Posted on 05/04/2020 9:01:38 PM PDT by Barnacle
Most of us have been in lockdown for about six weeks. The objective was to flatten the curve and reduce the total number of victims of COVID-19. Well, the curve has been flattened indeed, but how is it six-weeks later there are 25,375 new cases in a single day?
With all the laws and policies implemented to knock out this virus, I expected we’d be on the last leg of the downward curve by now. But, instead of a peak and decline, we’ve had three peaks and shallow valleys between them.
If people are staying at home, practicing social distancing, wearing masks in public, washing their hands and sanitizing everything in sight, how is it that COVID-19 continues to be transmitted from person to person?
A couple possibilities that occurred to me are that: 1) People flouting the laws, or 2) The virus is phenomenally virulent beyond anything ever seen before ( bio-weapon).
I was fully on board with the lockdown orders when they were issued. It was what we needed to do to beat this. However, we are at the point that the cure is becoming worse than the disease. In addition to what this virus has done to people directly, what about the collateral damage, such as long-term damage to our economy? For instance, consider the first two trillion dollar bail-out. Who pays for it? If you are among the approximate one-hundred-million US tax payers, you do. The federal government just signed your name to a $20,000 loan. Don’t think so? Do the math.
It would be particularly interesting to hear the stories of COVID-19 cases that you’ve heard of in the last couple weeks and theories of how they were exposed.
Should we just let this thing take an inevitable course, or should we double-down on lock-down?
No. My N95 mask does not have the flap that opens for exhaling. So I am on the side of the Angels...hopefully...probably :)
You are on the good side with that
Most are not. In fact, my P100 mask is not on the “good side,” but I exhale a lot easier.
I’m simply setting to look into things a bit, and look at who wants to inject us and their motivations.
Serious question. Why do masks only work one way? How can it prevent the wearer’s germs from infecting others but provide no protection from others’ germs to the wearer?
It’s the same mask, made of the same material on both sides but has a different effect in one direction vs the other?
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With respect to surgical masks. There is a designated side that is supposed to be next to your face, and IIRC, it’s usually the colored side that is supposed to be on the outside. I’m not into manufacturing specs. but I assume that there’s a difference of some sort-the directions state that the correct side should be facing outward.
Drawbacks to the surgical masks-they do not fit tightly, they do not protect the wearer from air borne particles. If you touch the mask you have likely contaminated it and will need to replace it.
My notes from various articles:
“Surgical masks are worn to protect patients from infectious droplets should the health care provider sneeze or cough. Someone who is suspected of being sick or is actually sick with COVID-19 should also wear a surgical mask to protect anyone around them from their sneeze or cough.
As far as protection for the user, surgical masks can protect the nose and mouth against splashes of bodily fluids, as a surgeon might encounter during a surgery. But don’t wear a surgical mask or a do-it-yourself mask if you think it’s going to protect you from COVID-19 that’s suspended in the air, say in a closed, poorly ventilated space. Aerosolized COVID-19 is so tiny that it can get in through gaps between the mask and face and breathed in through the material of the mask.”
You don’t need a mask with really good social distancing (staying at least six feet away from others) when you are outdoors.
“Even in a well-ventilated, large room where businesses are doing a good job of keeping the density of people small and you are there for as short a time as possible, there’s not a big need for a mask.”
But if those who are sneezing or coughing are not wearing masks and if social distancing doesn’t seem to be slowing the spread of COVID-19 fast enough, Americans and others will likely need to follow in Austria’s footsteps with mandatory masks inside buildings and go further to include any public transportation, taxis and ride sharing services.”
Hope that helps.
Thank you very much for this reply!
You are welcome.
I am going by the 72,284 deaths from COVID-19.
And that’s all propaganda cooked BS...
The provisional CDC data is better understood in breaking down the numbers from the sloppily assembled and baked source totals the MSM propagandists put out to us.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
The CDC’s own Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) as of 5/5/2020. The provisional counts for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths and related, based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System.
Knock your socks off.
I was wrong to say the death counts were correct. There is a tactic underway by the blue states to inflate their numbers so it looks like Trump’s efforts have failed. That is an effort to sway the 2020 elections.
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3842364/posts
???? It’s FYI info. Why do you ask it being propaganda?
