What I’ve pointed out for a year but I am a brain injured idiot…
Category Archives: Public Health/Coronavirus
Most unvaccinated Americans don’t want shots: poll – oregonlive.com
Since everyone will be vaccinated or eventually have Covid-19, they have chosen their path forward. The rest of us can get on with life while they wait their turn to get sick.
Among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say they probably will not, and 45% say they definitely will not, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Source: Most unvaccinated Americans don’t want shots: poll – oregonlive.com
Thus we are at the end game of the pandemic, just waiting for the last wave to blow through those who do not yet have immunity. The NPIs, which range from barely working to not working at all, merely delayed the time at which we reached this point.
And then this – several public health experts and mediots need to look at themselves in the mirror – for months, they have been telling us “we don’t know if vaccines work against variants” in their never ending hysterical fear, doom and gloom propaganda.
What’s more, 64% of unvaccinated Americans have little to no confidence the shots are effective against variants — including the delta variant that officials say is responsible for 83% of new cases in the U.S. — despite evidence that they offer strong protection.
That is hardly a surprise considering the non-stop fear porn propaganda. Perhaps we need to start banning public health experts on social media for spreading misinformation?
At this point, the vaccines have worked against all variants.
“Conflicting COVID-19 mask advice, ‘everyone is confused'”
As is typical of public health, their public communications remains inconsistent, contradictory and generally incoherent – so why even listen to them anymore?
As Americans navigate conflicting COVID-19 mask advice, ‘everyone is confused’
Source: As Americans navigate conflicting COVID-19 mask advice, ‘everyone is confused’
Mask makers see their share prices rise
While it could be more of a short-term trade, mask maker and PPE manufacturer Lakeland Industries (NASDAQ:LAKE) surged 7% on Wednesday. Other mask makers were also on the move, including Alpha Pro Tech (NYSE:APT) and Allied Healthcare Products (NASDAQ:AHPI), which climbed 4% and 3%, respectively.
Source: Mask makers in spotlight as CDC weighs guidance, mandates return (NASDAQ:LAKE) | Seeking Alpha
Mandatory indoor masks for all likely to be re-instated
DEFINE “MASK” FIRST:
Agency recommendations should support local and state health officials who may need to impose mandates to fight the delta variant.
Source: Opinion | CDC guidance on masking needs to change — now – The Washington Post
And remember, Los Angeles mandates that even fully vaccinated persons wear “masks”.
BUT DEFINE “MASK”:
As of this week, my state’s public health agency still says N95 masks should not be used by the public, but that N95 masks and “medical grade masks” should be reserved for use by health care workers.
They then say that the public should use “cloth face coverings”. They provide no standards. They provide no evaluation metrics. Any “cloth face covering” made of a random bit of random cloth suffices.
AND DOES NOT WORK.
My state achieved an astounding 94% “compliance” on wearing cloth face coverings – and yet cases than grew by more than 10x per day afterward.
Rather than do what actually works – N95 masks – they will mandate the use of useless cloth face masks by the general public, again – and like before, daily case counts will rocket skywards. And like my state, they will Order the public NOT TO BE PROTECTED BY WEARING A PROVEN MASK SUCH AS AN N95 MASK.
Public health is so full of shit at this point that they are unable to see the contradictions in their own statements.
Update: Last July, and again in September, then CDC Director Robert Redfield said if everyone wore masks, this would all over with within weeks. He even said that masks were more effective than vaccines. Yes, he really said that.
Within 2-3 months, daily new cases had risen by ten times.
Now, they tell us that vaccines don’t work, and we should all go back to wearing random bits of cloth over our faces – because the rise in cases when we wore masks (10x!) proves that masks work. Or something.
Masks work better than vaccines even though cases increased by an order of magnitude – and now they imply vaccines don’t work and we should go back to wearing random bits of cloth.
As a brain injured idiot, I am unable to make any logical sense out of what public health says any more. Public health experts are truly full of shit.
A year ago, I said smart phone tracing apps had numerous problems and were not suited for contact detection … then this happened
Last week, the UK contact dection phone system “pinged” one half million residents who were then forced into isolation for ten days.
