We broke all records of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations today

I've been saying exactly the same thing!

If you're self quarantining then you're not, quote from CDC, "in close contact (within 6 feet) of other people who don’t live in your household" hence they are not recommending wearing a mask indoors in those situations.

 

You're missing the point about "likes". I'm not writing about the number of likes, anyone can get loads of likes, I'm writing about who are liking the posts. If many of my posts were being liked by white supremacists or black supremacists or anarchists I would start questioning my posts. If many of my posts were being liked by the 100% anti-mask crowd I would again have to look at my posting manner and the message I was trying to convey.

 

Good. I’m glad you are on board with mask usage in the home where it can do much more overall good than in public. The science is clear. If one were to oppose mask usage in the home they would be science deniers.

In my comments to Golem I clearly stated I would not recommend mask usage for households that have been in long quarantine.

 

I'll repeat one more time: I know it's linked to herd immunity. What it's not linked to is "herd immunity levels" Which he refuses to define. I guess it's because there is no such thing.

 

By "omitted" I mean conceptually. You cite the CDC on "wearing masks at home" as if it were a blanket statement. It's not.

Ok. So they don't exist.

A term for something that doesn't exist? What would be the use of that?

There is a threshold. Under the threshold there is no herd immunity, over the threshold there is. No levels. Talking about "levels" (or whatever you want to call it) is not only not useful, it's misleading.

I didn't call the CDC or people who are overweight or with cancer nuts. The above paragraph is completely unintelligible. But with your constant "twisting" of words, I probably don't care to know what you mean.

 

I don’t want to assume too much, but I’m guessing they like my content because I base it on verifiable facts and I’m vehemently opposed to authoritarianism. I’ve explicitly stated I’m not anti mask and I’ve posted several times on mask usage in the home. Yet they still like my posts. From their histories I believe both are opposed to authoritarianism and I have “liked” content of theirs on that subject.

When I would question my posting would be if other posters could consistently, or even rarely, show what I was posting was not factual.

Again, I can’t say with certainty, but what you see as “anti mask” in a lot of people is really anti authoritarianism or independence of varying degrees. It’s a complicated subject and I’m no psychologist, but it seems clear most anti mask sentiment is founded on mistrust of government, bureaucratic “experts”, and media. And that mistrust is not illogical.

 

False. While the meta-analysis was published in the Lancet on June 1, 2020, the studies on which it was based were ALL from 2003 to 2019, except two from 2020. Like I said, most were done with SARS-1 and MERS!!! Years ago!!! So the science was amply known at the time of the CDC recommendation. You can see for yourself, from Figure 4 in this links:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext

Completely false, as I demonstrated above. There were plenty of studies.

But there was evidence, as the proof I provided above demonstrates.

Again, wrong. It's not that the evidence did not surface until relatively recently. THE EVIDENCE HAD ALWAYS BEEN THERE BUT WAS IGNORED BY THE CDC. They CORRECTED their oversight relatively recently but the evidence was there, since 2003.

And that is ridiculous. At the time, the world was freaking out with hazmat suits everywhere, entire cities cordoned out, airplanes being grounded, borders being closed... and the CDC is talking about freaking common cold and seasonal flu??? Obviously they failed to realize how much more serious this was... which again is an utter failure by the very agency that is supposed to analyze these threats and react to them. Did they suppose that their counterparts in other countries reacting strongly were wrong and incompetent? Well, if they did, the facts showed otherwise.

Uh, what? My hospital receives CDC bulletins all the time. What the hell are you talking about???

Yes. Many. The link was provided above. From the table listed as figure 4 with the name of the first author and the year, you can look at the reference list provided at the end of the article and google each article and consult it. PLENTY of evidence. ABUNDANT evidence. 27 of these studies are prior to January 2020. How would the CDC know that? By being competent and looking up the medical literature which is AMPLY available to CDC scientists who presumed have subscriptions to ALL these journals and if they don't they can easily get them through medical libraries. So, a new coronavirus emerges... wouldn't it be advisable to look at the available medico-scientific literature regarding PPE and the other two dangerous coronaviruses, MERS and SARS-1??? Hello???

