Lucas Lee said:

---

that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

---

That really doesn't take long.

sycasey said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

---

That really doesn't take long.

---

She's more credible than Ford. Which I concede is not saying much.

Lucas Lee said:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

I wear one every time I go out. Now I am going to wear the R95 as well.

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

Nerdy study on masks. Most common non medical masks work.

Discussion and Recommendations
Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use to reduce community transmission: non- medical masks use materials that obstruct droplets of the nec- essary size; people are most infectious in the initial period post-infection, where it is common to have few or no symp- toms (1016); non-medical masks have been effective in reduc- ing transmission of influenza; non-medical masks have been shown to be effective in small trials at blocking transmission of coronavirus; and places and time periods where mask us- age is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.
The available evidence suggests that near-universal adop- tion of non-medical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures could successfully reduce effective-R to below 1.0, thereby stopping community spread. Economic analysis suggests that the impact of mask wearing could be thousands of US dollars saved per person per mask (93).
Interventions to reduce COVID-19 spread should be prior

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v1

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

I wear one every time I go out. Now I am going to wear the R95 as well.

---

If you actually wear an N95 mask in public, you are being dumb.

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Gee, what's different about Asia than here? Is it be intellectually dishonest day here on the Off Topic board? Though who am I kidding. That's every day on this board. But at least sometimes you don't play that game.

I actually have to wear an N95 mask at work. Other people could wear N95 masks there too, but they don't. You know why? Because their job doesn't require them too.

You probably think hospital workers are all wearing N96 masks because they are working in a facility with coronavirus patients. Wrong. They don't. Doctors actually only wear N95 masks in one (and only one) very specific situation.

Anyone that's wearing an N95 mask in public is causing themselves a lot of discomfort for no good reason.

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Of course they haven't. Talking about **** they don't actually know anything about is the biggest thing that happens on this board.

Masks are next to useless if people aren't washing their hands.

It is a safeguard from inadvertently touch your mouth area after contracting it from a surface onto your hand, which is presumably the most likely scenario that you'll get it under current social conditions. But ultimately you need to wash up before removing that mask.

I wear one in order not to rock the boat and to comply with city ordinances that require it to enter businesses, but it's pretty silly.

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

---

That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

---

That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

---

If I were living in Hong Kong, South Korea or China, I would think we would be able to implement sufficient measures to test, trace, and isolate. We don't have the will, the coordination, or temperament to work efficiently and give up our privacy and personal rights. So what is the plan? We are three months into this and we still cannot get our supply chain in order. And as much as I would like to just blame Trump, this is an America problem. Our emphasis on freedom and privacy are great, but it is not effective in containing a pandemic. So, do we allow our economy to implode beyond salvation chasing a unicorn, completely unaware of who we are as a nation? Do you think we would allow our phones to be tracked constantly and, if we happen to be in a place where there was someone who was infected, for our names to be published nationally like they do in South Korea and China? Europe and US are not going to be able to contain this in the same manner Asia has been able to do. You may disagree but nothing about how we have handled this pandemic from top to bottom gives me any comfort that we will. So, what should we be doing while we chase after something that completely goes against how we as a people are constituted in this nation?

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

calbear93 said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

BearGoggles said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Lucas Lee said:

---

Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

---

That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

---

If I were living in Hong Kong, South Korea or China, I would think we would be able to implement sufficient measures to test, trace, and isolate. We don't have the will, the coordination, or temperament to work efficiently and give up our privacy and personal rights. So what is the plan? We are three months into this and we still cannot get our supply chain in order. And as much as I would like to just blame Trump, this is an America problem. Our emphasis on freedom and privacy are great, but it is not effective in containing a pandemic. So, do we allow our economy to implode beyond salvation chasing a unicorn, completely unaware of who we are as a nation? Do you think we would allow our phones to be tracked constantly and, if we happen to be in a place where there was someone who was infected, for our names to be published nationally like they do in South Korea and China? Europe and US are not going to be able to contain this in the same manner Asia has been able to do. You may disagree but nothing about how we have handled this pandemic from top to bottom gives me any comfort that we will. So, what should we be doing while we chase after something that completely goes against how we as a people are constituted in this nation?

---

1. How about if we were living in New Zealand? Or even Germany. The "this isn't communist China" is a red herring.

2. I don't agree that we have an "America problem". I think we have a Trump problem and a bad Republican problem. And I say that to distinguish that there are Republicans very much trying to do the right thing and smart thing. If Trump and Republicans came out saying it was important to wear masks and wore masks themselves instead of trying to egg people on that they have the freedom to not wear masks, we could get enough people wearing masks to make a difference. But instead they have chosen to make a simple safety measure into a political issue.

3. Regarding emphasis on freedom and privacy, New Zealand is not a totalitarian state and they succeeded in having virtually no deaths. Germany has done significantly better than its counterparts in Europe and us.

4. Contact tracing is not all about mobile phones although it is very useful to use mobile phones.

5. We already allow our phones to be tracked constantly for stupid crap like game apps and maps and hundreds of other things. We would never publish names and we don't have to. The app can be designed to work with anonymized data. You turn on the app. If you test positive our tracers ask you to note that in the app. The app then sends an alert to every phone that has spent a certain amount of time near your phone, without knowing who owns the phone. That person is by that means alerted that they have been exposed and can get tested and can separate. Even if it is all voluntary, it may not be as good as China, but it dramatically slows the transmission. It is all about getting R less than 1 as they fight to do in Germany. The privacy concerns on this are ludicrous given that we give more data about ourselves to Amazon or Google or when buying on line goods or shopping at the grocery store with a club card.

