Lifting Masks = Back to Getting Down With The Sickness

Baffle

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You have no actual idea if you'll infect someone who's immunocompromised or couldn't get the vaccine for a medical reason.
Another point on this that's less dangerous but, I feel, still important is that if you test positive you still legally have to isolate, which for self-employed people who work with others and people on zero-hours contracts means no income (and AFAIK, the most recent round of SEISS grants means you have to prove a specific amount of loss, which is usually difficult for self-employed people with fluctuating incomes). So I still try not to infect people, because I'm nice.
 

bluegate

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https://www.koco.com/article/family...in-icu-filled-with-covid-19-patients/37413371

MCPHERSON, Kan. (Video: KWCH via CNN) — When a routine medical procedure went wrong, Robert Van Pelt was life-flighted to an emergency hospital with a cardiac team.

But when he got there, all ICU beds were taken by patients with COVID-19.

The 44-year-old eventually died after waiting three days for a bed to become available.

Ambulances in Kansas are being diverted from hospitals as unvaccinated patients overwhelm intensive care units, KWCH reports.

"There are a lot of people who don't believe the hospitals are full," Liz Hamer, a friend of the Van Pelt family, told the news station. "It's really hard to listen to when one of my friend's husbands was lying in the hospital dying because he couldn't get the treatment he needed because the beds are full."

Hamer said Kansas hospitals unsuccessfully reached out to 20 states in search of an ICU bed for Van Pelt's needs.

"The family will never know if having an open hospital bed, or open neuro ICU bed specifically, in any of the 20 states could have found urgent care, they'll never know if that could have kept him here. And that's something that's extra hard for them to carry right now," she said.

Hamer said Van Pelt's family wants the public to know about the current state of hospitals and "wants people need to understand this is a real present danger for families."

"Car accidents happen. Heart attacks happen. Trauma happens and there may not be care for you in the hospital if we can't do something to get this under control," Hamer said.
Republican 'Murca, Baybe!
 
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happyninja42

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I recall at least one apolcalypse cult I read about predicted the world would end, prepared for it, and when it duly did not happen, the cult leader blithely set a new date. Although some twigged that perhaps they had been misled and departed, others stayed and dedicated themselves to the new date the leader came up with.
Pretty much every apocalypse/prophecy cult has done that since recorded history. It's a point that a lot of podcasts I listen to love to bring up, when covering the insanity that is the religious world, and what they believe.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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Friggin opportunistic doctors in a feckin selfish system need an official body count stapled to their names for the rest of recorded history.


Paywall vaccine deployed...

Standing before a local school board in central Indiana this month, Dr. Daniel Stock, a physician in the state, issued a litany of false claims about the coronavirus. He proclaimed that the recent surge in cases showed that the vaccines were ineffective, that people were better off with a cocktail of drugs and supplements to prevent hospitalization from the virus, and that masks didn’t help prevent the spread of infection.

His appearance has since become one of the most-viewed videos of coronavirus misinformation. The videos — several versions are available online — have amassed nearly 100 million likes and shares on Facebook, 6.2 million views on Twitter, at least 2.8 million views on YouTube and over 940,000 video views on Instagram.

His talk’s popularity points to one of the more striking paradoxes of the pandemic. Even as many doctors fight to save the lives of people sick with Covid-19, a tiny number of their medical peers have had an outsize influence at propelling false and misleading information about the virus and vaccines.

Now there is a growing call among medical groups to discipline physicians spreading incorrect information. The Federation of State Medical Boards, which represents the groups that license and discipline doctors, recommended last month that states consider action against doctors who share false medical claims, including suspending or revoking medical licenses. The American Medical Association says spreading misinformation violates the code of ethics that licensed doctors agree to follow.

“When a doctor speaks, people pay attention,” said Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, president of the Federation of State Medical Boards. “The title of being a physician lends credibility to what people say to the general public. That’s why it is so important that these doctors don’t spread misinformation.”

Dr. Stock joined physicians including Dr. Joseph Mercola and a group that calls itself America’s Frontline Doctors, in generating huge audiences for their bogus claims. The statements by them and others have contributed to vaccine hesitancy and a resistance to masks that have exacerbated the pandemic in the United States, public health officials say.

The doctors often stand in lab coats and use simplified medical jargon, lending an air of authority. They often take advantage of a ready audience online by livestreaming news conferences, and keep interest alive by promising new evidence that will expose corruption and support their arguments.