Like I said, transparency and accuracy are good for credibility, and trust and credibility are important in a pandemic; the public needs to trust the CDC when they say something. When they misinform, the trust is eroded. And as you can see in the studies I linked to, not all are with N95s. Many are with regular facemasks and they ALSO protect the wearer (although, less so). What the CDC should have said is that masks protect the wearer but N95s should be reserved for healthcare workers, and other masks also offer some protection to the wearer.

Again, you're repeating yourself, forcing me to repeat myself: the evidence was AMPLY available prior to January 2020 as demonstrated by the list of references in the meta-analysis I linked to, above.

Yada, yada, yada. QED. One point, though; a piece of good advice: NEVER doubt my data. I do NOT post BS. What I post is ALWAYS supported by data. ALWAYS. If we go by your signature, do know that it applies to me, too. And no, I'm not always right either; in the rare occasions when I'm not, I acknowledge it and say that I stand corrected. On this, though, I'm right.

Agreed. Plus, self-preservation. Especially in the middle of an economic crisis, people didn't want to lose their jobs. While it explains it, it doesn't justify it. Not doing the right thing to fulfill the mission of the organization for fear of retaliation is understandable but it is still not right.

I was not talking about cloth masks. I was saying that pretending that masks don't protect the wearer is just plain wrong. Now, evidence slowly surfaced about cloth masks too, like the study by the Duke University Department of Physics quantifying the protection delivered by various kinds of masks, with N95s and surgical masks predictably being the most protective, but they also had advice on what kinds of materials and ways to make them worked. Again, not a peep from the CDC, which should be taking this kind of research results and be issuing campaigns to educate the public about it.

That is exactly what they did. Not only in the matter of masks not protecting the wearer, but also, in saying that contacts should not be tested.

Sure, but the American people are not the CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION. It is not the job of the American people to come up with scientifically-based recommendations to control and prevent diseases. That's the CDC's job. Like the saying goes, if they don't like the heat, they need to get out of the kitchen.

I certainly hope that the Biden administration expunges the politically-minded people at the CDC, investigates how and why they issued wrong advice, and sanitizes that place so that they restart fulfilling their noble mission the way they did for decades, until they became politicized and unreliable.

 

I won't speak for 557 who is a grown man and smart enough to defend himself, but I'd speculate that what he means by that, although the choice of words is debatable because indeed there are no levels - either a population is above the threshold or below it - he probably means that the threshold for different populations may require different levels (or a better word, percentages) of immune people. Say, a population with more cross-immunity between other kinds of coronavirus and this one may already have 40% of the people not susceptible, so they may only need 30% more to be vaccinated to reach a 70% HIT, while a population where everybody is entirely naive of that immunity will indeed need the full 70% of them vaccinated to get to the HIT. This is what wiped out aborigines in North and South American when the conquistadors came: entire populations were too susceptible to measles, etc. So, the degree or percentage of immunity in a population varies, and I assume it's what 557 meant; we can ask him.

 

I’ve never claimed it was a blanket statement. I recommend everyone who cares about infecting their family wear a mask at home. The CDC only recommended households with comorbidity and members who have risk of exposure wear masks at home. That’s the majority of US households. Blanket? No. The majority? Yes.

I’ve told you. I’m not a follower that just regurgitates what I see on the news. I’m a leader that prefers to use known facts to solve current and future problems. I’ve been leading the CDC on the concept of mask usage by months consistently. I discuss concepts that are not clearly defined by the scientific community. You pretend we have all knowledge and there are never new concepts or the need to describe developing knowledge. Well, I’m sorry I don’t share that belief. And it’s a waste of time arguing with you about it because you have demonstrated by being consistently wrong on the facts you are unequipped to understand or discuss these concepts.

Then tell us all what the HIT is, for say the United States. Go...,

You sure did call the CDC nuts. And you inferred anyone with a Covid comorbidity is not normal.

 

There was no Coronavirus between 2003 and 2019. And in June 2020 the recommendation to wear masks had already been issued.

