Following up on John’s post immediately below, I want to look at masks and the success we’ve had in New York.
First, Josh Marshall highlights this story about the hair stylists who tested positive in Missouri, possibly exposing 140 clients and 6 co-workers. Everyone wore masks, and nobody was infected, as far as they know. Anecdotal but interesting.
This study of German transmission rates estimates that universal masking reduces the spread of COVID by up to 40%. It uses a synthetic control which means that the devil is in the details of how they constructed that control. If you want German anecdata, the city of Jena, which masked up early with Germanic levels of compliance, appears to have stopped the virus by doing so (along with locking down, of course).
Looking at our new New York State positive test tracker, which documents the 50,000 tests we do per day (more, per capita, than any other state and probably any other country), I don’t see a big bump in positive cases from the protesters, who are all eligible for a test. It’s probably too soon to conclude anything from that, but so far so good. We also didn’t get a Memorial Day bump, unlike a lot of other states. That’s probably because our population generally wears masks and distances — certainly the peaceful protests had almost universal masking, and they were outdoors, and outdoor activity seems to be significantly lower risk.
Masking is not a panacea but universal masking, plus distancing, plus handwashing, plus limited indoor activity, plus test, track and isolate seems to be working in New York State, so far. We’re also reopening very carefully and watching the numbers. It’s all part of the patience that comes from knowing death. It looks like other states will learn that painful lesson soon enough.
(By the way, Moscow Mitch is full of shit when he says that there’s a “double standard” where politicians don’t criticize protesters but then don’t allow church services. Church happens inside, protests happen outside, and that makes a big difference. In New York, churches can hold services at 25% occupancy in Phase 2.)
Soprano2
Yeah, that story about the hairstylists and masks happened in my city, and the results make me happy, although from what I’ve read they didn’t require everyone who was exposed to get a test. Still, as I said below, in places where they aren’t required hardly anyone is wearing masks. They heard “no one got sick from the hairstylist” and didn’t hear “because they were both wearing masks and taking other precautions”, and they’ve decided it’s ALL CLEAR NOW, THE VIRUS IS GONE!
Oh, and this was a long and interesting interview with an epidemiologist about COVID. https://www.bluezones.com/2020/06/covid-19-straight-answers-from-top-epidemiologist-who-predicted-the-pandemic/?utm_source=BLUE%20ZONES%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=6d2780a767-JUNE-2020-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9642311849-6d2780a767-200061065&mc_cid=6d2780a767&mc_eid=23d132056a&fbclid=IwAR17t7lLvjSJRn0Wmd7f0JHEZCCZGtYVxAhnq93MtQFBjjvWBxqPs20eSr0
Krope, the Formerly Dope
ONE HOUR! THREE POSTS! NO HOLDS BARRED!!!!!1!!
eric
doubling down in two posts on my observation:
When this is over, i want to know why Fauci et al said no to masks early on. There is no doubt that a decent mask on everyone would SLOW (even if not stop) the spread of the virus. Did they say no because Trump did not want a visual admission that the virus is a problem or did they really believe that the masks had little efficacy. I think it was the former, and they should all be ashamed.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
He should testify in front of Congress. Ladies and Gents, let’s rev up the witch hunt!
raven
My wife’s hairdresser, tenant and friend had the owner of the salon tested positive.
raven
@eric: BECAUSE THERE WAS A FUCKING SHORTAGE AND THEY WANTED THEM TO GO TO FRONT LINE WORKERS.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I have a haircut appointment for next Friday. They’re taking only one person at a time and the stylist and I will both be wearing masks, so I feel reasonably safe. It will be such a relief to get my hair off my neck.
Gretchen
@eric: I think they said no masks early on because they anticipated a shortage, and wanted to make sure there were enough for medical personnel. And it turned out there weren’t, and still aren’t, enough for medical personnel – those single-use N95 masks are still being used for multiple days in some hospitals. Another thing they didn’t consider is how easy it is for home sewers to make them, and how ubiquitous home-sewn and Etsy masks would be.
azlib
Outdoor activity with social distancing seems to be a very low risk factor. There is a risk, of course, but given the protesters are mostly wearing masks and maintaining social distance shows they are being responsible.
My fear at this point is a lot of people think the pandemic is over. With rising cases, I fear it is not even close to being over. I live in AZ and our cases and deaths are rising. Our governor opened too early and a number of businesses are ignoring the opening rules.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@eric: Leaving Fauci aside, the head of NYS Dept of Health, Dr Howard Zucker, didn’t endorse masks early on. The stated reason was no science. The underlying reason was not initiating panic buying that would compete with scarce resources. This was reversed soon after and the recommendation updated to use fabric masks.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
They shouldn’t have lied about it though, if that’s the reason why. They should’ve just told the truth and ramped up production to ration masks for households, while reserving them for HCWs. South Korea was able to provide masks for their citizens
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Yes, this is important to consider. Although this isn’t consistent with the messaging I saw out of Fauci. “Go on a cruise ship.” Really?
Also, this doesn’t consider that people can make masks.
eric
@raven: so you lie to people? that is never justified of government. you make more ASAP and the fact that they did not is a further indictment.
hueyplong
Went to a real estate closing today and was the only person in the building wearing a mask. No one on the sidewalk wore one, either.
Thought I had time traveled to February.
hilts
Also too, God is dead. If, by chance, God isn’t dead, then how in Hell could he/she/it/they have allowed a raving, drooling knuckle dragging neanderthal like Trump to get elected President?
