Biden's Economy?

[K Graham]

I’ve double masked before. What is wrong with that?

Are you still double masking now?

So what if he is? Why does it matter to you? You see, [deleted, FR2, RI] you give the game away with comments like this because it proves this was never about freedom or control. You're more worried about what other people are doing instead of worrying about yourself.

[Kishkumen]

Are you still double masking now?

I want to know what is wrong with double masking. I hardly wear a mask at all now. Very few people do.

[K Graham]

Are you still double masking now?

I want to know what is wrong with double masking. I hardly wear a mask at all now. Very few people do.

Ajax goes against the science and maintains that masks don't serve any purpose whatsoever. So he says things like this to make himself feel intellectually superior. Because only idiots would double down on something that's useless.

[Kishkumen]

Ajax goes against the science and maintains that masks don't serve any purpose whatsoever. So he says things like this to make himself feel intellectually superior. Because only idiots would double down on something that's useless.

If I can do something modest that may lessen the chance that someone else will get sick, I have no problem doing it.

[ajax18]

I want to know what is wrong with double masking. I hardly wear a mask at all now. Very few people do.

Why now? What has changed? What if someone gets Covid from you? Woukdn't you have blood on your hands? Or maybe someone will get a cold from you.

[Chap]

What if someone gets Covid from you?

I have got into the habit of mask wearing, and it doesn't bother me at all. It protects others, and I shall keep on with it for a while yet.

[¥akaSteelhead]

Problem with most people saying the masks don't work - "just look at the label on the box", is that they are deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting the purpose of the mask. It is to protect others from the infected by reducing transmission, not to protect against infection. And yes, in countries where mask usage was near universal, and where the mask were worn properly - not as chin diapers, the infection rate was lower than ours.


Go figure.

[Chap]

... they are deliberately or ignorantly misrepresenting the purpose of the mask. It is to protect others from the infected by reducing transmission, not to protect against infection.

I am amazed that this still needs saying.

Of course, this fact is deliberately ignored by some, since they want to tell people that mask wearing is solely about their personal freedom - not about their duty to their fellow human beings.

[Kishkumen]

Why now? What has changed? What if someone gets Covid from you? Woukdn't you have blood on your hands? Or maybe someone will get a cold from you.

My understanding was that the rate of infection decreased. If I am asked to where a mask again, I will do it. I don't see the big deal.

[Res Ipsa]

No. People adjust their behavior to slow down the rate of transmission. Unfortunately, because the initial increase is often exponential, people don’t make the adjustment in time to avoid overrunning hospitals. In my area, a number of small businesses had to close, not because we locked down, but because the owners/employees got sick.

Every time a wave passes through the population, millions are infected. And because the variants don’t seem to confer much immunity against each other, people, especially the unvaccinated, are becoming infected multiple times. As scientists study the effects of the disease, it’s become clear that COVID Is not just a respiratory disease like a cold of flu. It damages the heart, kidneys, brain and other organs. People who develop long COVID are out of commission for up to two years.

In advance of this wave, all of the restrictions that were in place have been removed and many people have reverted to normal behavior. The federal government has stopped funding PCR tests, so if you are uninsured, a test will cost you around $100. So, less testing leading to underreporting. No mechanism for reporting the results of home tests was ever created, so the official numbers of infected people will undercount the actual number of cases. With increases in the rate of infection becoming much more difficult to stop, the benchmark will simply be increases in hospitalization rates. But, because spikes in hospitalization trail spikes in cases by a couple weeks, it will be impossible to avoid hospital overruns.

Because the CDC simply decided to let more COVID infect the population before recommending that people do anything, I don’t use their recommendations anymore. I still wear masks in public indoor spaces. When my county or the county where I work pass a certain threshold and cases are increasing, I resume working from home and avoid going to public indoor spaces. I also read epi Twitter every couple of days to stay informed of new studies, reports from other countries, and reports of any new variants of interest or concern. I’d stopped listening to the WHO press conferences for a while, as there were good US sources I could rely on. Now I’m resuming that, as the US has decided to pretend that the pandemic is over. It’s every person for themselves, and so this person has figured out how to do that.

It's odd. Everything you said makes perfect sense to me and I agree with you. At least I think I do. It seems like you're a true believer and you're practicing what you preach. I respect that.

It doesn't have anything to do with belief. It has to do with paying attention to the science. The toll that COVID has taken and will continue to take goes way beyond the number of deaths. The entire health care system and education system are being hollowed out by a combination of death, disability, and psychological trauma.