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That right there is the crux of your problem. You are sick and you know it. Yet you won't wear a mask in public and avoid people in general unless someone tells you to and only if it's COVID. What if it's SARS or Ebola or influenza or ...or...?
That's not true. You need to read what I wrote again. Right now I pretty much always wear a mask when I'm indoors with people except when with family members, one co-worker, or eating. If I had a cold or other symptoms of coronavirus I'd definitely isolate while I had symptoms -- no trips to the grocery store or restaurants for takeout -- until such time as symptoms disappeared or I had test results. Would I continue to isolate for 14 days after symptoms disappeared? Like I said, nope. And neither would 98% of Americans. I see people out in public coughing and not wearing a mask, and bet most wouldn't be if they'd been tested and determined they had the disease. As to SARS or Ebola, you'd be nuts not to be very cautious if there were an outbreak in your community. The death rates are very high. As to influenza, you're right, maybe that will be a silver lining on the cloud, that some people will wear masks when they've got it in the future. I get vaccinated for the flu every year and can't remember the last time I had flu like symptoms. It would be over 20 years ago.
yeah, well, the problem with symptoms is that they are similar and they are sometime hard to tell apart.
most doctors make guesses on what you have instead of an affirmative answer.
"we think you have this..." as opposed to "you definitely have this...."
many of the tests take too long to confirm which was the purpose of my question.
They don't want to find a treatment or a reliable test they just want to administer as many people as possible with a vaccine, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.
You seem a bit intelligent but hampered with strong confirmation biases. I'll show a relevant example in another post somewhere.
We can discuss the science of masks in a moment. First, I use masks (wide variety) often and can tell you from experience in working in dusty and smelly environments, while they do help to a decent extent, they typically come up short.
You can test it yourself at home, if you have an older home. Try removing the popcorn from the ceiling, then patch it, then sand it, then texture it, then paint it. Likely you will go through a few disposable masks or a neoprene KN95, though you will wish you had a full face version. Between and after the steps, pull off your mask and look in the mirror. Pretty messy huh? Not as bad as your forehead, but pretty bad. Keep in mind those particles are gigantic compared to flu or Covid particles, where the droplet size it as or below the 3Micon limit..
But I came here for the science anyway. The science says, well... probably not what you want to hear. But hey, it's still a free country (fingers crossed), so you do you. Just try learning a little.
Easy read, chock full of good info and not too techy-speaky: The Risks vs. Benefits of Face Masks- Is There an Agenda? There has been a shifting of positions on the use of face masks with the COVID-19 outbreak. Initially it was not recommended, then we had different signals from the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams and representatives of the CDC, the NIH and other agencies. More recently, the policies recommending wearing face masks have become more prevalent and often mandated in public places. Is there sound medical or scientific basis for the recommendations? Is much of it simply virtue signaling? Is there a legitimate rationale to do it to protect the vulnerable? And if so, at what cost to the rest of society? There are many important considerations including the risk versus the reward....
Very short and easy read.
<litlle Bob Marley interlude?> We Jamma, we jamma, jamma in the name of... Medical Masks ...When Should a Mask Be Used?
Face masks should be used only by individuals who have symptoms of respiratory infection such as coughing, sneezing, or, in some cases, fever. Face masks should also be worn by health care workers, by individuals who are taking care of or are in close contact with people who have respiratory infections, or otherwise as directed by a doctor. Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill. Face masks should be reserved for those who need them because masks can be in short supply during periods of widespread respiratory infection. Because N95 respirators require special fit testing, they are not recommended for use by the general public...