Bill Arnold
@eric:
I think it was the later; there is a significant and dug-in anti-masker camp in the research community, and many western scientists chose the anti-masker camp and are only grudgingly admitting fault. The CDC changed their guidelines for public mask wearing a while ago and most states are ignoring them. The WHO is still sort of anti-masker, though they did substantially change their guidelines June 5 2020. The new guidelines have some tortured language about symptomatic cases, that includes both fever and absence of fever. My notes, since this is as good a place as any:
—
WHO has relatively quietly updated their guidance on wearing of masks. It’s tortured reading; they quite obviously don’t want to give up on their anti-masker stance, but nonetheless, they did, sorta, and included good information about cloth masks:
Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19 – Interim guidance (WHO, 5 June 2020)
While they talk a bit about presymptomatic (and asymptomatic) transmission, they suggest that only people with symptoms suggestive of SARS-CoV-2 infection wear masks. However, that includes the list (missing COVID-Toes and some other symptoms), with a curious loophole:
So there you have it. Wear a mask if you either (1) have a fever, (2) are older and do not have a fever, or if you feel any symptoms, even very mild and unspecific symptoms. This covers nearly everyone except for those who, like Donald J. Trump, think that they are in perfect health because their narcissism demands it.
eric
@Gretchen: I am not talking about N95 masks. I am talking about the fabric masks that people can wear. I never see anyone in N95 masks. I see people in masks that could have been made then. they could have encouraged it. They could have revved up Ford and GM to make them. Lying is never a good option
eric
@Bill Arnold: Thanks. that is helpful, though perplexing in its own way. Current events suggest that it was a data-free conclusion, however.
ChrisS
Re: the masks, there was some confusion as to what constituted a proper mask and what it would be for. They didn’t want people stockpiling N95 masks, not wearing them properly, wearing other masks, and thinking that they would prevent the mask-wearer from infection. It’s obvious that wearing mask mitigates spread, but doesn’t prevent infection. The CDC didn’t want to recommend measures that would probably cause more harm than good.
As an aside, I had a mild illness in early March (upstate NY) with a brief fever and body aches, plus a dry lingering cough and maybe some mild shortness of breath. I had a routine physical last week and asked if they would run an antibody test since they had plenty of my blood. Just got the results and negative.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bill Arnold:
Do you think some of the anti-masking attitudes among western scientists came from anti-Asian xenophobia or something cultural?
Krope, the Formerly Dope
I’m kind of confused by this. IS there considered to be harm in wearing a mask?
trollhattan
Our metroplex is having a detections and hospital admits bump, luckily not (yet) a deaths bump, and preliminary tracing is pointing to “family home gatherings” as a significant source.
Learned, ironically at a front yard graduation event last weekend, that a friend’s consulting firm has the contract to set up California’s tracing program and he’s project manager. Busy dude. Says it should be fully implemented at month’s end.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
So why did they not say this instead of *shrug* “don’t bother.”?
eric
@ChrisS: Respectfully, I dont think anything is obvious about the efficacy of masks. It seems they help, but no one seems to be sure exactly how, why, or how much. I have worn one from early march onward. if it reduced the odds 10% it was with it. I think it is likely 50% or better.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Masks can prevent infection to a degree, it just depends on the materials used, how tight the fit is, as well as being combined with social distancing
Bill Arnold
@raven:
That was part of it but they justified it by belittling all he science because they weren’t proper studies of large populations in a pandemic with control groups and several intervention arms. We’;re doing the natural experiments, and they will probably kill at least hundreds of thousands, mostly but not entirely in the control arms, so medical research ethics were a bit fucked up here iMO.
The Moar You Know
@eric:
Posted this reply to you last thread:
There weren’t even masks for healthcare workers at that point. Still aren’t in some places. Forget about getting an N95 for yourself, ain’t happening. Fauci and Co. made a rough choice there, but the right one.
Go watch the testimony of that whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright from last week. It’s horrifying. HHS knew they’d need three and a half billion masks just for healthcare workers in the event of a pandemic. They’d been begging for them since 2007. They were blown off every single year.
Two thousand fucking seven.
Bush did nothing.
Obama did nothing.
Trump did nothing.
So that’s why there still aren’t any fucking masks and Americans are tying rags around their faces.
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
An outcome of this will be ingrained acceptance of masks during future events. Where I live that includes air quality events caused by wildfires, in addition to epidemic diseases. They’re pretty darn normal now, unlike two months ago.
bbleh
Ok, enough with the Monday-morning quarterbacking and the lawyerly language-parsing.
They were dealing with a potentially catastrophic situation, a serious absence of hard scientific data, a life-threatening shortfall of supplies, and a political leadership that was denying there was even a problem.
To blame Fauci, or the CDC (which made other, more significant mistakes), or pretty much anyone in the medical community who was issuing what guidance they could at the time, amounts to trollery.
Cut it out.
eric
@The Moar You Know: i get the shortage issue. But then you have to ask, if only N95s were all that, and we were short, why didnt Fauci et al demand production in hyper drive. Plus, tell people to where cloth masks or make cloth masks. every 10% in efficacy, means at least 10,000 more americans still alive.
eric
@download my app in the app store mistermix: if there is no science, then err on the side of caution and wear “something”
Bill Arnold
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
Oh yeah. The WHO document has a pros and cons section. “Potential harms/disadvantage” has 11 bullet points. The first:
Which is maybe true in a crowded healthcare setting but not in a population where maybe 1 out of 40 is infected and so a mask has contaminants from 0 or maybe 1 person. That weren’t breathed in by the masked individual. (Also there are not documented cases (that I’ve found, caveat) of indirect contact transmission of SARS-CoV-2. All such guidelines are based on experience with other infectious diseases.)
eric
ask yourself, if N95s are the best for protection and the only effective masks, why arent we all wearing them now? we could have produced them by now…where are they?
Krope, the Formerly Dope
@Bill Arnold: I’ll check that out. Thanks.
Cheryl Rofer
@eric: As I understand it, early on people were thinking of masks in the same way they think of PPE for medical providers. That the masks would primarily prevent the wearer from being exposed. There were shortages of masks for medical providers, and no way to get high-quality masks to everyone. Additionally, wearing them properly is demanding, and efficacy would go way down if they were worn improperly, which a lot of people were bound to do.
