https://www.onstageblog.com/editori...YmY3-NUtYQZ6Sl-la_JOJrFr-p7tSwz6ajfVDmbqJzsSY

A political diatribe that overlooks simple personal responsibility with common sense. In the same state, with the same laws, others, with a lick of sense, are not having mask-less summer productions of ‘Mamma Mia’.

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/ece0db09da4d4ca68252c3967aa1e9dd

 

IMHO, until the majority of the populace disagrees strongly with @jpanhalt, things will continue to get worse. It’s fairly obvious that countries that also disagree with jpanhalt are the ones with the coronavirus under control.

Please provide links to peer-reviewed, robust studies that show mask wearing as mandated helps. Every paper you see starts with an agenda and using sloppy logic (e.g., post hoc ergo propter hoc) ends up supporting their bias.

Lots of small exposures leads to community immunity. There's even a link in this thread to studies of the slums of India to support that.

 

Please provide links to peer-reviewed, robust studies that show mask wearing as mandated helps. Every paper you see starts with an agenda and using sloppy logic (e.g., post hoc ergo propter hoc) ends up supporting their bias.

While not peer reviewed by any means, look here in Ohio. After the mandate on masks the infection rate, after ~2 weeks went from increasing, to plateaued to now decreasing. The same thing happened in PA.

Can't find it now, but one city in Iowa mandated masks and their infection rate dropped while the state went up very high.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/1...revent+200,000++US+COVID-19+Cases&stream=top&

 

The normal course of any pandemic/epidemic is to increase rapidly initially (logarithmically) , then taper off, plateau, and fall.

 

Please provide links to peer-reviewed, robust studies that show mask wearing as mandated helps. Every paper you see starts with an agenda and using sloppy logic (e.g., post hoc ergo propter hoc) ends up supporting their bias.

I wasn’t going to reply but didn’t want my silence to look like you’ve baited someone else.

 

While not peer reviewed by any means, look here in Ohio. After the mandate on masks the infection rate, after ~2 weeks went from increasing, to plateaued to now decreasing. The same thing happened in PA.

Can't find it now, but one city in Iowa mandated masks and their infection rate dropped while the state went up very high.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=MEDIA+ADVISORY:+Wehby+FT+AOP+6-11-20&utm_content=From+Health+Affairs:++Mask+Use+Could+Prevent+200,000++US+COVID-19+Cases&stream=top&

We all know what's happening here. We are trying to slow the spread of the virus by any means necessary. Masks (the cloth type worn by the public) as an actual preventative measure to reduce the final number of infected are marginal at best. What's effective is isolation, distancing 6 feet or more, personal/public cleanness with masks as an additional measure. Depending on mask usage as the #1 factor in the prevention equation is counterproductive because it will actually lead to more infection.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/153567601001500204
Does That Face Mask Really Protect You?

The protective efficiencies were 33.3%, 11.3%, and 6.1% for the surgical, bandana, and dust masks, respectively. The N95 mask protective efficiency was 89.6%. In conclusion, the surgical mask protected the best of the three face masks tested. However, it is important to note that all three masks offer very little protection when compared to the N95, and wearing these face masks may produce a false sense of protection.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...ask-study-spotlights-messiness-science-during

"While masks are almost certainly an effective public health measure for preventing and slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the claims presented in this study are dangerously misleading and lack any basis in evidence," they wrote in a letter to the PNAS editorial board, requesting retraction. "Unfortunately, since its publication on June 11th, this article has been distributed and shared widely in traditional and social media, where its claims are being interpreted as rigorous science."

 

My Photoshop skills are very rusty, sorry, but I was able to patch together these graphs of cumulative cases for a few states (source: JHU CSSE site):



Ohio (July 23), Pennsylvania (July 1) and Oregon (July 1) have mask mandates. The other states do not. The curves for Ohio, Oregon, and Oklahoma look similar despite the date of mandated masks or not.

Pennsylvania is a bit of an oddball in that if one applies the methodology in the PNAS article I previously cited (i.e., a linear extrapolation from *before* the date of the mandate) and is the subject of the editorial @nsaspook cited, it would appear that that masks contributed significantly to an increase in cases in that state. Please note, I am NOT saying masks caused that. What I am saying is the methodology used by those authors is completely wrong and the paper should have been retracted. How many subsequent mandates have used that faulty study for justification?

