Magox

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for not wearing masks. I'm indifferent about it similar to how Fauci feels on the subject. Our family wears it simply out of respect for others because really it's not skin off our backs to do so, just a slight inconvenience. The point is that if anyone actually believes that US citizens will have anywhere near the compliance of wearing masks, allowing cell phone tracking and other extended draconian mitigation efforts as say a Taiwan or South Korea, truly does not have a pulse of many of our citizens. The point was derailed though, that was just an added sidebar. The main reason why contact tracing won't work here in the sense that it will be THE solution to crush the curve is for one main reason. It's too late for that. There are over 975,000 confirmed cases which probably means there are anywhere from about 6 to 20 million actual confirmed cases. Each and every day at this stage of the cycle we are adding on top of that about 25k new confirmed cases daily which in actuality is probably around 250k real cases daily. We don't know who the asymptomatic cases are. Contact tracing on a wide scale only works either at the beginning of an outbreak before it gets out of control or after nearly all the cases have been flushed out so that you are working off of a low base line. Unless someone can convince me that we can get the confirmed cases on a daily basis to be nearly extinguished then color me skeptical.

You misunderstood what he said. He said “when you are in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask may make people feel better (he even gives the hand quotation sign as to mock the idea) and it may even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it does”. Then he goes on to cite how there are unintended risks of hands touching the face due to usage of the mask. Then he says once again that masks are for people who have the virus and for medical providers. He even says that the 85% of people in Asia wearing masks “it’s fine, it’s fine”. Essentially implying what he said earlier which was “if it makes them feel better”. In other words, from his view it’s not necessary.

The question is did you? and no, that is not what he was saying. He was saying that at this stage of the game it’s silly to wear a mask. You can visually see him scoffing at the idea of wearing a mask. He thinks it’s silly and he made that visibly and audibly clear on a couple occasions. What he said was unless you are infected or someone in the medical field then those are who should be wearing it. He even goes on to say “if it makes you feel better”. It was only until the interviewer at the very end after Fauci made it very clear that the benefits for people who don’t have the virus that it’s silly and not effective to wear masks that the interviewer said “to preserve masks” and Fauci agreed. you can try to spin it all you like, The bottom line is that Fauci thinks it’s silly for people who don’t have the virus to wear a mask and he explains why citing three reasons. Listen to it again.

You know who else thinks it’s silly to wear masks? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI

There are some rather large differences between South Korea/Taiwan and the United States. Before I get into them this is what I said earlier: ————— If we had been starting off with a much lower baseline to work off, like near 0 then maybe we could employ this strategy as an effective tool to mitigate it. But we aren't, and most likely by the end of summer, we will still have more than quite a few infections. —————- Taiwan has/had less than 500 confirmed cases in total. We get 500 confirmed cases in a half hour. South Korea has/had less than 11k confirmed cases in total, we get that in about 10 hours. If you look at my quote I made the case that contact tracing could work if you are working off of a low baseline, we definitely would not be. We have about 25k confirmed cases a day, which means we realistically have anywhere from 150k to as high as 400k actual new cases daily due to the asymptomatic cases. That’s each and every day just piling on top of one another. So when I said the toothpaste is out the tube, it means it’s too late for that. There is no way you can contact trace something that is outside the realm of control. Unless somehow we can get those cases to below maybe like 1000-2000 confirmed cases daily and even then I am still highly skeptical. Taiwan and South Korea went through MERS and SARS and already have a playbook for this. Secondly their populace is willing to give up freedoms and allow cell phone tracking and basically just listen to what their government tells them to do. Im not here to debate what people should be doing according to health officials believe but what they won’t do. And that is allow their lives to be completely upended for an extended period of time. Many won’t wear masks like they do in Taiwan/SK, many are skeptical of what the government tells them to do unlike Taiwan/SK. In short compliance Of recommendations or dictates will not be followed by many here in the US as it would be in SK/Taiwan. It truly is an apples and oranges comparison.

Hap is right in that we aren’t anywhere near reaching herd immunity with the exception of NY city which isn’t quite there yet either. But we don’t know how long a vaccine will come about and until then we need to rely on the data, have some good therapeutics in place, strategically attempt to mitigate the virus and protect the most vulnerable all while gradually and eventually liberally reopening the economy. The economic costs and all the residual effects on health will far outweigh the actual direct impacts of the virus.

