outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I can count on one hand the number of times I've politely asked someone to stop being a jag in public and not gotten some unsubtle variation of "FUCK YOU!" as a response. I used to think they were just really self-centered but now I kinda realize they're authoritarians and just having their guys running the country isn't enough; they are miserable if they can't impose their will on others. The pandemic, for them, is an opportunity to constantly do this with weaponized breathing.

Curious about what happens if you fold that in quarters vertically and bring the two sides together.

xp wait are you talking about the people with or the people without masks?

Xpost what, me worry?

people without masks! people who are wearing masks seem to understand the distinction between "this is the right thing to do" and "this is what I want to do" whereas for the mask-refusers, those statements seem to be indistinguishable, and there's nothing really but a hierarchy of force

Are you guys mad at people just going for a walk without a mask or just those people going indoors?

If you're walking on your own and being mindful of others I don't think a mask is strictly necessary the entire time you're outside, but I don't know how many times while driving yesterday I saw clusters of unmasked people truckin' down the sidewalk and forcing everyone else to stay out of their way. That shit's egregious imo.

xp the latter, but the former is also pretty dumb imo given what we currently know about aerosolized droplet spread

I wouldn't say anything outdoors, but I'd move as far away from them as possible

OL otm

ORCHESTRA STRANDED
GERMAN CASTLE HAUNTED
WOLVES
CORONAVIRUS
BOLIVA
PANDEMIC
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Fantastic noise lineup

a mask doesn't completely prevent air from getting through, unperson

ORCHESTRA STRANDED
GERMAN CASTLE HAUNTED
WOLVES
CORONAVIRUS
BOLIVA
PANDEMIC
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Fantastic noise lineup

― Master of Treacle, Tuesday, May 26, 2020 12:47 PM (one minute ago)

a mask doesn't completely prevent air from getting through, unperson

I am aware of this because I wear a mask every time I leave my apartment and I have not yet asphyxiated, but thanks for piping up again.

Cool it, Phil.

I am excited for covfefe powered American made tesla 5G to ingnite the great awakening.

RIP to the 'real name when shit gets heated' thread

Drove through Navajo rez today. Couple billboards about covid, one instructional on how to avoid catching and transmitting. Nearly everyone at the Walmart I stopped at to use bathroom was wearing masks.
In Escalante Utah now. County has had 3 cases total. Yet they still have more measures in place than AZ: employees anywhere wearing masks, enforcing 6 ft rule in bars and restaurants, etc. Bartender says memorial day weekend was busiest he's ever seen. Hopefully those tourists didn't bring cooties.

That Deep Spate mapping project needs photoshopping into the Charlie Day meme

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/japan-to-subsidise-visitors-holidays-in-effort-to-revive-tourism-shop-restaurant-discounts-coronavirus

These magic money tree seeds get everywhere! Probably not hitching a ride on cargo flights right now though.

Tourism to Japan used to be heavily subsidized back in the late 90s/early 00s, up until the rise of the internet and mobile technology. I remember one non-work trip I had where I got a unlimited rail pass and a 2000 mile (3000km) round trip domestic flight (upgraded!) added to my JAL flight for ~$200.

lol

Wow. The chief medical officer does not believe in their vaccine. Moderna never released data because it was just boosting its stock. https://t.co/agin67iV52

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) May 27, 2020

heh, according to those vanity fair "increasingly isolated" series of articles, trump has been telling everybody that the Moderna vaccine will be ready in a matter of months and everyone thinks he is very dumb

Warning: Link goes to Reddit

Basically, the numbers of deaths attributed to pneumonia in many states are 3-5x the average annual number. For example, according to the CDC, Florida has had 1,762 deaths from #COVID and 5,185 from pneumonia so far in 2020. Except the average number of pneumonia deaths in Florida from 2013-2018 is...918.

Just in case you get a variant of this thing in your facebook feed, it's bogus.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-mask-efficacy-chart/

thanks

The efficacy of face masks against the spread of COVID-19 is unknown.

hmm is this really true?

i think by that they mean the _precise_ efficacy (e.g., 10% effective 90% of the time, or whatever) is unknown

and it probably always will be, because there's like a million different variables and not too many people are signing up for the "stand in an enclosed room for 45 minutes with someone with coronavirus who isn't wearing a mask" study

but i don't know, it seems like common sense to me.

and also, the precise amount of rain that's going to fall tomorrow in chicago is unknown. but i know clouds will be rolling in and that i better plan my anniversary activities in the morning, not in the afternoon. i don't know with perfect precision, but i am still able to come to an informed decision using the information i have.

Totally, just if people think that there is a 70% chance (while wearing a mask!) they will get COVID from any unmasked infected people they come across, it may drive them to be more hostile toward the unmasked.

yeah, that's probably true. i have absolutely no sympathy for that kind of thinking, though. learning more about the precise efficacy of wearing a mask may drive them to worse behavior, it may be true. but ime people who are being hostile toward mask-wearers have a whole bunch of factors influencing their decision-making, and the actual efficacy of the mask is, counterintuitively, extremely low on the list

like, i just instantly flashback to some internet derp from the early 2010s commenting "global warming is a hoax. they can't predict the weather tomorrow, you're telling me they can predict the weather in 50 years? get outta here". no amount of more precise information is going to fix their problem. they start with what they want - to not change anything or be inconvenienced in any way - than work their way backward to try to throw doubt on anything that suggests otherwise. you can address the mask efficacy question, scientifically, but by the time you do they'll be on to the next dumb thing

Not to invite a roasting but I was worried about hostility toward the unmasked.

oh, whoops! i misread your post to say "hostility toward the masked", my bad

Both are bad!

