Coronavirus Outbreak

[Josh]

The peer reviewed consensus in 2019 and earlier was that mask wearing doesn’t help, and in particular was not an effective substitute for the flu shot for people who didn’t want flu shots.

I have no idea why this would suddenly change in 2020.

[Signtist]

Which epidemiologists?

I searched for a clip or their names. I missed them when I was watching. I can not find them right now. I will keep looking.

Likely Dr. Moe, Dr. Howard and Dr. Fine. Commonly known as Larry Moe and Curley.

J.M.

Better come up with a couple thousand other names, because it didn’t stop at 3.

[Robert]

I saw an interview with three top epidemiologists and they all said we need to protect the elderly and vulnerable, let everyone else get exposed and build immunity. They said it would take 3-6 months and then there would be enough immunity to cover the vulnerable. Restricting those who do not get sick, but build immunity to the virus is the opposite of what we need to be doing. Not my words, but theirs.

Robert...is this what you were looking for?

Three of the world's top epidemiologists are going public to contradict Dr. Fauci and other doctor politicians who are calling for renewed lock-downs over the Coronavirus. They are: Dr. Martin Kulldorff - Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Sunetra Gupta - Oxford University Epidemiology Professor, and Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya - Stanford Epidemiology Professor. They were interviewed Monday night by Laura Ingraham on Fox News. They claim that the consensus in the scientific community is NOT in favor of locking down entire populations, but only those at most risk, and they are calling for the end of lock-downs for the vast majority of the population who are not at risk for COVID. And they are not alone. They published the "Great Barrington" declaration this week which has already been signed by over 1000 medical and public health scientists within the first few hours of being published.

Yep. That be the ones.

[Robert]

https://gbdeclaration.org/

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

[Robert]

It is sad that when called out, you can’t back your claims. This is a constant. It gets tiring after awhile.

If you can’t name your “three prominent epidemiologists, I will,

J.M.

It is a bold face lie that I do not back up what I present. Why do you feel the need to attack my character without facts of your own? Again, I hope I never have to receive care from you. I fear that I will be belittled and any concerns I have would be ignored and my rights as a human would be ignored because you decided you know better what I want and need.

I am waiting for your humble apology. Would you like me to pass on to them what you called them?

[Signtist]

https://gbdeclaration.org/

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

I'm far from a formally educated medical professional, but the Declaration, in it's entirety, seems to me to be a level headed approach. And as of this morning, it appears like over 12,750 persons in the medical field would agree. A small percentage of the total population of doctors, no doubt. But certainly a growing number are taking note.

[Judas Maccabeus]

The peer reviewed consensus in 2019 and earlier was that mask wearing doesn’t help, and in particular was not an effective substitute for the flu shot for people who didn’t want flu shots.

I have no idea why this would suddenly change in 2020.

The entire methodology of that study was faulty when applied to the current situation. In fact, it had nothing to do with Covid 19. What that actually proved is that most influenza exposure is outside of a workplace setting. Outside of the workplace setting, neither cohort wore masks.

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

https://gbdeclaration.org/

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

I'm far from a formally educated medical professional, but the Declaration, in it's entirety, seems to me to be a level headed approach. And as of this morning, it appears like over 12,750 persons in the medical field would agree. A small percentage of the total population of doctors, no doubt. But certainly a growing number are taking note.

This clearly represents a minority opinion. They are entitled to make their views known, but I doubt if this sort of thing will be very persuasive. They also fail to explain the Swedish fiasco. Even their own public health leadership is doubting the wisdom of what they did.

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

New peer-reviewed Canadian study on the effectiveness of mask usage

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27891#fromrss

We estimate the impact of mask mandates and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) on COVID-19 case growth in Canada, including regulations on businesses and gatherings, school closures, travel and self-isolation, and long-term care homes. We partially account for behavioral responses using Google mobility data. Our identification approach exploits variation in the timing of indoor face mask mandates staggered over two months in the 34 public health regions in Ontario, Canada's most populous province. We find that, in the first few weeks after implementation, mask mandates are associated with a reduction of 25 percent in the weekly number of new COVID-19 cases. Additional analysis with province-level data provides corroborating evidence. Counterfactual policy simulations suggest that mandating indoor masks nationwide in early July could have reduced the weekly number of new cases in Canada by 25 to 40 percent in mid-August, which translates into 700 to 1,100 fewer cases per week.

Well that's certainly not what happened in the two local regions where indoor masking was mandated. In the one region the mandate came into force June 12 or 13 in the other July 12 or 13. In both cases daily infections were dropping at the time of the mandate. In the first region the case rate actually rose in the first week after the mandate before beginning to drop again, then reached a plateau before beginning to rise again, as now.
In the second region the case rate continued to drop, plateaued, and then began to rise again.

Data? Which regions. Are the numbers large enough that the results are reliable rather than statistical noise?

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

It is sad that when called out, you can’t back your claims. This is a constant. It gets tiring after awhile.

If you can’t name your “three prominent epidemiologists, I will,

J.M.

It is a bold face lie that I do not back up what I present. Why do you feel the need to attack my character without facts of your own? Again, I hope I never have to receive care from you. I fear that I will be belittled and any concerns I have would be ignored and my rights as a human would be ignored because you decided you know better what I want and need.

I am waiting for your humble apology. Would you like me to pass on to them what you called them?

No. When asked to name them, you could not. Therefor you were not backing up your claim but “forgot.”

BTW, I had one of the highest patient satisfaction scores around. So high that my management thought that the results were suspect.

Difference is I have a certain responsibility to those I treated. I have no such responsibility to people putting out suspect medical information.

Of note-Trump’s doctors did not appear to have used HCQ on him. When the chips were down, they appeared to look at evidence rather than politics.

J.M.