6. California is ramping up testing capacity on its own and hiring and training people to do massive contact tracing. Contact tracing is demonstrated to work even in long ago epidemics where we didn't have the technology we have today. It does not have to be designed to pick up every exposed person to be effective.

7. You seem to be under the misconception that I am saying to stubbornly maintain shelter in place until the government achieves these capabilities. I am not. I'm saying the government should have achieved these capabilities but Trump decided it was easier to focus his energy on political messaging than actually doing anything. Out of his mouth was that we would have 60K deaths by August 1. We have 90K two and a half months before that because he couldn't lead and take the measures we needed to stay on course for that 60K number. No, sheltering in place for 6 months was never in the cards and no it isn't a way to fight the disease. I get that the federal government is going to do nothing. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be mad as hell about the fact that we did all this for very little reason.

8. Americans care very much about their freedoms and that can at times be used to manipulate them politically by defining an issue as one of freedom where it is not. Our freedoms were far more impacted in WWII, but our leaders set out why it was necessary and did not jump to make political points by egging on a backlash. The mask issue is literally one of the stupidest issues I have ever heard of. But don't mistake the fact that in our current, horrible political situation, someone will always immorally try to manipulate any situation for political gain for the fact that Americans, with united leadership against a serious crisis could be lead. Could be willing to wear a mask. Could be willing to maintain social distance. Could be willing to turn an app on their phone to help contact tracing. Could be willing to cooperate with health officials. Could be willing to take safety precautions. If you don't have political leaders pointing at those who ask and saying they are denying you your rights to try and win a few approval points. As Trevor Noah pointed out, all it takes for some Americans to ignore a doctor telling them licking the toilet seat is bad for you is for someone to yell that the doctor is trying to take away your right to lick the toilet seat, and they'll lick the toilet seat. Maybe our leaders should have enough courage to try and maintain their leadership without telling people that others are trying to take away their right to lick toilet seats.

I get you giving up. I pretty much have too. But you should be mad about it. A much more intelligent response was available. It is only a unicorn because expecting our politicians to do the right thing in any given situation has become a unicorn. The fact that they couldn't in this moment, with this much on the line demonstrates what a unicorn it has become.

OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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dimitrig said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

---

That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

---

If I were living in Hong Kong, South Korea or China, I would think we would be able to implement sufficient measures to test, trace, and isolate. We don't have the will, the coordination, or temperament to work efficiently and give up our privacy and personal rights. So what is the plan? We are three months into this and we still cannot get our supply chain in order. And as much as I would like to just blame Trump, this is an America problem. Our emphasis on freedom and privacy are great, but it is not effective in containing a pandemic. So, do we allow our economy to implode beyond salvation chasing a unicorn, completely unaware of who we are as a nation? Do you think we would allow our phones to be tracked constantly and, if we happen to be in a place where there was someone who was infected, for our names to be published nationally like they do in South Korea and China? Europe and US are not going to be able to contain this in the same manner Asia has been able to do. You may disagree but nothing about how we have handled this pandemic from top to bottom gives me any comfort that we will. So, what should we be doing while we chase after something that completely goes against how we as a people are constituted in this nation?

---

1. How about if we were living in New Zealand? Or even Germany. The "this isn't communist China" is a red herring.

2. I don't agree that we have an "America problem". I think we have a Trump problem and a bad Republican problem. And I say that to distinguish that there are Republicans very much trying to do the right thing and smart thing. If Trump and Republicans came out saying it was important to wear masks and wore masks themselves instead of trying to egg people on that they have the freedom to not wear masks, we could get enough people wearing masks to make a difference. But instead they have chosen to make a simple safety measure into a political issue.

3. Regarding emphasis on freedom and privacy, New Zealand is not a totalitarian state and they succeeded in having virtually no deaths. Germany has done significantly better than its counterparts in Europe and us.

4. Contact tracing is not all about mobile phones although it is very useful to use mobile phones.

5. We already allow our phones to be tracked constantly for stupid crap like game apps and maps and hundreds of other things. We would never publish names and we don't have to. The app can be designed to work with anonymized data. You turn on the app. If you test positive our tracers ask you to note that in the app. The app then sends an alert to every phone that has spent a certain amount of time near your phone, without knowing who owns the phone. That person is by that means alerted that they have been exposed and can get tested and can separate. Even if it is all voluntary, it may not be as good as China, but it dramatically slows the transmission. It is all about getting R less than 1 as they fight to do in Germany. The privacy concerns on this are ludicrous given that we give more data about ourselves to Amazon or Google or when buying on line goods or shopping at the grocery store with a club card.

6. California is ramping up testing capacity on its own and hiring and training people to do massive contact tracing. Contact tracing is demonstrated to work even in long ago epidemics where we didn't have the technology we have today. It does not have to be designed to pick up every exposed person to be effective.

7. You seem to be under the misconception that I am saying to stubbornly maintain shelter in place until the government achieves these capabilities. I am not. I'm saying the government should have achieved these capabilities but Trump decided it was easier to focus his energy on political messaging than actually doing anything. Out of his mouth was that we would have 60K deaths by August 1. We have 90K two and a half months before that because he couldn't lead and take the measures we needed to stay on course for that 60K number. No, sheltering in place for 6 months was never in the cards and no it isn't a way to fight the disease. I get that the federal government is going to do nothing. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be mad as hell about the fact that we did all this for very little reason.