As we learned more about the virus and how it is spread, it became evident that a mask, even not of medical quality, would keep the virus in if a person was spreading it.
That’s a total reversal of conceptual frame, and, while masks are the constant, the reasoning is different, almost opposite.
So I’m willing to give the experts a pass on this. There may be other reversals, particularly having to do with children, for whom we don’t know nearly enough about the virus’s effects. We’re learning as we go.
The Moar You Know
@eric: Those factories were already at full blast. Can’t conjure a ready-to-go factory out of thin air. The tech that goes into an N95 mask is really something else, although it is a known process. No research needed. But the equipment to make said masks is not off the shelf stuff.
My uncle has a rather interesting career; designing and setting up factories. He’s in the middle of converting the last few he worked on to mask production. They are moving 24/7 – they know it’s important.
They should be able to start shipping in the first half of 2021.
Can’t pull a Trump and say “make more ASAP”. It really is not that simple. Wait until we get a vaccine and most people will be getting told they can’t have it for a year or two. That’s gonna be some fun.
Just Chuck
@eric:
I’m sure he would have been one of those asking for the Defense Production Act to be invoked, but T (and by extension the entire GOP) thought it more important to use it to force meat packing plants to stay open instead. Probably threatened anyone who otherwise brought it up.
Certainly the et al demanded it.
eric
@The Moar You Know: when did the ramp up start? january? february? early March? later? respectfully, if we threw money and bodies at it, we could build more masks, maybe not 250 million, but more. the vaccine issue is going to be insane. I think you are going to see grants of immunity from lawsuits for the manufacturers and then everyone holds their breath for no long term side effects.
ChrisS
@eric: What if erring on the side of caution, and wearing something as a mask, made people less cautious about physical distancing and resulted in increased infections from some kind of misguided sense of invulnerability?
The healthcare community is generally hesitant to give medical advice when they’re unsure of its efficacy.
eric
@Just Chuck: i want to now if you are right. I dont know that they “demanded” or just “asked”
eric
@ChrisS: then you say: “you must do both to stay safer” we are saying it now and many people are not following. but there are plenty of people doing both because they have heard that both are effective.
Just Chuck
@Cheryl Rofer: I thought it was just long-held common sense that masks will keep pathogens out for the uninfected, and in for the infected and that’s why you’d mask both. It makes the masks themselves potential vectors if handled improperly, but proper sanitation fixes that (“wash your hands, you filthy animals”).
Confused and misleading messages are just par for the course with this regime though.
trollhattan
@bbleh:
Fauci had to yell over/around Mt. Trump in order to say anything to us at all. Not ideal working conditions.
The Moar You Know
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: Normally, you don’t do it with people with respiratory illness as the masks do interfere a bit with airflow (airflow is normally good for someone with a lung infection, which I get every fucking year of my life) and, unless you’re pretty scrupulous with your hygiene and throw the mask out after just one use, reinfection.
COVID’s really turned a lot of that equation on its head. The benefit to wearing masks is to the community, outweighing the risks to you as a victim of the disease.
Amir Khalid
From my country’s experience, I can state that masking plus social distancing plus personal hygiene works really well when combined with a rigorous public-health regime of tracing, testing and isolation. (TTI, as the public health boffins call it.) Malaysia had just ONE case today from local infection, down from a one-day high of 235 in late March.
I remember that in early March, mask wearing was not particularly encouraged anywhere: the benefit to individuals was not proven, and health authorities wanted to prioritise frontline medical workers for access to them. It certainly wasn’t Dr Fauci alone, it was the advice you got here too. But that did change not long afterwards, when it was realised that masking really helps reduce spread if everyone does it.
Hairdressers and barbershops were allowed to reopen in Malaysia from today, the 10th of June. Like everything else that has reopened here, they are subject to standard operating procedures designed by the Health Ministry and enforced by inspection. We’ll see how that goes in a couple of weeks, but for now I’m still very confident in how my country is handling things.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I got an email from The Huntington this morning, they’re reopening July 1st(June 17th for members) with a number of restrictions including mandatory mask wearing unless you’re eating or drinking. They’re also restricting entry by requiring e-tickets for entry. Only the gardens will be open, the galleries and library will remain closed.
Just Chuck
@eric: Any T appointee knows you always ask the Mad King nicely. Obsequiously even. Welcome to the new real.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think it sorted that way. Probably a little racism/xenophobia/cultural, but also some/many of the pro-mask papers were Asian, and so many researchers feel the need to fully cover the space, i.e. take the other side in the argument. Not bad, but unfortunately it meant that very high standards for science about universal masking were demanded, and no solid science was provided for some of the other guidelines. WHO for instance places a generic high level of importance on surface/hand hygiene because it’s focus is on disease (that still kill millions) where such hygiene measures are very important interventions. Still true in the US but less so.
Barbara
@eric:
They may be the best, but they are like sandpaper on your skin. Finding a good enough mask that you can, for all intents and purposes, wear all the time, is what we need to figure out, and the CDC has indeed tested various iterations. A double ply mask made of t-shirt material is nearly as good as an N-95, and if you slip in a coffee filter or HEPA filter, it is even better. And it doesn’t rip your skin up.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
I see more than a few folks wearing N95-type masks with exhaust valves, which nullifies half of the protection (the half protecting everybody who is not the wearer). I try to steer clear, but situations differ.
In sum, going out less often still remains safest. I preplan shopping to minimize trips, and will NOT just “go grab some milk.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@eric: One of the reasons was we had a mask shortage that was so bad that medical staff were reusing masks. So they were trying to direct supply there first.
ema
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
IS there considered to be harm in wearing a mask?
Yes, if there’s an improper fit/seal, if you touch the mask once it’s on, if you think a filter mask protects those around you, etc.
As for anecdata, 100% of bus riders in NYC have been wearing masks, so far. Also, I saw MTA people at subway street entrances with boxes of masks and hand sanitizer.
