There is a crossfit gym that I pass by every morning on the way to work. It is full, and never stopped during this pandemic. Even at 7AM, it is full of patrons.
I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything.
Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
You can't tell to people, you have no risk of dying (0.5% death rate for population, much much lower for healthy and young people), people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) so this is not your fault if they catch it but you need to stop living your life. That can't work.
And above all, what is the long term strategy, we stop everything for the rest of our lives ? (a vaccine doesn't always work, example the flu vaccine, which works approximately).
It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
In EVERY other country you can buy masks, and they were strongly encouraged, that prevented YOU from getting sick.
South Koreas KF94 masks come to mind, very good coverage and fit (3 parts including one under chin). And despite the lies basically posted by you and plenty of others including health authorities (don't wear masks if you are "healthy", masks can't protect you from covid) masks CAN be used to protect you from infection, and that is a MUCH more powerful motivator for folks to wear them, and can also be targeted to those who are at higher risk.
We need to get a grip of basic facts. Masks help reduce transmission and if reasonably designed (look overseas) infection. Why else do doctors in hospitals wear N95 masks? To avoid getting sick.
I am somewhat higher risk. I wear and N95 under a surgical mask. This reduces my risk of getting covid.
The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
So when folks say - no one go to the beach, it's a bit of an eye roll. If covid were THAT infectious (huge open ocean airflow hitting the beach, blasting sun) then we'd all have it already just from going to the grocery store.
I think health professionals lost a megaton of credibility in claiming masks don't help, to not wear masks, or that masks can only help reduce transmission not infection. Other countries went all out on masks - with great results.
They are reaping the rewards of these basic lies. Now I'm told going to beach on a sunny breezy day is high risk. I'm listening, show me the outbreak, show me the data that says this is high risk.
N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Cloth and non-medical disposable masks are not considered protective (although it's likely they block some inbound particles, and there's evidence they may thus result in a gentler illness on average) but do reduce transmission.
You're right that there are multiple kinds of masks; in the US, it's kinda pointless to talk about N95s. No one's wearing them, in part because they're hard to get, and in part because our anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones.
> The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
You'll actually find me elsewhere on this thread noting that outdoors tends to be safe, so I'm not sure what statement of mine you're arguing with here.
> N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Yes, our government has been incompetent all around. That's a bad thing.
If the country can't gear up production of masks to fight a pandemic, why am I supposed to believe we could do anything of meaning competently? I know I'm a lot less impressed with our military's readiness if we ever get into a real war than I was a year ago. We've shown we're very good at throwing money at fraudsters and very little about actually producing things we need ourselves.
We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
I don't understand the people who go from "wow, we've handled this badly" to "we might as well never try anything again," though.
That should be the motivation to start paying more attention, from local politics all the way up, not give up.
> Yes, our government has been incompetent all around.
I don't agree. This is not incompetence. It is malice. The government absolutely could be responding far better, and doing much of the same things every other western democracy is doing. A popular political position in this country is to prove that we need less gov't by making sure it appears incompetent. Combined with the similar political need to believe the virus is a hoax means we get zero federal response.
I wouldn't argue with that much when looking at federal government (judicial branch excluded), but state and local governments have been varied in their responses, and most have been far from malice. In Chicago, my local alderman has been reactive to events (including non-covid matters, like storm damage) and informative about public services (especially with testing sites). Helpful and without cynicism.
I believe that national politics gets an undue spotlight, and that local government (in particular) does not receive the attention warranted.
The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work. And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available. So why is it suddenly now that they can't provide any help in a pandemic because it's the States' responsibility?
>>The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work
While I disagree with the strategy and execution it is completely dishonest to say they were sent "to do community-level police work", they were sent to protect Federal Property after the City and State Governments failed to provide any protection for said property in the face of riots.
Again if it were me I would have just abandoned the building, and take with it all federal money letting Portland burn setting up a new Federal Courthouse (and giving the money that comes with it) to a new city in the region that would welcome the economic output of such a venue.
>>And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available.
2 wrongs do not make a right... As a libertarian I advocate for the reduction in Federal power all the time at every level. It seems however Democrats only complain about federal power when a Republican is in charge, and Republicans only complain about Federal Power when a Democrat is in charge. Democrats and Republicans alike have transferred HUGE amounts of power from the Legislative to the Executive which enabled both Obama and now Trump to use that federal power in ways many people disagree with
They may wish that the local police were more successful at suppressing the violence, but that doesn't make it their responsibility to deal with the rioters. And why did they feel the need to meet the Portland protesters with violence but not the guys who occupied federal property out in Eastern Oregon? Politics, perhaps?
> 2 wrongs do not make a right
Sure. However, promoting the general welfare of people in the US by supporting pandemic response is a good bit less bad than creating arbitrary new regulations and laws that criminalize behavior which is really a local concern.
> We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
That is something to ponder. What does this say about us as a people? "Hey, we must retaliate, they attacked us!!" vs "Hell no I will not do one simple thing to protect others when we are all under attack from a virus." Hrm.
A few bad apples spoil the bunch. A society made up of people that tolerate 20% of their own to be antisocial super spreaders is rotten to the core, even if the majority behaves responsibly.
