coronavirus

[cherrypoptart]

There's a huge process that probably takes months at least if not years and you're going to be out of pocket in the meantime for not only your medical care but also you'll be paying for legal counsel as well for which you may or may not eventually be compensated. We're talking about people who don't even have health insurance so I doubt they'll have the money to hire lawyers. I'm saying the people should have their medical care paid for immediately. Who has the time and money to go through the whole process from that site especially if it's "only" a few thousand dollars. And getting them to admit the causal relationship is an uphill battle. There is still debate about whether some vaccine caused narcolepsy. Some say yes and some say there isn't enough proof, and that's years and years later.

"What is the process?
An individual files a petition with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services medical staff reviews the petition, determines if it meets the medical criteria for compensation and makes a preliminary recommendation.
The U.S. Department of Justice develops a report that includes the medical recommendation and legal analysis and submits it to the Court.
The report is presented to a court-appointed special master, who decides whether the petitioner should be compensated, often after holding a hearing in which both parties can present evidence. If compensation is awarded, the special master determines the amount and type of compensation.
The Court orders the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to award compensation. Even if the petition is dismissed, if certain requirements are met, the Court may order the Department to pay attorneys' fees and costs."

[msquared]

For those who say look at just the death rates by age group.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/covid-99-survival-rate-sound-010026661.html

Death is not the only outcome.

[cherrypoptart]

CDC jumping the gun again on masks and erring on the side of danger:

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-lifts-indoor-mask-guidelines-222151113.html

"Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing,'' CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing. "If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.''

So I agree with this guy who says it's too much too soon:

“It seems like a lot of change all at once,” Piltch-Loeb said. “We don’t know what vaccine effectiveness will look like if we drop recommendations of mask wearing and social distancing… To ignore a sense of caution indoors is too big of a jump at this point in time.”

And I like this lady at the CDC but she admits there is still a lot of uncertainty:

"The CDC said it’s possible masking guidelines may return for fully vaccinated people in the future if vaccination rates decrease and coronavirus transmission increases.

“This past year has shown us that this virus can be unpredictable,” Walensky said. “So, if things get worse, there’s always a chance we may need to make changes in these recommendations.”

So we'll see if we get a bunch of people killed unnecessarily first and then maybe we'll put the masks on. Kind of like what they did in the beginning. Never err on the side of caution.

We've got this thing on the run now doing what we've been doing. But we don't know how dangerous vaccinated people still are to the unvaccinated. We do know that if you mix them both and you go on the honor system that a vast number of Americans are honorless curs who will say they are vaccinated when they are not, kind of like we saw with the service animals on airlines. And even if there was a way to make sure like with vaccination cards or passports, we see the very real possibility with the Yankees story that vaccinated people may still transmit the virus to others, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. Sure the vaccines are great and I'm all for them because with them even if people are getting breakthrough cases they almost always recover quickly if they notice at all since many of them only know because they are getting tested so frequently, but now is not the time to drop our guard and risk a variant coming along that the vaccines don't protect well against, a possibility that is greatly reduced with continued masking because that variant will more likely reach a dead end much more quickly than with masks off, even for the vaccinated.

If a variant mutates that the vaccines don't protect against, it would probably a be a month or more before we know how dangerous it is, and by that time it's too late. We'll be back to square one if that vaccine resistant variant takes hold, and the people strutting around maskless with a false sense of security will pay for it and make everyone around them pay too.

[LetterRip]

Cherry,

Yeah I think the CDC decision is questionable here.  The WHO is a bit more cautious and reasonable in their guidance in my opinion.

I've heard anecdotes that indoor shopping in many places has gone from mostly full compliance to very few mask wearers although it is almost certain that vaccination rates are not anywhere near 100% in those locations.

Some have speculated that this is a carrot to encourage people to get vaccinated and increase the vaccination rates but if so I think it was poorly thought out.

[cherrypoptart]

As I've had time to think about it and read a few more stories about the issue, I've realized that I was actually too soft on the CDC and their new masks off guidance. It's so dangerous and beyond stupid that they need to be called on it, and I'm calling them on it.

https://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-epidemiologists-expected-mask-wearing-140856851.html

“It is either you trust the vaccine, or you do not,” said Kristin Harrington, an epidemiology Ph.D. student at Emory. “And if we trust the vaccine, that means an unlimited number of vaccinated individuals should be allowed to gather together.”

Okay, this is just dumb. Even if you did trust the vaccine, that doesn't mean anything because you can't trust this virus. And this masks off approach is dumb even if the virus doesn't mutate and the vaccines work as expected. Too many people are still unvaccinated and it's still entirely possible, even likely, that vaccinated people will get infected over and over again but shrug it off without even knowing while over and over again they go maskless in crowds and can still spread it even to people wearing masks because not only are most of those people not wearing eye protection but also because most of these masks, as we've been over time and again, don't do a whole lot to protect you from virus particles that are in the air around you but instead are there to prevent you from spreading them yourself. That's all even assuming that it's only the vaccinated people who will go maskless. Even with that it's still too dangerous. And then throw in the fact that the unvaccinated will be going maskless too and this policy makes the Biden administration just as dangerously dumb on the mask issue as Trump ever was. And the sad thing is we're very possibly going to make things worse than they ever were when we were making so much progress.

Now maybe it doesn't play out that way. Maybe we go maskless, the virus doesn't mutate dangerously, more and more people get vaccinated, and it all works out in the end. But my analogy would be some kid with the ink still wet on his new driver's license gets a used car and before he even gets it inspected or at least checks the tires, one of which you find out later actually has a slow leak in it that he doesn't know about, he gets out on the highway and drives it around at 120 mph weaving in and out of traffic. Then after twenty minutes of scolding him from the passenger seat he finally takes an exit ramp going 70 mph that has a posted speed of 25 and as the curve in the road comes up you have to scream in his ear, "SLOW DOWN!" and he finally sees the danger and slams on the breaks going into a skid as you feel the rumble of the antilock system kick in, and you barely manage to stay on the road and avoid a catastrophe, so he says with smarmy ignorance see it was okay. No. No, it was not okay. It was extremely dangerous and you just got super lucky.