Just Chuck
@Barbara: Just tried that setup myself. I may as well have put a plastic bag over my mouth.
piratedan
part of the issue is the damage to our institutions that would normally be at the front of a crisis like this… and a media that is busy parsing and framing stories to suit their revenue stream..
the CDC has essentially been shut down from a media standpoint, Trump only trots Fauci out when it suits him, the Feds aren’t directing the states to do anything than supply them with some numbers. They aren’t assisting states (at least its not reported as such) in getting equipment and submitting treatment guidelines outside of hand washing and social distancing. Even then, the numbers change depending upon who is tracking what, total tests, okay, but PCR, POC and Serum tests are all different and have different levels of reliability. Some are testing for virus, some for antibodies. Tracing sounds like it’s being handled at a state level, are all states even talking to each other about this? We’re seeing some regional movement in pooling of supplies, but does the coordination expand any further than that, if so, its not being commonly reported.
What I am driving at is there’s not much direction and clarity, which allows multiple bad faith actors to operate on the fringes.
trollhattan
@eric:
Not sure who the “we” is in your question.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I saw that as well. Hope they’ve set the limits on attendance correctly; there’s going to be a lot of people lining up for tickets (myself included).
Major Major Major Major
Proud to have been an early mask crank.
Viral geneticist Trevor Bedford has a Fermi estimate that protests will increase daily new infections by 2-3%, which would be impossible to disaggregate from the background of reopenings.
Cheryl Rofer
@Just Chuck: Common sense isn’t the same as scientific evidence, and the two can conflict.
Brachiator
A repost from an earlier thread.
And for some Americans, wearing a mask is like wearing a burka. It’s weak, alien and dammit, just ain’t American.
ETA. Some of the false controversy over masks is also due to the idiotic insistence that science immediately have all the answers right up front. And I keep hearing grumbles from people who insist that they don’t need no science and could have figured out how to protect themselves with their common sense and some Internet research. A lot of these people really resent the loss of personal control.
They also want to believe that the worst is over. Wearing masks would contradict that belief.
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I remember hearing a lot of worry about paradoxical effects: if the cloth masks are only a little effective, then you have to worry about people doing foolish things because the mask makes them feel invincible, about the mask becoming a dangerous fomite in itself and people spreading virus by touching them, about adjustments to an ill-fitting mask causing face touching, etc.
And all these things do happen, to some degree. I’ve seen all of them. Most recently I was annoyed during my last trip to the grocery store at how many noses I saw poking out over the tops of masks.
What was never obvious was whether these dangers outweighed the benefits. It’s becoming clearer that they do, or that it’s possible to mitigate the dangers through training, but the literature still isn’t unequivocal.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Maybe it’s because I work in healthcare but this is what I heard mask advocates saying from the beginning.
Cheryl Rofer
@trollhattan: Yes, and the idea that masks remind you to touch your face less seems nonsensical to me. I see people tugging and adjusting them all the time, and had to retrain myself not to do that when I started wearing one. But, since we now know that transmission isn’t so much through touching things, I’m not so bothered by it. As I said, we’ll continue to learn for some time.
gene108
@eric:
IIRC, in March, we had a shortage of all types of PPE for healthcare workers.
The decision to tell people not to get masks was so healthcare workers could get them first.
The stuff about masks not being effective is probably some attempt to make an excuse about the PPE shortages.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
“Source control” has been a thing in the research literature re masks for while. It’s hard and unethical to do the experiments at the scale needed (pandemic/epidemic) and the experiments were not done. So the science was weak, though not nonexistent. So the excuses were made, vs clear need for public health professionals. Who were not served well by the resulting case load that was 5-10 x what it should have been.
The #masksforall movement that took off in March was spearheaded by a concerned female Chinese activist (and some others) who has a following in the west (3d printing). The pushback by intellectually entrenched public health officials was enlightening to watch. And not in a good way. Amateurs were being treated very dismissively by medical/public health professionals who hadn’t even bothered to read the existing research literature. (I’ve been angry about this for months. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking.)
Major Major Major Major
@eric:
From the post-mortems (ha) that I’ve read (can’t remember where exactly), they misled us because:
And this wasn’t in the post-mortems, but certainly for _some_ commenters, there was a belief that Asians are just superstitious and masks don’t work.
Cheryl Rofer
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, you’re reminding me that although a few studies cited up top show a benefit to masks, I’ve seen others that show no benefit. I don’t think I’ve seen any that say masks help to spread coronavirus. So if the balance is that masks may help and not harm most people, it makes sense to use them. But we didn’t know that up front.
ETA: Don’t get me going about people who wear masks below their noses. Far too many of them. Although it’s my anecdotal evidence, it supports the early misgivings of the experts who figured people wouldn’t use masks correctly.
Chetan Murthy
I know this is OT, but: holy fuck, holy fuck: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/floyd-chauvin-argued-working-together-club-ex-coworker
I’m not gonna paste the whole thing, b/c TPM is good people, but holy fuck. Holy fuck.
First Degree Murder. First Degree Murder.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s cultural.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yeah, the American (and Western for that matter) public health class really lost a lot of goodwill and trust over this, at least among my peer group.
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I recently saw one concluding that all-day mask-wearing in the home is effective at reducing within-household transmission, which is more hardcore than most of us are willing to be!
Feathers
The study I would like to see, which I hope someone pulls together, is to do contact tracing and tracking of COVID infection from people who were arrested during the protests. If you could get a separation out between the infection rate of people who were at the protests but outdoors and with a mask vs. those arrested and kept in crowded, confined quarters, you have something interesting.
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I’ve been assuming that people wear masks under their noses as a deliberate “fuck the rules” demonstration. “You want me to wear a mask? Here’s your mask.”
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: I didn’t see anything in the discussion about source control early on. It seems not to have been part of that discussion, in public anyway. I think it was partly a matter of mindset – of thinking of masks as protecting the wearer, as is the case for medical providers, and then coming around to the source control viewpoint.