Some state medical boards have disciplined doctors for their conduct during the pandemic. In December, the Oregon Medical Board ordered an emergency suspension of the medical license of a doctor after he violated a state order by not wearing a mask, or requiring patients to wear masks. The ruling bars the doctor from practicing medicine in Oregon until the governor lifts the state of emergency issued for the pandemic.

In January, a San Francisco doctor who had been falsely claiming that 5G technology caused the pandemic volunteered to surrender his license to the California Medical Board.

“Publicly spreading false Covid-19 information may be considered unprofessional conduct and could be grounds for disciplinary action,” Carlos Villatoro, a spokesman for the Medical Board of California, said in a statement.


But Dr. Chaudhry said it was impossible to know how many states had opened investigations into doctors spreading misinformation. Such investigations are typically not publicized until a decision is reached, and the process can take many months.

Dr. Stock, 59, did not respond to several requests for comment for this article. He has been a licensed doctor in Indiana since 1989, a year after he graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine. He has worked in several hospitals, urgent care centers and private practices in the state, according to a profile on LinkedIn.

On Dr. Stock’s website he sets himself apart from conventional medicine. “By presenting patients with all of their treatment options — whether that’s a pill, lifestyle change, therapy, or supplements — I help patients choose the option that works best for them,” the website reads. “This results in permanent healing, not merely the temporary relief found in the traditional system.” He sells dozens of vitamins and supplements on the site.

In the video that spread widely this month, Dr. Stock is shown speaking to a Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation board meeting in Fortville, just east of Indianapolis. Standing with his back to the camera, and speaking at a rapid, nearly monotone clip, he opens his statement with the line, “Everything being recommended by the C.D.C. is actually contrary to the rules of science.” Then he selectively cites academic studies to give the impression that widely held medical advice, such as wearing a mask and getting vaccinated, does not work.

YouTube, which forbids videos that spread false information about the virus, said it would not take down the full video of the meeting that the school board had put online. “While we have clear policies to remove harmful Covid-19 misinformation, we also recognize the importance of organizations like school boards using YouTube to share recordings of open public forums,” Elena Hernandez, a YouTube spokeswoman, said.

The original video of the meeting has over 620,000 views. Previous videos by the Mount Vernon school board on YouTube each collected only a few hundred views.

Understand Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.
YouTube has taken down videos of the meeting that have been edited to show only Dr. Stock’s talk. But some of those versions spread widely before YouTube made that decision, with views climbing as fast as 15,000 an hour in the days after the meeting, according to a New York Times analysis of available YouTube data.

People shared his talk on alternative video platforms like Bitchute and Rumble, and on blogs like “Hancock County Patriots” and “DJHJ Media.” One version of the video on Twitter, shared by a onetime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, collected over six million views. Another was shared by Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio.

Dr. Stock also appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, repeating the false claim that there is not “any consensus that masks work — the data is very murky on this.”

Eric Sears, a spokesman for the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, which oversees the granting of medical licenses in the state, said the Indiana attorney general’s office was responsible for investigating the public’s complaints about doctors spreading Covid-19 misinformation. The attorney general’s office sends its findings from those investigations to the Indiana Medical Board.

“As of yet, we have not been informed by the attorney general’s office of an investigation pending” into Dr. Stock, Mr. Sears said. “The board would likely not take action until an investigation had been completed by the attorney general’s office.”

David A. Keltz, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney general, said the office could not discuss whether any complaints against Dr. Stock were under investigation. Mr. Keltz said the state would issue a public statement about any such investigation only if the office decided to file a formal complaint with the Indiana Medical Board.

Doctors spreading coronavirus misinformation “leverage the credibility of their titles and medical expertise to make their arguments appear more authoritative,” said Rachel E. Moran, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online misinformation, including about the Covid-19 vaccines.

“What’s most frustrating about this is how anti-vaccination advocates typically spread mistrust in medical professionals until it’s no longer a useful strategy for them,” Ms. Moran said, noting how they regularly cast doubt on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Then a ‘doctor’ comes along that aligns with their values,” Ms. Moran said, “and suddenly that institutional expertise is credible.”
 

