Mama Mia! Can we please stop with COVID? I am over being locked down/up, masked, warned to mask or not, etc. Can't believe a dang thing. What I do know is that the CDC has ceased to have any credibility now! I am so grateful to have had the vaccine in early January. Both my husband and I remember lining up the the late 50's for the Polio vaccine and all the kids who had to go on iron lungs. If I have options to shop, eat, play, etc. where a mask is not required, that's where I am going. I don't have options for on an air plane so I will mask up but forget the other stuff; getting up at 4 AM to shop the senior hours, etc. I'm done!
I know that death among the vaccinated is said to be rare. I am certain it is. But when rare happens to your next door neighbor, it get very very real.
Close the borders and letting a million criminals into our Country! The Covid Vaccinations are Experimental MRNA/DNA vaccines! Why do you think a lot of people testing positive w Covid have had all their vaccinations? Stop the Tyranny!
Wow, just imagine if all the resources, money, time and energy spent on a virus that has a 99%+ survival rate for healthy individuals were spent on heart disease, cancer, strokes, alzheimers, kidney disease, diabetes or any of the other top ten causes of death before c-19 virtually eliminated them as causes of death. Just damn.
I have lived with type 1 diabetes for 63 years and I'm doing quite well because I take care of myself. If I were to get covid, it would kill me, not the diabetes.
How many of those diseases that you mentioned are self-inflicted? For example, type 2 diabetes is preventable while type 1 is not. Type 1 is hereditary.
You're absolutely right. I'm riding my bike 200 miles this weekend for a charity that supports cancer research at Ohio State University's "The James" cancer research center (Pelotonia.org) and the morbidity rate for all cancers was above 33%, yet people are terrified of COVID.
Good for you for raising money for cancer! All cancers are not fatal, and all who get COVID do not die from it. Both have effects that remain even after the condition is supposedly gone.
I don't play with "fire." I do what I am supposed to do to stay healthy and leave the rest in God's hands.
We’ve had tens of thousands of infested illegals come into this country. In the dark of night or bright sunlight they packed into buses or trains on left on our doorsteps throughout our cities. Stop the insanity, stop the virus.
It would be a good start. Major outbreaks started up again as the white house opened the borders.
The virus is real but if the MSM and quack Fauci would stop with the fear mongering and let people use common sense without the masks and without the lockdowns I truly believe the virus would be less of a threat.
As soon as the virus broke out, even before being called a pandemic Fauci was already talking about the virus. He’s been involved with SARS and other covid viruses fir years prior to this outbreak. He also had made comments back in 2017-2018 that he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a pandemic within two years. Really?! He’s in with BigPharma up to his eyeballs. He’s flip flopped on everything about this virus. He’s shut down the use of treatments that work because they don’t use his protocols, his medicines. Why not? No money. Plain and simple, when someone won’t listen or let other treatments be used when there’s plenty of proof that they work instead of just one protocol, no use for them.
Since you wrote such a long email, I will deal with one issue at a time. In this case your comment about Dr Fauci predicting a pandemic back in 2017 or 18 suggests that you believe that he caused it. Is there evidence of that?
Is there concrete evidence that he is in with big pharma, or is that just a hypothesis?
Dr. Fauci has been involved with NIH for decades. Find his interviews before Congress, although he was caught lying. I just find it interesting that he said there would be a pandemic in two years and then while everyone was on the band wagon over BLM and before the election, bam a pandemic. A leak from the lab he's worked with for years. This goes back to Obama administration. As far as big pharma, again through all the news and interviews you can find that information.
See the NIH Study on Droplets vs Aerosols (came out in Oct.). The Viral particles are mainly aerosols, because even the droplets shrink as they evaporate. The bottom line: N95 gives good protection. Cloth masks and Surgical masks don't give any meaningful protection and are not allowed on a covid ward. Aerosols are 1 mm in size - droplets are 40 mm or larger. Aerosols are like a child on a trike riding into a Double Garage. Velocity is reduced by the mask, but that means nothing to aerosols just floating around. See also the CDC 2015 mask study - the masks give little to no protection. All the following studies refer to "may" provide protection or have assumed % of protection. CDC Data: 340 children under the age of 18 have died in a year and a half. All had comorbidities prior to getting covid. Same 1.5 year time frame 52,000 died of all causes, Pneumonia alone (no covid) was more than double.