There was probably some prejudice against what other countries might be doing and against amateurs, although I have to say that one person (not the Chinese activist you mention) got awfully wound up about masks and had national platforms to make her arguments. They contained enough emotion that she put me off. That kind of emotion usually brings on confirmation bias.
trollhattan
@Chetan Murthy:
That would certainly ramp up “motive” in the triangle, along with means and opportunity. This Pinney fellow had better retire to an undisclosed location.
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer:
Interesting, my understanding is rather different. I was told many times that the reason surgeons wear surgical masks is to keep their germs out of the open wound. This was part of the early push for “masks don’t protect the wearer, except for N95s”, which probably just encouraged a run on N95s.
Cheryl Rofer
BTW, y’all, I’m working on a post that has to do with what people are calling cultural factors in the wearing of masks, and how that interacts with analogous situations. Should have it ready by tomorrow.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
I’d do it if somebody had a positive test or symptoms. Otherwise…nope.
Feathers
@Cheryl Rofer: And what’s crazy is that you get much the same benefit from letting loose the bottom ties on your mask. I was out and needed a drink. Untied the bottom of my mask and was able to drink my iced coffee through a straw just fine. Not everyone has as ample a busom as mine to catch all the particulate, but you do breathe much more easily, with droplets going down onto you or the ground, rather than those around you.
Baud
I’ve been using simple cloth masks. Do people know if certain types of masks are more effective than others. I’m thinking of getting some better masks if I’m in a higher risk situation (inside, more crowded, etc.)
Cheryl Rofer
@Major Major Major Major: Good point. This is what Bill Arnold refers to as source control. But when dealing with covid patients, the masks protect the medical personnel.
Cheryl Rofer
@Feathers: Meh. It’s probably better than wearing the mask below your nose, but it’s still letting stuff out.
@Baud: I’ve seen reports of tests in progress of different materials for masks. Haven’t seen any results.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I believe the hierarchy is: cloth; multilayer cloth (tea towel, vacuum bag); surgical; particulate respirator. But it’s early days and we aren’t talking about peer-reviewed science.
A poorly-worn respirator is just an expensive & uncomfortable surgical mask, in terms of efficacy. I saw a study (on slatestarcodex maybe?) that the majority of medical professionals can’t fit an N95 right on the first try when tested; for normies the figure is even worse.
ETA: There are a couple of JAMA studies that found both surgical masks & N95s to be effective in reducing respiratory infections in medical practitioners.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer:
@Major Major Major Major:
Thanks!
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer: Oh I am looking forward to that!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@azlib: I just wish we could get people to take the social distancing part more seriously when outdoors. I go out to walk my dog, and some people are really good, but joggers and people on bicycles…they don’t seem to care. Like, you don’t hear them coming up behind you until it’s too late and then they just buzz by with a couple feet max to spare. It’s pretty frustrating. It happens to me fairly regularly and I am trying to get away from people – like I wouldn’t get within 20 feet if I had the choice.
I live near a multi-use trail and there are lots of bottlenecks where it’s impossible to stay 6 feet apart but people don’t wait and take turns there, or seem to much care. It’s packed with people every day. I’ve stopped using it entirely but it seems like I’m one of the few. I live in MD by the way.
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
COVID’s really turned a lot of that equation on its head. The benefit to wearing masks is to the community, outweighing the risks to you as a victim of the disease.
Lay people just don’t get it. I heard a woman who is a teacher talk about wanting to get back to school, on a call to a talk radio station. And she kept talking about how she had never been sick in the past 10 years and had a really really strong immune system.
There was lots of this stuff.
Just no understanding of how people can spread the infection even if they don’t get sick.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
See the WHO doc linked @Bill Arnold:
It has a section on construction of non-medical masks. A bit confusing but the information is there.
trollhattan
An example of how hard it has been to source masks.
It would not be appropriate to question whether delays in federal certification had anything to do with politics, nosir.
Major Major Major Major
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Brushing by somebody outdoors is probably very low-risk. There have been spreading events that happened outdoors, but they’re associated with Carnival gatherings and the like.
Obviously I am not a medical professional but I follow them on Twitter!
Feathers
@Cheryl Rofer: I’ve been watching some Japanese women YouTubers. In the What I carry in my bag videos, these women always had a little case for carrying extra masks. They looked to be the size of a trade paperback and opened like a school folder so you could slide your mask(s) in. I can look for a link/time if you like.
Some of the issue with the Asian mask wearing is that I always heard it referred to as part of being polite, more than it being actually effective. All of this despite it being “cover your mouth when you cough” taken to the next level.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Even if her personal immune system were a consideration in reopening the school system (it’s not), this shows a lack of empathy for her students and the risks to them as a group and especially to vulnerable individuals.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: I just checked the reservation website, right now they’re only taking reservations for next Wed. to Fri., I’ll wait for the next week to open up. There’s Milky Way pics to be taken next week and the week after that.?
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
One thing that is interesting to see is how some people have taken wearing masks in stride and have turned it into a fashion statement. The news anchor on one of the local radio shows talked about how she has different masks to go with different outfits. And not a super complicated thing. She regularly wears different tops highlighting her love of dogs or which mention animal charities.
Feathers
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Realize that it is time AND distance. So a jogger or bicyclist who is closer than six feet for 5-15 seconds is equivalent to standing six feet away from someone for 10 minutes.
ETA, but yeah, they are kinda being jerks.
Ladyraxterinok
OT—Jena is home of German romantic movement end of 18th century. Close to Weimar, home of Goethe and German classical movement end of 18th century. Famous meeting between Goethe and Schiller that started the movement took place in 1794.
I think I remember correctly tha Napoleon visited Goethe in Jena when he came through the area during his drive to control Europe. Goethe was disgusted because Napoleon only wanted to talk about Goethe’s book Werther that was the work of his youth, written yrs earlier
Jena was in East Germany.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
That shit’s rude when there’s no pandemic.