You misunderstood what I said. I said that contact tracing serves a purpose and that it should be used. In a subsequent post: ———— 3) That contact tracing will be used much more effectively on a targeted basis. Areas that are deemed at higher risk and frontline “essential” workers. —————- But strategically for people at risk or front line “essential” workers. The idea that we are going to be able to contact trace the majority of the infections is not realistic. There are too many asymptomatic carriers to be able to do it effectively. I stand by what I said and I’m fairly certain that we will still see confirmed infections above 10k come sometime in the following winter. No matter how much contact tracing they do. It’s toothpaste out of the tube.

Did you see the pork plant and other 4 prisons that showed similar findings that I posted a couple pages back? Also, this is fascinating as well: ———————- Early look at data from 100 New York hospitals shows that 66% of new admissions related to the virus are people who were at home, Cuomo said. “This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” he added. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.” Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking. He said a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed. Overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51. He said the information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees. He also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic. ———— While data shows the coronavirus is on the decline in New York, the new survey results appear to clash with Cuomo’s prior assurances that isolation can reliably prevent transmission. ——————— You can’t make as many assumptions that you think you may be able to out of this because the data is very incomplete. But I do believe there is one major one which I think is becoming evidently clear. Draconian Shut down measures help mitigate to a degree but not nearly as much as they had hoped. And that in retrospect this whole shut down was not the right way to go about it, at least not outside of the densely populated areas. And that the evidence is mounting that as a nation we should be relaxing the measures in place and get people back to more normalcy. I just hope that lessons are learned for the future when this happens again.

More on asymptotic carriers at another prison facility. —————— The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed the positive cases on Friday. Out of the 2,450 total tests, more than 1,300 staff and inmates tested positive. According to the state, analysis of the test results confirmed that 98% of those who tested positive are asymptomatic. CoreCivic gave a break down of the testing results as follows: Inmate testing Total tested: 2,444 Total negative results: 1,145 Total positive results: 1,299 Pending tests: 13 Staff testing Total tested: 281 Total negative results: 192 Total positive results: 50 Pending tests: 39 ——————————- 98% showing no symptoms! For me, these anecdotal accounts are very telling, and they reinforce for me a few things: 1) That the Virus is much more widespread than believed and the serology antibody studies have it right. We are probably talking Nationally anywhere from x15 to x30 what the confirm infection rate. This particular sample size of over 1300 suggests x40 to x50 2) That the true mortality rate is most likely anywhere between .2% - .4%. And that those under age 60 have an even considerably lower mortality rate of that. Probably somewhere around to the .07% - .12% range. And if they have less than 2 comorbidities even lower than that. 3) That contact tracing will be used much more effectively on a targeted basis. Areas that are deemed at higher risk and frontline “essential” workers. 4) That we just need to accept the virus is going to be with us until we reach herd immunity and/or have a vaccine. Protect the most vulnerable, have therapeutics in place for them And that the vast majority of people will be able to fight this off.

When have I ever have? In fact I have suggested otherwise ad nauseam on this board.

What are you talking about? I have posted and cited at least 6 serological antibody tests from various respected universities, health departments and governments. The mortality rates range anywhere from .12% - .7% Even the anecdotal accounts in the meat packing plants and prisons which have large sample sizes in the thousands reinforce those findings. And there has also been compiled hospital data from the hospitals with the most COVID cases from NY, Boston and Italy that show the demographics of those that have been most effected. In the statistics thread there are economic impact studies on health. And other shut down related effects on health.

Absolutely. I'm not saying that it won't help. Just that it won't be the silver bullet solution that those that are clamoring for more testing and contract tracing make it out to be. There are just too many asymptomatic cases and by the end of the summer if you still have like 20,000 people a day testing positive or for that matter even just 5000, then that most likely means you probably have at least 40,000 actual people who are infected and heading into a more favorably cyclical time of the year in fall/winter, there is no way to effectively go after those asymptomatic people. I know people don't want to hear this but we are just going to have to live with the virus spreading again later on in the year, that's just my view. So, lets just get those effective therapeutics in place, protect the front line workers and those that are at most risk. The vast majority of the population have the immune systems to effectively combat this virus.

Maybe. But keep in mind, they are in very confined spaces and if you look at the information that I posted earlier about how it's spread, prisons and meat packing plants would be at the top of the list of places where it would be highly transmittable. It would spread like wildfire. Grant it, those are very high numbers of asymptomatic carriers but if you believe all the serology tests and took a means average out of them, they range anywhere from x 10 to X 75 count of the understated cases. Which these numbers from the two examples would imply about a X 33. So it's somewhat inline with the serology test findings. But even if it was at the very low end of X 10, contact tracing would still not be anywhere near the solution to effectively mitigate the spread.