Again: if the CDC starts making wild recommendations without scientific backing, they will lose credibility. And, in that case (unlike now) it would be justified.

It's easy to say NOW... "yeah... the conclusion of those studies about masks would have applied to Covid 19"... not so easy in January.

Again: no Coronavirus when those studies were published.

Not just evidence.... scientific evidence is required.

The world was not freaking out because of any of that. They were freaking out because people were dying by the thousands.

I'm afraid the rest of you post just expands on the same theme. Your mistake is that you are judging in December 2020 what we did in January 2020, when we didn't know ANYTHING.

The CDC acted correctly (at least in respect to masks... don't know about anything else) in January given what we knew at the time. Which was basically nothing. But they waited until we knew something to make recommendations. Which is the correct thing to do. They don't want to make things worse. They didn't know, for example, if an infected patient wearing a mask would make him sicker. They didn't know if the mask helped or how. They didn't know if cloth masks would help given that the virus was too small to be stopped by anything but N95 masks. But, at the same time, they didn't even know exactly how the virus was transmitted.

But, bottom line, they did not (nor should they) issue recommendations (I'm talking about masks) until the proper science existed. There wasn't! And given how politicized this became, they were proven right to do that. Because if they had started willy-nilly extrapolating to Covid 19 from studies that were not about Covid 19... and then turned out that half their recommendations were, not only wrong, but maybe even counterproductive (and recommending people to wear masks would have been immensely counterproductive, if it hadn't turn out to be the right one)... nobody on the right would have payed the least bit of attention when they issued recommendations that were based on fact.

 

Apparently you ignore that SARS-1 and MERS were also caused by coronaviruses.

Apparently you ignore that the diameter of the SARS-CoV-2 is the same as the diameter of the SARS-1 and MERS viruses (about 0.1 micron in average).

Apparently you ignore something called Brownian Motion (look it up) and the issue of MPP (maximum penetrating particle).

Apparently you ignore that data with the two other coronaviruses on whether or not certain masks can filter them out, applies entirely to this coronavirus which is not smaller or bigger than its cousins, and is subject to the same Brownian Motion that allows the blown melt layer (look it up) even in surgical masks to trap it (not just the N95s - which are constructed differently for seal but rely on the same kind of inner layer of unwoven blown melt).

Apparently you ignore that some studies on mask efficacy use OTHER particulates that are not even viruses to reach conclusions and this is accepted practice; MUCH BETTER in this case if the studies were done with SARS-1 and MERS which are almost exactly identical to the SARS-CoV-2 with some minor genetic variation of a few percentage points. Coronaviruses are all enveloped, single-stranded, positive-sensed RNA viruses that behave in aerosols exactly the same way. Bats have HUNDREDS of coronavirus and they vary very little. The genome size of these bat coronaviruses in a sample recently studied of 65 of them, is pretty similar: the longest was 30.3 kb, for BtCoV/133/05, and the shortest was 28.2 kb, for BtCoV/512/05. Yep. These are all very similar viruses. The conclusions of the SARS-1 and MERS studies are perfectly good to inform the issue of the SARS-CoV-2, like the CDC scientists should know and do know.

If these studies had been done with viruses of other families like the influenza virus, you'd have a point. But no. They were done within the coronavirus family. That's exactly why the meta-analysis only looked at studies done with coronaviruses. There are countless others showing efficacy for other viruses too, but it is more pertinent to limit the current issue to the coronavirus family.

Apparently you ignore that the evidence I provided IS scientific. I mean, what exactly do you want? I showed you 29 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in scientific journals and you seem to think that this is not scientific evidence??? Do you take The Lancet for some sort of lay press newspaper???

Apparently you ignore a lot but you think that I'm the one who ignores stuff. Hint: I'm not.

You say "my mistake." There is NO mistake in the post I've published, unlike this HUGE BLUNDER that you have posted: "There was no Coronavirus between 2003 and 2019." LOL. Coronaviruses have been among humankind forever. The most recent common ancestor is estimated to have existed around the year 8000 BCE. So you think there were no coronaviruses between 2003 and 2019? How cute. I love lay people. They say the funniest things about science!