This below is a bit hardcore. Tons of clinical speak. It's a study about studies about masks. A super-study. Basically it seems to conclude that most studies about masks are flawed in one or more ways. So scroll past the gobble-de-goop to the Discussion section for the conclusions, an interesting snippet of which I include below The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence ...However, the difficulties in interpreting the observational studies of SARS suggest that they are of limited use for guiding policy on influenza. Firstly, SARS is an unusual acute viral respiratory infection with a very different epidemiology to almost all other respiratory viral infections. It is fundamentally different from human influenza: it rarely infects children, has a long incubation period, transmits little early on, mostly transmits in healthcare settings, is not prone to extensive global spread and has only appeared once. Secondly, the studies were poorly designed, had many weaknesses and so were very difficult to interpret. Issues of concern include the use of a non‐specific definition for exposure to a SARS patient (e.g. coming within one metre of a patient), inconsistency in providing information about the comparability of cases and controls and collection of data after a lengthy period following the outbreak. Several lacked microbiological confirmation of cases or controls and it would seem likely that a number of the SARS cases were not cases at all....
So now Dr Fauci is saying that wearing a mask shows you support "the effort". Not sure what he means by it. Sure sounds like show me your sheepie-ness. Baaaaaah. BTW: More studies out showing masks are stupid.
You seem a bit intelligent but hampered with strong confirmation biases.
The feeling is mutual. I'd even strike the word "bit." I'll go through your papers one by one. Still, no one here, or anywhere else, has come up with a truly good explanation as to why the Asians and Central Europeans who wear masks have had so much more success in controlling this than Western Europe and the United States.
Not convincing. They repeat propaganda the medical establishment was using early on when it thought surgical and N95 masks would be sucked up by the public so there wouldn't be enough for health care workers. It does however have a good point about N95 face masks causing an elevation in CO2 levels if worn for several hours. People mostly aren't wearing N95 masks, and when they do it's for shorter periods. I wear a KN95 mask to the grocery store once every 2-1/2 weeks, otherwise cloth masks. You would not by the way want to wear an N95 mask on a pressurized airplane. As to masks causing brain infections, I don't buy that it's happening on a large scale. You'd have a lot of surgeons and the like walking around with brain infections if true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do
Very short and easy read.
<litlle Bob Marley interlude?> We Jamma, we jamma, jamma in the name of... Medical Masks
[I]...When Should a Mask Be Used?
I have "0" argument with cloth masks being a lot more effective at preventing people from giving Covid 19 to others than at preventing them from getting it. Many people who carry Covid 19 are asymptomatic. If you believe Ioannidis, the Stanford epidemiologist and public health expert favored by Oeb and Fox News, most people who have it are asymptomatic. This argues for wearing the mask to prevent transmitting to others regardless of whether you have symptoms. Note this was written in March when the propaganda machine of the establishment was out in full force to discourage people from wearing masks, so they wouldn't buy up all the N95's. There's lot's of good info here, sincerely, about hygiene.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do
This below is a bit hardcore. Tons of clinical speak. It's a study about studies about masks. A super-study. Basically it seems to conclude that most studies about masks are flawed in one or more ways. So scroll past the gobble-de-goop to the Discussion section for the conclusions, an interesting snippet of which I include below The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence ...However, the difficulties in interpreting the observational studies of SARS suggest that they are of limited use for guiding policy on influenza. Firstly, SARS is an unusual acute viral respiratory infection with a very different epidemiology to almost all other respiratory viral infections. It is fundamentally different from human influenza: it rarely infects children, has a long incubation period, transmits little early on, mostly transmits in healthcare settings, is not prone to extensive global spread and has only appeared once. Secondly, the studies were poorly designed, had many weaknesses and so were very difficult to interpret. Issues of concern include the use of a non‐specific definition for exposure to a SARS patient (e.g. coming within one metre of a patient), inconsistency in providing information about the comparability of cases and controls and collection of data after a lengthy period following the outbreak. Several lacked microbiological confirmation of cases or controls and it would seem likely that a number of the SARS cases were not cases at all....