8. Americans care very much about their freedoms and that can at times be used to manipulate them politically by defining an issue as one of freedom where it is not. Our freedoms were far more impacted in WWII, but our leaders set out why it was necessary and did not jump to make political points by egging on a backlash. The mask issue is literally one of the stupidest issues I have ever heard of. But don't mistake the fact that in our current, horrible political situation, someone will always immorally try to manipulate any situation for political gain for the fact that Americans, with united leadership against a serious crisis could be lead. Could be willing to wear a mask. Could be willing to maintain social distance. Could be willing to turn an app on their phone to help contact tracing. Could be willing to cooperate with health officials. Could be willing to take safety precautions. If you don't have political leaders pointing at those who ask and saying they are denying you your rights to try and win a few approval points. As Trevor Noah pointed out, all it takes for some Americans to ignore a doctor telling them licking the toilet seat is bad for you is for someone to yell that the doctor is trying to take away your right to lick the toilet seat, and they'll lick the toilet seat. Maybe our leaders should have enough courage to try and maintain their leadership without telling people that others are trying to take away their right to lick toilet seats.

I get you giving up. I pretty much have too. But you should be mad about it. A much more intelligent response was available. It is only a unicorn because expecting our politicians to do the right thing in any given situation has become a unicorn. The fact that they couldn't in this moment, with this much on the line demonstrates what a unicorn it has become.

---

I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US. I wish our nation, including our leaders, were different and that we didn't have to engage in so much self inflicted harm. I am saddened that I have to resign myself to the reality that I will most likely get COVID-19 like most others eventually. No point in finger pointing because I think the overreaction from the left in fear tactics and insensitivity to the economic realities probably increased the chances of having this idiot in the White House for another four years. We are who we are, and I had hoped we could put politics aside and come together to overcome this. It is no longer in us. It is not in us on this board, in our states or in our country. So, let's minimize the self-inflicted harm and admit reality. The Asian solution or New Zealand solution is not coming to the US..

calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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dimitrig said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

---

I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

---

So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

---

I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

---

Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

---

Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

---

That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

---

I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

---

You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

---

citing to this message:

Quote:

---

N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

---

It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

---

The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

---

That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

---

If I were living in Hong Kong, South Korea or China, I would think we would be able to implement sufficient measures to test, trace, and isolate. We don't have the will, the coordination, or temperament to work efficiently and give up our privacy and personal rights. So what is the plan? We are three months into this and we still cannot get our supply chain in order. And as much as I would like to just blame Trump, this is an America problem. Our emphasis on freedom and privacy are great, but it is not effective in containing a pandemic. So, do we allow our economy to implode beyond salvation chasing a unicorn, completely unaware of who we are as a nation? Do you think we would allow our phones to be tracked constantly and, if we happen to be in a place where there was someone who was infected, for our names to be published nationally like they do in South Korea and China? Europe and US are not going to be able to contain this in the same manner Asia has been able to do. You may disagree but nothing about how we have handled this pandemic from top to bottom gives me any comfort that we will. So, what should we be doing while we chase after something that completely goes against how we as a people are constituted in this nation?

---

1. How about if we were living in New Zealand? Or even Germany. The "this isn't communist China" is a red herring.

2. I don't agree that we have an "America problem". I think we have a Trump problem and a bad Republican problem. And I say that to distinguish that there are Republicans very much trying to do the right thing and smart thing. If Trump and Republicans came out saying it was important to wear masks and wore masks themselves instead of trying to egg people on that they have the freedom to not wear masks, we could get enough people wearing masks to make a difference. But instead they have chosen to make a simple safety measure into a political issue.

3. Regarding emphasis on freedom and privacy, New Zealand is not a totalitarian state and they succeeded in having virtually no deaths. Germany has done significantly better than its counterparts in Europe and us.

4. Contact tracing is not all about mobile phones although it is very useful to use mobile phones.

5. We already allow our phones to be tracked constantly for stupid crap like game apps and maps and hundreds of other things. We would never publish names and we don't have to. The app can be designed to work with anonymized data. You turn on the app. If you test positive our tracers ask you to note that in the app. The app then sends an alert to every phone that has spent a certain amount of time near your phone, without knowing who owns the phone. That person is by that means alerted that they have been exposed and can get tested and can separate. Even if it is all voluntary, it may not be as good as China, but it dramatically slows the transmission. It is all about getting R less than 1 as they fight to do in Germany. The privacy concerns on this are ludicrous given that we give more data about ourselves to Amazon or Google or when buying on line goods or shopping at the grocery store with a club card.

6. California is ramping up testing capacity on its own and hiring and training people to do massive contact tracing. Contact tracing is demonstrated to work even in long ago epidemics where we didn't have the technology we have today. It does not have to be designed to pick up every exposed person to be effective.

7. You seem to be under the misconception that I am saying to stubbornly maintain shelter in place until the government achieves these capabilities. I am not. I'm saying the government should have achieved these capabilities but Trump decided it was easier to focus his energy on political messaging than actually doing anything. Out of his mouth was that we would have 60K deaths by August 1. We have 90K two and a half months before that because he couldn't lead and take the measures we needed to stay on course for that 60K number. No, sheltering in place for 6 months was never in the cards and no it isn't a way to fight the disease. I get that the federal government is going to do nothing. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be mad as hell about the fact that we did all this for very little reason.

