Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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"The goal isn't to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 infections. We can't, no matter how many booster shots the United States gives. The goal is to slow the spread, save lives, and eventually turn COVID-19 into something much less deadly -- something more like the flu."

"Entirely eliminating infections is an unrealistic goal, but successful vaccines will avoid the worst outcomes."

Americans Are Losing Sight of the Pandemic Endgame

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Apologies that I haven't read the article yet, but I think part of the problem is definitely that the CDC / etc haven't given any indication as to what the endgame actually is.

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I agree. I am not sure they know what the endgame is and if they do, they may not want to communicate it, due to potential backlash from the "offended" group. I do not know why the CDC and the other health policy advisors will not tell people zero-Covid is an unrealistic goal.

On top of this, you have institutions like Duke University. They have vaccinated 98% of their student population and have tested 15,000 from this population. From this testing, there are NO cases severe enough to require hospitalization and yet Duke is putting further restrictions in place (outdoor dining, restrictions on group meetings, outdoor masking). Their reason - the current surge in cases "is placing a significant stress on people, systems, and facilities that are dedicated to protecting our health."

It seems many of the policies being enacted now across the country now are reactive reactive and completely ad hoc. It might or might not have worked for the last surge, we do not have data to show it had any meaningful impact, so let's do it again. There is no strategy, no consistency, and clearly no endgame.

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COVID policy has become purely ad hoc and reactive. There's no strategy, there's no endgame, there's no philosophy, there's no internal consistency, there's no cost-benefit analysis, there's no metrics to define success, there's no consensus on what we want to accomplish.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 31, 2021

I have been screaming for a year and a half about the ad-hoc reactionary nature of COVID policy and lack of cost benefit analysis.... amazing people are starting to finally wake up.

The 'significant stress' Duke is feeling is not COVID related but related to their own bizarre policies. Remove the restrictions and isolation and weekly testing of everyone (who are all vaccinated)... the stress is relieved.

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Packchem91 said:

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Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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"The goal isn't to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 infections. We can't, no matter how many booster shots the United States gives. The goal is to slow the spread, save lives, and eventually turn COVID-19 into something much less deadly -- something more like the flu."

"Entirely eliminating infections is an unrealistic goal, but successful vaccines will avoid the worst outcomes."

Americans Are Losing Sight of the Pandemic Endgame

---

Apologies that I haven't read the article yet, but I think part of the problem is definitely that the CDC / etc haven't given any indication as to what the endgame actually is.

---

I agree. I am not sure they know what the endgame is and if they do, they may not want to communicate it, due to potential backlash from the "offended" group. I do not know why the CDC and the other health policy advisors will not tell people zero-Covid is an unrealistic goal.

On top of this, you have institutions like Duke University. They have vaccinated 98% of their student population and have tested 15,000 from this population. From this testing, there are NO cases severe enough to require hospitalization and yet Duke is putting further restrictions in place (outdoor dining, restrictions on group meetings, outdoor masking). Their reason - the current surge in cases "is placing a significant stress on people, systems, and facilities that are dedicated to protecting our health."

It seems many of the policies being enacted now across the country now are reactive reactive and completely ad hoc. It might or might not have worked for the last surge, we do not have data to show it had any meaningful impact, so let's do it again. There is no strategy, no consistency, and clearly no endgame.

---

COVID policy has become purely ad hoc and reactive. There's no strategy, there's no endgame, there's no philosophy, there's no internal consistency, there's no cost-benefit analysis, there's no metrics to define success, there's no consensus on what we want to accomplish.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 31, 2021

I have been screaming for a year and a half about the ad-hoc reactionary nature of COVID policy and lack of cost benefit analysis.... amazing people are starting to finally wake up.

The 'significant stress' Duke is feeling is not COVID related but related to their own bizarre policies. Remove the restrictions and isolation and weekly testing of everyone (who are all vaccinated)... the stress is relieved.

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Wayland,
so what is the importance of the Canada case numbers? Or rather, clearly its very low compared to anything in the US --- but what are they doing differently to make this important? I looked at the first few tweets in that thread and didn't really get that, and I honestly don't know what Canada is doing differently?