From the start of the paper that you linked to, Eight of nine retrospective observational studies found that mask and/or respirator use was independently associated with a reduced risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
Please note that Covid 19, also called SARS-CoV-2, is SARS, not influenza. I just scanned the paper, but have no doubt that it does support, probably correctly, your view that if you're worried about influenza, in most cases it only makes sense to wear a mask if you have symptoms.
There is one paper that's frequently pointed to by the mask skeptics that dealt specifically with Covid 19. I'll link to it, since you linked to one above that didn't support your case,
The researchers got four Covid 19 patients to cough through masks onto Petri dishes, seven inches away from their mouths. And lo and behold, in several instances the virus ended up on on the Petri dishes!!! What's interesting, two of the four patients were female and older. They perhaps didn't cough as strongly as the other two patients, who were male and younger.
Anyway, when the two women coughed through cotton masks, which are what almost everyone walking around on the streets of America is using, there was no detectable virus on the Petri dishes.
So what does this mean? If you wear a cloth mask and also control your coughing, by not expelling air at high velocity and trying to cough into your elbow, you probably won't give this disease to someone standing 7 inches away? Hell if I know. But I figure it's safe to start seeing my favorite provider again, if she'll wear a mask and promise not to cough.
So now Dr Fauci is saying that wearing a mask shows you support "the effort". Not sure what he means by it. Sure sounds like show me your sheepie-ness. Baaaaaah. BTW: More studies out showing masks are stupid.
Another interesting "conspiracy theory". It goes something like this. First, they get you use to wearing a mask, not that it protects you but that "they" can convince you to do what "they" ask, without question. Then they keep adding to the list of things you must do for your protection until we live in a version of China. Remember, "they" want us all to "report" our illness on our smart phone so we can be tracked, "for the good of everybody".
Yeah, I can see this going well for democracy and freedom from tyranny.
You will already be tagged for tracking by the mandatory vaccine.
ah the cameras are subterfuge
and the vaccine inserts a small tracking module
wiley and canny ( or is it uncanny? or maybe its both canny and uncanny)
"don't worry about the small bump, its from the efficacy of the vaccine" "like the raised bump of the polio vaccine" ("the polio vaccine? what's that", they wonder)
Still, no one here, or anywhere else, has come up with a truly good explanation as to why the Asians and Central Europeans who wear masks have had so much more success in controlling this than Western Europe and the United States.
We will certainly have more information on this when all the numbers finally do come out, but masks themselves may not be the differentiating factor so much as culture and lifestyle.
Obesity(and down stream items like Diabetes, Hypertension, Heart Conditions, Respiratory ailments, etc) are showing as strong factors in the number of Wuhan Virus deaths. The US generally leads the way in many of those factors on a per population basis.
Add in the outrageously high percentage of US deaths that have been a result of the "nursing home" climate we have that many of those other countries you cite don't have, and you have another difference in culture and lifestyle.
Then add in that these other countries were actually better prepared and indoctrinated into lockdowns and semi self isolation from outbreaks they have had in recent years, and you have another cultural difference.
So masks remain an anecdotal piece of evidence for the differences among countries.
We will certainly have more information on this when all the numbers finally do come out, but masks themselves may not be the differentiating factor so much as culture and lifestyle.
Obesity(and down stream items like Diabetes, Hypertension, Heart Conditions, Respiratory ailments, etc) are showing as strong factors in the number of Wuhan Virus deaths. The US generally leads the way in many of those factors on a per population basis.
Add in the outrageously high percentage of US deaths that have been a result of the "nursing home" climate we have that many of those other countries you cite don't have, and you have another difference in culture and lifestyle.
Then add in that these other countries were actually better prepared and indoctrinated into lockdowns and semi self isolation from outbreaks they have had in recent years, and you have another cultural difference.
So masks remain an anecdotal piece of evidence for the differences among countries.
That doesn't explain Central European countries that use face masks vs. Western Europe so well. You left out the BCG vaccine, which is given to children in some countries but not others. It may provide some protection, and is given in some Asian and European countries.