8. Americans care very much about their freedoms and that can at times be used to manipulate them politically by defining an issue as one of freedom where it is not. Our freedoms were far more impacted in WWII, but our leaders set out why it was necessary and did not jump to make political points by egging on a backlash. The mask issue is literally one of the stupidest issues I have ever heard of. But don't mistake the fact that in our current, horrible political situation, someone will always immorally try to manipulate any situation for political gain for the fact that Americans, with united leadership against a serious crisis could be lead. Could be willing to wear a mask. Could be willing to maintain social distance. Could be willing to turn an app on their phone to help contact tracing. Could be willing to cooperate with health officials. Could be willing to take safety precautions. If you don't have political leaders pointing at those who ask and saying they are denying you your rights to try and win a few approval points. As Trevor Noah pointed out, all it takes for some Americans to ignore a doctor telling them licking the toilet seat is bad for you is for someone to yell that the doctor is trying to take away your right to lick the toilet seat, and they'll lick the toilet seat. Maybe our leaders should have enough courage to try and maintain their leadership without telling people that others are trying to take away their right to lick toilet seats.

I get you giving up. I pretty much have too. But you should be mad about it. A much more intelligent response was available. It is only a unicorn because expecting our politicians to do the right thing in any given situation has become a unicorn. The fact that they couldn't in this moment, with this much on the line demonstrates what a unicorn it has become.

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US. I wish our nation, including our leaders, were different and that we didn't have to engage in so much self inflicted harm. I am saddened that I have to resign myself to the reality that I will most likely get COVID-19 like most others eventually. No point in finger pointing because I think the overreaction from the left in fear tactics and insensitivity to the economic realities probably increased the chances of having this idiot in the White House for another four years. We are who we are, and I had hoped we could put politics aside and come together to overcome this. It is no longer in us. It is not in us on this board, in our states or in our country. So, let's minimize the self-inflicted harm and admit reality. The Asian solution or New Zealand solution is not coming to the US..

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I understand where you are coming from but I'm not sure I understand what you are saying on an individual level. If you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are likely to get COVID at some point, does that mean that you are going to resume "normal" behavior as soon as the opportunities become available? EG when restaurants are open, will you go just as often as you did a year ago? How about brick and mortar retail and other similar establishments?

I think we can all acknowledge this has hit non-white collar workers the hardest but I haven't heard very many white collar workers who can WFH say that they are going to go back to normal regardless of the pandemic because the economy needs everyone to do so in order for us to save it. My sense is that until the pandemic has been contained, run its course, or a vaccine is available, people who can afford to avoid COVID spread events will do so, with exceptions where their interests lie. For example, I will send my kids to school if the schools open in the fall, more or less regardless of where we are in the pandemic, but I won't go back to restaurants, bars, brick and mortar retail, concerts, etc. until things are safe. I can get by without those things and they aren't worth risking my family's health for. Having my kids experience school with other children is.

Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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dimitrig said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

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So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

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I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

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You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

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You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

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Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

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Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

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That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

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I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

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You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

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citing to this message:

Quote:

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N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

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It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

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The rationale is now underneath the top line, but it was not even offered as the key reason in February and March. Not only did CDC state that wearing mask is not effective in protecting the general public in late February and early March but that statement was reiterated by the the Surgeon General in a tweet at the end of February. I don't know who approved the inherently and obviously inconsistent statement that (i) masks do not protect the general public and (ii) the same masks are needed for healthcare, but that person was tone deaf, patronizing and was an idiot. All you needed was the second statement without having people think you are crazy for saying something that is not effective is needed for healthcare workers.

It doesn't matter. General public should not be using N95 masks until we are completely able to deliver every PPE healthcare workers need. We also should not think that cloth masks are in any way effective in filtering out the virus from coming into our system. Instead, it works only to the extent that our spit doesn't travel as much as it otherwise would when we speak, cough etc. but it will not reduce the virus in the air from coming into our respiratory system That's why even a small percentage of folks not wearing any masks makes wearing cloth mask not very effective since sufficient virus load will be in the air. We just need to accept that we will most likely get the virus sooner or later. As was explained to me by my doctor friends, the shelter in place was not intended to reduce the actual number of people who will get the virus but was intended to lower the rate of new infection below the hospital capacity at any given time. We are slowing the rate of infection but not the total number of infection over time.

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That may well be the strategy, but it is a stupid one. Many countries have demonstrated that the rate of infection can be diminished to a point that not nearly everyone gets it. Shelter in Place was not designed to do that and it isn't a good strategy to do that, but there are strategies that are demonstrated to work. SIP should have been used not just to delay to maintain hospital capacity, but to delay to enable those strategies to be put in place. Many states are trying to do that. Unfortunately with very little support from the federal government.

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If I were living in Hong Kong, South Korea or China, I would think we would be able to implement sufficient measures to test, trace, and isolate. We don't have the will, the coordination, or temperament to work efficiently and give up our privacy and personal rights. So what is the plan? We are three months into this and we still cannot get our supply chain in order. And as much as I would like to just blame Trump, this is an America problem. Our emphasis on freedom and privacy are great, but it is not effective in containing a pandemic. So, do we allow our economy to implode beyond salvation chasing a unicorn, completely unaware of who we are as a nation? Do you think we would allow our phones to be tracked constantly and, if we happen to be in a place where there was someone who was infected, for our names to be published nationally like they do in South Korea and China? Europe and US are not going to be able to contain this in the same manner Asia has been able to do. You may disagree but nothing about how we have handled this pandemic from top to bottom gives me any comfort that we will. So, what should we be doing while we chase after something that completely goes against how we as a people are constituted in this nation?