Now you have managed to irritate me (which is a shame because I used to like your political posts).
Have a nice life. Over and out.

 

No. You just kept saying to "wear masks at home", with no qualifiers. Same thing as claiming it was a blanket statement, in my opinion.

There you go... That's what I mean.

Not what I bolded. Try again... See what I mean when I say you deny it conceptually?

I have not seen that. If you were, you would be able to show something like this.

March 30: My post where I talk about using masks to protect others. Even if they were cloth masks.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-face-masks-help-us-slow-the-pandemic.570394/

April 1: Two days later the CDC announces it is considering changing the guidelines (no mention of cloth masks, though)
https://khn.org/morning-breakout/cd...ng-a-run-on-n95s-that-protect-health-workers/

April 2: CDC, recommends cloth masks
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/02/cdc-mask-guidance-cloth-face-masks/

See? That's how you make a point. Simple, no B.S., no pseudoscience, no self-congratulations.... You just show the facts and the evidence. Knowing that, if the other person is even moderately reasonable, they will arrive at the same conclusion that you did.

For example, when you say

If this were not B.S., you would have shown the quote or link without my having to ask.

BUT, if it's just you twisting my words (which you are fond of doing) to conform them to a pre-established arbitrary narrative, you don't..... Because quoting or providing a direct link would destroy your narrative.

I remember having explained how to make a convincing case to you before... But looks like you haven't learned.

This is parallel to the difference between how scientific and pseudoscientific reasoning works. With the latter, you start with a pre-established conclusion, and you look for any facts that confirm it. This forces you to hide the evidence as much as possible. Or you'll get caught.

In Science you look at the evidence (and SHOW it), and just go to wherever that evidence takes you. With nothing pre-established.

It's just two different ways of thinking. I prefer the latter. You like the former. This is why I always end up clarifying complex things. While you end up complicating simple things.

 

When I say coronavirus, I'm obviously talking about Covid 19. But, Ok... I'll be more precise.

There was no Covid 19 between 2003 and 2019 (though it started in 2019, it wasn't recognized as such until 2020)

Makes absolutely no difference. There were no scientific studies about the benefits of wearing masks for Covid 19 before 2020. There was no way to know if they would have a positive or a negative effect. And, BTW, I'm talking about cloth masks, of course.

I don't think it's relevant to anything I have said. I don't have to know anything about viruses to know how science works. And to know that making recommendations that had the potential of becoming political, without scientific backing... is intellectual suicide. I have seen this happen many times. Even among great scientists and researchers.

Again: Covid 19 is not the other two. It's Covid 19. You do not just arbitrarily extrapolate studies done on one virus to apply to other.

I'm sorry, but that's how science works!

I say again: you are judging what we knew in January with what we know today. Now we know with much more precision in which ways Covid 19 were similar or different from the other two. Not so much in January.

Ok... I think I'm repeating this too many times in this post, so this is the last time: "OTHER particles" are not Covid 19!

I don't care how "similar" they are (or we now know they are)... Extrapolations of that type are not acceptable in Science. Especially not for a new deadly virus of which we know so little.

I have no doubt that what you provided is scientific. But extrapolating it to Covid 19 is not. You mentioned a study published on The Lancet in June (If I'm not mistaken) of 2020 in which all those studies become related to Covid 19. That's when it becomes actionable science. Not a second before that.

Sorry, but I can't do anything about that. I am too fond of Science to compromise for the sake of not irritating people.

I'll defer to you on virology. But I have a lot of experience on how Science works. My minor in College was in Epistemology, and I taught if for a short time. So I know the pitfalls in which technical people who know a lot about a subject, but are not dedicated to actual research, can fall into. And I'm sure the people who get to make recommendations to the public know them too.

 

I say wear a mask at home because the evidence showing it’s the correct thing to do is overwhelming. The CDC is still lagging my recommendation. They always have. But their recommendation was provided in full to you in a link. I also provided pull quotes of the relevant parts. I also included the evidence they based their recommendation on that is the same information I used to try and get people to protect their families in August.

