Lifting Masks = Back to Getting Down With The Sickness

Seanchaidh

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If we're not in the office, we're much harder to monitor to make sure we're working.
You'd think total output (or whatever analogous metric) would be enough to satisfy, but apparently not?
 

Agema

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You'd think total output (or whatever analogous metric) would be enough to satisfy, but apparently not?
Not to any control freak types amongst the managerial class, obviously.

Workers in a controlled enviroment can be easily observed and controlled: measured, assessed, and from there increases to productivity planned and rolled out. If they're home, who knows what the hell is going on? I wouldn't put it past companies eventually demanding home workers have webcams on and monitoring software on their computers (if they haven't already). No key taps or mouse clicks in the last 4 minutes? Has that slacker gone off and made a cup of coffee or had a dump on company time?
 
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Phoenixmgs

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Good job confirming you don't read what you post.

"Read this study that says masks are useless!"
"It actually doesn't."
"Huh? I didn't see that."



Yes. Under recommended precautions is a link, in the flu page, to that page, where they tell you to keep a mask on when you go outside.

Congrats on not paying attention to your own posts, again.
What you quoted from that page does not say what you think it says. There is nothing that shows face masks work against the flu. You're acting like improper face masking is the smoking gun that proves that wrong when it's not.

I was showing how face masks are not recommended by the CDC for the flu. And you're gonna tell me to read a page about covid and say it pertains to the flu? How the fuck does that make sense? And why link to some page that has no point in linking to. If someone links to a page, I presume that is where their point is coming from. Just link to the page your citing. How the fuck is that hard?

Sigh. There was one study that suggested so which the usual amateur / Wellness peanut gallery spread all over social media and thus how you found out. The wider scientific evidence, however, does not support this claim.
Man, you really don't like citing your evidence...



Sorry that it's boring when what you believe in isn't backed up by data.

What on earth are you talking about?
It wasn't a 50/50 chance.
How long will covid-19 immunity last, short or long? This is a 50:50 chance to be right. There's no kudos for being right unless you have a good reason for why it will be right, and honestly, you know pretty much nothing. You can pick some papers that supported your point of view, but the fact you don't really understand what they say and just ignored all the ones that didn't agree with you means you guessed, and no-one deserves special plaudits for calling a coin-toss.
No, HCQ in this theory is an antiviral, because it is a drug that is changing the biological activity of the body in such a way that it impedes viral replication, in this case by increasing zinc internalisation. What you are trying to argue here is a bit like saying opioids are not analgesics, because it's actually the opioid receptors they activate that do the analgesia.

You are such an amateur.
No, it's fucking not. Without zinc, a zinc ionophore does not impede viral replication because it's not an antiviral. Zinc was what was looked at in the 2 studies I linked to in what you quoted. But, yeah, I'm the one that can't read a study? Why the fuck would I say that HCQ ALONE is an antiviral based on the studies I cited?


The reason you were so breezily confident about this is primarily because you are so ignorant.
If Covid-19 acts like other coronaviruses, "it likely isn't going to be a long duration of immunity," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told JAMA Editor Howard Bauchner.

Those other coronaviruses Fauci is referring to is not the coronavirus that covid is closest to.

1) Hydroxychloroquine has a bioavailability of ~70%, which means they are only taking in about two-thirds of that. So for a 60kg human, the peak HCQ will be around 13 mg/kg (actually slightly lower, due to clearance occurring whilst the drug is not fully absorbed). This is also why acute HCQ toxicity is generally believed to be upon taking 2000mg, not 1200mg.
2) This 2000mg causes mild acute toxicity. Also bear in mind HCQ has a half life of about 4h: So from a notional peak of 13 mg/kg, they'll be down to 6.5mg/kg in 4h. Doses with high risk of fatality is reckoned to be ~4000mg.
3) Established malaria treatment with HCQ can already use similar doses (~13 mg/kg), so this is a high, but established dose.
The article is about the actual dose given, not what is available in the body. You're comparing two different specifications. I don't see any articles giving 1200mg of HCQ for malaria.

Depends on the street, doesn't it? If you haven't experienced all the streets in the world, it's not your place to say.
Just wow... Why are you trying to hold onto wearing masks outside so very hard? We've had full capacity crowds at sporting events with no masks for awhile now in some states, none have been covid spreaders yet.