"Others acknowledged that policy decisions are based on many goals, such as invigorating the economy and incentivizing people to get vaccinated."

And that's part of it right there as you point out LetterRip. Incentivizing people to get vaccinated.

I just looked up the word extortion to make sure I'd be using it right. "extortion:
the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
"he used bribery and extortion to build himself a huge, art-stuffed mansion"

Yup. So now the CDC is extorting the public, trying to get them to vaccinate under the threat of infecting them with the most deadly virus we've seen in a hundred years, extortion using biological warfare as the theat.

And opening the economy? That can be done while still keeping mask mandates for the vast majority of places like we have now.

"Respondents also said that as long as the virus was still spreading, masks were important to protect high-risk people and those who cannot be vaccinated, like children or people who have underlying health conditions."

And a lot of people cannot be vaccinated because of health reasons like allergies. And a lot more people live with those people so yes the ones who live with them can get vaccinated, should get vaccinated, and do get vaccinated, but when the masks come off those people can still get infected and we're not certain yet but it looks like they could still pass that infection on to the unvaccinatable people they live with. It's a lot less likely and that's great but again we're dealing with large numbers here, hundreds of millions of people in America, so a lot less likely only goes so far.

We have the same sad situation now that we had at the beginning when the CDC said don't wear masks. Even if they come around eventually and change their mind again and say you need to start wearing masks, the mixed messages reduces their credibility and confuses people, and gives the ones who hate the masks but would reluctantly wear them the excuse they need to just say screw it.

https://news.yahoo.com/costco-no-longer-require-fully-213709260.html

So it begins.

"Costco said that in locations with no state or local mask requirements, customers who are fully vaccinated can enter the store without a face mask or shield. The retailer said it will not ask for proof of vaccination."

The CDC director says she is following the science. Even if the science says that vaccinated people are safe and won't spread it, real world her policy means that masses of unvaccinated people will immediately be going maskless in crowded indoor spaces like Costco.

Biden and the Democrats had one thing going for them over Trump on the Covid response and that was masks. And now he doesn't even have that. And to top it off not only is he not instituting common sense border controls like the countries that have kept Covid under control,  but he actually just diverted billions of dollars that were meant for the Covid response to instead help fund his border (not a) crisis policy of mass international travel via immigration during a pandemic. So he's taking away from resources to stop the pandemic in order to fund efforts that will make it worse. Double whammy. Whereas he was a half failure before on Covid now he just went full on massive epic fail.

So what can Biden do? He should fire the CDC director immediately and get someone in there who knows what they are doing. And he can stop encouraging mass migrations during a pandemic. He almost certainly won't do either.

[Fenring]

I think I've actually gotta disagree on this point, cherry. I'm pretty hardline when it comes to measures and whether they should be mandatory. But I've also been sharply aware of the collateral damage of restrictions on normal life, and what it costs in other ways. Overall my general tendency has been to prefer significant policies to half-measures or 'advice' given to the populace. That being said, at a certain point it has to end. It is simply not tolerable to have school and daycare closures (depending on where you live), changing rules, and other fears plague you forever. If indeed the virus is here to stay, then at a certain point life will have to be adapted for it, rather than pausing and waiting. Avoiding contact with people can't go on forever, and this is for many reasons that IMO may trump absolute safety from the virus. So while I would have been adamantly against just letting loose and developing herd immunity the hard way (no restrictions at all), I am roughly equally against refusing to set any line beyond which we can relax these measures. So IMO a significant vaccination success may well be the correct time to open the floodgates and live again. Now where I would be hesitant would be in just how much vaccination is enough to warrant crossing that line. And what happens if not enough people ever agree to be vaccinated to pass that threshold? But at that point the question may be moot, because the people will likely refuse to continue with the precautions long-term in any event. Sooner or later people are gonna start having parties and hugging their buddies, and helping old ladies across the street without fear, for better or worse.

[cherrypoptart]

I think we should have waited until August and then let's see where we stand.

But one thing doesn't add up here.

We're told it's safe for vaccinated people to go maskless and let's assume that's true.

We're also told it's not safe for unvaccinated people to go maskless. Nobody is saying that's safe. The CDC isn't saying that's safe. They are saying for the unvaccinated to keep masking.

And that's the point right now. Real world. What the CDC is doing results in the unvaccinated going maskless because everyone is on the honor system and we know how that works. It doesn't.

So in effect the CDC is saying that it's absolutely NOT safe for the unvaccinated to go maskless but wink wink do it anyway.

[cherrypoptart]

So what am I going to do? I'm going to get one of the expensive powered HEPA filtered masks and I've already got my eye protection, real safety goggles that provide a complete tight covering.

I'm looking at this one that has a UV case for sanitizing it too:

https://www.lg.com/hk_en/puricare/lg-ap300awfa

I'll probably wear some kind of covering over it both because I'm not sure it protects the outgoing air but since I won't be infected that shouldn't matter but also because with another mask on top it won't look so weird at first glance.

And my safety goggles are these:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Safety-Glasses-Black-and-Clear/16550653

Now I just have the KN95 mask and wear a copper infused mask on top so I get a tight fit.

I think once I get that new mask that has 99.99% filtering I'll be okay even if I have to go into indoor areas with masses of maskless infectoids but I've got a very bad feeling that because the unvaccinated will go maskless in crowded indoor spaces we will soon see a huge spike in cases and we'll be back to masks anyway. If the goal is to get back to normal as soon as possible this may well turn out to be the absolute worst way to accomplish that.

