SARS-2-CoV (COVID-19)

[tnguy]

3 hours ago, Garufa said:

All this talk about masks.

Where exactly, is one supposed to get a mask?  

I had a couple hanging on my workbench. Of course, many think it's not manly if your lungs don't have a good coating of tar & sawdust.

[btq96r]

3 hours ago, TGO David said:

China might not outright attack the US (because drug dealers know its not wise to kill your best customer), but they might take this opportunity to wage a hostile takeover of a small strategic island country and dare the world to do anything about it.

Kind of a perfect time to do it if their military isn't secretly overcoming COVID-19.  We're not exactly well postured with our bases in South Korea on medical lockdown and the Pentagon lethargically compensating for the aircraft carrier USS Coronavirus docked in Guam and relieved of its commanding officer.

 

[TGO David]

1 hour ago, superduty said:

While this may be a little tin foil hat of me, what I have been worried about for years are the bridges across the Mississippi River.

Back after 9/11 the government was worried about infrastructure like that being used to slow/halt commerce as well.

 

[Ronald_55]

1 hour ago, tnguy said:

I had a couple hanging on my workbench. Of course, many think it's not manly if your lungs don't have a good coating of tar & sawdust.

By sheer stupid luck I had picked up a partial box of N95 that were gonna get tossed at the place I used to work. Tgry used then for dusk masks. I mean I had everyone other type masks, but not N95. Wife never so happy for once that I carried "junk" home. Not a lot but 2 for each of us. 

If I run into a source I will toss it out here.

Maybe the government will hand out some of the million that they confiscated from that guy.  I really hope there is more to tgat store than they just came and took them .

[DaveTN]

14 hours ago, TGO David said:

Oh, let's pretend like you don't have a clue what I'm talking about!  That'll be fun!

 

The Surgeon General has been downplaying the need for the public to wear masks for weeks.  Then he pivoted and said we were all too dumb to know how to properly fit them to our faces, so we should just not compete against the healthcare industry as private buyers... but wrapping our faces with bandanas was a good alternate.

It's amazing the number of clothing companies that rushed to produce bandanas for the medical industry over the past three weeks!  Haven't you seen it happening?  Everyone knows how effective they are!

 

Why all the animosity? I asked you a question. I wasn't calling you a liar like you just did me, I’ve watched a lot of the briefings and have never heard anyone say that people that were asymptomatic couldn’t spread the virus, just the opposite. But of course, I could have missed it. 

[tnhawk]

On 3/30/2020 at 9:34 PM, Chucktshoes said:

Which is more dangerous - virus or daily shootings?

[Chucktshoes]

First he beat Nazis, then 75 years later he beats COVID-19. That’s what’s up. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/03/veteran-survived-coronavirus/

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by Chucktshoes

[jgradyc]

We live in a nation where most people couldn't pass Critical Thinking 101 (including apparently our Surgeon General and head of CDC Fauci).

We're told there is a critical shortage of masks for medical professionals and then we're told in the same talk that masks do nothing for the masses. 

So... a mask does nothing for me, but when a medical professional wears it, the MAGIC happens and they start working!

Now, after tens of thousands of people have become infected, the Surgeon General and CDC head Fauci look at South Korea and Japan and figure, "Hey, maybe masks do work! Who knew?"

I have surgical masks and a couple of N99 masks that I kept for painting so I've been wearing them when in the grocery store.

Edited April 4, 2020 by jgradyc

[gregintenn]

I’ve always hated being in a crowd. My wife has finally started to see a bit of logic in that dread.

[DWARREN123]

No matter what is going on, be with people you like and care for!

[Garufa]

3 hours ago, jgradyc said:

We live in a nation where most people couldn't pass Critical Thinking 101 (including apparently our Surgeon General and head of CDC Fauci).

We're told there is a critical shortage of masks for medical professionals and then we're told in the same talk that masks do nothing for the masses. 

So... a mask does nothing for me, but when a medical professional wears it, the MAGIC happens and they start working!

Now, after tens of thousands of people have become infected, the Surgeon General and CDC head Fauci look at South Korea and Japan and figure, "Hey, maybe masks do work! Who knew?"

I have surgical masks and a couple of N99 masks that I kept for painting so I've been wearing them when in the grocery store.

We live in a nation where most people can’t even spell or understand how words work much less mentally process the concept of me and us.

There are conflicting reports daily from the media about what one should do or not do.  Our absurdly biased media is in full force telling us one thing one day, another the next, often conflicting themselves on the same day.

I’d be surprised if the USA could find us the way out of a paper bag.

[Refleks]

4 hours ago, jgradyc said:

We live in a nation where most people couldn't pass Critical Thinking 101 (including apparently our Surgeon General and head of CDC Fauci).

We're told there is a critical shortage of masks for medical professionals and then we're told in the same talk that masks do nothing for the masses. 

So... a mask does nothing for me, but when a medical professional wears it, the MAGIC happens and they start working!

Now, after tens of thousands of people have become infected, the Surgeon General and CDC head Fauci look at South Korea and Japan and figure, "Hey, maybe masks do work! Who knew?"

