We need a mask and wash order, not a stay at home order

46AND2

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OK this is just being willfully ignorant. Viruses can, do, and have been transmitted by contaminated surfaces. This is a matter of fact. Not opinion. And, this virus is generally considered MORE contagious than others. The fact that they haven't yet confirmed a case of THIS one is just being stupid. It's like "Dur dur there have been cases of death adders killing people, but there haven't yet been any confirmed cases of THIS death adder killing people, so it's probably not possible!". I mean, my God.... the willful stupidity. Just.... it hurts.

You know what? Just forget it. I came here for intelligent discussion. Not lies and willful ignorance. Welcome to my ignore list..

From the CDC:

Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person-to-person through respiratory droplets. Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. Before preparing or eating food it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds for general food safety. Throughout the day wash your hands after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, or going to the bathroom.

It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures.

Learn what is known about the spread of COVID-19.
 
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46AND2

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OK this is just being willfully ignorant. Viruses can, do, and have been transmitted by contaminated surfaces. This is a matter of fact. Not opinion. And, this virus is generally considered MORE contagious than others. The fact that they haven't yet confirmed a case of THIS one is just being stupid. It's like "Dur dur there have been cases of death adders killing people, but there haven't yet been any confirmed cases of THIS death adder killing people, so it's probably not possible!". I mean, my God.... the willful stupidity. Just.... it hurts.

You know what? Just forget it. I came here for intelligent discussion. Not lies and willful ignorance. Welcome to my ignore list..

Yes, I just completely made it all up. Like @Tanj. We are just willfully ignorant. It's bliss you know.
 
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46AND2

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upload_2020-3-29_20-22-25.png


Oops. 6 days in a row now higher than any previous day.
 
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RDKirk

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So, I went to O'hare last week and picked up someone flying in from Tokyo. Tokyo is a city with a population of ~13 million. For perspective, the state of Illinois has a population of ~12 million.

During her 2.5 week stay she went out to bars, restaurants, on the *packed-like-sardines* JR train lines, and to *Hanami* -- the annual drinking picnics in the parks as the Sakura shed their blossoms. You see: they have yet to close their bars and restaurants.

WHAT? IN A TIME LIKE THIS? THAT'S INSANE!

Wrong.

You see, at this moment, the more-populous-than-Illinois city of Tokyo **plus** the rest of Japan has an out break count lower than *just Cook county* [Source](UPDATED: Coronavirus World Outbreak Map – 2019-nCoV Outbreak Map)

Now, some of you who keep up with the half-truth & lying media may be saying "Ahh, but I read that's because they're not testing so aggressively. Naturally, they will have a low count. So, they're likely super sick, but it's just not being counted"

Wrong again.

You see, Japan has a larger, and older, elderly population than Italy. If it were the case that they were *still catching, just not counting* the massive elderly population would bear no exemption. They would be dropping like flies, their clinics overwhelmed, and the count would skyrocket.

So why can they romp about the bars, go to ramen shops, pack into the subways like sardines in a can, and drink in the park while we red-blooded, freedom-loving Americans cower in fear in our houses? Why can a nation of 160 million, packed in an area the size of California, keep calm and carry on, still having a lower outbreak count than *just Cook county*?

Well, there are a couple popular theories. One is that Japan rejects Western multi-culturalism and, lacking diversity, has an abundance of social cohesion in which everyone has an attitude of being in this together. The "Spirit of Wa", they call it. Another theory is that with weekly and daily earthquakes, twenty some typhoons each Summer, and the constant threat of tsunamis, crisis is a fact of life in Japan and they live in a constant state of preparation.

The theory I find most plausible is that they wear their masks, don't touch their faces (it's inelegant), and they *wash their hands*. I was talking about this, and I learned that in elementary schools in Japan they have hand-stamps that look like a germ or some overly *ka-wa-ii* character. When a child goes to the restroom he gets a stamp on each hand. The stamp is designed to come off after twenty seconds of washing. When they graduate to middle & high school the schools no longer employ janitors. Instead, the students have "cleaning hour". This includes bathroom, cafeteria, and gym facilities. At the entrance of schools they have shoe lockers, where students remove their outdoor shoes and put on indoor-only slippers. I've witnessed paramedics, of habit, slip off their shoes when entering a home solely to carry a man out on a stretcher. If you've spent any time there, you know the Japanese are very clean.