I am fully vaccinated, and still mask in public. Forget the statistics about your chances to get sick or die if you are fully vaccinated. The focus should be that you can still spread the virus. We all need to keep masking given the vaccine resistance among too many people. The virus will continue to spread and mutate as long as there are hosts where it can grow. I do not want to be one of those transmitting the virus to others. I hope government agencies, schools, hospitals, and businesses all start requiring their employees to get vaccinated. I applaud the small businesses who are refusing to serve unvaccinated people.
Karen, you are spot-on! How many of us have underlying health conditions and are, therefore, more susceptible to die if we contract covid? Insurance figures show that half the population under age 65 falls into the category of having conditions that make them more susceptible.
Erick - to me, you, like an N95, are 90% right. But, on this issue, we part. Mr. Tyrone said it best when he reminded all of us to simply love our neighbor without exception or bias. As Andy Stanley imparts: "What does love require of me?"
The numbers do speak for themselves. The bigger issue is trust. It is hard to get and easy to loose. The CDC had lost the trust of the American people. Not sure how to fix it even if it can be fixed. Let us hope an pray that another bad bug does not come around any time soon.
Perspectives change as more data comes in, and I think that is what has happened with the CDC. As they learn more, they suggest different courses of action.
How many times have we heard a report about a shooting or an accident, but then the people - police, EMTs, etc - change their perception/description of the event as more data comes in?
In response to this article, "Against Masking", I just reviewed the literature on the efficacy of masks. Previously, I had reviewed the actual physical science regarding the rate of micro-droplet transmission via different types of masks. The quality of the studies regarding mask wear in the community are uniformly poor and demonstrate no significant advantage to mask wearing in controlling COVID infections. In hospitals, the use of N95 masks, IF WORN CONTINUALLY AND NOT INTERMITTENTLY, i.e., for an entire 8-12 hour shift, are somewhat preventative. Even so, I know many doctors and nurses who wore these scrupulously in the hospital and still got sick. In the actual studies of micro-droplet transmission rates of different types of masks, the studies are compelling. N95 masks prevent over 90% of both incoming and outgoing transmission. All the other types are weak. The blue medical masks that many folks were are, at best, 50% efficient. In the hospital setting, these masks were pretty much worthless. The cloth masks are worse and the "I'm fixin' to rob a train" bandanna masks are laughably inefficient.
It is unfortunate that "masking" has become so politicized. The far left has a fundamentally totalitarian ethos wherein they think that they, the "smart people" should herd the rest of us sheep around. Forced masking is, in their view, a step in the right direction. Almost all public health workers share the view that we are all a herd that needs to be protected from disease- as a herd, not as a collection of individuals. This is not a criticism because, to some degree it is true. However the lefty pols have hijacked this as a way of forcing a sort of herd compliance to a behavior that has actually never been proven to impact this epidemic to any significant degree.
My message: get vaccinated! And, if you are a high risk individual, go to Lowes and buy a box of N95 masks and use them when you shop. $19.95 for a box of 5. You can use one for a total of 12 hours. That's a lot of trips to get groceries, hardware, etc. If you are not high risk...get vaccinated and live your life!
What type of mask and how do you use it? If COVID is on the surface of your mask, isn’t it also on your face and clothing? Stores did extra cleaning which is always good. People learned to wash their hands better and more frequently. How much of this helped and how much is theater?
“Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
"Republican leaders"? There's a contradiction in terms for you. (Or is it an Oxymoron? Considering we're talking Republicans, I'm leaning more towards oxy "moron")
Name calling is what people use, when they have no argument worth listening to.
- Reimaging Police has killed thousands, with lawlessness running wild,
- BLM only cares if a policeman kills a Black person, but could care less if the cities and businesses are burned to the ground, and fostered "resist" which is the primary reason someone gets shot.
- The border is secure lie as over 1.2 million illegal aliens mostly infected with COVID-19 pour into the country and the drug cartels are making Billions human trafficking and smuggling in drugs.
- Implementing a hate white people indoctrination of our children (ie. CRT) using a false historical narrative
- Not counting people who have already had COVID-19 and survived as not "vaccinated" even though they are as immune as a vaccinated person.
As with my reply to Bill Coons below... I have no hope or expectation of cogent thought or leadership among the Dems. Their policies are disastrous to America.