I will always give people the truth. I’m sorry you do not care about your family’s health enough to make this small sacrifice, but your selfishness is not going to stop me from disseminating facts so that others can show their love for family through action.

I did not omit it. It’s in the pull quote, Golem.

Of course I can do that. It’s exactly what I did in my first post on this subject in this thread. I pointed out how the CDC is catching up to where I was in August.

Golem, I’m confident my point is clear to third parties on this specific point. Normal people are who the recommendation by the CDC is for.

Words mean things Golem. This recommendation is for normal people.

I am not trying to convince you of anything. You don’t have the foundational knowledge to understand most of what I post. As I keep telling you, my conversations with you are for the benefit of third parties.

All my posts are based on evidence. In July I did not decide people should wear masks at home and look for evidence to confirm. I saw the evidence. Observation is the first foundation of science. You and many others do not observe. You don’t question things you observe. You are only capable of regurgitating things you’ve been told. All my posts are based on evidence and I hide none. I offer everything I have and encourage others regularly to provide better evidence if mine is lacking.

Nothing we’ve discussed is simple. You’ve been led to believe the concept of herd immunity is simple. It’s far more complex than I’ve even hinted at up till now.

I prefer facts, you prefer incorrect information. It’s always the same with you. You make false statements, I show your errors, you can’t back up your statements, so you call my posts pseudoscience. As always, I’m glad. Because third parties need reminded occasionally how dangerous it is to mix authoritarianism with lack of knowledge.

 

So @Golem and @CenterField, I’ll answer your questions on why I have used the term “level(s) of herd immunity” in discussions on the subject in the past.

First, as CenterField has well described by providing the formal formula and commentary, the herd immunity threshold (HIT) is reached when the R-naught (R0) is below 1. But that’s the simple part. In reality, at the point the first individual in the population has developed immunity we have begun to “approach” the HIT. Each subsequent convalescent/vaccine recipient that develops immunity brings us closer to the HIT.

This leads us to one aspect of herd immunity that I never see discussed—the fact that each individual who develops immunity has value to the population. That “value” is the decrease in the R0 that individual immunity produces. That decrease in R0 means the risk to every person in the population without immunity is a tiny bit safer (less likely to become infected).

Now here is where emotions typically start to interfere with understanding because until vaccines are widely available most acquired immunity involves risk to life and health. When in the past I’ve taken a pragmatist approach and said there is value in immunity from natural infection it comes across as unfeeling or crass because of the suffering involved in achieving that one immune individual. What is completely ignored then is the fact every individual in the population is safer as a result.

So, reaching the HIT is desirable. But each point from introduction of the pathogen to that threshold is a small “win”. It’s getting less risky for each individual without immunity in the population as we approach the HIT.

Not only is this not discussed, most people seem to think the HIT is some magical thing where previous to achieving it everyone is at static risk and after it’s reached everyone is “safe”. Many also believe after the HIT is reached the disease goes away. Or the pathogen (virus in this case) is actually eradicated. All of that is false.

In reality, there is the same sliding scale on the other side of the HIT. An R0 of 0.9 is good. It means infection rates and overall infections in the population will decrease. The “pandemic“ is over. But if an R0 of 0.9 is good, an R0 of 0.15 is better.
Rates will fall faster and overall prevalence of disease in the population will be much lower than if the R0 were to remain at 0.9. (And each point between 0.9 and 0.15 incrementally decreases individual risk to those without immunity.)

So, when we look at actual risk of infection, we don’t have a threshold, we have a sliding scale. I have used the term “level of herd immunity” to refer to this concept in a couple different contexts. First, I’ve discussed areas of NYC that have documented high cases per capita and low current infection rates. They have reached some “level of herd immunity “. Since NOBODY knows what the actual HIT is ANYWHERE there must be some term to describe where a population is on either side of R0=1, especially when we can observe that a population is somewhere on that scale.

Second, I have used the term in the context CenterField describes in post #183. Again, perhaps it’s a bad term, but I don’t know how else to denote all the heterogeneity at play with brevity.