There have been and they are all over the place. I think the simple fact of those two examples that I cited clearly reflects that there is strong evidence that asymptomatic carriers do indeed infect other people. Unless you are under the belief that a handful of people went throughout the entire prison and meat plant infecting everyone else. And I think we know that is not likely.

Testing and Contact tracing will help mitigate the spread some but it's not nearly the panacea for this as being touted. It's way overstated. Why? Because the majority of people who have the virus are asymptomatic. Just to give you a glimpse of what I'm talking about look at the Pork Plant in Missouri. Or what about the 4 prisons in Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia? Let's just use common sense here for a second. These are two examples and it's a pretty large sample size, we are talking about over 4000 positive test cases where on average 97% showed no symptoms. That is an astounding figure. How in the world are you going to contact trace people effectively if such a large portion of the infected population are not showing any symptoms? What? Someone who is showing no symptoms is expected to request a test? That's not going to happen. At least not in large enough numbers needed for this to work. I am highly skeptical of increased testing and contact tracing serving as an effective tool to limit the spread. It's just not going to happen, I can tell you that with near certainty. I'm not a scientist, but I understand data, I have a knack for extrapolating it and coming to conclusions and I also have common sense. And the data and common sense says that if the vast majority of the people who have the virus are not showing symptoms you aren't going to be able to effectively mitigate it through those means. If we had been starting off with a much lower baseline to work off, like near 0 then maybe we could employ this strategy as an effective tool to mitigate it. But we aren't, and most likely by the end of summer, we will still have more than quite a few infections. Increased testing will have a purpose, without doubt and contact tracing will help, but it won't nearly be as effective as the people who are promoting it to be.

"Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people" - Socrates This personifies the left-leaning peeps in PPP

Kind of, but not entirely. I'm not saying that they are completely immune to let's say this pathogen but I believe they have stronger immune systems than people who are less exposed to for a lack of better terms - harsher environments. La Paz Bolivia, which is the city that I used to live in has a population of about 2.7 million. It is the most densely populated area in the country and is comprised of a 90% indigenous population. La Paz's weather is cold and not humid at all, meaning the weather is ripe for this sort of spread. So far they have 253 confirmed infections and 16 deaths. Santa Cruz Bolivia, which is a much warmer humid part of the country, with a tropical environment has about the same population but it's not nearly as dense. The city has much more territory than La Paz due to it's geographical makeup. They have a much lower indigenous population, in fact the indigenous people are not from the same indigenous factions of those in La Paz. It is much safer to drink the water from tap in Santa Cruz. However, in S.C they have 1043 confirmed infections with 46 deaths. Now there are studies that show that altitude plays a role, so I do believe that plays a factor. Grant it, it's anecdotal, but it's evidence none the less. Immune systems are complex and people who are exposed more to different bacteria's develop more efficient enzyme's, stomach acids and neutrophils to combat bacteria's and pathogens from an overall general sense. So it's not just because they have been exposed to it that allows people who live in harsher environments that can only combat these specific risks better than those who haven't. There is an overall immune system and there are people who are better equipped to deal with these pathogens than others. I think conditioning plays a role in that. So you mock the way he views things. How nice and smug.

I actually watched this a couple days ago. It is a huge hit with the hippy/spiritual anti vaxxing left. Im not the conspiratorial type, with that said there were various components to this video. Some I outright agree with and others are definitely on the conspiracy side but they sounded plausible. It’s difficult proving a conspiracy because if you could it no longer is a conspiracy, but the way it was presented made sense. I decided to research this lady just to see if she was a quack which she definitely doesn’t come off as one and she certainly is an accomplished person in the field. The circumstances around her arrest when you research it doesn’t really net much aside what the prosecution claimed. But they did drop the charges after she returned the notes which prosecution claims had to do with intellectual property. I would recommend for people to watch it. I’m not saying believe it but worth the watch and you can decide for yourself. Oh and the part where they talk about how keeping yourself locked in and not exposed to as many germs etc Leading to more people having weakened immune systems I believe that 100% When I lived in South America, the country that I was in has a high indigenous population and they would drink and cook water from the tap. Which tap water over there is not the safest proposition for people like you and me. It’s because they are exposed to it, they live under rougher circumstances and these people have autoimmune systems that are like fortresses. Where if you have someone who is not exposed to as many external risks of this sort end up getting much sicker than those that do.

So what does this mean exactly? That he's saying he was transparent and that Durham has had it for a while. So why the fuss? Is that what he's basically saying?