No-one cares what you feel comfortable with. An organisation whose job is infection control is there to provide advice to control infections, not decide what Phoenixmgs is comfortable with. They will necessarily be inclined to caution.
And outside is safer than inside. Stopping people from congregating outside is only causing more to congregate inside which increases infections.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Dude, just admit it was a shitty analogy and quit fucking digging.



So you'll speak for me, but using someone else's words. Classy.



I give up. You speak with a fool's confidence and there's no getting through to that.
So you have no counter argument, OK.

Behavioral Health doctors and psychologists speaking for their patients gives other people the wrong impression...?

I don't agree. You are trying to make a false equivalence between surviving but having to suffer through a terrible time to losing your life and never getting another chance. Suffering and death are both part of the human existence but there's a mile wide chasm between them. Because while suffering can be alleviated and in this case is distinctly limited in time (and not comparable to many other kinds of historical suffering like famine and war due to all the luxuries the average person in the west continues to enjoy even as they go into lockdown), death is permanent. A dead person will never go outside again, will never meet a loved one again or enjoy a great dinner. They are gone. Forever. See the huge difference?

It is frankly laughable that you are trying to make this into some basic equation about years lost, because that's not how any ethical or philosophical discipline judges human life. Humanism, to which I and most of the worlds healthcare workers are devout disciples, is in fact pretty explicit about this: A human life is priceless. It is invaluable in and of itself because it encompasses the entire human existence summed up into one unique individual. Doesn't matter if that individual has a 100 years or a single year left in their life, you can't put a price on their life, because you can't appraise human life like you would a car, a computer or even cattle. There will be times when we can not save a human life or when we have to make choices between which lives to save because we lack the resources to save all of them, but if a life can be saved then it should be saved if possible. If that means some other people, people not in immediate danger of dying, has to give up some comfort, maybe even suffer for a limited time, then that's a trade off we should make every single time. No one should have to die so that a bunch of other people can live a slightly better life.
You're also making a false equivalence as people didn't have to suffer, many open states like Florida is proof of that. Also, would you say that if everyone stayed for a year to save one life would be something that should be done? Because if we all stay home on any given year (pandemic or not), many lives would be saved. If we did literally everything we could do to save every life, then no one would be able to live a fulfilling life. Missing the last Christmas with a family member is not permanent? There is an equation there, I wouldn't say it's basic at all but it's there. Losing the young is worse than losing the old. If a doctor had a hypothetical situation between saving a 10 year old and an 80 year old, they'd save the 10 year old. Heck the 80 year old would most likely tell the doctor to save the kid even if the kid wasn't family.


Ohey, i found a tweet that perfectly summarizes 8 pages of this discussion in one sentence
We could save so many lives if we didn't go out to say weddings or sporting events or movies or a ton of fucking shit that isn't essential, but we don't do that do we? So when are all these "zero-risk" people are not going to leave their house unless completely 100% necessary? Because unless you abide by that, you're a fucking hypocrite.
 

crimson5pheonix

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What you quoted from that page does not say what you think it says. There is nothing that shows face masks work against the flu. You're acting like improper face masking is the smoking gun that proves that wrong when it's not.
It really does, because your own source says to wear a mask, you just really really don't want to read that part.

I was showing how face masks are not recommended by the CDC for the flu. And you're gonna tell me to read a page about covid and say it pertains to the flu? How the fuck does that make sense? And why link to some page that has no point in linking to. If someone links to a page, I presume that is where their point is coming from. Just link to the page your citing. How the fuck is that hard?
Literally it's a link on the page you posted at me to say the CDC doesn't recommend a mask for the flu.

You didn't read your own link.

Don't get mad when people point this out.

The only thing I will give you is that the CDC lays out their pages very poorly. But it's been shown to you that the CDC does in fact recommend masks for the flu.

EDIT: Just to hammer the point home, on your page is "What to do if you get sick with the flu", which is a link to a page


With

What should I do while I’m sick?

Stay away from others as much as possible to keep from infecting them. If you must leave home, for example to get medical care, wear a facemask if you have one, or cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue. Wash your hands often to keep from spreading flu to others.
 
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Buyetyen

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So you have no counter argument, OK.

Behavioral Health doctors and psychologists speaking for their patients gives other people the wrong impression...?
More specifically, I just don't have the patience to deal with your ego any further. I tip my hat to Agema for having the tenacity to continue engaging.
 