Another possible contributor is being fat puts you at increased weakness against the virus. And while Americans are obscenely over weight, obeisity is virtually non-existent in Japan. While roughly half of Americans are not just overweight, but clinically obeise, about 3% of Japanese are overweight. At 6'3" and 235 lbs, I actually got fat jokes during my last visit there. That's saying something, given be-polite-and-never-offend Japan. If you want an epidemic to worry about, it's the obeisity epidemic.

So yeah. In conclusion, this whole "12 million under house arrest" thing is *waaaaaaay* overblown. IMHO we have a governor using a fancy flu as a pretext to flex his inner Mussolini and put 12 million *cough* freedom-loving Americans under quasi house arrest. Meanwhile, 13 million jam-packed Tokyo-ites are going about business as usual. Because they wash their hands.

Well, we're not going to get America slim within the next year.

And apparently we can't get very many masks, either.
 
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RDKirk

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It's precisely because of using up medical supplies. My roommate is a nurse, and they've been stitching together cloth masks because there aren't enough in supply.

Secondly, it's not entirely effective. The virus is smaller than the masks protect against. It might reduce the chances by some percentage, but it certainly is not prophylactic.

It's not the size of the virus that counts, it's the size of the droplet that carries it. If that were not the case, it would be useless for your roommate to bother with stitching together cloth masks.

The fibers of the mask form a labyrinth through which air passes. Droplets may be smaller than the openings into that labyrinth, but the chances of droplets being able to wend through the labyrinth of fibers is small. Obviously, the more dense the fabric, the less likely even the smallest droplets will be able to wend through it. Moreover, when a droplet carrying a virus body is caught by the fibers, the fibers will tend to desiccate the virus, rendering it inactive much more quickly than it would be on a hard surface.

The medical community is lying to us about the effectiveness of masks.

N95 masks such as these are explicitly designed, tested (by both the government and the manufacturers), and advertised to prevent particles and vapors (atomized droplets) from being inhaled. I've used them for years when spray painting projects or using chemicals that emit dangerous vapors. That's what they're designed for.

Now, that's not the case with "surgical masks." I haven't personally done any research on the effectiveness of surgical masks because I've researched and bought the devices that do what I need them to do...the N95 masks. I suspect that even surgical masks help by a small factor, though; someone is going to have to explain to me the science that says a fiber filter is not equally effective in both directions.

I've noted the medical community "deceives with specific facts" in this regard by conflating less effective surgical masks with the highly effective N95 masks and just says, "Masks won't help you."

If they said something like, "The full effectiveness of masks is dependent on proper fit," that would be the truth. If they said, "Surgical masks are less effective than N95 masks," that would also be the truth.

But "Masks won't help prevent contracting the disease" is a lie. If they're not lying, then the manufacturers of the masks and the government that tests them has been lying to us for decades.

I think, rather, it's the medical community is lying now because they want to have more masks available for their use. And I totally get that, I totally understand that, and I totally agree with that. They should be honest about it, and government and manufacturers should make sure they get first choice and lion's share of all the masks that are available.

But don't lie to us about it. We need to be able to trust those people.
 
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Silmarien

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That's nice. A mask is easy to make with a hanky and a shoelace. Most people are not wearing masks anyways. And hand sanitizer does not work as well as washing.

Homemade masks aren't supposed to be all that effective, and I can't imagine them being all that sanitary either. It's probably much easier to contaminate the wrong side of it if you haven't done a great job at putting it together.

I don't really know why you're judging how hygienic people are on whether or not they're wandering around in masks. There's mixed reviews on how helpful they are if the wearer isn't the one who's sick, and they could potentially even be dangerous since putting them on and off involves more face touching, especially if you put it on wrong and end up scratching at your face.

I'm also not at all sure what you're even suggesting here. Open New York City up again, make everyone put together makeshift masks that will immediately get contaminated, and cram them back into the subways? All because Tokyo is doing it, even though Tokyo is no longer doing it at all?
 
