Have you had a COVID-19 vaccination?

[Ken]

The net effect we have now is that if we have another public health crisis, most of us aren't going to believe what public health officials call for if they call for society-wrecking lockdowns and major changes to our behaviour. Do you consider that a good or a bad thing?

In terror the Boy ran toward the village shouting "Wolf! Wolf!" But though the Villagers heard the cry, they did not run to help him as they had before. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... you can't get fooled again" they said.

The CDC has reported 1,189,603 COVID deaths in the US since January 2020. That is the worst pandemic in American history and almost double the death toll from the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. It is also more than the combined combat death toll from every war in American history.

How many MORE deaths would it have taken for you to consider real and not "crying wolf?"

[Valerie]

The net effect we have now is that if we have another public health crisis, most of us aren't going to believe what public health officials call for if they call for society-wrecking lockdowns and major changes to our behaviour. Do you consider that a good or a bad thing?

In terror the Boy ran toward the village shouting "Wolf! Wolf!" But though the Villagers heard the cry, they did not run to help him as they had before. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... you can't get fooled again" they said.

The CDC has reported 1,189,603 COVID deaths in the US since January 2020. That is the worst pandemic in American history and almost double the death toll from the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. It is also more than the combined combat death toll from every war in American history.

How many MORE deaths would it have taken for you to consider real and not "crying wolf?"

Too bad you can't trust their information in a variety of ways. You can, many of us do not.

[ohio jones]

How many MORE deaths would it have taken for you to consider real and not "crying wolf?"

The pandemic was real. Some of the responses were not, which is the point of the recent posts.

[Ken]

How many MORE deaths would it have taken for you to consider real and not "crying wolf?"

The pandemic was real. Some of the responses were not, which is the point of the recent posts.

Which responses do you think were not real? Back in the spring of 2020?

[Ken]

The CDC has reported 1,189,603 COVID deaths in the US since January 2020. That is the worst pandemic in American history and almost double the death toll from the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. It is also more than the combined combat death toll from every war in American history.

How many MORE deaths would it have taken for you to consider real and not "crying wolf?"

Too bad you can't trust their information in a variety of ways. You can, many of us do not.

The CDC doesn't have data collectors in every county in the country. They rely on death data submitted to them from 3,143 different counties in the US.

Which state and county data data do you think was especially unreliable?

And if it was unreliable do you think there were undercounts (people dying of COVID that went unreported or unclassified) or overcounts (people dying of other causes that did not have COVID but were reported as COVID deaths).

In point of fact, no doubt both happened. The question is how far off the estimates are from what really happened. What we do have very good information on is how many people actually died during the pandemic. Since virtually all deaths in this country do get reported. So we can how many excess deaths happened during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic years and see if our COVID death count numbers and excess death numbers come close to matching. What do you think we find when we do that?

[Josh]

Fauci said the 6ft rule was made up and not based on science.

Likewise first he said don’t wear masks. Then he said do wear masks.

The trouble is, made up stuff with no basis in science doesn’t prevent deaths from Covid.

[Grace]

Fauci said the 6ft rule was made up and not based on science.

Likewise first he said don’t wear masks. Then he said do wear masks.

The trouble is, made up stuff with no basis in science doesn’t prevent deaths from Covid.

And we can always depend on MTG to add drama. She let "Mr" Fauci have it today, saying what many Americans are thinking.

[Ken]

Fauci said the 6ft rule was made up and not based on science.

Likewise first he said don’t wear masks. Then he said do wear masks.

The trouble is, made up stuff with no basis in science doesn’t prevent deaths from Covid.

That's actually not really accurate.

Prior to the development of vaccines, the only three things that were proven to lower disease morbidity rates were distancing, masking, and ventilation. The fact that studies were not done to establish a dose : response relationship (i.e.) how much of each caused how much benefit, and the establishment of thresholds as opposed to gradients, does not make them "unscientific" or "unsupported by fact". Given the cost, time constraints, scale and chaos, those kinds of studies were never going to be possible. In other words, we know that distancing, masking, and ventilation all reduce disease transmission. We just never had linear data from say 6" up to 100 ft of distance to know how much benefit is gained or lost be each additional foot. No was it going to be possible to generate such data on any sort of widespread basis because of human behavior.

With respect to masking, during the initial months of the pandemic, masks of every sort were in short supply and governments/hospitals, etc. were forced to triage mask availability. But as the pandemic wore on and supplies became plentiful we were able to measure the effectiveness of various masking scenarios from cloth masks up to N95. There is a reason why masks are used in hospitals and during surgery. They do work when used correctly.

With respect to ventilation, building owners were reluctant to spend the money to improve ventilation, and the time frame was not practical. The aerosol theory that replaced the droplet theory of transmission actually favors greater, not lesser, distancing. American litigiousness forces all safety policies to err on the side of excess. Establishing default measures from previous experiences is the most logical starting point. The goal of buying time until vaccination became widespread was generally successful.

Science has two components. Inductive reasoning uses specific trials or experiments to develop theories. Deductive uses established principles to guide future behavior. The initial COVID restrictions were an example of deductive reasoning that was validated by lower rates of disease morbidity compared to absence of restrictions. That process was decidedly scientific. And we have plenty of comparisons between different states, schools, and jurisdictions that had different mask and distancing mandates.

[Josh]

Everything I said was accurate.

Fauci's testimony in front of Congress was that the 6-foot social distancing rule was not based on science.

For the first month of the pandemic, Fauci told us NOT to wear masks.

Then he did tell us to wear masks.

Made-up stuff like the 6-foot rule with no basis in science doesn't prevent deaths from COVID.

[Judas Maccabeus]

What the recent advice is, at least as far as I have received it from my now former employer:

It spreads via aerosolized particles. Therefore anything but a properly fitted N-95 is almost useless. A fit test would be necessary.
6 feet is not protective, as it fills the room rapidly.
While the current vaccines are far better than nothing, they should not be counted on for protection. See N-95 above.

Frankly, I would not be able to wear one, and never could for more than a few minutes.

So that is where it stands. During the pandemic, I was measuring the distance between student desks with a tape measure, making sure it was six feet. Trying to do patient care with a cloth mask that was useless. Trying to eventually teach with a mask. Doing all sorts of stuff to mitigate surface contamination that simply was not there. In the quest to “do something “ they literally ripped the heart out of many of the small businesses around us.

It was a real pandemic. The response was less than competent.