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
Children are among the least at risk. Parents and other teachers might be more at risk.
It’s interesting, though. I guess that more empathy might overcome the Impact of her ignorance about the virus, but I still wish that people like her would just not be so freaking stupid.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Feathers: That’s somewhat comforting but still…all we’re asking people to do is go six feet out of their way and they can’t even be bothered to make that very, very modest accommodation.
I came across some articles the other day pointing to evidence that Pepcid AC of all things might be an effective treatment. Something the Chinese noticed in their hospitalized patients who were on it – they had much better survival rates (like I want to say 58% better survival, which is pretty dramatic) and there are now studies ongoing to test it out. An easy to get, cheap, over the counter treatment that’s more than marginally effective would really be fantastic.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
You’re right. But aren’t the children a means to spread the disease among those other two populations? Also, too, children aren’t invulnerable and some are quite at risk.
Bill Arnold
@bbleh:
Depends. Was April 3 2020 a Monday? (No, Friday.) Here’s me on April 3 2020:
“Fucking public health authorities in some countries (like the US) had to wait for studies like this to start shifting their dogma. Dogma kills, dogma in a deadly pandemic kills massively.”
Time in an exponentially spreading deadly pandemic is precious. Piss away a week on politics, lose 10s of thousands of lives. (I’m in New York; we’re now, and since April 17 2020, high-compliance masking and R0 is way below 1. If shutdown and masking had been a few weeks earlier, loss of life would have been maybe 10% of what it has been so far.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: I went to Costco(actually 2) on Monday and saw a woman wearing a mask that said “I Can’t Breath” on it.
trollhattan
@Ladyraxterinok:
Carl Zeiss optics was founded in Jena in 1846. They at some point moved lens grinding onto a barge floating on a lake there, because it eliminated land-sourced vibrations.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Gin & Tonic
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: My daughter is an elementary school teacher. The kids bring in every infectious disease there is.
germy
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/do-face-masks-decrease-the-risk-of-covid-19-transmission/
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: I own a pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars. They are very nice (and guaranteed for life.)
I was the guy sitting in the back of your TED talk mostly not paying attention.
trollhattan
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
They’re still finding negative consequences to kids who do catch it, so while cases are relatively rare they can be quite serious. And especially the K-3 cohort can’t be relied on to alert the adults when they’re feeling poorly, plus they get all kinds of sniffles all the darn time.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill Arnold: And as interventions go, asking people to wear cloth masks like. Costs nothing. And it’s a huuuuge stretch to say it would cause more problems than it solves. Even back in April, the CDC website said it’s only theoretically spread by surfaces/touching your face.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
I try to hold all TED talks in the bar, because I treasure my audience. :-)
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
RE:
Children are among the least at risk. Parents and other teachers might be more at risk.
This gets interesting. If it turns out that asymptomatic people are less likely to spread the infection, bunches of children might actually slow the spread of infection.
And no, children are not invulnerable, but the number of hospitalizations involving children is tiny.
ETA. Some anecdotes involving children returning to school indicate that it is often very hard to get them to respect social distancing rules. They just naturally want to be closer. I think that they might also need to change masks more during a school day. I think schools are just something that we will have to be more relaxed about, and adapt as we go along.
germy
@trollhattan:
James Thurber comes to mind.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
Yes, yes, yes! The feds could have acted early January The dithering directly caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and the wrecked economy and lost year are the bycatch.
It’s all on them. All of it.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yep. Masks as political statements.
It’s a natural.
VeniceRiley
I read an article yesterday… can’t remember where… An ex-Apple design engineer came up with a 3 rubber band contraption, and subsequent design improvments, that basically turns your standard surgical mask into an N95 equivalent by sealing the edges around your mouth and nose
rikyrah
Any parents here made any decisions about Summer Camp this year?
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I wonder if the plexiglass I see all over the place is helpful. It might be useless, or it may provide more surface to spread the virus.
But again this just emphasizes that understanding the virus is an ongoing issue, not a matter of first principles carved in stone.
germy
@VeniceRiley:
An ex-Apple engineer is helping combat the N95 mask shortage with a simple solution that anyone can make at home with rubber bands
But good luck finding rubber bands!
Krope, the Formerly Dope
We’ve been putting “work from home” infrastructure in place. Why not keep that trend for work and school?
jonas
I’m in upstate NY not far from mistermix’s neck of the woods and we had a gorgeous Memorial Day weekend with a lot of people out and about in parks, riding bikes, playing golf, etc., but most people were wearing masks and/or staying well-distanced with just small family groups, etc. Like he said, no major spike in cases around here yet. There have also been protest marches organized by local BLM groups and Democratic clubs, but they’ve been orderly and everyone distanced and had a mask.
But as I pointed out in my post on Cole’s thread below, a lot of the hot spots right now seem to be in states that 1. reopened early and 2. where a lot of people spent Memorial Day weekend outdoors. Was most of the transmission taking place indoors where people were jamming bars, restaurants and hair salons? Or was it people outdoors who didn’t follow precautions? A combination of the two? That’s what I’d like to know.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: As long as people aren’t going around licking the plexiglass (and even then), it prevents droplets from getting exhaled on/by service workers and that’s got to be an improvement. Assuming everything we’ve observed about surface transmission is right.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: The dug-in anti-masker scientists definitely still exist, and now there’s a politicized/contrarian faction willing to amplify what they say. There’s a developing pro-mask consensus, but it’s not (yet?) universal enough, and the research not yet unequivocal enough, that these people can be dismissed as cranks. And I also get the impression that in the medical world, where interventions are things like drugs or medical procedures, you typically don’t want to recommend any intervention unless the evidence is really strong.
But as Cheryl said–there’s no apparent evidence that masks are actually making things worse. Which means that it doesn’t make sense to treat this with the evidential threshold you’d use for a drug treatment.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Ooh. Good question. Not a parent, but curious about any answers.