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RDKirk

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Homemade masks aren't supposed to be all that effective, and I can't imagine them being all that sanitary either. It's probably much easier to contaminate the wrong side of it if you haven't done a great job at putting it together.

I don't really know why you're judging how hygienic people are on whether or not they're wandering around in masks. There's mixed reviews on how helpful they are if the wearer isn't the one who's sick, and they could potentially even be dangerous since putting them on and off involves more face touching, especially if you put it on wrong and end up scratching at your face.

I'm also not at all sure what you're even suggesting here. Open New York City up again, make everyone put together makeshift masks that will immediately get contaminated, and cram them back into the subways? All because Tokyo is doing it, even though Tokyo is no longer doing it at all?

With both the mask issue and the ventilator issue, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Not doing a thing because you might not do it perfectly is not necessarily better than doing it imperfectly.
 
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loveofourlord

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With both the mask issue and the ventilator issue, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Not doing a thing because you might not do it perfectly is not necessarily better than doing it imperfectly.

that I think we agree with, the concern is people using something thats only 20% effective to do things they don't need, like the story of going to pubs and subways and such.
 
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Tanj

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With both the mask issue and the ventilator issue, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Not doing a thing because you might not do it perfectly is not necessarily better than doing it imperfectly.

Actually for alot of this stuff, good is the equivalent of not doing it at all, and "perfect" is pretty much the only acceptable bar.

Coronavirus could be controlled in 13 weeks if 80 per cent of people stay home, data suggests

The above example is for social distancing, showing that a < 80% compliance rate is pretty much the same as not doing it at all.
 
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coffee4u

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But I'm not saying "their out break is not that severe because they aren't socially isolating. I'm saying maybe their outbreak is not that severe because they reduce exposure through cleaning and masks.

You need to do it all, wear masks, practise good hygiene and use social distancing. Going into crowded places especially enclosed places where people shout or sing is foolishness.

Professor Kim Woo-joo from Korea University Guro Hospital
This is the guy to listen to.
 
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KarateCowboy

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Listen, that freedom and sense of individualism y'all love, is the same freedom that keeps people from making appropriate basic hygiene expectations to keep people from dying.
I take issue with this. That's very much something the boomers gave us. Before then individual responsibility lead the way for individual freedom.
 
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High Fidelity

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I keep hearing this. "I wouldn't speak to soon. I wouldn't speak to soon". But house-arresting 12 million people? Not too soon for that, I guess!

House arresting 12 million is better than burying 12 million.

You're likely going to be pushing a quarter of a million deaths in America.

Feel free to keep downplaying it but at least don't subject others to your incorrect opinion on the matter by disregarding medical and government advice.
 
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46AND2

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It's not the size of the virus that counts, it's the size of the droplet that carries it. If that were not the case, it would be useless for your roommate to bother with stitching together cloth masks.

The fibers of the mask form a labyrinth through which air passes. Droplets may be smaller than the openings into that labyrinth, but the chances of droplets being able to wend through the labyrinth of fibers is small. Obviously, the more dense the fabric, the less likely even the smallest droplets will be able to wend through it. Moreover, when a droplet carrying a virus body is caught by the fibers, the fibers will tend to desiccate the virus, rendering it inactive much more quickly than it would be on a hard surface.

The medical community is lying to us about the effectiveness of masks.

N95 masks such as these are explicitly designed, tested (by both the government and the manufacturers), and advertised to prevent particles and vapors (atomized droplets) from being inhaled. I've used them for years when spray painting projects or using chemicals that emit dangerous vapors. That's what they're designed for.

Now, that's not the case with "surgical masks." I haven't personally done any research on the effectiveness of surgical masks because I've researched and bought the devices that do what I need them to do...the N95 masks. I suspect that even surgical masks help by a small factor, though; someone is going to have to explain to me the science that says a fiber filter is not equally effective in both directions.

I've noted the medical community "deceives with specific facts" in this regard by conflating less effective surgical masks with the highly effective N95 masks and just says, "Masks won't help you."

If they said something like, "The full effectiveness of masks is dependent on proper fit," that would be the truth. If they said, "Surgical masks are less effective than N95 masks," that would also be the truth.