Usually I wouldn't put products up here but the point is not for people to tell them I sent you so I can get my referral kickback or for the stock I own in the companies that make them to go up by encouraging people to buy their products, although that's nice too. But the point is if anyone has better ideas that would be nice to know about and if this gives someone at risk an idea they like that's also good. By the way, I don't actually own their stock or get a kickback, just in case someone doesn't know when I'm joking.

I guess one upside of now versus back then though is that there probably are ways to keep protecting yourself and your family unlike at the beginning of all this when we didn't have good masks available for everyone.

We should know in a month or two if going maskless works out or if it's a disaster.

[cherrypoptart]

Fenring

"But I've also been sharply aware of the collateral damage of restrictions on normal life, and what it costs in other ways."

My response to this is that this is a good point and there is room for compromise. If we want to say okay masks off in restaurants like it is now anyway and you want to assume the kids are safe in schools and the teachers are vaccinated so you want masks off in schools then okay on that too, if you insist. If you want masks off at bars and concerts and stadiums to spur the economy then I'll say it's dangerous but okay. People at risk and with family members at risk where vaccination isn't an option don't have to go to any of those places if they don't want to.

But we could still keep mando-mask policies in places like Walmart and Costco where they just came off. The masks don't prevent any economic activity. They can stay on at pretty much all the places where you aren't eating, like banks, your auto repair shop, leasing offices, and so on. Masks there don't hurt the economy. They're just fine.  And people who have few to no options for avoiding such essential businesses are protected. There is no harm done, only good.

We didn't have to go full throttle all at once.

[Ouija Nightmare]

But the point is if anyone has better ideas that would be nice to know about and if this gives someone at risk an idea they like that's also good.

Move to a State where they’re not dropping the mask mandate just because the CDC says?

What this is about is the fact that there are vaccines available and people who can get them safely are now declining to do so. They’re often the same people who flaunt mask rules and shame people who do get vaccinated or gaslight them with stories of how they’re destroying their immune systems or sterilizing women.

Those people are your political allies. Sit them down and talk to them, they’re not going to listen to me, the CDC, or Joe Biden.

[cherrypoptart]

Also, the psychology of shaming the masked with the assumption that they are unvaccinated as a way to pressure them into getting vaccinated and then throwing off their mask is very likely to backfire.

It may get some people vaccinated who otherwise wouldn't have but it's going to encourage more people to not wear masks even though they are unvaccinated because they don't want to stand out especially with the stigma of the assumption that they refused to do their patriotic duty and get their vaccine.

There was a solidarity in play with the mandatory masks. Everyone was playing their part. But now the CDC turned that whole dynamic on its head so that if you are wearing a mask it looks like you're the slacker.

Our government's biological warfare extortion attempt is another Cobra effect scenario and it's going to provide exactly the opposite results from what's intended. It's going to encourage and result in the unvaccinated going maskless, even when that's not actually their inclination, even to some extent against their will.

Edited to add: I was typing my post as you were posting about shaming. That's an interesting synchronicity even though now the shaming will be on the other foot, so to speak.

Now the people who were all for masks are all against them because it means you failed to vaccinate yourself. Fascinating.

[LetterRip]

Cherry,

for personal protection - just avoid indoors with crowds as feasible and keep wearing a mask (and glasses).  If you encounter someone who is coughing without a mask (or singing or yelling or exercising) leave the area as quickly as feasible.  The real risk is encountering a super spreader in a small enclosed area.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200727/covid-19-super-spreaders-quickly-fill-room-with-virus----but-masks-help


The odds of a vaccinated person encountering a mutated virus that the vaccine has little or no protection  - prior to it being widely known that such virus exists - is pretty vanishingly small.

[cherrypoptart]

What I would be curious about on a more personal level is how many people are in favor of the new CDC maskless policy but were tough on Trump and thought his ridicule of masks and their wearers was dangerous and stupid.

In a roundabout way, that's inquiring into the possibility that much of the mask issue for a lot of people was political. They were for it because Trump was against it. Now that "their side" is also against masks, they are also against them.

I'll give myself credit for being for them all along. There is no reason why I'd change my position now looking at the facts on the ground. We see how fast the situation can turn by looking at India and Brazil and numerous other places. We know the CDC maskless policy will result in large numbers of the unvaccinated milling about indoors in close proximity to each other. It's obvious what the likely result of this will be and it'll be a miracle if it's not a complete disaster.

But the point is it's going to be interesting to see how many people ridiculed Trump for being anti-mask but are now anti-mask themselves. How many people who were ridiculed for wearing a mask are now going to ridicule someone else for wearing a mask. The cycle of abuse. I mean you could say it's different. Vaccines. Herd immunity. But it's not really. Why? Obviously. As stated many times, the unvaccinated are about to start huddling around each other like herds of mindless zombies.

[Fenring]

We didn't have to go full throttle all at once.

Well, that's part of the problem. One of the strikes against ongoing measures (perhaps of any kind) is going to be an underlying anxiety in play so long as there is a sense of "there is danger here, be on guard." That is not a good mental state to be in on a permanent basis when you go out. The idea of going into public places will start to have negative connotations, which for various reasons I think is a dangerous mental world to build. Now the fact making it tougher is that there is, in fact, danger, so it's not like the masks and other measures you suggest would be illogical from a strategic standpoint. But to allow for a state of mental ease, which is hard enough to induce by the way even without a pandemic, I think you might actually need to adopt a sense that "everything is ok", even if it isn't. This is one of the tricky points that I don't think anyone is really discussing, and is probably hard to measure. What are the long-term psychological effects of feeling other people as being a substantial threat to one's person? What are the effects on children of stranger danger now involving bio-contaminants? Will there be long-term psychological damage associated with continuing to be wary and nervous for years at a time, even if you don't catch covid?

