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Utopia Talk / Politics / Dont wear a mask. They dont stop Covid
Rugian
Member
Sun Aug 09 04:14:51
WORLD’S TOP EPIDEMIOLOGISTS: MASKS DON’T WORK!

The top medical experts in the world can’t decide if masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID-19 or just make things worse
Jon Miltimore | FEE.org - AUGUST 8, 2020

Denmark boasts one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world. As of August 4, the Danes have suffered 616 COVID-19 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

That’s less than one-third of the number of Danes who die from pneumonia or influenza in a given year.

Despite this success, Danish leaders recently found themselves on the defensive. The reason is that Danes aren’t wearing face masks, and local authorities for the most part aren’t even recommending them.

This prompted Berlingske, the country’s oldest newspaper, to complain that Danes had positioned themselves “to the right of Trump.”

“The whole world is wearing face masks, even Donald Trump,” Berlingske pointed out.

This apparently did not sit well with Danish health officials. They responded by noting there is little conclusive evidence that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory viruses.

“All these countries recommending face masks haven’t made their decisions based on new studies,” said Henning Bundgaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Rigshospitale, according to Bloomberg News. (Denmark has since updated its guidelines to encourage, but not require, the use of masks on public transit where social distancing may not be possible.)

Denmark is not alone.

Despite a global stampede of mask-wearing, data show that 80-90 percent of people in Finland and Holland say they “never” wear masks when they go out, a sharp contrast to the 80-90 percent of people in Spain and Italy who say they “always” wear masks when they go out.

Dutch public health officials recently explained why they’re not recommending masks.

“From a medical point of view, there is no evidence of a medical effect of wearing face masks, so we decided not to impose a national obligation,” said Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark.

Others, echoing statements similar to the US Surgeon General from early March, said masks could make individuals sicker and exacerbate the spread of the virus.

“Face masks in public places are not necessary, based on all the current evidence,” said Coen Berends, spokesman for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. “There is no benefit and there may even be negative impact.”

In Sweden, where COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl, public health officials say they see “no point” in requiring individuals to wear masks.

“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert.

WHAT’S GOING ON WITH MASKS?
The top immunologists and epidemiologists in the world can’t decide if masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID-19. Indeed, we’ve seen organizations like the World Health Organization and the CDC go back and forth in their recommendations.

For the average person, it’s confusing and frustrating. It’s also a bit frightening, considering that we’ve seen people denounced in public for not wearing a mask while picking up a bag of groceries.

The truth is masks have become the new wedge issue, the latest phase of the culture war. Mask opponents tend to see mask wearers as “fraidy cats” or virtue-signalling “sheeple” who willfully ignore basic science. Mask supporters, on the other hand, often see people who refuse to wear masks as selfish Trumpkins … who willfully ignore basic science.

There’s not a lot of middle ground to be found and there’s no easy way to sit this one out. We all have to go outside, so at some we all are required to don the mask or not.

It’s clear from the data that despite the impression of Americans as selfish rebel cowboys who won’t wear a mask to protect others, Americans are wearing masks far more than many people in European countries.

Polls show Americans are wearing masks at record levels, though a political divide remains: 98 percent of Democrats report wearing masks in public compared to 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Independents. (These numbers, no doubt, are to some extent the product of mask requirements in cities and states.)

Whether one is pro-mask or anti-mask, the fact of the matter is that face coverings have become politicized to an unhealthy degree, which stands to only further pollute the science.

Last month, for example, researchers at Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy responded to demands they remove an article that found mask requirements were “not based on sound data.”

The school, to its credit, did not remove the article, but instead opted to address the objections critics of their research had raised.

FIRST, DO NO HARM
The ethics of medicine go back millennia.

The Hippocratic Oath famously calls on medical practitioners to “first, do no harm.” (Those words didn’t actually appear in the original oath; they developed as a form of shorthand.)

There is a similar principle in the realm of public health: the Principle of Effectiveness.

Public health officials say the idea makes it clear that public health organizations have a responsibility to not harm the people they are assigned to protect.

“If a community is at risk, the government may have a duty to recommend interventions, as long as those interventions will cause no harm, or are the least harmful option,” wrote Claire J. Horwell Professor of Geohealth at Durham University and Fiona McDonald, Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology. “If an agency follows the principle of effectiveness, it will only recommend an intervention that they know to be effective.”