But "Masks won't help prevent contracting the disease" is a lie. If they're not lying, then the manufacturers of the masks and the government that tests them has been lying to us for decades.

I think, rather, it's the medical community is lying now because they want to have more masks available for their use. And I totally get that, I totally understand that, and I totally agree with that. They should be honest about it, and government and manufacturers should make sure they get first choice and lion's share of all the masks that are available.

But don't lie to us about it. We need to be able to trust those people.

There is probably some truth to that...being disingenuous about why we should not all be wearing the masks...but only by some people. And perhaps not as blatant as some make it out to be. I haven't really read too much about who was saying what about whether we should wear them. I do know that it has absolutely been presented that we need to make sure the healthcare industry is covered. A quick current google search shows a lot of recommendations for the use of them.

As for the effectiveness of the masks against virus...well, there have been SOME studies, but on too small a scale, and sometimes questionable methods. And they have given conflicting, though mostly negative results...at least when it comes to influenza. It would not be difficult to believe that some scientists/healthcare professionals have come out and said to temper your expectations about them, since it has not been robustly tested...and then people blow it up to say they are claiming they don't work, when that isn't what they said...

The issue with the size of the virus is that they are SO small, that tens of thousands of copies can reside in one droplet, so it may only take an extremely small droplet indeed to get through. And to be fair, I mostly had the surgical masks in mind, since that seems to be the most widely used in my experience.
 
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46AND2

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Yes, I did, and I considered all those facts, and made a much better analysis than you present in your finishing sentence there. I mean, two big problems you have to explain if you're going to claim what you are. 1) compare the infection rate between Tokyo and Illinois compared to population density and explain why Illinois' house arrest has not worked as well as Tokyo's cleaning and containment 2) explain why the elderly are not dropping like flies in Japan or Tokyo, if their rate of infection is actually so much higher, as you claim. Oh and actually the third is that you have to provide some sort of tangible estimate of this "much higher" rate, as well as why. Just saying "it's GOTTA be higher; it's GOTTA be higher" doesn't hold water.

1. We CAN'T compare the infection rate between Tokyo and Illinois because the testing rate is nowhere near the same. It's a meaningless comparison.

2. Germany has tested the most people of any country on earth (likely, the exact numbers are not known; though they are up to nearly 200,000 tests PER DAY now) , and 80% of the positive results are people younger than 60 years old. Your little philosophical point is meaningless. Why aren't Germany's olds dropping like flies?

3. Why do I have to present a tangible estimate? The countries, EVERY country (or state for that matter), which has tested many more people than Japan, has many more confirmed cases. If you think Japan is the exception, why are their confirmed cases still going up, even with their limited testing? If what they are doing is truly working, their curve should be flat...or even on the downturn. 6 days in a row with more new cases than any day previously. They aren't out of the woods, yet.
 
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JAL

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So, I went to O'hare last week and picked up someone flying in from Tokyo. Tokyo is a city with a population of ~13 million. For perspective, the state of Illinois has a population of ~12 million.

During her 2.5 week stay she went out to bars, restaurants, on the *packed-like-sardines* JR train lines, and to *Hanami* -- the annual drinking picnics in the parks as the Sakura shed their blossoms. You see: they have yet to close their bars and restaurants.

WHAT? IN A TIME LIKE THIS? THAT'S INSANE!

Wrong.

You see, at this moment, the more-populous-than-Illinois city of Tokyo **plus** the rest of Japan has an out break count lower than *just Cook county* [Source](UPDATED: Coronavirus World Outbreak Map – 2019-nCoV Outbreak Map)

Now, some of you who keep up with the half-truth & lying media may be saying "Ahh, but I read that's because they're not testing so aggressively. Naturally, they will have a low count. So, they're likely super sick, but it's just not being counted"

Wrong again.

You see, Japan has a larger, and older, elderly population than Italy. If it were the case that they were *still catching, just not counting* the massive elderly population would bear no exemption. They would be dropping like flies, their clinics overwhelmed, and the count would skyrocket.

So why can they romp about the bars, go to ramen shops, pack into the subways like sardines in a can, and drink in the park while we red-blooded, freedom-loving Americans cower in fear in our houses? Why can a nation of 160 million, packed in an area the size of California, keep calm and carry on, still having a lower outbreak count than *just Cook county*?