These are some of the questions I would pose, although there are other categories of collateral damage as well that I won't get into here. But to get people into a state of wellness (or perhaps to avoid undue unwellness), is it "correct" to always engage in the most strategically logical plan regarding bio-hazards? What if maximizing immuno-fortitude compromises other types of fortitude necessary under these conditions? Then what is really correct? At that point you are making a choice of which category to be at risk for, which is either a blind value judgement, or perhaps a risk assessment if you could quantify both (but I doubt you could).

[LetterRip]

Cherry,

regarding people being okay with ending mask mandates - a lot of people feel that anyone who wants to be vaccinated is, and they are tired of trying to convince people of the value of vaccines and masks - and thus those who still refuse are choosing simply going to have consequences for those decisions.  That unfortunately over simplifies things since some people have health risks where they can't be vaccinated; youth haven't been eligible yet; and ending mask mandates increases odds of a mutation.  Also people overestimate the effectiveness of vaccines (this is due to the clinical trial results being poorly explained - only low risk candidates are trial participants so the effectiveness for unhealthy people can't be directly extrapolated).  That doesn't in any way suggest that prior support for masks was about politics.

[TheDrake]

A lot of good points there, but I'll add one that I didn't see. The impact on the mental health and sometimes physical safety of retail workers attempting to enforce mask mandates on customers. We've seen plenty of verbal altercations and sometimes physical altercations. At some point corporate leadership has to weigh those factors against the public health implications. Some of those interactions have landed people in the hospital and some in the morgue.

[cherrypoptart]

Yes, I saw some stories about that too and thought to comment on it as well.

https://news.yahoo.com/more-stores-drop-mask-requirements-123029381.html

This is going to be a huge headache for the stores that keep their mask policies in place when they try to enforce them.

If I have any choice in the matter, those are the stores I'll be going to. Thankfully it looks like HEB will keep theirs and that's the store I'll be using more now instead of Walmart even though it's kind of funny because I pretty much only use curbside anyway.

I'm still wiping off my groceries and it's comforting to think that the employees are wearing masks while they handle them and the other customers are masked while shopping so the items hopefully aren't getting infected by fomites even though I understand the risk of getting the bug from fomites is virtually non-existent. I'll give them my patronage anyway because masks are still a necessary weapon in the fight against the virus. We heard numbers thrown around about vaccination rates need to be 70%, 80%, or maybe even up to 90% to get to herd immunity and we are only at about half of the low end.

If the CDC is trying to get to herd immunity by having everyone throw off their masks, they are putting the cart before the horse. The masks should come off AFTER we get to herd immunity, not before. This makes no sense at all.

[cherrypoptart]

This article also made some good points about children who are not eligible for vaccines yet and their parents who are upset about them being put at risk. Sure the risks may be low but for Covid, low is still pretty high, and there is also no concern for the immuno-compromised who can't get vaccinated either.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cdc-mask-mandate-forgets-kids-164006892.html

"Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was just given emergency approval for use in kids aged 12 to 15, but most children aren't going to be able to get vaccinated for months. Despite their unique situation, the CDC did not offer special considerations for children in the new mask guidelines.

Although kids are at low risk for severe COVID-19, parents are concerned about taking their children out in public when unvaccinated people could be walking around maskless, pretending to be vaccinated. And they're pissed about it.

“I feel like everyone just forgot about all the unvaccinated little kids and their parents,” tweeted one mom, adding, “Which I guess isn't much different than normal times.”

“so now…we can't go anywhere with our kids bc no one will be wearing masks?” another parent tweeted. “i mean we are cautious but i have gone to a museum and bookstore with them. this sucks. kids are part of the world.”

So far, the CDC has no answer. In response to a question about how the new mask guidelines apply to settings such as schools, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that the agency is working to release recommendations for summer camps and other locations as soon as possible.

What Parents Should Do Now

The short of it: Kids need to continue to wear masks, avoid prolonged exposure in crowded indoor places without mask requirements, and think twice about being indoors where there is anything even remotely resembling a maskless free-for-all.

Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that kids must continue to wear masks. This means that parents need to wear masks too — not for their health, but for their kid's comfort. After all, children who go out in public and see adults without masks on may be reluctant to wear one themselves. Of course, children under age 2 can't wear masks at all, so they'll have no protection against anti-maskers posing as fully vaccinated and probably need to be kept on a relatively tight leash."

So far, the CDC had no answer? That fact proves that this is an ill-conceived notion by ill-prepared idiots. Anyone who thinks these people have any clue about what they're doing is probably in for a very rude awakening. It's not like we haven't been through exactly this situation before either.

Thinking about all this I was just literally shaking my head at the irresponsibility of the CDC right now.

[LetterRip]

Yeah good point that I forgot to mention that it makes mask enforcement for businesses essentially impossible - another really unfortunate effect.

Another issue I forgot is that other nations will also be pressured to drop their mask mandates.

Overall - bad form CDC - bad form.

[cherrypoptart]

"Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that kids must continue to wear masks."

I know I'm beating a dead horse with a hammer but I still need to hammer this point home because what Fauci just said right there makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"Kids must continue to wear masks."

Okay. Think about that. We've been over this numerous times but apparently Fauci still didn't get the memo. YOUR MASK DOESN'T PROTECT YOU! Alright sorry to shout but that was so hopefully Fauci could hear. A kid wearing a mask doesn't do diddly squat to protect that kid from Covid. No kid is wearing any mask in any way that is protecting them from the virus. The only thing protecting those kids from the virus was the other people wearing their own masks. With that gone now, saying kids should keep wearing masks is giving the kids even less protection than wearing no masks at all because now they have a false sense of security.