Thaluikhain

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More specifically, I just don't have the patience to deal with your ego any further. I tip my hat to Agema for having the tenacity to continue engaging.
I've been just scrolling past them and look to see if anyone else is something something interesting, rather than pointing out the blatantly obvious and hoping the zillionth time it'll stick.
 

Agema

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Man, you really don't like citing your evidence...
That's partly because you're incompetent and dishonest about them.

What you're doing when you're demanding papers is a facsimile of science: taking the image of science, and how you think it appears to be done, with none of the real substance. It allows you pretend you're engaging in some sort of logical, scientific process when in truth you are not. You form opinions without reading or understanding any real science, get a limited selection of scientific papers to back yourself up that you don't understand and haven't critically considered (and likely haven't even read), and then you dispute any contrary evidence with nitpicking and bullshit criticism that you never bothered applying to your own sources.

Just to give an example of your laziness and incompetence, let's take the last of those studies. I say studies, it's not the study, it's a press report on one. Follow the link to the actual study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799 . Oh dear. That's a very large and worrying statement of concern. Numerous serious methodological deficiencies and undisclosed conflicts of interest. You remember how I keep telling you that you pick shit papers?

So I'm not terribly bothered engaging in the style of scientific debate to satisfy someone disinterested in the substance of scientific debate.

It wasn't a 50/50 chance.
In epistemology, "knowledge" is often defined as true, justified belief. If a belief is not true, it is not knowledge. If a true belief is not justified, it's not knowledge - it can just be a lucky guess. Your justification is inadequate, because you lack the understanding and breadth of knowledge of the subject. Therefore it's a guess. As you have a choice of two options, that makes it 50:50.

No, it's fucking not. Without zinc, a zinc ionophore does not impede viral replication because it's not an antiviral. Zinc was what was looked at in the 2 studies I linked to in what you quoted. But, yeah, I'm the one that can't read a study? Why the fuck would I say that HCQ ALONE is an antiviral based on the studies I cited?
Well, the funny thing is that you are of course almost certainly wrong about the whole zinc ionophore stuff in the first place, which is the result of you not reading the literature properly, thus you strolled right down the less plausible path in the first place. But the more important point is that functioning as a zinc ionophore is a potential mechanism by which HCQ is an antiviral. And again, if you bothered to read the literature properly, you'd see that.

And never mind that, but you again indicate that you just haven't read the literature properly. HCQ was cited as an "antiviral" again, and again, and again, all over the damn place. One of those studies you have yourself just posted literally calls it an antiviral: "Initially, antiviral options at our institution consisted of clinician preference for either ritonavir/lopinavir or hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin". And yet here you are, saying "it's not an antiviral and I never called it one" giving us sources where it is described as one.

Those two studies weren't the ones you cited when you started going on about zinc, because you were discussing that back around middle of 2020 together with quercetin, before either those ever even hit preprint. (We might note one of those had major reviews demanded back in 2nd December 2020 by the editor, and still hasn't been resubmitted 7 months later: not a good sign, and another example of a poor paper selection from you.)

Those other coronaviruses Fauci is referring to is not the coronavirus that covid is closest to.
Indeed. But what you're citing (SARS-CoV-1) isn't the closest to SARS-CoV-2 either - in fact I'm not sure it's even in the top five. The RaTG13 strain found in a Chinese mine is arguably the closest. Following your logic, RaTG13 should be more infectious in humans than SARS-CoV-1, because it's closer to SARS-CoV-2 than SARS-CoV-1, as SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than SARS-CoV-1. In fact, it almost certainly isn't. The point being that the "closest relative" doesn't necessarily tell you certain key aspects of what a virus does and how the body will respond, because small differences in genetic code can make for big differences in activity.

Thus your argument, whilst with superficial understanding logical, is much less good when you have a better understanding of the subject. Fauci knows this and you do not, because Fauci knows his stuff. You have an erroneous confidence that actually derives from igorance.
 

Agema

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The article is about the actual dose given, not what is available in the body. You're comparing two different specifications.
I'm explaining to you how dose delivered relates to the amount in the body, because I'm a professional pharmacologist. You're claiming people are getting a "toxic dose": I'm telling you that the dose you claim is toxic probably isn't, and secondly that even if it is, it is potentially warranted under the circumstances.

I don't see any articles giving 1200mg of HCQ for malaria.
Search better then, e.g. this
"Doses as high as 2000 mg hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been used for the acute treatment of malaria."