Well, there are a couple popular theories. One is that Japan rejects Western multi-culturalism and, lacking diversity, has an abundance of social cohesion in which everyone has an attitude of being in this together. The "Spirit of Wa", they call it. Another theory is that with weekly and daily earthquakes, twenty some typhoons each Summer, and the constant threat of tsunamis, crisis is a fact of life in Japan and they live in a constant state of preparation.

The theory I find most plausible is that they wear their masks, don't touch their faces (it's inelegant), and they *wash their hands*. I was talking about this, and I learned that in elementary schools in Japan they have hand-stamps that look like a germ or some overly *ka-wa-ii* character. When a child goes to the restroom he gets a stamp on each hand. The stamp is designed to come off after twenty seconds of washing. When they graduate to middle & high school the schools no longer employ janitors. Instead, the students have "cleaning hour". This includes bathroom, cafeteria, and gym facilities. At the entrance of schools they have shoe lockers, where students remove their outdoor shoes and put on indoor-only slippers. I've witnessed paramedics, of habit, slip off their shoes when entering a home solely to carry a man out on a stretcher. If you've spent any time there, you know the Japanese are very clean.

Another possible contributor is being fat puts you at increased weakness against the virus. And while Americans are obscenely over weight, obeisity is virtually non-existent in Japan. While roughly half of Americans are not just overweight, but clinically obeise, about 3% of Japanese are overweight. At 6'3" and 235 lbs, I actually got fat jokes during my last visit there. That's saying something, given be-polite-and-never-offend Japan. If you want an epidemic to worry about, it's the obeisity epidemic.

So yeah. In conclusion, this whole "12 million under house arrest" thing is *waaaaaaay* overblown. IMHO we have a governor using a fancy flu as a pretext to flex his inner Mussolini and put 12 million *cough* freedom-loving Americans under quasi house arrest. Meanwhile, 13 million jam-packed Tokyo-ites are going about business as usual. Because they wash their hands.

I don't think this virus is getting overblown. Quite the opposite, in my understanding.

Michael Osterholm is one of the top disease-researchers in the USA. Regarding the usual advice on Covid-19, such as:
  • Wash your hands
  • Don’t touch your face
  • Staying 6 feet away is good enough.
He says this kind of advice has no scientific verification and seems untrue. Rather, he says, all the evidence points to an “aerosol” dynamic. He likens it to dust-particles that become visible in a room when the sun shines through a window. Those particles never seem to hit the ground. They remain suspended in the air. Similarly, Covid-19 floats in the air for hours. All you need to do is breathe, to get infected. Therefore anytime you walk into a public area, you are in danger from any infected person who was in that building earlier that day. You are in danger if you go to a store, or ride the bus, or take a taxi or Uber (think about how many people rode that same taxi or uber-vehicle today or yesterday). Anywhere where there is people, there is danger.

This is the video where he mentions the aerosol effect (15 minutes)


Here’s another video but it’s really long because he talks about all kinds of diseases, not just Covid-19. But this is the one where he mentions that “Wash your hands” and “Don’t touch your face” all seem to be bogus advice (i.e good advice for many diseases but ineffective for Covid-19).

 
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RDKirk

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Actually for alot of this stuff, good is the equivalent of not doing it at all, and "perfect" is pretty much the only acceptable bar.

Coronavirus could be controlled in 13 weeks if 80 per cent of people stay home, data suggests

The above example is for social distancing, showing that a < 80% compliance rate is pretty much the same as not doing it at all.

I've read that, and frankly, it's a stupid article. "Stupid" in this case means spouting statistics without providing "news you can use."

I had a commander that would kick us out of his office when we provided an intelligence analysis like that. "What does all that data actually mean I should do to carry out my mission?"

"Coronavirus could be controlled in 13 weeks if 80 per cent of people stay home," is a useless and impracticable statistic as stated, and as you repeated it, for anyone to put to use.
 
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rambot

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I take issue with this. That's very much something the boomers gave us. Before then individual responsibility lead the way for individual freedom.
Doesn't matter where it came, it's there or you can actively choose to adapt it
 
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