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Wayland said:

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Packchem91 said:

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Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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"The goal isn't to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 infections. We can't, no matter how many booster shots the United States gives. The goal is to slow the spread, save lives, and eventually turn COVID-19 into something much less deadly -- something more like the flu."

"Entirely eliminating infections is an unrealistic goal, but successful vaccines will avoid the worst outcomes."

Americans Are Losing Sight of the Pandemic Endgame

---

Apologies that I haven't read the article yet, but I think part of the problem is definitely that the CDC / etc haven't given any indication as to what the endgame actually is.

---

I agree. I am not sure they know what the endgame is and if they do, they may not want to communicate it, due to potential backlash from the "offended" group. I do not know why the CDC and the other health policy advisors will not tell people zero-Covid is an unrealistic goal.

On top of this, you have institutions like Duke University. They have vaccinated 98% of their student population and have tested 15,000 from this population. From this testing, there are NO cases severe enough to require hospitalization and yet Duke is putting further restrictions in place (outdoor dining, restrictions on group meetings, outdoor masking). Their reason - the current surge in cases "is placing a significant stress on people, systems, and facilities that are dedicated to protecting our health."

It seems many of the policies being enacted now across the country now are reactive reactive and completely ad hoc. It might or might not have worked for the last surge, we do not have data to show it had any meaningful impact, so let's do it again. There is no strategy, no consistency, and clearly no endgame.

---

COVID policy has become purely ad hoc and reactive. There's no strategy, there's no endgame, there's no philosophy, there's no internal consistency, there's no cost-benefit analysis, there's no metrics to define success, there's no consensus on what we want to accomplish.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 31, 2021

I have been screaming for a year and a half about the ad-hoc reactionary nature of COVID policy and lack of cost benefit analysis.... amazing people are starting to finally wake up.

The 'significant stress' Duke is feeling is not COVID related but related to their own bizarre policies. Remove the restrictions and isolation and weekly testing of everyone (who are all vaccinated)... the stress is relieved.

---

Wayland,
so what is the importance of the Canada case numbers? Or rather, clearly its very low compared to anything in the US --- but what are they doing differently to make this important? I looked at the first few tweets in that thread and didn't really get that, and I honestly don't know what Canada is doing differently?

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I missed the original Canada tweet. It was just the second tweet that caught me, since that is essentially what I have been saying this whole time.

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A former senior FDA official says Gruber and Krause: What finally did it for them was the White House getting ahead of FDA on booster shots. https://t.co/nGrB6WqLO1

— Zach Brennan (@ZacharyBrennan) August 31, 2021

packgrad said:

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A former senior FDA official says Gruber and Krause: What finally did it for them was the White House getting ahead of FDA on booster shots. https://t.co/nGrB6WqLO1

— Zach Brennan (@ZacharyBrennan) August 31, 2021

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packgrad said:

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" A judge in Chicago barred Rebecca Firlit, the mother of an 11-year-old boy, from seeing her son under partial parental custody because she is not vaccinated against COVID-19."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/30/chicago-judge-rules-mom-cant-see-son-not-vaccinated/5647445001/

The left is going full bat **** crazy with power. The case was reversed, but the logic behind the judge making this decision is truly mind blowing. Judge should be relieved of duty.

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US #covid19 case trends and test positivity starting to look a bit more encouraging. https://t.co/s4Sm0XLGbmhttps://t.co/Rpb02dmHPL pic.twitter.com/UQjcvyAJxD

— Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH (@JenniferNuzzo) August 31, 2021

PackPA2015 said:

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Update from our hospital system:

236 hospitalized with an average age of 58. 214 of those are unvaccinated with an average age of 57. 22 are fully vaccinated with an average age of 68.

44 in the ICU with average age of 52. 42 of those are unvaccinated with an average age of 51. 2 are fully vaccinated with an average age of 70.

21 on the vent with an average age of 52. 20 unvaccinated with an average age of 52. 1 vaccinated with age of 56.

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Quote:

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210 hospitalized (183 unvaccinated), 48 ICU (45 unvaccinated), 30 on vents (27 unvaccinated).