But look at the "leaders" in the Republican party. McConnell? Harry Reid and now Schumer eat his lunch - except when it came to judicial nominations. Erick has long made known his dislike of Kevin McCarthy.
We need more like Ron Desantis, Jim Jordan and Tom Cotton out in front.
The current Repub leadership has a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Seriously Mr. Williamson? How is Biden's, Pelosi's, Chuck-U's, or Ocasio-Cortez's leadership working out? Both traditional parties have poor examples of leadership. Just let me be like the character John Galt desired and left alone to determine what's best for me.
The part you were leaving out here is children. God created us as social beings and our actions affect each other. Schools are about to start in Georgia and we're at the beginning of another steep wave. Louisiana just required masking. They are getting crushed by the Delta variant. I know COVID has generally affected children less, but watch these six short clips (5 minutes total; scroll down to watch the others) from Dr. Mark Kline, Physician-in-Chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans, a 244-bed children's hospital in the heart of the Delta outbreak https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1422303133972242444. In short, he says there is not a single children's ICU bed in all of Louisiana. He also says half of the kids coming in with Delta are now perfectly healthy.
As a parent of five kids who are too young to get vaccinated, I sure would feel better if we were masking in schools. Parents now have to live with lots of stress as we worry about our kids getting sick because people are unvaccinated and leaders don't have the political will to require masks in schools.
Without the various bits of statistics, that is what I have been saying all along. Wear a mask if you want to. Get the shot if you want to. Stop masking kids. Stop lockdowns. And leave those of us who don't want to mask or get the shot, alone. I live in a place where there were no government mask mandates or lockdowns except the school for a time. Many of us never masked. We are fine.
Why is no one talking about what really made the difference, "Social Distancing?"
Seriously, for the unvaccinated there is almost no chance of getting covid if you stay away from other people and infected animals.
If you are an adult dealing with children under 12 on a regular basis, masks, properly worn by the adults, might make sense, particularly when flu season starts up again.
Mama Mia! Can we please stop with COVID? I am over being locked down/up, masked, warned to mask or not, etc. Can't believe a dang thing. What I do know is that the CDC has ceased to have any credibility now! I am so grateful to have had the vaccine in early January. Both my husband and I remember lining up the the late 50's for the Polio vaccine and all the kids who had to go on iron lungs. If I have options to shop, eat, play, etc. where a mask is not required, that's where I am going. I don't have options for on an air plane so I will mask up but forget the other stuff; getting up at 4 AM to shop the senior hours, etc. I'm done!
I know that death among the vaccinated is said to be rare. I am certain it is. But when rare happens to your next door neighbor, it get very very real.
Close the borders and letting a million criminals into our Country! The Covid Vaccinations are Experimental MRNA/DNA vaccines! Why do you think a lot of people testing positive w Covid have had all their vaccinations? Stop the Tyranny!
Wow, just imagine if all the resources, money, time and energy spent on a virus that has a 99%+ survival rate for healthy individuals were spent on heart disease, cancer, strokes, alzheimers, kidney disease, diabetes or any of the other top ten causes of death before c-19 virtually eliminated them as causes of death. Just damn.
I have lived with type 1 diabetes for 63 years and I'm doing quite well because I take care of myself. If I were to get covid, it would kill me, not the diabetes.
How many of those diseases that you mentioned are self-inflicted? For example, type 2 diabetes is preventable while type 1 is not. Type 1 is hereditary.
You're absolutely right. I'm riding my bike 200 miles this weekend for a charity that supports cancer research at Ohio State University's "The James" cancer research center (Pelotonia.org) and the morbidity rate for all cancers was above 33%, yet people are terrified of COVID.
Good for you for raising money for cancer! All cancers are not fatal, and all who get COVID do not die from it. Both have effects that remain even after the condition is supposedly gone.
I don't play with "fire." I do what I am supposed to do to stay healthy and leave the rest in God's hands.
Close the borders!!
We’ve had tens of thousands of infested illegals come into this country. In the dark of night or bright sunlight they packed into buses or trains on left on our doorsteps throughout our cities. Stop the insanity, stop the virus.
Are you suggesting that by simply closing the border, covid would go away?
It would be a good start. Major outbreaks started up again as the white house opened the borders.
The virus is real but if the MSM and quack Fauci would stop with the fear mongering and let people use common sense without the masks and without the lockdowns I truly believe the virus would be less of a threat.