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1. How about if we were living in New Zealand? Or even Germany. The "this isn't communist China" is a red herring.

2. I don't agree that we have an "America problem". I think we have a Trump problem and a bad Republican problem. And I say that to distinguish that there are Republicans very much trying to do the right thing and smart thing. If Trump and Republicans came out saying it was important to wear masks and wore masks themselves instead of trying to egg people on that they have the freedom to not wear masks, we could get enough people wearing masks to make a difference. But instead they have chosen to make a simple safety measure into a political issue.

3. Regarding emphasis on freedom and privacy, New Zealand is not a totalitarian state and they succeeded in having virtually no deaths. Germany has done significantly better than its counterparts in Europe and us.

4. Contact tracing is not all about mobile phones although it is very useful to use mobile phones.

5. We already allow our phones to be tracked constantly for stupid crap like game apps and maps and hundreds of other things. We would never publish names and we don't have to. The app can be designed to work with anonymized data. You turn on the app. If you test positive our tracers ask you to note that in the app. The app then sends an alert to every phone that has spent a certain amount of time near your phone, without knowing who owns the phone. That person is by that means alerted that they have been exposed and can get tested and can separate. Even if it is all voluntary, it may not be as good as China, but it dramatically slows the transmission. It is all about getting R less than 1 as they fight to do in Germany. The privacy concerns on this are ludicrous given that we give more data about ourselves to Amazon or Google or when buying on line goods or shopping at the grocery store with a club card.

6. California is ramping up testing capacity on its own and hiring and training people to do massive contact tracing. Contact tracing is demonstrated to work even in long ago epidemics where we didn't have the technology we have today. It does not have to be designed to pick up every exposed person to be effective.

7. You seem to be under the misconception that I am saying to stubbornly maintain shelter in place until the government achieves these capabilities. I am not. I'm saying the government should have achieved these capabilities but Trump decided it was easier to focus his energy on political messaging than actually doing anything. Out of his mouth was that we would have 60K deaths by August 1. We have 90K two and a half months before that because he couldn't lead and take the measures we needed to stay on course for that 60K number. No, sheltering in place for 6 months was never in the cards and no it isn't a way to fight the disease. I get that the federal government is going to do nothing. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be mad as hell about the fact that we did all this for very little reason.

8. Americans care very much about their freedoms and that can at times be used to manipulate them politically by defining an issue as one of freedom where it is not. Our freedoms were far more impacted in WWII, but our leaders set out why it was necessary and did not jump to make political points by egging on a backlash. The mask issue is literally one of the stupidest issues I have ever heard of. But don't mistake the fact that in our current, horrible political situation, someone will always immorally try to manipulate any situation for political gain for the fact that Americans, with united leadership against a serious crisis could be lead. Could be willing to wear a mask. Could be willing to maintain social distance. Could be willing to turn an app on their phone to help contact tracing. Could be willing to cooperate with health officials. Could be willing to take safety precautions. If you don't have political leaders pointing at those who ask and saying they are denying you your rights to try and win a few approval points. As Trevor Noah pointed out, all it takes for some Americans to ignore a doctor telling them licking the toilet seat is bad for you is for someone to yell that the doctor is trying to take away your right to lick the toilet seat, and they'll lick the toilet seat. Maybe our leaders should have enough courage to try and maintain their leadership without telling people that others are trying to take away their right to lick toilet seats.

I get you giving up. I pretty much have too. But you should be mad about it. A much more intelligent response was available. It is only a unicorn because expecting our politicians to do the right thing in any given situation has become a unicorn. The fact that they couldn't in this moment, with this much on the line demonstrates what a unicorn it has become.

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US. I wish our nation, including our leaders, were different and that we didn't have to engage in so much self inflicted harm. I am saddened that I have to resign myself to the reality that I will most likely get COVID-19 like most others eventually. No point in finger pointing because I think the overreaction from the left in fear tactics and insensitivity to the economic realities probably increased the chances of having this idiot in the White House for another four years. We are who we are, and I had hoped we could put politics aside and come together to overcome this. It is no longer in us. It is not in us on this board, in our states or in our country. So, let's minimize the self-inflicted harm and admit reality. The Asian solution or New Zealand solution is not coming to the US..

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I understand where you are coming from but I'm not sure I understand what you are saying on an individual level. If you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are likely to get COVID at some point, does that mean that you are going to resume "normal" behavior as soon as the opportunities become available? EG when restaurants are open, will you go just as often as you did a year ago? How about brick and mortar retail and other similar establishments?

I think we can all acknowledge this has hit non-white collar workers the hardest but I haven't heard very many white collar workers who can WFH say that they are going to go back to normal regardless of the pandemic because the economy needs everyone to do so in order for us to save it. My sense is that until the pandemic has been contained, run its course, or a vaccine is available, people who can afford to avoid COVID spread events will do so, with exceptions where their interests lie. For example, I will send my kids to school if the schools open in the fall, more or less regardless of where we are in the pandemic, but I won't go back to restaurants, bars, brick and mortar retail, concerts, etc. until things are safe. I can get by without those things and they aren't worth risking my family's health for. Having my kids experience school with other children is.