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Wayland said:

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Going to pick on WRAL again.

Just In: More than 600 students tested positive for COVID in Wake schools this month. On WRAL-TV at 6, hear how schools are handling the increase in cases https://t.co/iCIVGnmS7c

— WRAL NEWS in NC (@WRAL) August 31, 2021

In the article they say that 120 cases have been detected since the start of the traditional school year which was last week.

Let's assume ALL 120 cases are from last week (I don't care if they originated in schools or not, not important).

There are 160,000 students and 20,000 staff in WCPSS.

If we did it on a per capita basis that would be roughly ~67/100k.

There are 1.1 million people in Wake County. Last week there were 4000 reported cases or a per capita case rate of roughly 364/100k

That would mean the in school covid case rate is over 5 times LOWER than the community spread rate. That should be PHENOMINAL news... we should be doing a dance!

Instead it is fear porn.

Feel free to QA, I could be losing it on the numbers. I mean the gap seems SO large.

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Packchem91 said:

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Wayland said:

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Going to pick on WRAL again.

Just In: More than 600 students tested positive for COVID in Wake schools this month. On WRAL-TV at 6, hear how schools are handling the increase in cases https://t.co/iCIVGnmS7c

— WRAL NEWS in NC (@WRAL) August 31, 2021

In the article they say that 120 cases have been detected since the start of the traditional school year which was last week.

Let's assume ALL 120 cases are from last week (I don't care if they originated in schools or not, not important).

There are 160,000 students and 20,000 staff in WCPSS.

If we did it on a per capita basis that would be roughly ~67/100k.

There are 1.1 million people in Wake County. Last week there were 4000 reported cases or a per capita case rate of roughly 364/100k

That would mean the in school covid case rate is over 5 times LOWER than the community spread rate. That should be PHENOMINAL news... we should be doing a dance!

Instead it is fear porn.

Feel free to QA, I could be losing it on the numbers. I mean the gap seems SO large.

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Very interesting....and, to the point you've made, really simple math. And, also to the point you've made, a completely different perspective than what the story presents....which is of course, not accidental.

Bad thing about that is -- a lot of parents up in arms about the "high" case counts, may be much more encouraged if they had the real perspective...ie, it could be a better overall experience.

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• Cloth and surgical masks (the two most prevalent) allowed 88 to 90 percent of aerosols to be breathed out in the experiment. While mask efficiency is better than these figures 40% for cloth and 47% for surgical, the fact masks are not worn properly causes the decrease in overall efficiency.
• Various N95, KN95, and R95 masks allowed only 40 to 54 percent of aerosols to be breathed out.
• N95 masks do leak and primarily, they leak around the nose. The study said this lead to "notably higher" concentrations of aerosols more than six feet away from the test mannequin.
• N95 masks with valves lost half of their ability to stop aerosols. N95 masks without valves are the recommended choice.
• Lose fitting and incorrectly worn N95 masks provide "negligible" filtration efficiency.
• A key finding of the study - "increased ventilation/air-cleaning capacity significantly reduces the transmission risk in an indoor environment, surpassing the apparent mask filtration efficacy." They went on to say "Even modest ventilation rates were found to be as effective as the best masks in reducing the risk of transmission."

• People have a false sense of protection from masks and as such, act in ways that could put them more at risk. Someone wearing a cloth/surgical mask will perform activities much closer to others than they should and spend longer time in environments where transmission is possible. This is a big reason why I said last week that mask mandates will have little to no effect on slowing the current wave of infection and hospitalization. We did not see them do so in the Winter Wave (it declined due to vaccinations and a virus running out of potential victims), so why do we expect to make an impact now?
• Ventilation and air filtration is a much better method to reduce the spread of the virus. We have know this fact of decades, going back to the Spanish Flu as an example. It is possible right now to build your own Hepa air filtration device out of four 24"x24" Hepa filters (purchase at any hardware store) and a box fan. Additionally, activities performed outside are much safer than those performed inside. This is why masking people who are outdoors is a really dumb and unproductive policy.