As has been pointed out before, one measure that is not seeing much press is "excess deaths." It is obvious that many Covid-19 deaths are coming from an at risk population that would be dying from other causes, such as seasonal flu, if it were not for Covid-19.

Edit: added *before*

 

My Photoshop skills are very rusty, sorry, but I was able to patch together these graphs of cumulative cases for a few states (source: JHU CSSE site):

View attachment 214815

Ohio (July 23), Pennsylvania (July 1) and Oregon (July 1) have mask mandates. The other states do not. The curves for Ohio, Oregon, and Oklahoma look similar despite the date of mandated masks or not.

Pennsylvania is a bit of an oddball in that if one applies the methodology in the PNAS article I previously cited (i.e., a linear extrapolation from the date of the mandate) and is the subject of the editorial @nsaspook cited, it would appear that that masks contributed significantly to an increase in cases in that state. Please note, I am NOT saying masks caused that. What I am saying is the methodology used by those authors is completely wrong and the paper should have been retracted. How many subsequent mandates have used that faulty study for justification?

As has been pointed out before, one measure that is not seeing much press is "excess deaths." It is obvious that many Covid-19 deaths are coming from an at risk population that would be dying from other causes, such as seasonal flu, if it were not for Covid-19.

Wouldn't those graphs make more sense using per capita criteria instead of cummulative?

 

Wouldn't those graphs make more sense using per capita criteria instead of cummulative?

The shapes would not change unless a large enough percentage of the population died to change significantly the population of and disease course in the state.

As "cases" are not accurately measured and depend on the number and distribution of those being tested, I agree cases is not a very good metric. But unfortunately, it is what is being used to justify masks and quarantines.

I think I have said before that when all is said and done, death rates will tell the story. I expect there to be differences between states. The causes for which will be debated. Since you once lived in LaGrange, you know how different our states are.

In a multi-variant analysis, I don't expect mask mandates to matter. Unfortunately, the window for assessing voluntary mask wearing seems to have closed. Those data were not collected, or in some cases, there were prohibitions about asking patients whether they wore masks or not.

 

As has been pointed out before, one measure that is not seeing much press is "excess deaths." It is obvious that many Covid-19 deaths are coming from an at risk population that would be dying from other causes, such as seasonal flu, if it were not for Covid-19.

Was thinking about that, since when I was "locked out" it was said normal deaths were being called "covid-19 deaths". This is the newest I could find about that, from JAMA, covering March to May of this year. Seems like instead of being over counted it was actually under counted. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2767980

And here - https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coronavirus-cases-deaths-real-scale-estimates-charts-2020-7
There are more reporting out there but many call them fake reports from where they are published.

 

@joeyd999

This will fix you up:

 

Sufficiently unintelligible handwriting. You must have at least been in medical school at some point in your past.

 

Sufficiently unintelligible handwriting. You must have at least been in medical school at some point in your past.

That requirement ended in 1990.

 

What was that script actually supposed to show? How can I follow your story if I can’t read it?

 

The plastic pandemic

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/07/covid-19-single-use-plastics/

COVID-19 has resurrected single-use plastics – are they back to stay?

 

 

Please provide links to peer-reviewed, robust studies that show mask wearing as mandated helps.

On the same note, please link to peer reviewed studies showing they don't help.

 

On the same note, please link to peer reviewed studies showing they don't help.

It's logically impossible to prove something has no effect (it's proving a negative).

However, the similarity of the curves in states with and without mask mandates is consistent with them not working. Three citations have been provided. The JHU CSSE site, the PNAS article that is bunk, and the link on ineffectiveness of surgical masks in reducing wound infections. The latter may have slipped by, so here it is again: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/ Albeit deals with surgical masks in an otherwise sterile field, but the widespread use of surgical masks is often cried as the basis for "common knowledge they work."

Now, your turn.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

That perspective also might help put a renewed focus on groups who require the higher levels of immunity, because of greater exposure levels and other inequities, including Black and Latino residents, said Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. “That’s where this info is very useful,” he said.
The models also suggest a vaccination strategy: Rather than uniformly vaccinate all groups, governments could identify and immunize those most likely to be exposed in “superspreader” events.
...
“Getting those people vaccinated first can lead to the greatest benefit,” said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. “That alone could lead to herd immunity.”

 

Is the greater infection rate due to lifestyle choices or genetic? ( I can't subscribe to the NYT on ethical grounds.)