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Short of coming up with an effective vaccine in the near future, any part of the society opening up means that I will most likely get it in time.

You can avoid restaurants, but if the parents of your kids' classmates do visit restaurants and your kids' classmates then end up carrying the virus, you will eventually get it too. There is no way to social distance indoors when the virus is in the air. I am somewhat resigned to the fact that, since we are not going to do this together in a meaningful way with competent leaders and community (I mean, we can't even wear cloth masks to protect each other), let's open up the country and minimize the economic harm to lower income people and the younger generation. We can argue all day long whether the shut down in economy is a result of the fear of the virus or the government order, but, based on how crowded beaches are and how crowded the restaurants and bars are, I would say this is not going to be a happy ending where we can have some semblance of an economy (i.e. not become some third world South American economy) and realistically eliminate the virus without a vaccine.

calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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I understand where you are coming from but I'm not sure I understand what you are saying on an individual level. If you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are likely to get COVID at some point, does that mean that you are going to resume "normal" behavior as soon as the opportunities become available? EG when restaurants are open, will you go just as often as you did a year ago? How about brick and mortar retail and other similar establishments?

I think we can all acknowledge this has hit non-white collar workers the hardest but I haven't heard very many white collar workers who can WFH say that they are going to go back to normal regardless of the pandemic because the economy needs everyone to do so in order for us to save it. My sense is that until the pandemic has been contained, run its course, or a vaccine is available, people who can afford to avoid COVID spread events will do so, with exceptions where their interests lie. For example, I will send my kids to school if the schools open in the fall, more or less regardless of where we are in the pandemic, but I won't go back to restaurants, bars, brick and mortar retail, concerts, etc. until things are safe. I can get by without those things and they aren't worth risking my family's health for. Having my kids experience school with other children is.

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Short of coming up with an effective vaccine in the near future, any part of the society opening up means that I will most likely get it in time.

You can avoid restaurants, but if the parents of your kids' classmates do visit restaurants and your kids' classmates then end up carrying the virus, you will eventually get it too. There is no way to social distance indoors when the virus is in the air. I am somewhat resigned to the fact that, since we are not going to do this together in a meaningful way with competent leaders and community (I mean, we can't even wear cloth masks to protect each other), let's open up the country and minimize the economic harm to lower income people and the younger generation. We can argue all day long whether the shut down in economy is a result of the fear of the virus or the government order, but, based on how crowded beaches are and how crowded the restaurants and bars are, I would say this is not going to be a happy ending where we can have some semblance of an economy (i.e. not become some third world South American economy) and realistically eliminate the virus without a vaccine.

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I understand that but I'm asking you personally if you are going to go back to business as usual or not.

I too am resigned to the fact that we are going to let COVID take the wheel, to mix metaphors, but that doesn't mean that I don't have tough decisions to make as to what risks I am willing to take on. There are a lot of people that I care about who have co-morbidities so even though I think my chances of a bad outcome are low, their chances are far too high to unnecessarily expose them. This will have a big impact on what risks I take. As noted above, giving my elementary school age children an in-person education is the biggest conflict I have, and given how low the risk appears to be for them, it's one I will be willing to take as soon as it is permitted.

Perhaps we should start a new thread to discuss how soon people will get back to various ordinary life activities following the end of SIP orders.

Unit2Sucks said:

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Perhaps we should start a new thread to discuss how soon people will get back to various ordinary life activities following the end of SIP orders.

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My brother lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. They opened their restaurants last week. He went out three times. He is early 40s and his girlfriend is even younger. He has no underlying conditions. He told me he doesn't care if he gets sick. I told him that is fine as long as he doesn't visit our parents.

Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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I understand where you are coming from but I'm not sure I understand what you are saying on an individual level. If you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are likely to get COVID at some point, does that mean that you are going to resume "normal" behavior as soon as the opportunities become available? EG when restaurants are open, will you go just as often as you did a year ago? How about brick and mortar retail and other similar establishments?

I think we can all acknowledge this has hit non-white collar workers the hardest but I haven't heard very many white collar workers who can WFH say that they are going to go back to normal regardless of the pandemic because the economy needs everyone to do so in order for us to save it. My sense is that until the pandemic has been contained, run its course, or a vaccine is available, people who can afford to avoid COVID spread events will do so, with exceptions where their interests lie. For example, I will send my kids to school if the schools open in the fall, more or less regardless of where we are in the pandemic, but I won't go back to restaurants, bars, brick and mortar retail, concerts, etc. until things are safe. I can get by without those things and they aren't worth risking my family's health for. Having my kids experience school with other children is.

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Short of coming up with an effective vaccine in the near future, any part of the society opening up means that I will most likely get it in time.

You can avoid restaurants, but if the parents of your kids' classmates do visit restaurants and your kids' classmates then end up carrying the virus, you will eventually get it too. There is no way to social distance indoors when the virus is in the air. I am somewhat resigned to the fact that, since we are not going to do this together in a meaningful way with competent leaders and community (I mean, we can't even wear cloth masks to protect each other), let's open up the country and minimize the economic harm to lower income people and the younger generation. We can argue all day long whether the shut down in economy is a result of the fear of the virus or the government order, but, based on how crowded beaches are and how crowded the restaurants and bars are, I would say this is not going to be a happy ending where we can have some semblance of an economy (i.e. not become some third world South American economy) and realistically eliminate the virus without a vaccine.