I have surgical masks and a couple of N99 masks that I kept for painting so I've been wearing them when in the grocery store.

Indeed.  This is a summary of some of my earlier comments but bears mentioning IMO

They knew, it was a deliberate decision to try and reduce panic buying (which happened anyway) as Fauci implicitly admitted in an article shortly before the announcement.  I understand the need to try and avoid panic, but there are two things wrong with that.

Firstly, there should never be a reason that we lack mission critical items (especially PPE,  given the universal nature of its importance)  necessary to do the job, and that represents a failure of leadership full stop.  Our stockpile consisted of somewhere around 112 million N95 masks, reduced after the H1N1 epidemic in 2009-2010 to just 12 million and never replenished.  It should have been on the order of 3.5 billion according to one testimony by a SME, which at $2.50 / kg represents less than $200 million in material costs.  That's stupid cheap, in the grand scheme of things, even accounting for having to replace them due to expiration dates.  Sometimes distribution can understandably be a problem (such as immediately following a natural disaster) but supply should not be -- panic buying is a known variable that can be accounted for in emergency management planning, and whether or not the public panic buys should therefore be irrelevant to mission readiness on the healthcare end if things are running as they should.  Unfortunately, we are where we are, you fight with the army you have, and that will hopefully be addressed in the after action report (along with several ranking members hopefully having to update their resume)

Secondly, it's disingenuous to deliberately mislead people about the efficacy of an intervention at mitigating potential risk in order to manipulate their actions (in other words, saying "masks do not help the general public" driven not by actual evidence, but because we're short and want to avoid panic buying) and is extraordinarily unethical and would likely be career ending if anyone else was caught doing it.  The layperson may not be subject matter experts but they know when something doesn't add up, and it understandably sounded suspect when officials implied that coughing into your arm helps, as do masks for medical professionals, but not for anyone else.   People aren't stupid, and they really don't like being misled.  Public threads on social media indicated that a non trivial number of people immediately referenced the Surgeon General and parroted the claims that masks don't help. 

Their contention was likely that if you're practicing social distancing like you should be doing, the general public doesn't need masks, and combined with the severe shortage of PPE they were hoping it would trick the populace into not panic buying.  Not only did it not prevent panic buying, but downplaying the seriousness and significant potential for pre-symptomatic transmission (relative to things like Flu) which were known caused everyone down the line to drag their feet in their response, and it illustrated a fundamental disconnect between ostensible guidelines and the realities on the ground, as evidenced by the pictures in mid-March of standing room only crowds at the airport and essential businesses being slow to implement social distancing measures.  Those people really thought masks didn't help.

So I get their contention, and do not care.  This isn't China or HBO's Chernobyl, this is the United States and It's unethical to not be fully truthful to the public for fear of them not being responsible enough to do what is necessary. We can't make informed decisions when authoritative sources deliberately and selectively manipulate information. These actions were deliberate and hurt the public trust, potentially irrevocably, and in the press conference they tried to play this information off as if they didn't have it the whole time and were keeping us up to date with the latest developments. Their approach was conduct unbecoming and this should not be forgotten in the wake of this, because without a doubt their actions cost lives that didn't have to be lost. 
 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Refleks

[Refleks]

If a silver lining can be found in all of this, it is that perhaps those who have adapted to become utterly dependent on the state for their well-being now has a healthy skepticism about their competence and a more realistic assessment of their limitations, and take it upon themselves to share at least some responsibility for their own well-being going forward, at least to give the Government time to gear up their response and shake the rust off.   This would result in a healthy mix of responsibility and a far more resilient populace with a robust ability to absorb hardship whether it be through natural disaster, terrorism, scarcity, or otherwise.

Unfortunately, I suspect many will go out of their way to miss the lesson and instead say the shortcomings were a flaw in this particular administration rather than an inherent limitation of the nature of the state, and these lessons will be forgotten in a generation.

[Oh Shoot]

2 hours ago, Garufa said:

There are conflicting reports daily from the media about what one should do or not do.  ...

Starts at the top in this case. Just a sample off top o my bean, as every day brings out some major waffle.

"Not a problem, only 15 cases, will magically disappear, just the flu -- lots of death in next couple weeks"

"Well take care of you -- actually, it's the states' responsibility".

"If you want a test, you can get a test"

"Wearing a mask may help -- no I'm not going to wear one. "

"I take no responsibility", the buck stops everywhere else.

DJT was pounding the "we've got to get back to work" theme today. Not even a nod to the continuation of isolation that all the medicos keep stressing. One eye on "his" NYSE and reelection obviously.

Sort of like the nurse in postop saying "race you to the entrance!"

- OS

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Oh Shoot

[Erik88]

11 hours ago, Refleks said:

Unfortunately, I suspect many will go out of their way to miss the lesson and instead say the shortcomings were a flaw in this particular administration rather than an inherent limitation of the nature of the state, and these lessons will be forgotten in a generation.

