Covid-19 - How does it affect your kite-life?

[BWD]

Follow the money...then we will understand why this is going the way it is.

Just hope you don’t end up like an ABN amro gold customer....

[tautologies]

The masks people are wearing have very little if no practical value other than the psychological. If anything they are likely to be counter productive because they imbue the wearer with a false sense of security.

Exactly!!!
Masks are also a place where airborne virus will sit increasing the wearer's exposure. Face masks are good for infected people to avoid a super widespread if sneezing..., but obviously infected people should stay at home.
There are other things that SK (and China when they finally admitted that something was wrong) did right.

Look at SK, they have been so much better at testing where Trump denied offers of tests from WHO and denied there was a problem in the first place...SK went ahead like this is was a Niles Crane Mysophobic OCD nightmare and ordered widespread testing and quarantine.

Initiatives in SK:
Centralized response. The US still do not have that because Trump fired the whole unit under the CDC that was in charge of pandemic response 2 years ago.
South Korea immediately began testing hundreds of thousands of asymptomatic people. Still not possible in the US...even if you have symptoms you will not get tested.
Had including at drive-through centers (barely exists in the US months after SK did it).
South Korea employed a central tracking app (does not exist in the US)
Corona 100m, that publicly informs citizens of known cases within 100 meters of where they are. That does not exists in the US.
Surprisingly, a culture that has often rebelliously rejected authoritarianism has embraced intrusive measures. In the US shit is partially closed down, but people to a large extent go about meeting up with friends.

Obviously when the president keeps on saying it's just a few people, and it will die down soon or that stores will be open by easter we will have an enormous problem on our hands.

SK will see a rise now because of a lack of herd immunity, but if a country can slow down the infection rate hospitals can stay open to people who need help.

I bet, unfortunately, that this thread will look radically different in 2 weeks.

[kiteykitekite]

Masks are in no way near to 100% to reduce your chance of infection, but there is study data that they reduce infection rate, 40% for surgical and 60% for N95 I saw mentioned. Surely reducing infection rate is the aim of isolation and social distancing. Strategic use of masks would be very wise. Like in crowded shops, public transport or especially for people that work in these places which when they become infected, with no symptoms, will then spread it to everyone visiting.... a mask severely changes that. Yes masks do not work 100%, and in situations with a lot of infected, like hospitals will soon be, everyone working there will become infected even with these "medical" grade masks (N95...).

[matth]

The masks people are wearing have very little if no practical value other than the psychological. If anything they are likely to be counter productive because they imbue the wearer with a false sense of security.

Exactly!!!
Masks are also a place where airborne virus will sit increasing the wearer's exposure. Face masks are good for infected people to avoid a super widespread if sneezing..., but obviously infected people should stay at home.
There are other things that SK (and China when they finally admitted that something was wrong) did right.

Look at SK, they have been so much better at testing where Trump denied offers of tests from WHO and denied there was a problem in the first place...SK went ahead like this is was a Niles Crane Mysophobic OCD nightmare and ordered widespread testing and quarantine.

Initiatives in SK:
Centralized response. The US still do not have that because Trump fired the whole unit under the CDC that was in charge of pandemic response 2 years ago.
South Korea immediately began testing hundreds of thousands of asymptomatic people. Still not possible in the US...even if you have symptoms you will not get tested.
Had including at drive-through centers (barely exists in the US months after SK did it).
South Korea employed a central tracking app (does not exist in the US)
Corona 100m, that publicly informs citizens of known cases within 100 meters of where they are. That does not exists in the US.
Surprisingly, a culture that has often rebelliously rejected authoritarianism has embraced intrusive measures. In the US shit is partially closed down, but people to a large extent go about meeting up with friends.

Obviously when the president keeps on saying it's just a few people, and it will die down soon or that stores will be open by easter we will have an enormous problem on our hands.

SK will see a rise now because of a lack of herd immunity, but if a country can slow down the infection rate hospitals can stay open to people who need help.

I bet, unfortunately, that this thread will look radically different in 2 weeks.

CDC spending has increased every year since Trump has been president.. The unit was not fired, people left and roles were reissued..

No one was ready for a shit storm of this magnatude, US or Europe..... Economic ruin is a very serious concern and millions will die and suffer if we let that happen...Health comes first but we need to keep the country running also, at some level.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... defund-cd/

[knotwindy]

CDC spending has increased every year since Trump has been president.. The unit was not fired, people left and roles were reissued..

First part is kind of true but gives a false impression as if it was Trumps idea to increase it. The link you gave says the opposite, he tried to decrease it & congress increased it.

The second part is simply intentionally inaccurate. Some were forced out and their roles were not reissued, they were dropped or ignored.

Although imo The Donald is just another selfish liar & con-man, the important part of that sentence is not ‘just another’. With this virus, He lies, people die.

[iriejohn]

Although the West has ignored the Easts use of masks so far it would be wise not to I think.

Think again.