And that goes for the immuno-compromised too. Anyone saying if you're worried about it then just wear your own mask has no understanding whatsoever of the dynamics involved. If you say well just get vaccinated, then if you can't get vaccinated like kids and others, now you're screwed, and you're royally screwed if you're listening to incompetents like Fauci telling you to just wear your mask even when you're surrounded by hordes of maskless infected people.

Alright. Anyway, thanks y'all for letting me rant about all this and get it off my chest.

[LetterRip]

Masks actually do protect you, but they are most effective at protecting others.

Infection and disease severity are about viral load.

If you cough - you expel large fluid bound clusters of viral particles.  Those are readily stopped by the mask.  Since saliva and other moisture haven't had time to evaporate the most virus is stopped by a sick person wearing a mask.

Masks also protect healthy people by reducing viral load since the mask can stop virus bound to droplets.  They aren't as effective because more of the virus is aerosolized from evaporation when the source person doesn't wear a mask.

If there are a group of 10 people - one sick person wearing a mask protects 9 other people so source control is the most beneficial.  Also the source being masked prevents a lot of aersolization.

[cherrypoptart]

I've never seen a child wearing a tight fitting N95 mask. The masks the children are wearing may protect others if the child has Covid but they are doing little to nothing to protect the children themselves. And since you can get Covid through the eyes the masks are mostly to protect others from you, not to protect you from them, unless you are taking your mask and eye protection a lot more seriously than most of the people I see. Basically what Fauci is saying is your child's loose fitting cloth mask will protect them when they are surrounded by unvaccinated asymptomatic superspreaders, because that's about to be exactly what happens. And parents understanding this is exactly why they are rightfully freaking out and in distress.

Now everything you said about the masks being source control is spot on. That's why getting rid of masks right now for the unvaccinated makes no sense, and make no mistake that's exactly what's happening with this so called honor system.

When you get right down to it the new CDC guidelines only make any sense if you believe in the honor system. And anyone who would trust the honor system in America when it comes to this and put hundreds of thousands of lives on the line based on their faith in millions of people to do the right thing is living in a fantasy world.

[LetterRip]

N95 isn't needed.  Large droplets are stopped by cloth  just fine.  It is why your face feels clammy after wearing a mask.

N95 is needed to protect against aerosol - important if you are in an enclosed area for  extended time with COVID infected individuals or if you are working on someone's mouth or respiratory tract since the aerosol concentration can be high enough in such situations to cause infection.

Any person who has gone in public during the pandemic has probably inhaled a modest amount of aerosolized virus and your innate and barrier immune eliminated it.

[TheDrake]

Yeah good point that I forgot to mention that it makes mask enforcement for businesses essentially impossible - another really unfortunate effect.

Another issue I forgot is that other nations will also be pressured to drop their mask mandates.

Overall - bad form CDC - bad form.

In that state that ship already sailed when the Governor told everyone to pound sand, throw off their masks, and have a jamboree. I find it laughable the number of people who sat silent when all the governors did their thing, and now want to criticize the CDC for recognizing a forgone conclusion.

[LetterRip]

Oh I totally condemn governors for their dumb asserry - I just don't think the CDC should be giving it a sense of respectability.

[cherrypoptart]

It was a bit heartening going out today and seeing how many people are still masking, sticking a middle finger in the eye of Biden and his CDC's reckless abandon of common sense and human decency.

It's funny in a terrifying way seeing the CDC and our people in charge saying that they trust their fellow Americans to not go unmasked without being fully vaccinated at the same time you can see hordes of those same Americans loudly, proudly, and ignorantly promising that they will do exactly that because they hate both masks and vaccines, always have and always will, and now they are free.

So yeah, I trust them. I trust them to do exactly what they say they'll do. Not wear a mask and never get a vaccine. It's a shame Biden and the CDC don't trust them like I do. Or if they do they apparently hope those people just get Covid and die. Yeah, that'll learn 'em.

[LetterRip]

You blame Biden and the CDC for the irresponsible behavior of Trump supporters?  Truly the mind boggles at your reasoning.

[msquared]

I had no problem with the CDC first revision to the guidelines (no masks outside for vaccinated people unless at large, close proximity events).  Wish they had kept those in place for a month or so before going to this next level.  If we had had another month of falling cases with the first relaxation of guidelines, it would have made this next step seem more thought out.  Right now it does not really seem that way.

I will probably continue to wear a mask inside at places like Lowes, or shopping. I wonder if any anti masker, like Tucker Carlso, will make an issue of it.  I mean the Party that believes in personal freedom telling me I can not wear a mask if I want?

[cherrypoptart]

I've got no problem with no masks outside for anyone, vaccinated or not, if you aren't in prolonged close proximity to people outside your circle. The masks for someone walking or jogging or riding their bicycle down the street never made any sense to me. Yeah, if the CDC had done that it wouldn't be a huge issue. If we wait another month and see the cases drastically decline then sure we can take a look at it and if they set some metric like so many cases per 100,000 people and then we met it then it would at least look like it wasn't someone waking up with a sudden epiphany and screaming to hell with it all let's just go for it.

One important thing I'll note is that yeah we see the cases falling. But I'll contend that is not just because of vaccinations. Obviously, a huge part of that is that we were still masking. If unvaccinated people start to go unmasked in large numbers, something the CDC apparently thinks is not likely, then we are in big trouble. If the unvaccinated stay masked like they are supposed to and this all works out then I'll be very impressed, not so much with the CDC which is still being reckless but with my fellow Americans. Nothing I've seen so far makes me optimistic.

[LetterRip]

I've got no problem with no masks outside for anyone, vaccinated or not, if you aren't in prolonged close proximity to people outside your circle. The masks for someone walking or jogging or riding their bicycle down the street never made any sense to me.