Wonder if camps are mentioning any pandemic related modifications?
jonas
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: Speaking for myself, I enjoy talking and working with colleagues at work and find the conversations stimulate my productivity and creativity. Spending half the day in Zoom meetings was a new definition of hell. Second, online schooling is draining and boring and awful. Plus, you can’t keep kids at home online the whole time if parents have to eventually return to work.
Nora Lenderbee
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Spouse and I are cyclists (masked). We see a lot of people walking on the trails and paying no attention at all to their surroundings. It’s hard to stay 6 feet away from people who are spread across the entire trail, or on the wrong side, or letting their dog stretch its leash across the trail, or simply engrossed in their phones. We see a lot more trail users than normal who don’t understand trail etiquette. The joggers and cyclists aren’t exclusively to blame.
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
Kids like and may do better in the social space of schools.
Parents who have to return to work can’t leave their kids home alone.
We have not built our societies around the idea of long term lockdown.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: We are pretty closely enacting Isaac Asimov’s 1951 story “The Fun They Had”, about children accustomed to at-home instruction by computer imagining how much fun it must have been to go to school.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
I agree. I love spending time with my coworkers. But with most jobs I’ve ever had, there is a lot of it that can be done from home. In fact, at my current job, when such work (mainly data entry and phone calls) is running low locally, we get additional work from other facilities.
If at least some people were set up to do this work from home, it would limit exposures, allow for flexibility if workload was unexpectedly heavy or if employees were sick, and allow people on site to focus on the work that can only be done on site.
ETA: Also, I’d just like a lot fewer cars on the road.
Again, I agree. But we could still do more work at home without doing it exclusively.
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: My wife and I are involved with an organization that runs camps at three sites in the eastern US. They are closed for the summer, period.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Now if only people would realize the plastic panels also block sound.
Yesterday while at the bank had to ask the teller three times to repeat the question she was asking me as I could not hear her intelligibly through the panel at a normal conversational volume.
Also noticed that at the customer service station there where people fill out deposit and similar slips there are now two boxes, one labeled Clean Pens, the other labeled Dirty Pens.
Gin & Tonic
@Nora Lenderbee: I cycle, alone, and on relatively rural roads, not bicycle paths. And I couldn’t possibly wear a mask and breathe at the volume I need.
Kent
Looks like Florida Man picks Jacksonville! https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-expects-to-move-its-convention-to-jacksonville-after-dispute-with-north-carolina-over-pandemic-safeguards/2020/06/09/8c96e088-aaaa-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html
Have we discussed this yet? If not, front pagers I suggest a new Jacksonville thread. There is a LOT of stuff to unpack here!
Brachiator
It’s still odd to realize that so much of the sports and recreation Industry is still shut down.
I used to go to the movies on Sunday after a long work week. Now I wonder if traditional movie theaters will even survive.
Normally we would be entering the heart of the summer movie season. Lots of people were eagerly anticipating Wonder Woman 1984 and even the Top Gun sequel. The final Daniel Craig James Bond movie had already been pushed back to later in the year.
I understand that movie theaters will be allowed to re-open with reduced capacity seating. But will that work?
Anybody eager to go back to the movies? Or to sports stadiums? I know some huge Dodger fans who would go to a game in a heartbeat.
Doug R
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: The consensus is that if you don’t wear it properly it can cause a false sense of security.
Also, if it doesn’t fit right and you’re constantly touching it, your hands get wet and you can spread the virus that way.
NotMax
@Kent
Batted around a bit within today’s morning thread.
Another Scott
ICYMI, it still gives goose-bumps. Just astounding and awe-inspiring.
June 9, 1973.
(via https://twitter.com/dick_nixon )
Cheers,
Scott.
frosty
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: If that’s the NCRR trail, try north if the Mason Dixon line. I think it’s wider here. Plus you have the railroad tracks for more clearance. Train’s not running now (I can see it from my front porch).
Doug R
@eric: The BIG problem with mask production is that MOST mask production is done in Asia, there were a LOT of large manufacturers in Wuhan province which was shut down for a month.
patrick Il
@Cheryl Rofer:
If the I didn’t know masks inhibit spread they should have . Doctors know better and entire portions of the planet know better. In the Far East people wear masks when they are sick to avoid passing germs to others.
MaryLou
@eric: At the time, the reason seemed to be that there were insufficient masks for medical workers, and they were trying to acquire every available mask for use by those who really needed them. We may not have been getting the full story about how desperate the CPE situation in hospitals was, and Fauci knew we couldn’t let all the available supply be snapped up by civilians using Amazon. That at least makes some sense. I still have faith in Fauci.
Brachiator
I keep noting that the deliberate lockdown cannot really be compared to a recession.
Similarly, there may be a lot of unexpected consequences to re-opening the economy. The Impact on individuals and industries is not predictable. For example, a lot of people may have seen this story.
But recently, this nugget caught my eye. We may see a deeper contraction in the middle class.
Some employers used to be reluctant to let people work at home. Now they may be seeing that remote working supports a different level of organization and staffing.
This may in turn have a significant effect on employment.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT, but I’m lighting this motherfucker up.
Two days ago, I nutted up, determined to take walk in the Louisville CBD in order to document my current lived history with my travel camera (35 mm DSLR – I actually have a little skill). Went from my boarded up office building and covered two blocks of broken windows and boarded up shopfronts to the protest site, located across the street from a pepper bullet pocked, somewhat boarded portion of my court complex. Worked my way east about two blocks, marched five blocks south. Once at my southern stop, I turned north for a block, then went a block west and came all the way back up.
The entire way, I took photos of closed and boarded restaurants, shuttered hotels, boarded up shops, bards and clubs. There was a tremendous amount of broken glass, and burn marks from trash fires were all over the streets (including directly beneath my office window). Most everything was closed, and the fun little “smart” info kiosks were all shattered, and none of the decorative trash frames have containers (plus, the recycling compactors are gone).
