CDC Recommendations

M Appelquist wrote: Ben: are you an epidemiologist or MD? Certainly you have a general acquaintance with propaganda which we see from your parsing of phrases i.e. “when worn properly”. The question remains: do cloth masks work as worn by the general public, is there a net protective benefit or is that minor benefit superceded by the losses from not just incorrect fitting, wearing, techniques, recycling, false sense of security? Are we taking into account the societal negatives when doing this math? It is math, right? 

You seem spoiling for an argument.  Nothing Ben said suggests propaganda.  Any tool requires proper usage to be effective.  Next time you have an operation, do you want the surgical wearing masks, or not wearing masks?

It’ll be interesting to see the course of transmission in the coming weeks.  Last night I drove from LA, where pretty much everyone wears a mask diligently, to Tulare County, where I saw no one wearing masks.  Incidentally, they are the second highest county in CA for increase in cases. I planned to stop and buy some beer and dinner to go, but just hit a gas pump and kept on driving.

Matt N, I sincerely appreciate you bringing some legitimately sourced information into yet another MP COV-19 dumpster fire.

Do you happen to have a date on what you shared from Jonathan Smith? The link seems to go to his webpage but not to the exact source of the text that was shared.

Edit: Nevermind, I Googled some of the text and found the source https://elemental.medium.com/hold-the-line-17231c48ff17

He wrote that on March 20th. 

Fat Dad,
   I live up here in the 5-Cities.  Tulare, Fresno and the rest of the Central Valley will be in the 100s next week with Fresno reaching 109 for 2 days.  This is where they go when it gets like that over there.  The traffic will be backed up for miles.  The stores will be packed and there will be lines at the gas stations because it will be in the 70s all week here with our cool sea breeze.   It is like that every summer,  but this summer we have the Virus.   Our county  has had 251 cases with only 1 death so far but it looks like our numbers will be looking a bit different in a couple of weeks.
  Roger Brown

CDC acknowledges that all of this is based on a confusing edit to their page that was not based on new science. The media ran with a non-story. 

Advice remains the same - the virus is transmitted most easily from personal contact. You can get it from touching surfaces. It's still a good idea to wash hands frequently, disinfect things that multiple people are touching, and avoid touching your mouth/nose/eyes if you might have touched something contaminated.

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/cdc-admits-confusion-on-website-about-virus-transmission-from-surfaces/417-63b2fd04-5c8b-4770-b1dd-f62106bfd9c6 

M Appelquist wrote:

Maybe propaganda is too strong of a term.  Made for popular consumption? Current position with multitude of contingent phrases? In opposition to established procedures and research due to current global pandemic panic?  Not looking for an arguement, just asked and asking for deeper consideration of validity of asking everyone to wear masks, and the populist mis-understanding to wear masks all times and places (yes, I have read the press releases). I would like to further the discussion concerning not just the large droplets.  I agree that restricting large droplets helps.  The question is how much viral load is still expelled from cotton masks as well as poorly worn surgical masks.  (To note:  If I were to have a surgery I would like the surgeons to have access to the PPE they understand to be most beneficial, most likely not cotton given the research since at least 1918-1920.)  Aerosolization is a normal concern when dealing with viruses. Cotton masks do not protect the wearer or the transmittor. The "large water droplets" are not the only carrier of particles.  Back to my question:  Are the requirements for universal cotton/homemade (none N95) masks detrimental to the intended containment?  And, does this masking of society construct a mood that is more detrimental than the expected benefit?

Yikes didn't see this for a while. 

To be clear I'm not an MD and am basically regurgitating what was told to me by medical professionals I know and aren't on this site. 

No idea where propaganda came into this, just being careful with my words because a lot of people don't know have to wear masks effectively so their breath doesn't just go up either side of their nose (i.e. no fastener around nose).

I doubt you will find anything definitive on MP, hope you find the answer to your question. 

M Appelquist wrote: Ben
Thanks. I’m also not an MD. Propaganda was too strong of a word. I have been a voracious reader for 40 plus years. I tend to look beyond the popular media.
Hope we all share a renewed strength post Covid panic.
M

I thought it was a pandemic not a panic? Talk about propaganda. I’ll take my strength now, thanks.

The Yale guy is just another expert with an opinion.  Anyway from my take on what he said, it sounds as if there is no point in even trying to curb the virus.  The only solution is literally No Contact with anyone.  Which is crazy and not possible.  He's saying you're worse off isolating with your family,-- or perhaps in other words the spread of the virus will not be prevented by social distancing from strangers, because you're going to be spending time with your loved ones and the math works out the same.  

The more I experience this virus the more I realize it's Mother Nature's pure power and it's futile to pretend we have the means to avoid it.   Inevitably it has to happen, we will develop herd immunity and move on.

​oooooooo hindsight is 20/20

michael s wrote: Matt N, I sincerely appreciate you bringing some legitimately sourced information into yet another MP COV-19 dumpster fire.

Do you happen to have a date on what you shared from Jonathan Smith? The link seems to go to his webpage but not to the exact source of the text that was shared.

Edit: Nevermind, I Googled some of the text and found the source https://elemental.medium.com/hold-the-line-17231c48ff17

He wrote that on March 20th. 

I'm not a climber but stumbled onto this discussion while researching Jonathan Smith's Medium article, because I didn't want to share it elsewhere before doing some background checking. I am not disagreeing with what he said, just sharing a few things I found in case someone else finds this thread like I did.

First, in his Medium article (linked above), Smith's first sentence includes a parenthetical that's omitted from several other versions I've seen shared: "an infectious disease epidemiologist (albeit a junior one)" (emphasis mine). That troubled me, so in digging further, I found an April 9 NPR interview clarifying he had just finished his Ph.D and was awaiting the diploma. A WBUR article states, "he begins a faculty position at Yale in the fall".

Again, I don't doubt that what he said has merit, but there's a reason papers by grad students list their faculty advisors as co-authors. He weakly indicates this with "I have also relied on my much smarter infectious disease epidemiologist friends for peer review of this post", but unfortunately and sadly, I can rely on him only as a medical journalist in this case (albeit a highly-qualified one), not an independent source of authority.

(Interestingly, I also had an encounter with friends regarding the edited CDC page mentioned a few posts back when they shared Fox News and New York Post web pages that misinterpreted the CDC's earlier statement regarding surface transmission – which seemed clear enough at the time, suggesting those reporters were poor readers or fell prey to confirmation bias.)

Dan Johnson wrote:

I'm not a climber but stumbled onto this discussion while researching Jonathan Smith's Medium article, because I didn't want to share it elsewhere before doing some background checking. I am not disagreeing with what he said, just sharing a few things I found in case someone else finds this thread like I did.

So, in other words, you're a troll who's visiting various websites for COVID-19 related info, and trying to provide an opinion undercutting a more reliable opinion about COVID-19 concerns.  What other sites do you troll on?  

Russ Keane wrote: The Yale guy is just another expert with an opinion.  

Damn experts. They should keep their thoughts to themselves and let the rest of us wallow in our confident ignorance. 

Russ Keane wrote: The Yale guy is just another expert with an opinion.

Which makes his opinion about 100 times more valuable than yours.