The problem with mask mandates is that public health officials are not merely recommending a precaution that may or may not be effective.

They are using force to make people submit to a state order that could ultimately make individuals or entire populations sicker, according to world-leading public health officials.

That is not just a violation of the Effectiveness Principle. It’s a violation of a basic personal freedom.

Mask advocates might mean well, but they overlook a basic reality: humans spontaneously alter behavior during pandemics. Scientific evidence shows that American workplaces and consumers changed the patterns of their travel before lockdown orders were issued.

As I’ve previously noted, this should come as no surprise: Humans are intelligent, instinctive, and self-preserving mammals who generally seek to avoid high-risk behavior. The natural law of spontaneous order shows that people naturally take actions of self-protection by constantly analyzing risk.

Instead of ordering people to “mask-up” under penalty of fines or jail time, scientists and public health officials should get back to playing their most important role: developing sound research on which people can freely make informed decisions.

http://www...idemiologists-masks-dont-work/
LazyCommunist
Member
Sun Aug 09 04:16:58
❤️ Infowars ❤️
Rugian
Member
Sun Aug 09 04:20:54
I figure as long as we're using Rolling Stone as a source on here, we should be able to use sites of equivalent quality as well.
Hrothgar
Member
Sun Aug 09 05:44:49
http://adv...arly/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083 (every tested mask type except non-absorbent fleece fabric (spandex type?) lessened the amount of droplets detected in the air expelled by individual test subjects.

Considering:

1- The virus spreads through "breath to breath" contact

2- Most (not all) cloth types over one's mouth and nose disrupt the velocity and amount of "breath particles" expelled by speakers, sneezers, coughers, etc...

3- With this particular virus a significant number of people do not feel sick/barely sick during contagious phase of infections.

I don't see how recommending no mask use is wise. Even the nations mentioned in the article recommend it, even if people are doing it or not.

The argument of the article posted by Rugian seems to claim a lack of studies on population level mask use is the same as contradictory evidence to the claim "masks help". Those aren't the same thing. And in fact nearly every Asian nation where mask use is nearly universal also very much have reduced the virus outbreak numbers and could be used to argue the exact opposite opinion of the article.

The article seems to ignore the entire health care systems of the world that have considered mask use by doctors and nurses as highly helpful in preventing spread of various types of infection.

All of this in addition to just the general common sense thought of reducing number and velocity of breath droplets from an infected person by covering one's mouth/nose with cloth as at least somewhat helpful in respect to respiratory viruses reaching non-infected lungs.
Habebe
Member
Sun Aug 09 08:00:58
I agree with what I skimmed from Hrothgar.

Plus it covers my fave which is beneficial for when I casually steal small to medium items like extension chords and chainsaws. ( ok only one chainsaw)
Dukhat
Member
Sun Aug 09 09:37:46
This is how dumb cuckservatives are. Rolling Stone is shit by normal news standards but infowars is literally a billion times worse. False equivalencies abound inside their tiny minds.
Habebe
Member
Sun Aug 09 09:52:13
Well, RS is very left bias and often uses anecdotes and exaggerated pseudo science.

However infowars from what I know of it is based off of attention grabbing regardless of facts.

IDK if Id say a billion times worse but, it does seem worse.

It's sort of like spoiled milk though. One big might be worse than another but I wouldn't drink either.
Wrath of Orion
Member
Sun Aug 09 11:00:54
Somehow I'm not surprised Rugian believes this shit. He's got to be approaching the bottom of his downward spiral.
sam adams
Member
Sun Aug 09 11:47:53
Masks help.

Nuff said.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Sun Aug 09 11:53:22
if the Rolling Stone remark referred to my post, i don't think that writer even works for Rolling Stone

and also, is Rolling Stone known for writing batshit crazy bullshit stories? i'm unaware of that reputation

(infowars has that reputation... w/ stories like John Kerry's weather machine in Antarctica creating hurricanes... that is not 'equivalent')
Rugian
Member
Sun Aug 09 12:12:10
"and also, is Rolling Stone known for writing batshit crazy bullshit stories? i'm unaware of that reputation"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus

At least Alex and his "turning the freaking frogs gay" rants are humorous...the UVA story was just sad.