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I understand that but I'm asking you personally if you are going to go back to business as usual or not.

I too am resigned to the fact that we are going to let COVID take the wheel, to mix metaphors, but that doesn't mean that I don't have tough decisions to make as to what risks I am willing to take on. There are a lot of people that I care about who have co-morbidities so even though I think my chances of a bad outcome are low, their chances are far too high to unnecessarily expose them. This will have a big impact on what risks I take. As noted above, giving my elementary school age children an in-person education is the biggest conflict I have, and given how low the risk appears to be for them, it's one I will be willing to take as soon as it is permitted.

Perhaps we should start a new thread to discuss how soon people will get back to various ordinary life activities following the end of SIP orders.

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I honestly don't know. I suppose it will be gradual. But what I do will be based on false sense of control than reality. Because, while not going to restaurants but sending my kids to school where they will be indoors for three or more hours may reduce slightly my odds of getting COVID-19, but the odds will eventually catch up to me. I suppose I would go to get my haircut or visit my favorite restaurants, but avoid live theater and concerts for awhile.

calbear93 said:

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US.

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kia ora '93..

new zealand is huuugely dependent on tourists, native citizen numbers just under 5 million compared to..

> A record 3.82 million visitors stepped onto New Zealand shores in the March 2018 year, Stats NZ said today. New Zealand has seen an increasing number of overseas visitors for the last five years, from 2.61 million in the March 2013 year. For the five years before 2013, there were around 2.5 million visitors a year.

their success is all about determination and effective leadership by ms prime minister Jacinda, instead of self-serving 'tards. of course living on islands helps bunches too.

signed, m"i"lford tracker 1983 and 2019

smh said:

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calbear93 said:

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US.

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kia ora '93..

new zealand is huuugely dependent on tourists, native citizen numbers just under 5 million compared to..

> A record 3.82 million visitors stepped onto New Zealand shores in the March 2018 year, Stats NZ said today. New Zealand has seen an increasing number of overseas visitors for the last five years, from 2.61 million in the March 2013 year. For the five years before 2013, there were around 2.5 million visitors a year.

their success is all about determination and effective leadership by ms prime minister Jacinda, instead of self-serving 'tards. of course living on islands helps bunches too.

signed, m"i"lford tracker 1983 and 2019

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OK, maybe you are right about New Zealand. Do you think, in our current situation, we will replicate this success here?

calbear93 said:

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smh said:

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calbear93 said:

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US.

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kia ora '93..

new zealand is huuugely dependent on tourists, native citizen numbers just under 5 million compared to..

> A record 3.82 million visitors stepped onto New Zealand shores in the March 2018 year, Stats NZ said today. New Zealand has seen an increasing number of overseas visitors for the last five years, from 2.61 million in the March 2013 year. For the five years before 2013, there were around 2.5 million visitors a year.

their success is all about determination and effective leadership by ms prime minister Jacinda, instead of self-serving 'tards. of course living on islands helps bunches too.

signed, m"i"lford trackers in 1983 and 2019

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OK, maybe you are right about New Zealand. Do you think, in our current situation, we will replicate this success here?

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replicate? naw, that ship has sailed. Curse God And Die.. not neither

singalong time, lets "win the game or know the reason why".

smh said:

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calbear93 said:

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smh said:

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calbear93 said:

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I don't think you and I disagree, other than that maybe I would point out how spread out New Zealand is and how limited number of visitors go to New Zealand relative to US.

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kia ora '93..

new zealand is huuugely dependent on tourists, native citizen numbers just under 5 million compared to..

> A record 3.82 million visitors stepped onto New Zealand shores in the March 2018 year, Stats NZ said today. New Zealand has seen an increasing number of overseas visitors for the last five years, from 2.61 million in the March 2013 year. For the five years before 2013, there were around 2.5 million visitors a year.

their success is all about determination and effective leadership by ms prime minister Jacinda, instead of self-serving 'tards. of course living on islands helps bunches too.

signed, m"i"lford trackers in 1983 and 2019

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OK, maybe you are right about New Zealand. Do you think, in our current situation, we will replicate this success here?

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replicate? naw, that ship has sailed. Curse God And Die.. not neither

singalong time, lets "win the game or know the reason why".

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Well at least let me get a haircut before I die.

> Well at least let me get a haircut before I die.

sure thing, my friend, and take your time.

yeah-yeah, a cybears rerun, but timely as all get out, again..

OaktownBear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

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Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

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Gonna nip this stupid conversation right in the bud.
https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1794572O/surgical-n95-vs-standard-n95-which-to-consider.pdf

OaktownBear said:

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calbear93 said:

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OaktownBear said:

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BearGoggles said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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dimitrig said:

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Lucas Lee said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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I think the bay area has done pretty well but it feels like discipline is waning. I was in golden gate park today and it was pretty darn crowded. I've heard similar stories from others and my understanding is that traffic is back as well. At this point I'm really hoping that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors and that people hanging out at parks in close proximity is a good way to socialize safely.

The US overall basically had maybe one shot to win and we're choosing to forfeit. It's weird to me that we've had one of the worst outbreaks in the world and that we've decided that our response is more than we can handle. Less than 3 months ago our president said we would soon have zero cases. He regularly told us we would have perhaps 60,000 deaths, that keeping us under 100k deaths was a huge sign of success for his response and that without his strong response we would have had at least a million more deaths, and possibly many million more. We are now likely well over 100k deaths (when you factor in deaths that haven't yet been properly attributed) and being told that it's both not a deadly enough disease to bother preventing and that the response has been unprecedented and amazing. We still can't easily buy hand sanitizer or N95 masks and hospitals are still scrambling to outbid each other for PPE. That's what American exceptionalism looks like in 2020.