Silvanus

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Another point on this that's less dangerous but, I feel, still important is that if you test positive you still legally have to isolate, which for self-employed people who work with others and people on zero-hours contracts means no income (and AFAIK, the most recent round of SEISS grants means you have to prove a specific amount of loss, which is usually difficult for self-employed people with fluctuating incomes). So I still try not to infect people, because I'm nice.
True. And there's another impact I'd forgotten about, too: Gergar12 might not care about infecting anti-vaxxers, but those anti-vaxxers will need medical treatment if they do become infected. So regardless of who it is, more infections will strain the health services and possibly lead to delayed treatment for others.
 
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Gergar12

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True. And there's another impact I'd forgotten about, too: Gergar12 might not care about infecting anti-vaxxers, but those anti-vaxxers will need medical treatment if they do become infected. So regardless of who it is, more infections will strain the health services and possibly lead to delayed treatment for others.
See there is it. The democrats are always trying to fight with one hand tied behind their back. (Granted the right-wing thinks the same, but I would argue it's more true of the left-wing, and liberals, and democrats)

Look what happened with the Tea Party, Republicans get to form an obstructive, and Overton window shifting part of the republican party in congress, and the senate. The progressives form the justice democrats, but couldn't obstruct because the progressives were tricked by Pelosi, or blackmailed, or something because they aren't fighting back as the tea party would

The republicans get to form forums on Texas agriculture websites saying killings of democrats, and liberals are justified, and saying 50 thousand serial killers murdering their political enemies will happen(their words not mine) Oh, and 8chan, 4chan, and etc exist. Meanwhile, Chapotraphouse got shut down for doing something similar by a democrat who owns Reddit.

The Republicans deny climate change, and the equivalent would be the democrats denying the republicans their foreign policy objectives of China being a threat, but they haven't. (I am not saying to do this I am just saying if the democrats were as partisan as the republican we would do so)

The Republicans in my state impose an electric vehicle, and hybrid tax and the Democrats like Joe Biden still cater to republican needs for cheap gasoline which doen't benefit democratic cities as much as republican suburbs, and rural areas.

The republicans have stopped all carbon taxes except I believe in California. Where are the democrats doing something equivalent to republican interests?

I mean the way I see it to fight republicans I can either join Anftia and do nothing meaningful other than be a public nuisance. Help progressive Dems into office who will also cater to the establishment, and support republican framing. Join academia where my papers aren't being read by the majority of Americans. Get a gun, and prepare to be outgunned by the republicans in a coming civil war, and killed by groups of republicans in roaming pick-out trucks doing house to house killings of dems. Join the sunrise movement, and have the media laugh at us. Be a sole dissenting voice in school board meetings, and get looked at as lefty-lunatic. Or vote in a heavily Republican district, and lose.
 

Bartholomew

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The Republicans in my state impose an electric vehicle, and hybrid tax and the Democrats like Joe Biden still cater to republican needs for cheap gasoline which doen't benefit democratic cities as much as republican suburbs, and rural areas.
I thought that EV taxes were supposed to offset the lack of gasoline taxes. The reasoning goes: all vehicles that use the same public roads should be taxed for the upkeep of these roads.
 

Gergar12

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I thought that EV taxes were supposed to offset the lack of gasoline taxes. The reasoning goes: all vehicles that use the same public roads should be taxed for the upkeep of these roads.
The problem with that logic is that the tax isn't progressive, it's flat. It's 400 in my state EVs, and 200 for hybrids. Why not pegged it to road usage or income.
 

Agema

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The problem with that logic is that the tax isn't progressive, it's flat. It's 400 in my state EVs, and 200 for hybrids. Why not pegged it to road usage or income.
Road tax is just an arbitrary tax. I don't necessarily mean it's a bad tax, just that the justification is sort of arbitrary. It's not like there's a special ringfenced budget for roads and road tax drops into it and can't be transferred. Pretty much all tax income goes into the same big central pot, and spending comes out of the central pot.

There is an extremely obvious other justification for road tax for fossil fuel cars. They are belching out fumes, soot and stuff that give people respiratory conditions and make the place dirty (deposits on buildings, etc.). As those costs drop onto the rest of society, people who drive cars may as well be charged to represent what it costs to fix all that.
 

Phoenixmgs

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That's not what you'd be measuring.
I'd be measuring the same thing all the other mask studies measure...

You don't read anything, you ctrl-f. That's been a consistent problem everyone has had with you.
You never posted any proof of your claim. If there was proof of your claim, there wouldn't even be a debate because everyone would just be like "see over there when masks worked".