Perhaps my term is a bad one in both contexts. I’ve admitted that and asked for better suggestions. But it describes a very real concept that is undeniably based on verifiable facts. And I’m unaware of an existing term to describe the concept without going into the above detail.

Of course this is the simplistic version because I’ve assumed all else being equal here and “s” (if you are lost Golem please reference CenterFields provided formula) is the only changing variable. I tried to include heterogeneity of populations in earlier explanations in the thread but it seemed to overwhelm Golem. But it is still a fact even though the HIT is reached, and “s” is relatively static, something like a point mutation or seasonal uptick in the prevalence of a co-infectious pathogen can take a population back above R0=1 and above the HIT.

So in closing, give me a better term and I’ll consider it’s usage. Every reader is encouraged to check my post for accuracy. Evidence I’m wrong will also be considered. Whining without one of the above inclusions will be considered concession.

 

There is no evidence that recommending that would have a positive effect. Reason and logic indicates that the effect would be negative. Over-recommending is not wise. So a rational CDC will not recommend what they know would not happen.

As I said, it would be like recommending people with comorbidities (I like the term you used) to just hide in a closet until all this is over. Would it work? Sure.... But would ANYBODY follow it... Highly unlikely. And it would tarnish the reputation of the CDC. As would a blanket recommendation to wear masks at home.

Bottom line: CDC recommendations should be base on Science. There is no science that would demonstrate that such a recommendation would help. NONE!

I have done everything in my power to explain to you the difference between science and pseudo-science. You are too attached to the latter, I'm afraid.

As for the rest, I see in your post that you refuse to provide links and references (like the ones I provided) to support your claims . That being the case, there is not much I can do for you.

 

I gave you one: "pseudoscientific bullcrap" This is how pseudoscience works. You first make a statement, and AFTER you make the statement you try to justify it. It's not how science works, though.

And giving it a "name" does not make it any different.

There is no such thing as "levels of herd immunity". There is a threshold. If the threshold is achieved, there is herd immunity, if it's not achieved, there isn't.. Simple as that. I know you're trying to push the idea that there is some sort of "partial" herd immunity that makes the population "a little" immune. It's like the teenager who told her parents that she was "a little" pregnant.

In any case, it's a moot debate given that herd immunity is not possible as it relates to Covid 19 except through a vaccination and one booster (we hope). So whatever term you want to use, don't include "herd immunity" in it.

 

Pardon my interruption, but what is the point of wearing a mask in the home?

We never wore masks in the home, even in our extremely strict lock downs - and we've almost eradicated the virus. In fact, home was the only place you could be mask-free. Unless you have incredibly careless housemates (and why would they be careless in a pandemic? better yet why would you tolerate their carelessness, in a pandemic?), it's the one place you know you won't catch anything!

 

When I provide links, you do not read them. I’ve told you before I won’t play that game anymore with you. As a demonstration to another member I provided links in one post of this conversation. As I predicted you did not read them. The links verified all the facts I presented in my argument. Now you want more links. I predicted that to the other member as well. Lol

You have NO facts or evidence anything I’ve said is incorrect. You don’t want to wear a mask at home. I get that. But the CDC did recommend the majority of US households wear masks in the home. I’m sure some will follow the advice. Both I and the CDC presented empirical evidence mask usage in the home can be effective.

 

Because we ain’t Australia. Infected individuals are infecting over 50% of their family members in the home. It’s thought in areas with other restrictions on business etc. 70% of transmission is occurring in the home. What we have been doing isn’t working.

 

I accept your gracious and very concisely worded concession.

 

Okay, so why aren't the other people in the house demanding better from the person who's out and about and evidently doing the wrong thing? Why aren't they all agreeing upon a higher level of personal safety and hygiene etc, for the sake of the household? What you're saying sounds bizarre, to me. It's almost as though they're doing it deliberately.

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?help/terms
Rule 15

 

On that, we agree. It's been a disaster from the get-go, in America.

 

I was in compliance with all PF rules.