The efficacy of face masks against the spread of COVID-19 is unknown.

hmm is this really true?

― sleeve, Wednesday, May 27, 2020 3:18 PM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

empirically, the truth is we don’t know exactly and will probably never know. I can be as dogmatic as anyone about the importance of randomized trials when it comes to medications I prescribe, but up till now it has been more or less impossible to design a study on mask-wearing that will really answer the question we want to know, which is whether wearing masks reduces risk of transmission of [viral illness of interest]. I read the major trials a few weeks ago because, like you and karl, I was frustrated by the obstinacy of people whose opinions I respect when it comes to medical evidence who insisted that mask-wearing not be compelled in the absence of convincing evidence in its favor. the trials are mostly small, and the patients in the mask-wearing arms rarely actually wore the masks; not surprisingly, it has been difficult to show statistically a clear effect. this also gets at the deeper issue of what question randomized trials actually test, which even many doctors have difficulty grasping: these studies attempted to probe the effects of recommending mask-wearing; it is much more challenging to study the effects of actually wearing a mask. it is evident that, in more normal times, the benefits of recommending that people with the flu or another viral illness wear masks to protect family members (or vice versa) are likely marginal. what is worth debating is whether those data are necessarily generalizable to our current setting, when the topic of infectious disease and its spread is almost unavoidable, and the number of people who potentially stand to benefit is much greater. common sense, and basic knowledge of droplet kinetics, dictate that wearing masks most likely provides a small benefit that, considered at the scale of all of american society, probably translates to many lives saved.

the benefits of recommending that people with the flu or another viral illness wear masks to protect family members (or vice versa) are likely marginal.

Medical lab tech Katie Corley coughed on two petri dishes, one while wearing a mask, and one without a mask. (From her public FB post.) pic.twitter.com/Ez65r2lE2r

— Sophie Rapp (@SophieSRapp) May 25, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EY0zg0XU0AAn5RJ?format=jpg&name=small

Yes but please let's keep obsessing about whether an imperfectly worn mask is better than nothing, thxbye

so that's confirmed then?

bacteria and viruses are different things

yes, and she addressed this, because she is a medical tech

1. I used a cloth mask I made myself with disposable lab coat material.
2. I used blood agar.
3. The plate on the right looks "old" or "stale" because of the growth. Some of the organisms on this plate are alpha hemolytic, meaning they partially hemolyze blood. The agar itself is made with 5% sheep's blood, so when it's partially hemolyzed, it turns a dark green color.
4. As for the growth, it's mostly viridans strep, staph species (not staph aureus), neisseria species, and corynebacterium. Pretty normal oral flora.
5. I realize that viruses are 1,000 times smaller than bacteria. The point of the masks is to prevent droplet spread, which carry bacteria as well as viruses.

basic knowledge of droplet kinetics, dictate that wearing masks most likely provides a small benefit that, considered at the scale of all of american society, probably translates to many lives saved.

― k3vin k.

now we're talking, thank you sir

link from another M.D. friend:

After evidence revealed that airborne transmission by asymptomatic individuals might be a key driver in the global spread of COVID-19, the WHO recommended universal use of face masks. Masks provide a critical barrier, reducing the number of infectious viruses in exhaled breath, especially of asymptomatic people and those with mild symptoms (12) (see the figure). Surgical mask material reduces the likelihood and severity of COVID-19 by substantially reducing airborne viral concentrations (13). Masks also protect uninfected individuals from SARS-CoV-2 aerosols (12, 13). Thus, it is particularly important to wear masks in locations with conditions that can accumulate high concentrations of viruses, such as health care settings, airplanes, restaurants, and other crowded places with reduced ventilation. The aerosol filtering efficiency of different materials, thicknesses, and layers used in properly fitted homemade masks was recently found to be similar to that of the medical masks that were tested (14). Thus, the option of universal masking is no longer held back by shortages.[...]

Aerosol transmission of viruses must be acknowledged as a key factor leading to the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. Evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is silently spreading in aerosols exhaled by highly contagious infected individuals with no symptoms. Owing to their smaller size, aerosols may lead to higher severity of COVID-19 because virus-containing aerosols penetrate more deeply into the lungs (10). It is essential that control measures be introduced to reduce aerosol transmission.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/27/science.abc6197

i did not realise that the federal govt spent 10s of millions to help develop remdesivir:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/26/remdesivir-coronavirus-taxpayers/

sigh

More than 100 scientists and clinicians have questioned the authenticity of a massive hospital database that was the basis for an influential paper published last week that suggested the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat people with Covid-19 did not help and may have increased the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and death.

In an open letter addressed to The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, and the paper’s authors, they asked the journal to provide details about the provenance of the data and called for the study to be independently validated by the World Health Organization or another institution.

To paraphrase Didier Raoult, the French doctor who started it all, ‘I dare you, run a poll between me and Véran [France’s minister of health], we’ll see who comes out on top’.

the sad thing about this controversy is it's all centering around a paper that, due to the limits of its design, should not change our view of whether HCQ/CQ works one way or another

Senator Bob Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, announced he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies after experiencing mild symptoms. He’s the third senator known to have a confirmed case.

xpost seriously - even if the study was flawed, there isn't a (non-discredited) study which shows that it IS.

and my friend who takes a maintenance prescription for HCQ actually had his latest RX reduced to 30 pills instead of 90 as his carrier cited there was a shortage in availability, presumably due to the extra people taking it for COVID-19.

same, i have a friend with lupus who takes it

If the one human trial is a good indicator, the efficacy of remdesivir against COVID-19 is very modest. According to that WaPo article, the 'break even' cost for the patent-holding company could be around $1/dose. The eventual price should reflect those two factors... but will it?