Why are you saying that Dr. Fauci is a fraud? How much medical training have you had? My doctors are Republican, and they think differently from you.
As soon as the virus broke out, even before being called a pandemic Fauci was already talking about the virus. He’s been involved with SARS and other covid viruses fir years prior to this outbreak. He also had made comments back in 2017-2018 that he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a pandemic within two years. Really?! He’s in with BigPharma up to his eyeballs. He’s flip flopped on everything about this virus. He’s shut down the use of treatments that work because they don’t use his protocols, his medicines. Why not? No money. Plain and simple, when someone won’t listen or let other treatments be used when there’s plenty of proof that they work instead of just one protocol, no use for them.
Since you wrote such a long email, I will deal with one issue at a time. In this case your comment about Dr Fauci predicting a pandemic back in 2017 or 18 suggests that you believe that he caused it. Is there evidence of that?
Is there concrete evidence that he is in with big pharma, or is that just a hypothesis?
Dr. Fauci has been involved with NIH for decades. Find his interviews before Congress, although he was caught lying. I just find it interesting that he said there would be a pandemic in two years and then while everyone was on the band wagon over BLM and before the election, bam a pandemic. A leak from the lab he's worked with for years. This goes back to Obama administration. As far as big pharma, again through all the news and interviews you can find that information.
See the NIH Study on Droplets vs Aerosols (came out in Oct.). The Viral particles are mainly aerosols, because even the droplets shrink as they evaporate. The bottom line: N95 gives good protection. Cloth masks and Surgical masks don't give any meaningful protection and are not allowed on a covid ward. Aerosols are 1 mm in size - droplets are 40 mm or larger. Aerosols are like a child on a trike riding into a Double Garage. Velocity is reduced by the mask, but that means nothing to aerosols just floating around. See also the CDC 2015 mask study - the masks give little to no protection. All the following studies refer to "may" provide protection or have assumed % of protection. CDC Data: 340 children under the age of 18 have died in a year and a half. All had comorbidities prior to getting covid. Same 1.5 year time frame 52,000 died of all causes, Pneumonia alone (no covid) was more than double.
I am fully vaccinated, and still mask in public. Forget the statistics about your chances to get sick or die if you are fully vaccinated. The focus should be that you can still spread the virus. We all need to keep masking given the vaccine resistance among too many people. The virus will continue to spread and mutate as long as there are hosts where it can grow. I do not want to be one of those transmitting the virus to others. I hope government agencies, schools, hospitals, and businesses all start requiring their employees to get vaccinated. I applaud the small businesses who are refusing to serve unvaccinated people.
Karen, you are spot-on! How many of us have underlying health conditions and are, therefore, more susceptible to die if we contract covid? Insurance figures show that half the population under age 65 falls into the category of having conditions that make them more susceptible.
Erick - to me, you, like an N95, are 90% right. But, on this issue, we part. Mr. Tyrone said it best when he reminded all of us to simply love our neighbor without exception or bias. As Andy Stanley imparts: "What does love require of me?"
The numbers do speak for themselves. The bigger issue is trust. It is hard to get and easy to loose. The CDC had lost the trust of the American people. Not sure how to fix it even if it can be fixed. Let us hope an pray that another bad bug does not come around any time soon.
Perspectives change as more data comes in, and I think that is what has happened with the CDC. As they learn more, they suggest different courses of action.
How many times have we heard a report about a shooting or an accident, but then the people - police, EMTs, etc - change their perception/description of the event as more data comes in?
Thanks, again, Erick for your sage counsel!
In response to this article, "Against Masking", I just reviewed the literature on the efficacy of masks. Previously, I had reviewed the actual physical science regarding the rate of micro-droplet transmission via different types of masks. The quality of the studies regarding mask wear in the community are uniformly poor and demonstrate no significant advantage to mask wearing in controlling COVID infections. In hospitals, the use of N95 masks, IF WORN CONTINUALLY AND NOT INTERMITTENTLY, i.e., for an entire 8-12 hour shift, are somewhat preventative. Even so, I know many doctors and nurses who wore these scrupulously in the hospital and still got sick. In the actual studies of micro-droplet transmission rates of different types of masks, the studies are compelling. N95 masks prevent over 90% of both incoming and outgoing transmission. All the other types are weak. The blue medical masks that many folks were are, at best, 50% efficient. In the hospital setting, these masks were pretty much worthless. The cloth masks are worse and the "I'm fixin' to rob a train" bandanna masks are laughably inefficient.
