We thought we might be being too rigid so we ate a couple of meals out in a low-COVID area. We both got COVID. Not bad cases, but two months later, we’re still very easily fatigued. Both of us have risk factors for bad COVID outcomes. We’re going to be masking for quite a while, which is annoying but preferable to death.
Um, which one of us was that directed at? Part of your post looks like it might’ve been me, and other parts look like it was him.
Sorry if that was unclear. My intention was to agree with you, and add more color.
And it was done! Numbers and statistics abound! Maybe you weren’t exposed to the right news sources? Did you forget to subscribe to the COVID mailing list for MBAs?
These are the results of a quick Google search from 2020, which means they are way outdated but also exactly what you are saying should have happened. And we didn’t even have large scale studies testing how effective masks were against the virus until what, October, November?
The CDC says a data analysis shows that just a 15 percent increase in mask wearing could prevent the need for lockdowns and help reduce economic losses up to $1 trillion.
ETA: As for the high profile public messaging, there were political considerations for the CDC director. Specifically regarding messaging of masks saving lives. Remember this?
ETA2: You may be interested in the discussion we had here, at the time, and the many cites given.
~Max
I read dailykos on the daily, so I think that’s equivalent to such a list.
You are right, there were stats put out there by the CDC (and I am to that extent wrong–though I did not say that there was nothing). But even in this thread, the cites you kindly provided were not adduced immediately, most like because they weren’t all that familiar to the participants here. I don’t the CDC did a super-great job of communicating this kind of thing, even if they did to some extent.
Overall, from the beginning, I think the communications campaign–propaganda, if you will–could have been a lot more effective.
We’re in QZ, so one must tread lightly.
The CDC was subject to considerable muzzling by the White House. To an unprecedented degree, the CDC messages that did come out were muddled or mitigated in themselves and were heavily undermined by contrary messages coming from other government spokespeople.
Or, because participants here absorbed the underlying message (masks work) and didn’t recall numeric details. I spent quite a lot of time trying to convince people that masks work, and found lots of studies. I tend to prefer studies that say “this is the impact to you and the people you interact with” to projections of “what would be the impact if everyone did this”. Honestly, i know that everyone won’t, so I don’t care that much. And it became clear very quickly that general mask mandates wouldn’t work. That is, too many people would ignore them.
I don’t think the MBA numbers you like are generally persuasive, even when they are accurate.
But yes, i was extremely frustrated with public health messaging. I still am.
I can personally attest to a number of former Trump voters who pivoted to Biden in 2020 specifically because they thought Trump bungled the public messaging on COVID in 2020.
~Max
Wait, why are MBAs a privileged audience? I’m a folklorist. Why isn’t the CDC considering and communicating the ways mask mandates are affecting the performance of oral narrative? Why should financial considerations trump human ones?
I’d flip that around, and suggest that a folklorist might have a better grasp of how to communicate to a broad audience than an MBA.
Well, I didn’t like to say that, but I do think a lot of the public health stuff would go down a lot better if the scientists worked with science-friendly Humanities / Social Science folks before communicating.
You are very much in a minority. Most people cannot make such modifications, either because they rent, or because they can’t afford it.
No modifications needed.
Just turn the fan setting on your HVAC system from “auto” to “on”. And buy a nicer air filter panel to install in the usual spot where the cheap paper ones usually go.
As to the other rooms, buy a portable air filter device. it’s basically a fan and a filter that plugs into the wall and sucks up some room air, supposedly removes some particles and exhausts the supposedly cleaner air into the same room.
Yes, these things cost some money but not much. At least in the USA, Home Depot sells all this stuff for fairly cheap.
This effort sounds like overkill to me personally, but renting versus owning is not an obstacle to making these changes if one is interested in reducing exposure to possible contagion to/from/between residents & house guests.
I live in an apartment that has electric baseboard heat, and no air conditioning. Tens of millions of people are in similar circumstances.
Before my current apartment, I lived in a house with radiant hot water heat, and no air conditioning.
I already had central AC, so yes, the adjustment is that when i have company over, i turn the switch from “auto” to “on”. And last time i bought filters i bought good hepa ones. Just like @LSLGuy said.
Anyone, even a renter with no AC can buy a plug-in air filter.
(I also have hot water baseboard heat, but it’s a separate system from the AC.)
I’m in an old house with baseboard hot water heat and a swamp (evaporative) cooler - not one filter to be had. But if you’re in a house or apartment like that, a Corsi-Rosenthal Box or two (or more!) or a commercially available air purifier is a good option. When people come over, we run these.
My hearing is perfectly fine, but I have a difficult time understanding people when they speak, if they’re wearing a mask. To me, it makes them sound muffled and distorted.
I find the use of these masks to be uncomfortable and unsanitary. I’ll wear them where I am required, but I am not stupid enough to believe that they do any good. But then, I was never stupid enough to fall for the whole #CoroanHoax2020 in the first place. Unlike far too many others, I was smart enough to see, right from the beginning, how a common cold/flu outbreak was being hyperbolized and weaponized for malevolent political purposes, and I was never fooled by any of it.
Very shortly after this whole nonsense began, as we were being told to wear masks, I put a genuine 3M™ N95 mask under my microscope. From the pictures that I took of it, I created this visualization.
This was at a relatively low-power configuration of my microscope. Gaps can clearly be seen going all the way through the mask, about fifty microns wide. (For reference, a micron is a millionth of a meter, 1⁄1000 of a millimeter, 1⁄25400 of an inch.) Even in its most powerful configuration, my microscope is not capable of resolving something as small as a virus. You need something more exotic, such as an electronic microscope, to see something that small.
Anyway, to believe that a mask with 50-micron gaps is any impediment at all to the passage of a 0.05- to 0.2-micron virus is like believing that a standard 2″ chain link fence can stop mosquitoes.
And most of the masks that people are foolishly wearing under the delusion that it protects anyone from any virus, are not N95 masks, not anything even close to being as effective as an N95 would be.
Try doing hard, physical work, while wearing one. Rebreathing too much of your exhaled carbon dioxide, not enough fresh oxygen. Drooling, runny nose, all that sh•• being held against your face.