Is it possible the shortcomings came from from both the system and the administration? This one and the last? We have a lot of people that will just refuse to admit how badly Trump screwed this up. I don't even like saying that because screw up implies it was unintentional. He knew exactly what he was doing.

January 30th- "we have this very well under control. This is going to have a happy ending"

March 4th-  Trump calls WHO estimates false. Suggests that those infected can get better and "going to work". Yes he said that.

March 7th- "No, I'm not concerned at all".

March 9th- Trump bashes Democrats for sounding the alarm "far beyond what the facts would warrant". Keeps comparing it to the common Flu which the puppets on Fox repeated over and over. 

This tweet from March 9th had 300k likes. You know how many people ONLY watch Fox news? Hell, the evidence was obvious on this forum. This is why even today we have people who don't even care about the virus. Hannity in particular just lies to his viewers and he can get away with it because his viewers don't care. 

We lost 5-6 weeks to prepare for this while Trump called it fake news. Trump is extremely popular among Republicans and what he says does matter, despite what many try to claim. I dont fault him for the fact that we don't have masks but his complete lack of accountability for his words is a new low for him. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Erik88

[A.J. Holst]

13 hours ago, gregintenn said:

I’ve always hated being in a crowd. My wife has finally started to see a bit of logic in that dread.

No longer need an excuse to avoid people!

[A.J. Holst]

21 minutes ago, Erik88 said:

We lost 5-6 weeks to prepare for this while Trump called it fake news

.gov has been forced to react, it seems difficult to be proactive when the alleged source was part of problem vs. solution.

If true:

The Chinese may have been aware and dealing with it since 7/2019

Allowed 50k citizens to travel internationally

Told the WHO is it isn't contagious

Media reported as such

80% of test kits sent to Europe were faulty

Subsequent production of masks revealed many didn't meet minimum specs.

Until recently, if you wanted to produce and retail masks, you needed approval from the FDA to make a medical device.

My biggest non medical concern is .gov has figured out how to massage our rights to protect the public good.

They get to decide when we get 'em back and that a good crisis is way easier to manipulate the mob than a conditional amendment.

Yes, we have rights and laws to protect the individual, but I believe I have a personal responsibility not to endanger myself or others through un-needed navigation of the world of unknown infected contacts.

[bud]

.

Edited June 9, 2020 by bud

[Erik88]

12 minutes ago, bud said:

I'm not a huge Trump defender, and I realize his mouth often overruns his brain. That being said, right now we're at approx 8,500 deaths in the USA. If at the end of the year we have 10x that number, then its the equivalent to the amount of deaths in a very bad Flu year.

COVID-19 has killed 8k people in 12 days and we're just getting started. The flu doesn't do that. And that's with 42 out of 50 states being on some sort of quarentine. If we had not done that the deaths would be substantially higher.

 

13 minutes ago, bud said:

Personally, i am a HUGE fan of the way Trump has left this to the States to handle it

I'm fine with that too. Apparently they didn't think he could do a nationwide shut down even if he wanted to.

And I think Lee has done the best he could given the circumstances. The people complaining about him now will line up to vote for him again. I have my doubts on Trump surviving this but Biden is such a poor choice anything is possible.

[gregintenn]

1 hour ago, A.J. Holst said:

No longer need an excuse to avoid people!

I was social distancing when social distancing wasn't cool!

[Grayfox54]

Ok, so now they're saying that the general public should wear even a make shift mask? A virus is one of the smallest living things on this planet. Ordinary masks can't completely stop it.  They may catch some of the virus, but some will get through anyway simply because the filtering material isn't fine enough to completely catch something this small. That's why medical professionals have to have N-95 or better masks. 

I believe that the purpose of recommending home made masks isn't to prevent you from getting the virus, its to prevent asymptomatic people from spreading it.  

 

[Ronald_55]

1 minute ago, Grayfox54 said:

Ok, so now they're saying that the general public should wear even a make shift mask? A virus is one of the smallest living things on this planet. Ordinary masks can't completely stop it.  They may catch some of the virus, but some will get through anyway simply because the filtering material isn't fine enough to completely catch something this small. That's why medical professionals have to have N-95 or better masks. 

I believe that the purpose of recommending home made masks isn't to prevent you from getting the virus, its to prevent asymptomatic people from spreading it.  

 

May be the old 'something is better than nothing' and the placebo affect to calm people

[Grayfox54]

3 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

May be the old 'something is better than nothing' and the placebo affect to calm people

Exactly. Something is indeed better than nothing. And it does make people feel a little better. But I do think that the real purpose is to keep the virus in rather than out. 

[MacGyver]

39 minutes ago, Grayfox54 said:

Exactly. Something is indeed better than nothing. And it does make people feel a little better. But I do think that the real purpose is to keep the virus in rather than out. 

Going back to your comments about the fabric weave being too small to keep a virus out - that would necessarily mean it’s also too small to keep it in.

Maybe it would limit the distance cough droplets might travel? I’d have to see test data. 

[Grayfox54]

That's my thought. When a person coughs or sneezes, they can spray a fine mist of bodily fluids up to what? About 10 feet? Having a mask on would catch most of that. Thus limiting the spread.