Actually if you are exercising outside and travelling behind someone else who is also exercising - you are in their downstream spray and also doing deep lung breaths and so at reasonable risk of covid (A friend of a friend likely caught covid this way - biking behind another biker).  Normal walking outside is probably pretty safe.

It looks like the CDC believes that since the data shows that vaccinated people are at extremely low risk of catching COVID that it is justified to remove restrictions on vaccinated individuals - without giving thought to social factors - that unvaccinated people will claim to be vaccinated and thus the overall risk increases.

[cherrypoptart]

I agree if you are exercising for a little while relatively close to someone else then there is a risk but I'm talking about you are out there in your neighborhood and you can easily stay more than twenty feet away from people the vast majority of the time and when you can't you are just quickly passing them by. I'll be revealing my level of angst a bit again but when that happens I actually hold my breath for thirty seconds or so as I pass them. Usually there is some wind so those viral particles are getting quickly scattered. It's interesting though about risk. The CDC up to now wasn't even willing to accept that small level of risk. But all of a sudden they are accepting a huge level of risk with this new unmasking policy that we all know lots of the unvaccinated for one reason or another, and for many of them it will be confusion and monkey see monkey do, just won't follow correctly.

I know I shouldn't say this but... I mean I know I really shouldn't say this... but... sigh... the fact is there are a LOT of people out there who aren't that smart. I mean at least half of them have IQs that don't even or barely even hit 100. Many of them Trump voters? Sure, if you want to think of it that way then that's fine. But the mask policy we had was perfect for those kinds of people. They see everyone wearing masks and they wear a mask. Simple. Simple policy for simple folks. The salt of the Earth. Good people. Our people. Bless their precious hearts every one.

But now... How many times do we see people without an original thought in their heads just doing what they see others doing even if it's insane? Like the Volcano suicides in which after news about a woman jumping into a volcano caused a sensation it started a string of copycat suicides. Like school shootings. Hey, some kids did a school shooting. Oh, so that's how it is now? Okay, sounds interesting.  The cinnamon challenge. Tide pods. And even with these anti-Asian hate crimes. I wouldn't be surprised if some idiots see that in the news and that's what gives them the idea when otherwise it wouldn't even have occurred to them. The point is people do what they see others doing. Bunch of sheeple. But that can work in our favor if it's something good like masking.

This guy Mokdad, whoever he is, along with many others, made some good points that we've already made. It's nice to see CNN airing them:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/30/politics/cdc-mask-guidance-experts-debate/index.html

"Mokdad: It's very simple. How can I tell who is vaccinated and who is not? When I'm at an outdoor restaurant, how can I tell if -- what is a crowded place? Is a farmer's market in summer crowded? How do I define crowded as a single person? Also, how could CDC release something that is one size fits all?

How could we send this message to everybody across the US that it's safe and you're equally safe, irrespective of your vaccination level? What about variants? We have the new variants that are making the vaccines less effective, but the masks do protect from these variants. So why are we sending this message saying, it's all clear for ditching the mask and encouraging people not to wear the mask?

I mean, people wear the mask when they see others are wearing the mask. And that's very important that we need to reinforce that message, that even people who are vaccinated, who listened to us and did what we asked them to do, they're more likely to listen to us to wear a mask. Why are we telling them ditch the mask? I mean, we need to focus on the risk.
That linking -- mask to vaccine -- I didn't like it at all.

And come winter, our biggest problem is we know this virus is seasonal. Cases are going to increase. We may have new variants coming from India with about 15 million cases a day right now. We'll have new variants arriving in the United States. They're most likely to be escape variants from what we know from the limited testing.

So what? Are we going to reverse? How could we convince the public again and say: 'hold on a second. You're vaccinated but now you need to wear your mask outdoors and indoors.' I don't understand it. I don't understand it. I'm really puzzled by what CDC did.

I understand. We are afraid that -- we want to encourage people to get the vaccine, but that's not the right way."

[LetterRip]

Cherry,

yep for lots of space and going opposite directions I do the same thing.  A reasonably busy park I wear my mask the whole time.

I wish the CDC would give more nuanced guidance or perhaps separate guidance for rural, suburban and urban.  They seem to implicitly assume urban high density for their guidance.

[cherrypoptart]

Good points. Yeah it all depends on a lot of factors. The park I go to there is a trail you can go around but you can also cut through the grass with plenty of space everywhere. When there are people on the trail I just walk on the grass to stay very far away from them. But I could see in some densely populated urban parks it's a whole different ballgame with different mechanics. And if I'm riding my bicycle around the neighborhood it's no problem to stay away from everyone as I can just cross the street or sometimes I even just turn around if I'm riding through the strip centers and a lot of people come out of one of the stores and I see I'll have to get close to them. I'm not going any particular place anyway so riding around in circles or meandering willy-nilly is no biggie. I'm just listening to my playlist on my phone's speaker and riding around until it's done and the hour or so is up.

[msquared]

One small down side to all of the reopening I am finding is that all of the nice places to eat that pivoted to carry out/pick up dinning are now so busy with eat in business that they are reducing/eliminating carry out/pick up.

There have been two places in the past week that my wife and I got food from on a regular basis for carry out for the past year. Both of them, when I called to place an order on a Saturday, told me that they were not doing carry out that day due to how busy they were.

My wife is not comfortable with eating inside at an establishment yet. So this puts us in a bit of a bind. 

Small potatoes in the big picture.

[TheDrake]

Here's the problem with nuance. Please can't even get simple rules straight. Let alone a playlist that would look at home in the hands of the Denver Broncos offensive coordinator.

Here's the problem with lack of nuance, either you are getting greater or fewer restrictions than you actually need. You also run the risk of someone pointing out a nonsense rule and using it to violate all of them. Like the one where you wear your mask from the front door to your table for 20 seconds, then sit and eat unmasked for 45 minutes. It is obviously nonsensical, and people can use it to mock wearing any masks.