You have already been advised that "a papers [sic]" is not the appropriate way to review science. As many papers as possible would be preferable. In particular, most studies may look at only a very short term toxicity (e.g. we gave people X much for three months, no-one died so it's fine). But what about six months? A year? Ten years? Did that study just happen to not chance upon someone, where other studies have had patients suffering adverse effects?
How about 18,000 IUs for 5 years?

There's literally no evidence to support 10,000 IUs of vitamin d is toxic.
 

Phoenixmgs

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You are very ignorant about this topic. Can you please not make grandiose statements about what has been proven when you have no idea what's going on - if only to save yourself from looking so foolish? If you take one big dose, you will probably be replete for a period of time (relating to size of dose), but levels will decrease over time. Thus the question is not whether one big dose (say, 50,000IUs) will make you sufficient, but for how long it will make you sufficient.

As to providing you a study, I've got a few lined up. But I'm having fun more waiting to see if you can find them yourself, seeing as they should be easy to find with the elite science skills you think you have.
The whole point is you don't need to be an expert to understand something. If you had like 15 ng/ml level and took 50,000 IUs, where's any data you'd have say 30ng/ml level that day or a few days later or a week later? And if that was the case, if someone had vitamin d deficiency then a doctor would just prescribe 1 50,000 IU dose then a few thousand IUs a day afterward to fix the deficiency in like less than a week. But that isn't how you get a deficient person sufficient with vitamin d. Just show me the data. I don't need scientific equations to prove the earth is round, just show me the picture.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Three doctors were evidently trying to get very high vitamin D levels well above what anyone can recognise as significantly beneficial. Yes, if you want unnecessarily high levels of vitamin D, you will need to take correspondingly large quantities. Or, you can just settle for a decent amount and take much less.
Nope, 2 were just going for the 30ng/ml and I don't know what Fauci is going for.

1) A lot of attendees of a nationally renowned festival don't live in the city it's hosted, so checking Chicago infections is not measuring the right sample. 2) A lot of attendees are likely to be young, with mild / asymptomatic cases and don't get tested to find them. 3) This far into covid, a lot of them are also likely to have some immunity, via prior infection or vaccination.

It's good news for sure. But it really doesn't show what you think it does.
There's never been any data that says masks are needed outside. Where's that data?



There are effectively no single studies that show drugs are effective, either.
And there's not even one single mask study that shows masks work (up to typical drug standards) let alone the amount of studies a drug would take to be approved. I'm just asking for ONE solid study.

Even Michael Osterholm says masks are ineffective and he was on Biden's Covid team. Surely if the data was strong, he would be a believer in masks too.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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My policy on masks is this. I am not going to wear it when and where I can get away with it. And the left, and the right will flame me for my reasoning on why I do so.

Think about who is dying to Covid-19 right now. The unvaccinated. Guess who is mostly unvaccinated; right-wingers. And what do most of these people believe; climate change is not real, or manmade.

So if you believe these things that will harm me in the future. Why should I protect you by wearing a mask. Why should I be the bigger person, when their political opinion is that I should die in a climate disaster in 2050, and beyond. In my opinion, this should be the opinion of any liberal, or left-winger. They wouldn't wear masks for you, so why would you do so for them.

Well, you can be a good person, and etc., etc., etc. Fuck that, what do I get from being a good person, more climate change from people riding F-150s. More insane ring-wing policies. LIke refusing refugees, more brutal policing, and etc. I don't agree.

Also, I am not near the immunocompromised, and kids so that's a dumb argument.
The way I see climate change is that it's not people's fault (the common person). We should've moved away from gas powered cars a long time ago and same with fossil fuels for electricity too, we've known about nuclear far long enough. It's not my fault where my electricity comes from or the fact that the average person can't afford an electric car anyway (which probably doesn't help too much in America because where is the electricity coming from to charge that battery?). If I actually thought masks worked or I was a danger to others (natural + vaccine immunity, no danger here, and I had a real-world instance where I totally got exposed and didn't give it to anyone), I'd wear a mask. I even change lanes from the right lane to left when coming up to a red light so people can turn right on red. Show me I'm actually helping people and I'll do it. They teach you to look over your shoulder to change lanes to check your blindspot but if you set up your mirrors properly there's no blindspot so I don't follow that stupid rule because it is pointless and really just causes more accidents because then you can't see if someone in front of you say slammed on their brakes while you were looking over your shoulder. And if there somehow is a blindspot and I've just been lucky, I must be the luckiest damn person in the world because I change lanes constantly and only use my mirrors.
 

crimson5pheonix

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You never posted any proof of your claim. If there was proof of your claim, there wouldn't even be a debate because everyone would just be like "see over there when masks worked".
People are literally doing that to you now, you're just illiterate.
 