This downtown reminds me of Times Square the week after the ’77 blackout. Blighted as fuck. Already, several restaurants (some of which we loved) have closed forever. Frankly, it is going to take 20-30 years to bring this back. Ironically, as I was leaving, 4 to 6 LMPD cruisers pulled up to some pathetic homeless guy with a bike dragging a cart at the corner across from my building, and were really annoyed that I was taking photos of their overkill.
The City Fathers are still listening to LMPD’s bullshit. I had this to say regarding their methods yesterday:
I gently refrained from negatively referencing the Blessed Martyr Deidre Mengedoht, an officer who stupidly pulled over someone for a petty moving infraction on Christmas Eve in a completely hazardous stretch of downtown interstate, and got her dumb ass killed by a sewer truck driver who had a declining amount of his prescribed, allowable hydrocodone in his system. He still hasn’t been to trial, but they’ve renamed that stretch of road for her stupidity.
Anyway, today I learned that the white micropenis gun-toting 3%er guys (whose gun-toting presence was one of the stated catalysts for the sudden rush of teargas and pepper bullets on Sunday, May 31, particularly aftedr there were reports of “shots fired”) were in fact comprised of a number of retired LMPD and some active small local force guys. There was news video of shell casings being marked in a very odd spot around a building and away from the crowd at the time.
Smelling blood, I’m gambling on making some noise and maybe some money. Here’s my record request:
I’m taking direct aim at the cozy relationship with provocateurs and at the florid lies about urine, vomit, and laundry bleach blown with leafblowers. I’m burning several friendships with this, but given that the investigative report on Breonna Taylor was released today and is nearly blank, I don’t give a fuck.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
I am a movie fanatic. Summer movie season I love and have loved since I was a child.
I WILL NOT STEP FOOT INTO A MOVIE THEATER.
It hurts me to say that too :(
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Some studios are pushing some of their movie releases to paid streaming services faster. So hopefully you should at least get a chance to see something new this summer.
Nora Lenderbee
@Gin & Tonic: Oops, my mistake. We wear thin neck gaiters and pull them over our faces when we see people. We carry masks but only put them on if we need to interact with someone. You’re right about not getting enough air with mask on.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: I thought it particularly cleaver, one reason opponents of mask wear state for not wearing is that it causes problems with breathing; and, of course, George Floyd.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Thanks; that piece is helpful. The The Lancet piece it refers to is a slog; still looking at it (It seems to be focused on protection, not source control, but I haven’t read enough of it yet.)
Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis (Derek K Chu, Prof Elie A Akl, Stephanie Duda, Karla Solo, Sally Yaacoub, Prof Holger J Schünemann, et al. The Lancet, Open Access, June 01, 2020)
LongHairedWeirdo
Moscow Mitch is an oathbreaker who only speaks the truth by accident; but he’s also a complete frickin’ idiot. You can tell a church “you’re not allowed to hold services, unless you follow proper health guidelines, which are the same for all such indoor gatherings.”
*WHO WOULD YOU TELL NOT TO HOLD A STREET PROTEST?*
Unless there was a singular entity organizing the protests – and there isn’t – there’s no one you can cite as having broken the guidelines.
Unless there is a general “shelter in place” order, there’s no grounds to do anything, to anyone, over the protests. Which proves that Moscow Mitch is, in fact, not merely dishonest, but arguing in bad faith. Then again, he’s been corrupt for a very long time, refusing to act for the good of the people of the United States, and instead only trying to accrue more power to his political party.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Nora Lenderbee: There are plenty of walkers who are just as clueless/inconsiderate but even with the dog I can generally move fast enough to get away from them. I don’t use the trail anymore and walk on the extreme edge of the street opposite oncoming non-motorists whenever possible.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@frosty: It’s the Sligo Creek trail in Montgomery County, MD.
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
It’s not just about seeing something new. It’s about that communal, big screen movie experience. Also, 3D and IMAX screenings.
And of course, if theatrical distribution disappears, that’s a lot of jobs, and especially jobs for younger people.
I have not seen many articles about it, but I doubt that the studios could recoup their costs if they stream big budget films.
jonas
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: I agree that there are probably a lot of people, such as almost anyone who lives in Southern California, who would be thrilled to work from home from now on, regardless of how much they hate the Zoom meetings or whatever, if it meant not having to sit in traffic for two hours every day.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Also, Air Force camps have been cancelled for the entire summer.
VeniceRiley
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m cheering you on! That’s amazing.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago. I and the stylist were the only ones in the place, and we were both masked. I washed my hair ahead of time and she cut it dry. I was in and out in 15 minutes.
debbie
@eric:
Sitting in Jared’s warehouse.
sgrAstar
@eric: I think it’s pretty obvious that they were trying to discourage us from hoarding the masks that first responders were going to need. No malign intentions, just panic. I think it’s pretty low to impute malfeasance to Fauci, who has been a straight-up guy for his entire career, afaik. Anyone who is willing to risk being dignity wraithed by trump In order to protect us, is ok by me.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Good for you, but be careful!
J R in WV
@eric:
You should be ashamed. Anyone watching knows that front line medical staff did not have sufficient personal protection equipment!!! Which is why Fauchi and his people were telling us not to wear n95 masks.
I have had an n100 3M industrial respirator for some years, for woodworking and pesticide application on our farm. It really works well, you can’t smell the exhaust from an old truck pouring out blue exhaust. So I didn’t have to take a mask out of the hand of an ER doc.
But your outrage is way off base — there’s another reason you don’t ever even consider, that there are people who need masks far more than you do!
J R in WV
@eric:
Fuck you for being willing to screw health care workers… you’re as despicable as Trump at this point.
ETA: Thanks to WateGirl, Major^4 and others, I can pie you and never see your obscene remarks again.