[cherrypoptart]

https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-says-people-misinterpreting-cdc-122118313.html

"Fauci says people are 'misinterpreting' the new CDC mask guidance"

Ya think!?

"... it didn't mean everyone could take off their masks."

Doh!

https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-allowing-people-fly-maskless-113358613.html

"Fauci: Allowing people to fly maskless on planes is “complicated" without vaccine passports"

But allowing them in other crowded indoor locations is different how exactly? Because the virus can't spread anywhere but airplanes?

These people bring incompetence to a whole new level. And getting to about 36% fully vaccinated when before they were talking about at least 70, and then they just say, typically enough, "ah well that's good enough for government work."

[TheDrake]

"Fauci: Allowing people to fly maskless on planes is “complicated" without vaccine passports"

But allowing them in other crowded indoor locations is different how exactly? Because the virus can't spread anywhere but airplanes?

The federal government can't do anything about mosh pits. Airplanes are under federal jurisdiction. Not sure what question he was actually being asked that he responded to, but I'll bet it wasn't an open ended "where should people be maskless". The full interview isn't available yet.

Personally, I'd like to see everyone have to show proof of vaccination everywhere they go or they don't get to mingle with the responsible people.

And its the Republican Governors that are fighting the very concept of vaccine passports, so save some ire for them.

[cherrypoptart]

I agree with the vaccine passports. I don't see any problem with the cruises resuming and my understanding is the operators are okay with 100% certified fully vaccinated people on board, all of the passengers and all of the crew while the CDC was thinking along the lines of 95% or maybe a bit higher. The government wants vaccinated people to be rewarded and they should be. The government wants incentives and there should be. Maybe concerts open up with no masks but everyone needs to be vaccinated and it's checked. Stadiums could open up the same way. Many places like that where you have real security than can check everyone. It just doesn't work so well in retail right now. Theoretically you could mix vaxxed and masked but it'd be better just to make it all vaxxed. There's their cookie.


If you don't want to get the vaccine, then you should have to keep your mask on around people indoors and you miss out on some of the super crowded events that without vaccinations turn into super spreader events. But without the passports Fauci demonstrates that he understands the problem. He sees it. Why he thinks it would only be an issue on airplanes but not in supermarkets just doesn't make any sense. And the issue isn't one of jurisdiction. People are willing to follow what the CDC says they should be doing even without jurisdiction. And by that I mean the management of most major corporations. Unfortunately what the CDC just said to do doesn't add up when they fully acknowledge that people won't be doing it right.

I just got back from Costco and thankfully the vast majority of people were still wearing masks, maybe 85-90%. And hopefully those that weren't really were vaccinated.

[msquared]

Alright according the CDC website, 60% of Americans over 18 have at least 1 shot and 47.6% are fully vaccinated.  Hopefully in 2-3 weeks, that fully vaccinated number will hit that 60% range.

Where do you think we will end up on the vaccine percentage? Will we get to 70% of the over 18?

[yossarian22c]

Alright according the CDC website, 60% of Americans over 18 have at least 1 shot and 47.6% are fully vaccinated.  Hopefully in 2-3 weeks, that fully vaccinated number will hit that 60% range.

Where do you think we will end up on the vaccine percentage? Will we get to 70% of the over 18?

I'm hopeful we will. Maybe once shots get into most doctors offices and most pharmacies so people can get vaccinated from their PCD or usual pharmacy it will bring some people from hesitant to vaccinated.

[TheDrake]

Ohio reports higher vaccination rate after announcing lottery for shots

Ohio's lottery for people who have been vaccinated has led to increased vaccination rates in the state.

Health officials in the state announced on Monday that over 25,400 shots of the coronavirus vaccine were administered to residents Friday, marking the highest vaccination day in three weeks, according to NBC News.

The news comes just two days after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced that the state would be giving away $5 million in a lottery meant to encourage vaccinations.

And getting criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for "wasting" federal relief funds.

[msquared]

I think it was a great idea. Personally I think doing 200 winners for $25,000 each would have driven even more demand.  More chances to win and the amount is still something that would motivate people. But as I said originally, if this gets even 5-10% more people vaccinated, I am all for it.  Hell if I was Dewine I might got to some of the really rich in the state and ask them to donate money to a fund to do a second lottery. Expecially if this turns out to work pretty well.

I think this might have really moved some apathetic/hesitant people.

It will not move, most likely, any of the truly opposed.

You do have to register, but it took about 30 seconds to do so.

If I win I will offer unvaccinated people in our plant $1,000 if they get vaccinated.

[NobleHunter]

I wish my province would do it. I'd like the chance to win money from doing something I would do anyways.

I get why it bothers some people but if it works, it works.

[msquared]

Well it looks like we might hit 50% of the population over 18 as being fully vaccinated tomorrow and just under 2/3 of Americans over 18 with at least 1 shot. The last 2 days (the weekend of May 22/23) saw a total of about 600 deaths total for the 2 days and the 7 day moving average is down to 500/day (at the height in mid Jan it was about 3,500/day.

I think we will see deaths drop to about 200-300/day by July 4.

For those who are hesitant (and not opposed) to the vaccine and wanted to see how people reacted, what spot or info are you looking for?  Almost 300,000,000 shots have been given over a period of 4-5 months. I know people who got the shot back when it first became available (my mother and sister) and they are doing fine.  How long a wait period do you need to see? This is an honest question but if you say I do not know what the side effects will be 10 years from now I find that a bit unreasonable.

[cherrypoptart]

I agree with the ultramaskers:


https://news.yahoo.com/ultra-maskers-theyll-keep-wearing-124700188.html


"Lenhoff said she plans to keep wearing her mask in public settings indefinitely, especially around those who haven't been vaccinated yet. She's worried about how long her vaccine protection will last, and whether new variants will put vaccinated people like her in harm's way again.