For the crowd that is clamoring for the "We Must have more testing", there are ways of getting similar information in regards to prevalency of infection rates within the community without doing additional testing. An area that has a lot of infections, when testing is done the average % rate of people testing positive will be be higher than areas with low infection rates. I'll give you an example. for Instance lets say you have a state like New York, and they conducted 30,000 tests. And lets say out of those tests 15% tested positive which would be 4500, then you can pretty much get a handle that not only are there a fairly large number of people who are infected based on the confirmed count, but there are probably a whole lot more asymptomatic cases that aren't being counted. The lower that % of Positive tests go, the lower the prevalency of viral infections within that community. So for example if you have another state that conducts 30,000 tests and they only have lets say only 3.3% test positive at 1000 confirmed tests. On the surface it only seems like a net 3500 difference than the previous example but the rate of infection throughout the community will be far greater. In any case, this came out of my home state of Florida. I understand the want for additional testing and it makes sense but you have to go with what you have. There is plenty of enough data to support that we as a country are ready to begin opening things up. And additional non conventional data point gathering such as what I listed above can you give you good macro analysis on the community infection rates.

You are correct, none of this is conclusive. And the part about the outside was my take on it but I think it's pretty clear through simple inference that she specifically believes that confined spaces such as elevators, home shelters, inside people's homes, transportation etc are the clear drivers of transmissibility. So, what is the opposite of that? Outside in non crowded areas where people aren't congregating together closely for extended periods of time. Which probably means that even outdoor sports venues are still going to be breeding grounds for the Virus. Again, just to be clear, I am not saying outdoor stadiums or all outdoor locations are safe. I'm not saying that.

If you read through the twitter thread from the Dr. who is an infectious disease researcher/clinician, she isn't saying that kids cannot get the Virus or are not susceptible to getting the virus, what she is saying is that through the studies/papers/opinions from all credible sources are indicating that they aren't showing to be large viral transmitters of the virus. That's a huge distinction. Here is what she said: This is from a study in Australia: There are more studies that back up this assertion. Are they definitive? No. But it is more evidence that gives this argument more weight. My suspicions are that we will find out that yes, kids can transmit the virus but not nearly at the rate of adults. Also, if you look through the studies/papers/opinions and her descriptions (which I have), she isn't saying that the research shows that all people are getting them from confined spaces just that the vast majority of them. Yet that there are studies/papers/opinions from credible outlets that heavily suggest that prolonged periods are a primary driver of transmission. That's from The Lancet If you go through that thread she goes on to cite 5 more studies/papers/opinions from credible sources to back that assertion.

Because she didn't just make it up out of thin air. All these sources are credible. They are derived from studies/papers/opinions, including multiple from the CDC, medrxiv, The Lancet, Oxford academic, Jama internal medicine, The New England Journal of Medicine Here are her sources: http://html.rhhz.net/zhlxbx/028.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6909e1.htm?s_cid=mm6909e1_w https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30287-5/fulltext https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20056010v1 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa450/5821281 more from the lancet https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30607-3/fulltext https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2765641?utm_campaign=articlePDF%26utm_medium%3darticlePDFlink%26utm_source%3darticlePDF%26utm_content%3djamainternmed.2020.2020 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa424/5819060 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.26.20044826v1 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100 https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099(20)30273-5 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e1.htm https://t.co/51nHSrkEZq?amp=1 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2008457 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20064980v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.25.20079103v1 Here is the background of this dubious figure from twitter https://www.journals.elsevier.com/clinical-microbiology-and-infection/editorial-board/muge-cevik She sourced all her opinions from credible sources...Which one of her sources do you dispute? And I think her background makes her more than qualified to discuss this topic.

Trying to get back on Topic - I found this fascinating Twitter thread from a Doctor who crunched lots of numbers and studies on the transmissibility of the Virus. I highly recommend you read it if you have an interest in how the Virus spreads. @shoshin @GG @Deranged Rhino @plenzmd1 @Hapless Bills Fan @Taro T @Doc Brown @Buffalo_Gal and a lot of others of you may be interested in this as well. It gets in the weeds. To summarize my interpretation of this is that the way this virus passes on to others in most cases is through confined spaces. Homes, shelters, elevators, transportation etc. Even though it's not said here, outdoor locations such as parks and Beaches are not places where the Virus thrives in regards to transmission. And, that children are much less susceptible to passing along the Virus than adults. Which again reinforces the idea that opening up schools probably makes a lot of sense.

This response, personifies you.