Just wow... Why are you trying to hold onto wearing masks outside so very hard? We've had full capacity crowds at sporting events with no masks for awhile now in some states, none have been covid spreaders yet.
You are obviously less likely to get a "super-spreader" event. Indoors the air moves little and is relatively constrained, so virus-containing particles can hang around in the room air for potentially long periods of time, amassing relatively high concentrations and posing a risk even to people substantially distant or who enter the room after the infected person leaves. Outdoors the virus will more readily be dispersed. However, infected people can still pose a sufficiently substantial risk to people close to them that it warrants masks as a precaution. In some environments like stadia or the pub garden above, there is a substantial risk of transmission relating to proximity, length of time in contact, and reduced air movement (obstruction of wind by walls, etc.). The distance the people at the pub garden were at, they'll be showering each other with small droplets of saliva just with regular conversation.

And outside is safer than inside. Stopping people from congregating outside is only causing more to congregate inside which increases infections.
I don't think people should be prevented from congregating outside currently. I just think in certain circumstances, mask-wearing should be recommended or even insisted upon.
 

Agema

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I salute the many brain cells and blood vessels that were sacrificed during this thread.
And what's even more incredible is that there's another thread going on with all but the same points, and there have been at least two prior threads covering the same ground before these which have eventually fallen into disuse.
 

Phoenixmgs

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It really does, because your own source says to wear a mask, you just really really don't want to read that part.

Literally it's a link on the page you posted at me to say the CDC doesn't recommend a mask for the flu.

You didn't read your own link.

Don't get mad when people point this out.

The only thing I will give you is that the CDC lays out their pages very poorly. But it's been shown to you that the CDC does in fact recommend masks for the flu.

EDIT: Just to hammer the point home, on your page is "What to do if you get sick with the flu", which is a link to a page


With
The word mask is not even in my source. The CDC says WHEN YOU'RE SICK to wear a mask OR cover your mouth when coughing.

Funny how nobody has yet to comment on the study that looked at all the US states for a year and compared infection rates in with regards to mask mandates and survey data of how many did wear masks, and found "Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges."

More specifically, I just don't have the patience to deal with your ego any further. I tip my hat to Agema for having the tenacity to continue engaging.
Are people without an issue (say mental illness) not allowed to read what doctors in that field are saying and post a link to what they said? Is a white person not supposed to listen to what a black person says about black issues and post a link to what they said?
 

Phoenixmgs

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That's partly because you're incompetent and dishonest about them.

What you're doing when you're demanding papers is a facsimile of science: taking the image of science, and how you think it appears to be done, with none of the real substance. It allows you pretend you're engaging in some sort of logical, scientific process when in truth you are not. You form opinions without reading or understanding any real science, get a limited selection of scientific papers to back yourself up that you don't understand and haven't critically considered (and likely haven't even read), and then you dispute any contrary evidence with nitpicking and bullshit criticism that you never bothered applying to your own sources.

Just to give an example of your laziness and incompetence, let's take the last of those studies. I say studies, it's not the study, it's a press report on one. Follow the link to the actual study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799 . Oh dear. That's a very large and worrying statement of concern. Numerous serious methodological deficiencies and undisclosed conflicts of interest. You remember how I keep telling you that you pick shit papers?

So I'm not terribly bothered engaging in the style of scientific debate to satisfy someone disinterested in the substance of scientific debate.
And the 2 other articles I posted? I just searched "covid deaths vitamin d" and all the papers that come up show quite the correlational data between low vitamin d levels and severe covid infections and deaths. Where is just one paper showing correlational data that doesn't support people with low vitamin d aren't being significantly affected by covid. You keep saying all these things and you literally have no proof that backs up anything you say. I showed my mask study that included all the US states and compared masking and found no difference in covid infections for the places that masked and didn't mask. Where's your study showing vitamin d deficient/insufficient people are not being adversely affected? Show me the data and I'm willing to change my tune. I literally changed my tune on masks if you didn't notice. I agreed with part of your argument for remdesivir after it took me pages of asking you for the data.