"As restrictions get thrown out the window, or completely relaxed, you don't know if the person who's sitting next to you has had their shot or not, where they've been, who they've been exposed to," Lenhoff said. "So even somebody like me who has been vaccinated, there is no guarantee that I'm not going to get COVID."

The current vaccines reduce the risk of getting COVID-19 by around 66% to 95%, depending on which you get. But many "ultra-maskers" - fully vaccinated people who want to keep wearing masks, even in settings where it's not required - lost trust in the CDC's recommendations after the agency told people not to wear masks at the start of the pandemic. So they're not changing their ways now.

Some people who want to keep masking up are also concerned about endangering friends and family who aren't vaccine-eligible."

That pretty much sums it up. Vaccines plus masks are the way to go unless you are sure everyone around you is fully vaccinated. And even then you aren't necessarily in the clear because of breakthroughs or a new more vaccine resistant variant coming along in addition to the ones already out there.

One kind of new bit is that this is beginning to look more and more like it came from the lab.

https://www.businessinsider.com/3-wuhan-lab-workers-hospitalized-fall-2019-coronavirus-covid-origin-2021-5

What does that mean? Well it counters the idea that this is just nature or God and we just need to let it run its course like any other virus. If this is a product of gain of function research, the kind Fauci lied about having no hand in funding, then that means it deserves not to be treated lightly or underestimated.

With the surges we see going on around the world it's totally reckless to let our guard and masks down now.

There is just so much bad news right now regarding this virus and we see time and time again that every single time people let their guard down the virus takes advantage of it and yet somehow we seem to think that's not going to happen to us this time.

So what's the point in vaccinating if you still have to wear masks? Well look at Japan now. They're wearing masks. They've been wearing masks and they'll keep wearing masks. It helps but it's not enough.  So masks alone fail and that's why the vaccinations are crucial. Vaccinations plus masks are the one-two punch that give us our best chance to win this. What about just everyone getting vaccinated? That might work but it's still a ways off especially for the kids and they are carriers of concerning variants as well as incubators too so everyone getting vaccinated is probably at least a year off and with so many refusing to get vaccinated it's not likely to happen at all.

https://news.search.yahoo.com/search?p=children+covid+variants&fr=uh3_news_vert_gs&fr2=p%3Anews%2Cm%3Asb

"Young children appear to be significant carriers of more contagious variants of the new coronavirus, such as the ones identified in the UK and in California, according to a new U.S. study. From March 2020 to April 2021, researchers at nine children's hospitals tested a total of 2,119 COVID-19 patients age 18 or younger for so-called variants of concern, along with key mutations that help the variants become more contagious or hide from the patient's immune system. "In total, we identified 560 of these important mutations, and 75% (420/560) ... were in children less than 12 years of age, the population that is currently not eligible for COVID-19 vaccines..."

[LetterRip]

Some real promising data from recent CDC analysis on vaccinated peoples risk of getting severe COVID.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/covid-cases-after-vaccination-are-still-very-rare-variants-arent-changing-that/

I'll probably keep wearing the mask for grocery trips and such where I don't need to be social.  But if I go to a restaurant with friends or other social occasion will forgo it.

[msquared]

So as of today, according to the CDC site, 62% of Americans over 18 have had at least one shot.  I think we can make Biden's 70% of Americans over 18 by July 4. That is just 40 days for another 8% of the population, so .2% per day.  59.1% of the population over 12 has at least one shot. That might be harder to get to 70% but is still within reach.

I do not think there is any chance to get 70% of the total population one shot by July 4 and no way to get 70% fully vaccinated by then.

The CDC website says 40% of the total population is fully vaccinated.  We might get close to 50% by July 4.

If the vaccines get approved for those down to 2 years we might get to 65% total eventually, maybe even 70%.

[Fenring]

Any takers on whether by this time in 2022 covid-19 fears are a thing of the past, and people are mostly living their normal lives? Or do you think there will still be significant caution?

[msquared]

The CDC is going to stop keeping track of breakthrough Covid cases (Covid cases caught by people who have been fully vaccinated).  They will keep track of breakthrough cases that result in going to the hospital or death.  I guess their reasoning is based on the number of break through cases (10,000 out of 100,000,000 people vaccinated or .001%). It is possible that the number of breakthrough cases is higher, but that the symptoms are so low that many people do not even know they have it or go and get tested.

On a side note, California decided to do Ohio one better and have a $16.5 lottery.  15  $1 million dollar winners and 30 winners of $50,000.

[cherrypoptart]

"Any takers on whether by this time in 2022 covid-19 fears are a thing of the past..."

Looking at what's going on in the world and how we refuse to either get vaccinated enough for herd immunity or restrict international travel I don't see how that happens.

Going back to normal the way things are looking now seems like the new normal is going to be a bunch of people getting seriously sickened often for the long haul or just outright dying of Covid (though thankfully now probably orders of magnitude less with the most at risk mostly vaccinated), so we'll just choose to live with death and often shake our heads and say that's what they get for not getting vaccinated, which brings us to the CDC now refusing to keep track of breakthrough cases because of course the less accurate the information is that the public has the better it is for them.

That means that the breakthrough cases must be downplayed because then people may not see the point in getting vaccinated even though another way to look at it that could have been helpful and saved lives would be to say that since there are so many breakthrough cases we shouldn't dispose of our masks just yet even for the vaccinated but then the government is back to worrying that people will wonder what's the point of getting vaccinated if we still have to wear masks so better to bury that whole line of thought for the public good just like they did with the mask issue in the first place. As usual, we are being deceived but don't worry because the less you know the better. Trust me. I'm from the government and I'm here to help.