All the masks people are wearing do is catch expelled mucus when they sneeze or cough. They do not filter infectious droplets expelled through the mask by the wearer, neither do they filter out infectious droplets from outside the mask. Virtually noone wears medical grade masks which do filter air borne droplets.

The masks people are wearing have very little if no practical value other than the psychological. If anything they are likely to be counter productive because they imbue the wearer with a false sense of security.

Masks are in no way near to 100% to reduce your chance of infection, but there is study data that they reduce infection rate, 40% for surgical and 60% for N95 I saw mentioned.

The overwhelming majority of masks being worn by the public do little or nothing to reduce infection rates.

Would you please supply reliable links to the studies of the effectiveness of the masks you mention above in the current epidemic.

[kiteykitekite]

I was of the same opinion, given the mechanical limits of masks, particularly surgical masks. Someone mentioned those numbers here I think. I don't know the exact study they came from. Just googling "studies on the efficacy of masks flu" turns up a bit and then some other search terms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2749214

While laboratory studies designed to achieve 100% intervention adherence have shown that N95 filtering facepiece respirators are more efficacious than medical masks at reducing exposure to aerosols

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/featu ... masks-flu/

The researchers also found that by wearing masks, study participants infected with the flu had a 25 fold decrease in the amount of large virus particles they exhaled compared with those not wearing a mask. Decreases for small particles were a more modest 2.8 fold reduction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23498357

Live influenza virus was measurable from the air behind all surgical masks tested. The data indicate that a surgical mask will reduce exposure to aerosolised infectious influenza virus; reductions ranged from 1.1- to 55-fold (average 6-fold), depending on the design of the mask.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/

For example, the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 masks in blocking the transmission of SARS are 68% and 91%, respectively.(7) Facemasks, when fitted properly, effectively disrupt the forward momentum of particles expelled from a cough or sneeze, preventing disease transmission. Even if the facemasks are ill-fitting, they are still able to interrupt the particles and airborne viruses sufficiently, such that these pathogens do not reach the breathing zones of people nearby.

It seems that they do reduce the odds of infection. For such small cost I think it would be wise to use them.

I mean logic dictates if masks do nothing why are people using them, including medical personnel?

[iriejohn]

The point that you are determined to avoid is that the overwhelming majority of the public do not wear effective masks.

Pointless trying to discuss this further with you.

I was of the same opinion, given the mechanical limits of masks, particularly surgical masks. Someone mentioned those numbers here I think. I don't know the exact study they came from. Just googling "studies on the efficacy of masks flu" turns up a bit and then some other search terms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2749214

While laboratory studies designed to achieve 100% intervention adherence have shown that N95 filtering facepiece respirators are more efficacious than medical masks at reducing exposure to aerosols

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/featu ... masks-flu/

The researchers also found that by wearing masks, study participants infected with the flu had a 25 fold decrease in the amount of large virus particles they exhaled compared with those not wearing a mask. Decreases for small particles were a more modest 2.8 fold reduction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23498357

Live influenza virus was measurable from the air behind all surgical masks tested. The data indicate that a surgical mask will reduce exposure to aerosolised infectious influenza virus; reductions ranged from 1.1- to 55-fold (average 6-fold), depending on the design of the mask.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/

For example, the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 masks in blocking the transmission of SARS are 68% and 91%, respectively.(7) Facemasks, when fitted properly, effectively disrupt the forward momentum of particles expelled from a cough or sneeze, preventing disease transmission. Even if the facemasks are ill-fitting, they are still able to interrupt the particles and airborne viruses sufficiently, such that these pathogens do not reach the breathing zones of people nearby.

It seems that they do reduce the odds of infection. For such small cost I think it would be wise to use them.

I mean logic dictates if masks do nothing why are people using them, including medical personnel?

[kiteykitekite]

It should be me claiming no point to argue with you. While you play "no true scotmans".

You claimed

The overwhelming majority of masks being worn by the public do little or nothing to reduce infection rates.

Which the overwhelming majority of masks used by the public are surgical and N95.

and you asked

Would you please supply reliable links to the studies of the effectiveness of the masks you mention above in the current epidemic.

Which I did provide. Which makes the statement

The overwhelming majority of masks being worn by the public do little or nothing to reduce infection rates.

incorrect.

To which you replied.

The point that you are determined to avoid is that the overwhelming majority of the public do not wear effective masks.

So I am left wondering maybe you assume "the public" is mainly not using surgical and n95 masks. And you would be correct, well depending what public you were talking about. The majority of the "Western" public wears no mask, this is not an effective mask. While the "Eastern" public wore mainly surgical or N95 masks. They also reduced their infection rate very "effectively". I guess we are about to find out if the "mask" played any difference at all. Already it seems they did, but I will hold the definitive decision till deaths in the West are over 100,000. Which shouldn't be long now.

[Huib]

I once said I wanted to be in before I was 62, but I didn't mean it quite literally!