It is unfortunate that "masking" has become so politicized. The far left has a fundamentally totalitarian ethos wherein they think that they, the "smart people" should herd the rest of us sheep around. Forced masking is, in their view, a step in the right direction. Almost all public health workers share the view that we are all a herd that needs to be protected from disease- as a herd, not as a collection of individuals. This is not a criticism because, to some degree it is true. However the lefty pols have hijacked this as a way of forcing a sort of herd compliance to a behavior that has actually never been proven to impact this epidemic to any significant degree.
My message: get vaccinated! And, if you are a high risk individual, go to Lowes and buy a box of N95 masks and use them when you shop. $19.95 for a box of 5. You can use one for a total of 12 hours. That's a lot of trips to get groceries, hardware, etc. If you are not high risk...get vaccinated and live your life!
Robert E. Johnson, MD FACS
What type of mask and how do you use it? If COVID is on the surface of your mask, isn’t it also on your face and clothing? Stores did extra cleaning which is always good. People learned to wash their hands better and more frequently. How much of this helped and how much is theater?
“Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:37-39 NIV
"Republican leaders"? There's a contradiction in terms for you. (Or is it an Oxymoron? Considering we're talking Republicans, I'm leaning more towards oxy "moron")
Name calling is what people use, when they have no argument worth listening to.
- Reimaging Police has killed thousands, with lawlessness running wild,
- BLM only cares if a policeman kills a Black person, but could care less if the cities and businesses are burned to the ground, and fostered "resist" which is the primary reason someone gets shot.
- The border is secure lie as over 1.2 million illegal aliens mostly infected with COVID-19 pour into the country and the drug cartels are making Billions human trafficking and smuggling in drugs.
- Implementing a hate white people indoctrination of our children (ie. CRT) using a false historical narrative
- Not counting people who have already had COVID-19 and survived as not "vaccinated" even though they are as immune as a vaccinated person.
As with my reply to Bill Coons below... I have no hope or expectation of cogent thought or leadership among the Dems. Their policies are disastrous to America.
But look at the "leaders" in the Republican party. McConnell? Harry Reid and now Schumer eat his lunch - except when it came to judicial nominations. Erick has long made known his dislike of Kevin McCarthy.
We need more like Ron Desantis, Jim Jordan and Tom Cotton out in front.
The current Repub leadership has a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Seriously Mr. Williamson? How is Biden's, Pelosi's, Chuck-U's, or Ocasio-Cortez's leadership working out? Both traditional parties have poor examples of leadership. Just let me be like the character John Galt desired and left alone to determine what's best for me.
I have higher hopes/expectations of the Republicans. I have no such things shen it comes to the Dems.
I agree with your Gault analogy.
The part you were leaving out here is children. God created us as social beings and our actions affect each other. Schools are about to start in Georgia and we're at the beginning of another steep wave. Louisiana just required masking. They are getting crushed by the Delta variant. I know COVID has generally affected children less, but watch these six short clips (5 minutes total; scroll down to watch the others) from Dr. Mark Kline, Physician-in-Chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans, a 244-bed children's hospital in the heart of the Delta outbreak https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1422303133972242444. In short, he says there is not a single children's ICU bed in all of Louisiana. He also says half of the kids coming in with Delta are now perfectly healthy.
As a parent of five kids who are too young to get vaccinated, I sure would feel better if we were masking in schools. Parents now have to live with lots of stress as we worry about our kids getting sick because people are unvaccinated and leaders don't have the political will to require masks in schools.
Without the various bits of statistics, that is what I have been saying all along. Wear a mask if you want to. Get the shot if you want to. Stop masking kids. Stop lockdowns. And leave those of us who don't want to mask or get the shot, alone. I live in a place where there were no government mask mandates or lockdowns except the school for a time. Many of us never masked. We are fine.
Why is no one talking about what really made the difference, "Social Distancing?"
Seriously, for the unvaccinated there is almost no chance of getting covid if you stay away from other people and infected animals.
If you are an adult dealing with children under 12 on a regular basis, masks, properly worn by the adults, might make sense, particularly when flu season starts up again.