Hrothgar

I think it's safe to say that the question of the efficacy of masks has become hopelessly politicized. Anything questioning how much they help gets instantly torched by the news and banned on social media. In such an environment, it's impossible to have an honest debate as to whether masks work or not.

For example, it could certainly be argued that requirements to wear masks when you're outside and by yourself are unnecessary. But we cant have that debate, because anyone arguing against such a requirement is automatically a Trump deplorable and needs to be excised from the public eye.

Asian countries are also a bad example, because their governments have been able to use authoritarian measures to fight the virus that could never be implemented here.
Rugian
Member
Sun Aug 09 12:14:43
Habebe

You're really banking on that "nobody is going to jail during Covid" thing, eh?
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Sun Aug 09 12:19:02
so getting 1 story wrong is "equivalent" to every story being made-up bullshit (or maybe you'll find 1 they had right to 'disprove'...)
Rugian
Member
Sun Aug 09 12:23:29
They didnt just get it "wrong," look at the details.

Also falsely accusing people of rape is kind of serious. I recall your righteous outrage when Trump speculated on the RINO MSNBC guy having an affair with that staffer, so I think youd be much more angry with this story.

And as for Rolling Stone generally, the majority of their political articles are based on a nonsense leftist mindset...plenty of "bullshit" there if you want to find some.
Habebe
Member
Sun Aug 09 12:35:35
Rugian, Nah, I mean down here I realize it's way more strict than PA.

Usually I just self check out extension chords. But I mean I get $50-60 chords. I usually just slide it by and make sure it doesn't scan the barcode.

I figure if I do one item per visit while buying a bunch its not that noticeable and if caught Id just be like " oh here, my bad" so far I have a bunch of chords, SD cards, work gloves, power inverters, tv boxes, SD card adapters, gift cards from returning items, a few tents etc.

In PA I did a chainsaw, I bought a Pepsi so I had a fresh reciept in my hand and placed it in my reusable bag and just acted like it was mine, no one said a word.
Dakyron
Member
Mon Aug 10 10:30:51
Rugian has gone full retard, citing Infowars.
Y2A
Member
Mon Aug 10 21:46:50
the riverofblood nutcase award goes to rugian.
rlver of blood
Member
Tue Aug 11 01:06:25
"the Danes have suffered 616 COVID-19 deaths"

Taiwan (a country with 4 times the population of Denmark and located a stone's throw from China) has had 6 COVID-19 deaths. And they wear masks all the time. What a bunch of losers, amirite?
Paramount
Member
Tue Aug 11 02:29:08
” Taiwan (a country with 4 times the population of Denmark and located a stone's throw from China) has had 6 COVID-19 deaths. And they wear masks all the time. ”


It may also be that there are not that many Americans who is travelling back and forth to Taiwan.

There are for an example no U.S sailors in Taiwan.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Tue Aug 11 02:42:28
the asians around here were all wearing masks before it was even recommended... they are like the borg
Dukhat
Member
Tue Aug 11 02:54:17
River of blood got cucked. How does a libertarian give up on his liberties? Wearing masks is a liberal conspiracy to take away our freedoms.
Pillz
Member
Tue Aug 11 03:20:25
Masks do not make the difference between Danish and Taiwanese deaths.

It is obvious that there is a high rate of natural immunity to the virus in Asia.

Habebe
Member
Tue Aug 11 10:24:35
Paramount, US does have soldiers there.

http://www...-deployment-to-taiwan.html/amp
Paramount
Member
Tue Aug 11 10:33:02
Maybe there will be a surge of covid patients in Taiwan soon then?
Dakyron
Member
Tue Aug 11 10:35:11
"It is obvious that there is a high rate of natural immunity to the virus in Asia. "

Or a high rate of shitty reporting.
Paramount
Member
Tue Aug 11 10:40:00
Maybe they get some immunity from eating bats.
Habebe
Member
Tue Aug 11 10:46:18
Paramount, Maybe. I feel like the US always has troops ovsr at Taiwan, I could be wrong though.
Dakyron
Member
Tue Aug 11 11:09:25
Also lots of authoritarian regimes in Asia.
LazyCommunist
Member
Fri Aug 14 05:38:00
Alex Jones
http://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1293539196276269057
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