News: MLS Suspends season due to Coronavirus

Yes, we have safer cars and airplanes because customers value their safety and that of their loved ones. That has incidental benefit for others.

 

It's perfectly fine to quarantine infected covid cases and those who have been in close contact with them. But mass quarantines of uninfected persons as we had earlier with the shutdowns is bad policy.

 

Canada and the EU haven't required mask wearing and it wasn't a widespread custom. They have largely gotten through the pandemic. While I don't believe wearing a mask hurts the wearer as some experts claimed early on, there isn't much evidence of public benefit from it, short of N95 standards.

 

One problem with this data is that European countries are essentially similar to individual US states. So if you break the US into 50 states, the picture looks much different.

 

Except its the pretty standard response to a pandemic, going back in history, because it works. And that's the responsible part of "being part of society". Sorry that you couldn't go get your haircut and wear a damn mask when you go out.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf

tl;dr: The paper suggests that if 80% of people wore masks we could end this pandemic.

 

Point taken, but that's one reason I selected 8 mostly adjacent countries. (That and I didn't have time to look at more). Comparisons within the EU as a whole give similar results.

 

Parts of the EU have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_masks_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic?wprov=sfla1

 

Yes, you can blame the average joe if they relying on fringe/extreme news sources. Because most "major" media are legitimate. The major newspapers and news sites, your local news, and for the most part local news papers, follow legitimate journalistic standards. You don't have to agree with their editorials or editorial decisions, but you don't have to fact check them on Brietbart or Newsmax.

 

If by "bad policy" you mean an effective method of containing a highly contagious pandemic and saving lives, then sure, mass quarantines of uninfected persons is bad policy...

 

Because their governments aren't a shitshow that hasn't done a thing to contain the pandemic and they have infections largely under control. They have extensive contact tracing programs that are able to identify and isolate hot spots and, in many cases, they are still closed down, or had their infections largely under control before they re-opened. For the most part, the US has done absolutely none of that. Long story short, they don't require masks because they don't need to in order to keep the pandemic under control in their countries.

There is significant evidence of the public benefit of wearing masks. As an example, let's take a look at Japan. The only real difference between Japan's response and the US's response is that their populace wears masks. Japan's government hasn't shutdown their businesses, their public transit systems are still running, there haven't been any stay-at-home measures, and they don't really have a contact tracing program. Despite all of that, their infection numbers and deaths are virtually non-existent in comparison to the US's.

 

Just to be clear here. The negative impacts that you mentioned (People touching their faces more often, it doesn't protect the wearer, etc) are very much true. However, the benefits of wearing a mask greatly outweighs those negative impacts.

 

If those are the negative impacts he means. There's also the completely debunked talk about how wearing a mask weakens your immune system leads to CO2 poisoning, etc. which were never legitimate.

 

Yeah, someone needs to tell healthcare workers who wear masks everyday about that one.

 

Parties — Not Protests — Are Causing Spikes In Coronavirus

Also notes that since younger people end to have less severe symptoms, they're more likely to spread the disease by continuing to go to work, go out socially, visiting family. But, hey, that's not their responsibility, amirite?

 

Yes. I initially thought he was talking about the stuff in your second sentence, but he clarified it was the initial issues (like excess touching the face, wearing it wrong, and not protecting the wearer) they identified when they first told people to not wear masks.

 

Uh, you do realize it's yet another model of the course of the virus, comparing 2 scenarios? If there's anything we've learned for sure during this virus, it's that the models aren't very good.

Yes, some have but even those are mostly for public transport or grocery stores. If someone wants to walk down the street to a public park to sit and admire the statuary or fountain, in most places in the EU there is no requirement to be masked.

Uninfected persons by definition don't present a threat to public health. Quarantining them along with infected persons is bad policy. The shutdowns have negative health consequences which may well be worse than those from covid.

Ok, compare to Denmark or Norway where masking wearing is not required and uncommon. They also had low infection and death rates.

 

As soon as you can provide a way to quickly and cheaply show who is uninfected on a regular basis I'll be happy to agree that a lockdown is unnecessary. Considering that wasn't possible for the last 3 months, and arguably still isn't, and people can spread the virus before they know they're infected the best and most sensible option is a lockdown.

 

Early models were not good. They have, however, improved quite a bit over the past few months as new data came in. They certainly aren't perfect, but you can't judge the current models based on the failures of the old models.

And there in is the problem with this pandemic, most of the infections are people who do not know that they are infected, but those people are still infectious. This isn't like ebola or previous SARS epidemics where a person is only infectious after they have started showing symptoms and, as a result, can be easily identified and isolated.

This is just re-open propaganda and little more than a scare tactic.

Because Denmark and Norway have robust contact tracing programs. As a result, they do not need to require their residents to wear a mask. The US, on the other hand, does not have a robust contact tracing program. Seriously, read what I post.

 

This is false.

https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-effective-in-protecting-against-coronavirus-2020-6

 

I meant hospitalizations and deaths... Unfortunately seems like hospitalizations are already happening, so deaths are on the way :-(

 

There’s a difference between fatalism and wanting mass death...

 

Ya...we already dealt with this act (still do) on the crew boards..

 

Well, that's the point. Lots of public health experts think the lives cost by the shutdowns will outnumber those saved. The great recession of 2008-2010 killed about 500K people in the US in various ways. Covid is at about a quarter of that so far and unlikely to get to 500K unless we don't find an effective vaccine.

The shutdowns delayed a lot of regular health care (cancer screenings, etc) and caused mass unemployment which has its own associated bad health outcomes (depression, suicide, domestic violence, hypertension, diabetes, and others).