In epistemology, "knowledge" is often defined as true, justified belief. If a belief is not true, it is not knowledge. If a true belief is not justified, it's not knowledge - it can just be a lucky guess. Your justification is inadequate, because you lack the understanding and breadth of knowledge of the subject. Therefore it's a guess. As you have a choice of two options, that makes it 50:50.
That isn't true. According to your logic, this year's flu has a 50:50 chancing of providing long-term immunity. Covid is very close to SARS, there's no reason to believe it won't act more similar to SARS than it does to common cold coronaviruses.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Well, the funny thing is that you are of course almost certainly wrong about the whole zinc ionophore stuff in the first place, which is the result of you not reading the literature properly, thus you strolled right down the less plausible path in the first place. But the more important point is that functioning as a zinc ionophore is a potential mechanism by which HCQ is an antiviral. And again, if you bothered to read the literature properly, you'd see that.

And never mind that, but you again indicate that you just haven't read the literature properly. HCQ was cited as an "antiviral" again, and again, and again, all over the damn place. One of those studies you have yourself just posted literally calls it an antiviral: "Initially, antiviral options at our institution consisted of clinician preference for either ritonavir/lopinavir or hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin". And yet here you are, saying "it's not an antiviral and I never called it one" giving us sources where it is described as one.

Those two studies weren't the ones you cited when you started going on about zinc, because you were discussing that back around middle of 2020 together with quercetin, before either those ever even hit preprint. (We might note one of those had major reviews demanded back in 2nd December 2020 by the editor, and still hasn't been resubmitted 7 months later: not a good sign, and another example of a poor paper selection from you.)
I don't care if it was others that said HCQ was an antiviral, but it wasn't me. I've been saying the same thing for over a year and have stood firm to my point since then. Here's a quote from me from May 25, 2020. I can't find the post of me with the initial studies I linked to over a year back (I recall posting a study about how zinc + an ionophore that wasn't HCQ helped in vivo against OG SARS) but this post is me saying the same thing over a year back and the 2 studies I posted were from the post you quoted me from with the "CNN Reporter" thread. And the results of both studies I linked to from the post you just quoted say that zinc + the zinc ionophore provided better results than just the ionophore (aka HCQ). How anyone would get that HCQ alone is an antiviral for covid from those studies boggles the mind as the studies are proof against it being an antiviral.
I say there's more pointing to zinc working than hydroxy because I've seen 2 studies that have had positive results with zinc + a zinc ionophore (one being hydroxy, one being pyrithione) and no studies I've seen have had any positive results where they tested hydroxy by itself. It leads me to believe it's the zinc doing the work and the hydroxy opening the gate so-to-speak. If that's true, then any zinc ionophore would work, right? Unless I'm missing something here, as I'm not a medical expert or anything, but that seems to be what logical inference that can be made from the studies that I've seen.
 

Phoenixmgs

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---

Indeed. But what you're citing (SARS-CoV-1) isn't the closest to SARS-CoV-2 either - in fact I'm not sure it's even in the top five. The RaTG13 strain found in a Chinese mine is arguably the closest. Following your logic, RaTG13 should be more infectious in humans than SARS-CoV-1, because it's closer to SARS-CoV-2 than SARS-CoV-1, as SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than SARS-CoV-1. In fact, it almost certainly isn't. The point being that the "closest relative" doesn't necessarily tell you certain key aspects of what a virus does and how the body will respond, because small differences in genetic code can make for big differences in activity.

Thus your argument, whilst with superficial understanding logical, is much less good when you have a better understanding of the subject. Fauci knows this and you do not, because Fauci knows his stuff. You have an erroneous confidence that actually derives from igorance.
Of coronaviruses that have infected humans and we can compare immune responses to, SARS is closest. Fauci was comparing to common cold coronaviruses not some bat coronavirus that never infected humans.

I'm explaining to you how dose delivered relates to the amount in the body, because I'm a professional pharmacologist. You're claiming people are getting a "toxic dose": I'm telling you that the dose you claim is toxic probably isn't, and secondly that even if it is, it is potentially warranted under the circumstances.
Toxic dose is what is given, not what the body actually uses. That would be stupid to do the other way, then the pharmacist and doctor would have to do an extra check to make sure they are giving the right dosage if you always had to convert the pill dosage to what the body actually uses and then the conversion is different for every drug, that would be a clusterfuck.

Search better then, e.g. this
"Doses as high as 2000 mg hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been used for the acute treatment of malaria."
And that's far from the norm and starting patients for a new disease at such high doses that show past toxicity is a good idea? You were the one arguing that you can't take thousands of IUs of vitamin d because of possible toxicity that has no record of existing. You really don't stay consistent in your advice. 2,000 IUs of vitamin d that shows no history of toxicity is too risky but taking 2,000 mg of HCQ that shows past toxicity is just fine?