next please



lvr,

Lol at the rage over not shaking hands. You're a weird dude.

why do you pretend to care about mental health? You don't support funding social programs that help deal w mental health / surrounding issues. So what gives?

Why you virtue signaling bro?


citation needed. would bet you're making **** up here.

Lol you seem like an angry person. Handshake is a dumb custom that probably costs millions in healthcare costs just in the US. Bowing works for billions of people on planet earth, try that.

Also people like working from home. Reducing density in offices would still allow people to work in person 2-3 days a week and would be beneficial to the environment and to workers in a dozen different ways (including their mental health, since you seem so concerned about that).

Time will tell? We knew this since spring 2020! The information just doesn't get delivered because fear is more profitable to sell than truth.




As of Nov 26 in Canada.

Look at the under 50 age total deaths. And if you remove people under 50 with pre existing I wouldn't be surprised if that number dropped from 100 to less than 10 as of Nov.

Total NothingBurger for the under 50 age crowd statistically.

We could have easily locked down the over 65 crowd in their homes with only health care visitors allowed that are constantly tested.

And let life go on for everyone else.

We live in post fact world. People don't look at the numbers anymore and argue what their feelings tell them to argue.

Like the posters in this thread jumping up and down demanding more lockdowns. They were wrong all the way through.