Silvanus

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See there is it. The democrats are always trying to fight with one hand tied behind their back. (Granted the right-wing thinks the same, but I would argue it's more true of the left-wing, and liberals, and democrats)

Look what happened with the Tea Party, Republicans get to form an obstructive, and Overton window shifting part of the republican party in congress, and the senate. The progressives form the justice democrats, but couldn't obstruct because the progressives were tricked by Pelosi, or blackmailed, or something because they aren't fighting back as the tea party would

The republicans get to form forums on Texas agriculture websites saying killings of democrats, and liberals are justified, and saying 50 thousand serial killers murdering their political enemies will happen(their words not mine) Oh, and 8chan, 4chan, and etc exist. Meanwhile, Chapotraphouse got shut down for doing something similar by a democrat who owns Reddit.

The Republicans deny climate change, and the equivalent would be the democrats denying the republicans their foreign policy objectives of China being a threat, but they haven't. (I am not saying to do this I am just saying if the democrats were as partisan as the republican we would do so)

The Republicans in my state impose an electric vehicle, and hybrid tax and the Democrats like Joe Biden still cater to republican needs for cheap gasoline which doen't benefit democratic cities as much as republican suburbs, and rural areas.

The republicans have stopped all carbon taxes except I believe in California. Where are the democrats doing something equivalent to republican interests?

I mean the way I see it to fight republicans I can either join Anftia and do nothing meaningful other than be a public nuisance. Help progressive Dems into office who will also cater to the establishment, and support republican framing. Join academia where my papers aren't being read by the majority of Americans. Get a gun, and prepare to be outgunned by the republicans in a coming civil war, and killed by groups of republicans in roaming pick-out trucks doing house to house killings of dems. Join the sunrise movement, and have the media laugh at us. Be a sole dissenting voice in school board meetings, and get looked at as lefty-lunatic. Or vote in a heavily Republican district, and lose.
What the hell does any of this have with your decision not to wear a mask, and your misplaced belief that this only endangers anti-vaxxers?
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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The whole point is you don't need to be an expert to understand something.
This is the point of the Dunning-Kruger experiment, though, isn't it? False confidence of the incompetent in how competent they are, because they are incapable of meaningfully assessing their competence. You might not need to be an expert to understand something, but not being an expert means it is vastly more likely that you won't understand something - and not even realise. As you have been demonstrating for, ooh, 12+ months now and going.

Nope, 2 were just going for the 30ng/ml and I don't know what Fauci is going for.
That's three times the deficiency level: the evidence suggest this is right at the upper levels of what is likely in the general public - including people with active outdoors lives in sunny areas. It is far, far above the point anyone can recognise a health benefit.

There's never been any data that says masks are needed outside. Where's that data?
It's like you've instantly wiped from your brain whole pages of commentary.

Even Michael Osterholm says masks are ineffective and he was on Biden's Covid team. Surely if the data was strong, he would be a believer in masks too.
This is essentially a lie, by removing whole swathes of context from what he said. Never mind it's just you continuing the same dumb-as-fucking-rocks argumentation with random, selected references to individual people's opinion that everyone's so fed up with.

And studies that use a CELL PHONE CAMERA to show how much spray from a dummy's face would be blocked by a mask during a cough/sneeze are SUPER FUCKING GREAT!!!!!!. People don't cough/sneeze on other people anyway.
lol. You okay, bub?
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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If you had like 15 ng/ml level and took 50,000 IUs, where's any data...
Single bolus 300,000 IUs. Notice that the 1 day measurement is vastly increased.
1630141751201.png

SIngle bolus 24,000 IUs (A, adjusted to baseline). This, handily, measures on a much finer scale. Notice the very rapid effect (hours).
1630142149568.png

So, you see, it works like I said it would. Because I know my shit, and you're just floundering around like a fish out of water claiming "you don't need to be an expert to understand" whilst demonstrating you do not understand.
 
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