Okay, yes. I just saw your second post. Yes, the blue-states, the MSM/panic-peddlers, and Trump hating experts are deliberately inflating (feeding official information venues) with baked fraudulent numbers.
Don't you find it suspicious that each of those dead bodies had an affidavit attached to it casting a vote for the Democrat candidate (whoever it might be) in the 2020 presidential election?
Unfortunately, we have a bunch of people* on here who are either ignorant, willfully ignorant, or just don’t comprehend what it means that COVID-19 mitigation knocked the absolute crap out of our flu season.
*I had to refrain mightily to not use a disrespectful word.
It is true that some of this likely comes from the wolf-crying about AWG, and even some past pandemics. However, that’s where sober, sound analysis and judgment comes in. The world still has its wolves, once in a while.
But to my “flu” point:
As I said, COVID-19 mitigation clearly slammed the flu to the turf. And it clearly has greatly reduced the rate of flu deaths during the short time the mitigation has been in place. Since the transmission means of the two diseases are similar (COVID-19 is just better at it, and of course, at least starting off, no one had immunity from vaccine or “herd” to CV), as a sort of rough estimate one can invert the reduction (multiplier) to guesstimate where COVID-19 might have taken us with low end mitigation.
Of course, at SOME point - probably when hospitals in some large city are overwhelmed, then restrictions would kick in, perhaps even more severely than what we have seen here in the US: That would eventually “flatten” the curve, though at a much grimmer level and with much greater disruptions to the food supply, etc., than we have seen. So, then we have the wonderful combination of more disruption, probably greater economic fallout, and MANY more fatalities.
Could the mitigation have been done better in the US, to reduce the economic fallout? Maybe, but I think we are then looking at specific statewide application, not the Federal response.
There is a LOT of “stuff” going on, in both directions.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/#ExcessDeaths
Does CDC have a good CURRENT handle on increased deaths from suicide, Dr.’s appts. missed, etc., or decreased deaths from the nearly vanished flu and other respiratory diseases, fewer traffic accidents, and so on? I do not think so... Therefor “excess deaths” is a poor measure of COVID-19 itself. Many “other causes” are heavily affected by the lockdowns.
(I am NOT suggesting that economic calamity to reduce traffic accidents is a good trade off!!!)
Nonetheless, based mainly on comments from some of my wife’s friends who work in hospitals in medium to hard hit areas, I think the commonly reported numbers for COVID-19 fatalities are going to in the end turn out to be respectably close — probably under +/- 20% “off”.
Actually, I’ll amend that comment: The US CDC did NOT do a good job. The list of screw ups is too long to go in to, but, a really simple one is that if they were going to recommend masks for everybody, the 1st day they should have provided instructions w/ graphics on how to make and use respectably effective homemade masks. Instead we see this nonsense of masks not over noses, very poor seals, and materials and usage that may do more harm than good in some situations.
Is that warning current? I’m not challenging you, I am just curious.
Those who say more infections are a good thing ignore several factors and possibilities.
If NYC ‘s infections had continued unabated their HCS would clearly have been overwhelmed far before any kind of “herd immunity” kicked in. All one has to do is look at the hospitalizations, early on. (Nationally, the hospitalizations data is flaky, but NYC’s is pretty good.)
If the fatality rate is cut by 10x and the actual cases increase by 10x, actual fatalities are unchanged until herd immunity is attained (then reducing cases), IF herd immunity is attainable.
We have no idea if lasting immunity is conferred by mild or especially by asymptomatic cases.
Is there any further (last month or so) data on whether viral load / degree of exposure affects COVID-19 severity?
Amen Brother. The unfortunate state of many would be a proverbial unemployed serf as well as a criminal. Is there a lower status available, than unemployed criminal serf? Death would be an improvement, and maybe that is just the entire reason for things right now.
I agree. It made me go in my shop and get my respirator I used for attic work. I tried to buy a mask and they were stripped off the shelves. So was the hand sanitizer. I bet I had stuff from my vegetables all over my steering wheel and everything I touched inside my car. Hand sanitizer from a zip lock bag should be used after loading your groceries in the car. Don’t wear your shoes in the house Far UVC should be used throughout these groceries and other public areas. I bought a wand Far UVC sanitizer for my groceries I brought into the house.
Well said.
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