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So what if the park was crowded? Good. People should be in nature.

And you don't want to buy an N95 mask. You have no reason to want, nor need an N95 mask. And the fact that you want one just goes to show how thoroughly uneducated you are on this topic.

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I found a R95 mask in my workshop this weekend. That is on top of the two N95s that I already had. Somewhere I *still* have a much nicer respirator but I can't find it - not that I looked very hard. You can bet I will be wearing that R95.

I typically wear them underneath another mask both to keep as many particles off the respirator as I can and so that I can wash the outer one.

N95 masks are (usually) cheap, disposable masks. Now all of a sudden they are being made out to be the holy grail of PPE. There is nothing wrong with wanting a N95 mask and we should be able to obtain as many as we want. If I'm going to wear a mask I want to wear one that actually protects me instead of a placebo.

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You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

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You do realize the advice is based on there being a shortage of N-95 masks and the desire to save any supply for medical personnel. It is not advice that they are unnecessary or ineffective for personal use if there was an ample supply as there is in Asia where people wear them frequently

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Separate point - have you ever worn an N-95 mask? Talk about uncomfortable . . .

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Yes, I have. Yes it is uncomfortable until you get used to it. Your willingness to go through that break in period probably depends on how seriously you take the risk of not wearing one.

It is funny how a couple of morons on here (not you) read a little information on the internet, totally misinterpret it, and then pretend they have real world experience that others don't have and everyone who disagrees with them are morons. When we had the wild fires, many people purchased n-95 masks and wore them. Masks were handed out in many locations. It was clearly established that they work to provide individual protection. The difference is you literally can't get one now.

The request that people not get masks during Covid always has been one of supply. We need the masks for medical personnel because we don't have enough for them. It was always about a better use for the masks in time of limited supply being to put them on the sick and those treating the sick. That does not mean that if supply were plentiful it would not make sense for individuals to wear them as it has been proven in past epidemics and in this one in countries that had a reasonable supply.

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That may have always been the rationale, but that was not the message. After having WHO failed miserably by stating that COVID-19 could not be transferred from person to person despite what was obvious to everyone, CDC telling folks that wearing a mask won't protect people (despite what was obvious to everyone who observed the epidemic in Asia and Middle East previously) was a grave mistake that destroyed their credibility. All they had to say was that we have a shortage of PPE that need to be prioritized for health care workers who have no option of social distancing, and Americans would have understood. However, when we cannot trust those who we would otherwise look to for guidance, facts and misinformation will be bled together where we stop acting based on facts and reality.

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I think that much of the messaging has been poor. The key in these situations is telling the truth so people trust everything you say. Not trying to use the most ridiculous models to scare people. Not spinning the message to get people to modify their behavior because you are afraid that emphasizing the unvarnished truth will lead to bad behavior. I agree that the top line message from the CDC implied it wouldn't protect people, and that was a mistake, but the rationale was always underneath the top line. And I'm sorry, but people don't always read as much as they need to. In this thread:

Quote:

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You have clearly never worn an N95 mask. I have. Nobody should want one. They are only appropriate for doctors treating very infectious patients or people working in meat plants.

Took 3 ******* seconds to look this up, but that's precious time sycasey needs to look up more stuff to try to debunk Tara Reade's claims.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-and-surgical-masks-face-masks#s1

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citing to this message:

Quote:

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N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

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It's two sentences. The first sentence is the recommendation. The second is the rationale. Maybe he should have taken 5 ******* seconds to read what he was citing.

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You have never worn a medical grade N95 mask. You literally don't know what you're talking about. You're the idiot here. Sorry to have to tell you that cause you're normally the rational one here, but you're just being an idiot right now.

Oops

Well well well. Looks like hanky1 was right again

hanky1 said:

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Oops

Well well well. Looks like hanky1 was right again

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On the other hand, a pundit named Big C, who successfully completed three undergraduate courses in Psychology at the number one public university in the world, opined that a significant percentage of the suicide attempts might be due to people frustrated with reading hanky1's silly posts about this subject on Bear Insider.

Boy, if the youth of our country had to mobilize for a world war like The Greatest Generation did, exactly how f@ucked would our country be.

Big C said:

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hanky1 said:

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Oops

Well well well. Looks like hanky1 was right again

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On the other hand, a pundit named Big C, who successfully completed three undergraduate courses in Psychology at the number one public university in the world, opined that a significant percentage of the suicide attempts might be due to people frustrated with reading hanky1's silly posts about this subject on Bear Insider.

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Lol. I'm sorry. I can't help myself.

You want me to stop? Tell Garcrappi to end the madness.

hanky1 said:

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Big C said:

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hanky1 said:

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Oops

Well well well. Looks like hanky1 was right again

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On the other hand, a pundit named Big C, who successfully completed three undergraduate courses in Psychology at the number one public university in the world, opined that a significant percentage of the suicide attempts might be due to people frustrated with reading hanky1's silly posts about this subject on Bear Insider.

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Lol. I'm sorry. I can't help myself.

You want me to stop? Tell Garcrappi to end the madness.

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No, don't stop, you're actually one of my favorite BI posters. Maybe taking this subject a bit to far, but WTH.