Even the Prime Minister, who was hospitalized for Covid, and is also fully vaccinated, was forced in to 10 day quarantine because of a smart phone ping. Utterly pointless.
The system grew so out of control, that supermarkets are running out of food, and petrol stations are running out of gasoline, because so many workers were forced to isolate at home.
This fiasco has been a major screw up. Smart phone tracing apps sound wonderful, in theory, but in practice they find few cases that were not found with other methods, and in here in the UK, the system has proved a disaster. They have a high false negative and high false positive rate as well.
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) – Daily contact testing will be rolled out to workplaces in Britain’s food sector so staff who have been ‘pinged’ by the COVID-19 app can keep working if they test negative rather than isolating, the government said on Thursday.
Supermarkets have said some products are in short supply and petrol stations have been forced to close after the official health app told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate following contact with someone with the virus. read more
Source: UK to launch daily COVID tests in food sector to tackle ‘pingdemic’ | Reuters
The proper description of this begins with “cluster” and ends with a word rhyming with “duck”.
Smart phone contact detection and tracing is as useful as most of the NPIs, which is to say – basically useless.
How will the UK fix this? By doing Covid-tests daily for all food sector workers. Thanks to Bayes Theorem, it is likely the majority of “positive” results will be false positive.
The experts have learned nothing.
Should public health be permitted to operate without democratic oversight?
For 18 months, many of us have lived under a “state of emergency” during which public health “experts” suspended civil rights, mandated covering our faces. restricted our access to services, even critical health care, shut schools and businesses, putting many out of business permanently.
These unilateral actions are anathema in a democracy based on freedom.
At some point their Orders must be treated like any other government agency and subjected to public review and comment, and discussed directly with those affected.
Continue reading Should public health be permitted to operate without democratic oversight?Australia was founded as a prison colony: And it still is
South Australia has just beaten an Australian lockdown record.Its new restrictions demand people do not travel more than 2.5km from their home.
Source: Covid 19 coronavirus: Adelaide lockdown restrictions the harshest in Australia – NZ Herald
Residents are not permitted outside their home for more than 90 minutes.
By any other terms, this would be called an authoritarian dictatorship.
And if this does not work, Australia plans to lock down indefinitely. Basically imprisoning everyone in their home.
Note – NPIs have never stopped the progression of a diseases except on relatively small island nations (according to WHO). My comment here, an I can cite the Oct 2019 WHO report, or a 2006 peer reviewed paper would be banned on social media.
We live in frightening times, and its not entirely because of Covid-19.
COVID-19 Forecasts: Cases | CDC
Source: COVID-19 Forecasts: Cases | CDC
This is the “ensemble” forecast assembled from multiple models. As you can see, the individual models range from near zero to near infinity. Average them together and you get the red line at right – a horizontal line.
Only time will tell us what was correct. A CDC model from early May said Covid was likely to be under control by summer.
Great explanation of “break thru” cases with Delta variant
Very helpful:
With the standard coronavirus, we estimated R0 to be about 2.5, which means we needed about 60% of the population to be immune to reach herd immunity. With the Delta variant, we estimate R0 to be between 5 and 8, which means we need between 80% and 88% of the population to be immune.
Right now, we have approximately 45% of Utahns fully vaccinated, according to the Utah Department of Health. Again, it’s reasonable to assume that somewhere between 30% and 60% of the unvaccinated population has gotten COVID-19. That means roughly 60% to 75% of the population has immunity — enough to reach herd immunity levels with the old version of the virus but not the new one.
Essentially, we’ll likely see Delta variant case growth until a larger percentage of Utahns either get vaccinated or infected.
Source: Andy Larsen: Breakthrough cases of coronavirus are up in Utah — here’s what to know
Also, it would be helpful if public health and media would distinguish between “break through cases” and “break through disease”. A vaccine merely boosts your immune system to respond quickly – if the disease is widespread (R-0 = 5 to 8!) then you can easily get infected but your immune system will respond quickly so you have no or mild symptoms.