Daviewolf83 said:

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Interesting results from a study out of the University of Waterloo regarding masks. In this study, if found the following:

• Cloth and surgical masks (the two most prevalent) allowed 88 to 90 percent of aerosols to be breathed out in the experiment. While mask efficiency is better than these figures 40% for cloth and 47% for surgical), the fact masks are not worn properly causes the decrease in overall efficiency.
• Various N95, KN95, and R95 masks allowed only 40 to 54 percent of aerosols to be breathed out.
• N95 masks do leak and primarily, they leak around the nose. The study said this lead to "notably higher" concentrations of aerosols more than six feet away from the test mannequin.
• N95 masks with valves lost half of their ability to stop aerosols. N95 masks without valves are the recommended choice.
• Lose fitting and incorrectly worn N95 masks provide "negligible" filtration efficiency.
• A key finding of the study - "increased ventilation/air-cleaning capacity significantly reduces the transmission risk in an indoor environment, surpassing the apparent mask filtration efficacy." They went on to say "Even modest ventilation rates were found to be as effective as the best masks in reducing the risk of transmission."

So, in my opinion, what does this mean for a virus that is spread primarily by aerosol?

• People have a false sense of protection from masks and as such, act in ways that could put them more at risk. Someone wearing a cloth/surgical mask will perform activities much closer to others than they should and spend longer time in environments where transmission is possible. This is a big reason why I said last week that mask mandates will have little to no effect on slowing the current wave of infection and hospitalization. We did not see them do so in the Winter Wave (it declined due to vaccinations and a virus running out of potential victims), so why do we expect to make an impact now?
• Ventilation and air filtration is a much better method to reduce the spread of the virus. We have know this fact of decades, going back to the Spanish Flu as an example. It is possible right now to build your own Hepa air filtration device out of four 24"x24" Hepa filters (purchase at any hardware store) and a box fan. Additionally, activities performed outside are much safer than those performed inside. This is why masking people who are outdoors is a really dumb and unproductive policy.

So, in conclusion. If you are wearing a cloth/surgical mask indoors, you need to spend as little time as possible in this environment and stay at least six feet away from other people. You will have very little protection in this type of environment. The masking of kids in schools is also something that will have minimal effect in stopping the spread of the virus. Add to this the policy of allowing kids to remove the masks to eat in the lunch rooms, makes the masking of kids the rest of the day relatively unproductive. If you have a choice, do things outside and do not worry about wearing a mask (yes, this is aimed at Duke University). Always remember, outside=good and inside=bad.

Here's the link to the study:

Experimental investigation of indoor aerosol dispersion and accumulation in the context of COVID-19: Effects of masks and ventilation

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• Lose fitting and incorrectly worn N95 masks provide "negligible" filtration efficiency.

wilmwolf80 said:

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"People have a false sense of protection from masks and as such, act in ways that could put them more at risk. Someone wearing a cloth/surgical mask will perform activities much closer to others than they should and spend longer time in environments where transmission is possible."

I said that very soon after then mandates were put in place last year, I immediately noticed a change in how people interacted while wearing masks due to that false sense of security. That is again a fault of the poor job in messaging, some of which I understand because they were trying to get people to do what they could do, but making any face covering out to be a magic cure was a problem.

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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PackPA2015 said:

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Update from our hospital system:

236 hospitalized with an average age of 58. 214 of those are unvaccinated with an average age of 57. 22 are fully vaccinated with an average age of 68.

44 in the ICU with average age of 52. 42 of those are unvaccinated with an average age of 51. 2 are fully vaccinated with an average age of 70.

21 on the vent with an average age of 52. 20 unvaccinated with an average age of 52. 1 vaccinated with age of 56.

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This tells me the vaccines are working. I'm sure some will say the numbers are made up but oh well.

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WarrenPeace said:

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caryking said:

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Who cares anymore?

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It's crazy man. Neighborhood kid has it now. She has to stay out of school for 2 weeks. Her symptoms are a runny nose.


*** are we doing???

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WHO investigating new COVID-19 variant named Mu https://t.co/gXMvLFmAIJ pic.twitter.com/cjQYHIAkZk

— New York Post (@nypost) September 2, 2021