There's an analogy to US police forces there, too. And to US politicians.
I find it kind of odd that there appears to be a huge overlap between the following two groups of people:
People that say government can or should impose/strongly-suggest/mandate mask wearing to protect overall population. Essentially the pro-mask wearing individuals.
Individuals that believe that we need end-to-end encryption, and that we can't have government watching our emails, tracking our movements, doing facial recognition, profiling, etc to stop violence.
In both cases, one could argue, the solutions being pushed-back against can effectively stop their respective problems. E.g. large scale big-brother surveillance of all individuals could effectively reduce crime to near zero. Just as 100% large scale government lockdowns/SIP and mask-orders can stop the spread of an epidemic.
Obviously I'm generalizing to try draw a comparison and point out the hypocrisy. Both of the problems require a suspension of some set of rights for "the greater good", yet we somehow balk at one (surveillance, facial recognition, centralized DBs, etc) whilst applauding and being offended when people question the other (mask wearing, SIP laws, social distancing, etc).
It's probably time that we decide as a society what we want instead of incessantly debating back and forth with contradictory requirements and expectations we impose on our governments.
Governments spying on their people has been happening for decades and there is little evidence of any significant benefit for society, while the potential for abuse is obviously huge.
By comparison wearing masks to slow down infection rates of viruses/diseases that spread via nose/mouth secretions has centuries of evidence backing it up and the government doesn't really gain anything by enforcing the use of masks in places like supermarkets. Maybe it can artificially increase demand to benefit some mask manufacturers but that's it.
I'll agree it's not a perfect analogy. But if you want to press me on a potential abuse of a government-mandated and punishable order of wearing masks: Abuse of power by corrupt government officials that can use this extra and easily-fakeable "offense" in order to punish individuals that they don't like. Or what about the negative social aspect of creating laws that have neighbors secretly reporting each-other for this? Or the potential for child-traffickers to gag + hide the gag with a mask while they're busy engaging in trafficking?
If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance. What we don't do is sit down and come up with extraordinary ways and means for us to use powerful tools/ideas/solutions such as surveillance in a responsible and safeguarded manner that is not exploitable by bad individuals in government, or bad governments themselves.
N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Yes. That's pathetic at this late date. Worse, many of the off-brand ones don't do much. Some tests found masks performing around the 20% level, instead of the 95% level. This problem should have been fixed months ago. Part of the problem is that manufacturers didn't want to invest in the equipment, because the epidemic was supposed to be over by now.
Good N95 masks use a clever technology.
The inner layer is a stretched film with holes. That layer can stop particles smaller than the holes - it's an electret, with a permanent static charge. Anything solid small enough to get through the holes gets pulled to the edge of a hole electrostatically and sticks. This has the interesting property that it works better on smaller particles; the static charge pulls them in more easily. So these can filter solids far below the hole size. Masks lacking that technology either don't work or obstruct breathing too much.
3M 8210 masks work that way. You can get them expensively on eBay, and cheaply if you're willing to wait 60 days for delivery. The "8210 Plus" model has a better elastic strap, which mostly matters for long-term use or storage. Aging of the elastic band is the weak point in the base 8210 model.
There's a vast supply of cheap "surgical" masks available. At least get a supply of those. Only ones with a bendable nose clip. Anything that leaks around the nose is worthless.
Machines for making N95 masks are available for sale, although some of them look like prototypes and are far too slow.
For some reason it is absolutely CRITICAL for me to not go outside to a beach, but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
Sure, they may not work great, but there just is a total lack of effort to actually solve the problem.
Same thing with masks. Countries with fractions of our per capita GDP and income levels crank up huge mask production. Total availability - literally the post office handing them out. No, not N95's always, but KF94s and other very effective masks. We are still talking about mask availability?
Same thing with testing. I'm talking walk up no dr referral needed testing. My health care provider WILL NOT test unless you are basically dying. I had a collegue, a once in a lifetime chance to see family (10 years) came up. I told him, find a private pay / doesn't do insurance / doesn't deal with govt testing facility and get tested before traveling so you don't spread it by accident.
What about contact tracing. You have millions of folks unemployed, are paying out 1+ trillion in checks etc to all sorts of people, and you can't get a contact tracing program going. Your telling me none of these people can go down a call list and call folks up?
All I hear from health professionals is how they can't do anything about anything, nothing helps, except staying alone at home. Masks don't help if you don't wear them perfectly, masks can't be found, the apps won't really work so they aren't going to do that. PLEASE get a grip.
Masks will help - so get production going. Contact tracing - hire folks sitting around. Get the apps going, get testing up, get rears in gear. I think if we saw more credible action by the "proper authorities" lecturing us we'd all be more enthusiastic in doing our part (now we can't even get good masks or apps etc).
> For some reason it is absolutely CRITICAL for me to not go outside to a beach...
No. Beaches are quite safe.
> but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
It is! (It's not happening in the US, though.)
> This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
You seem to be ranting as if I'm supporting the current state of things. The current state of things is bad; the Feds are largely AWOL. States are muddling through with various levels of competency, mostly poorly.
Everything you're saying I agree with. The reaction to the pandemic has been absolute shit, and it leaves us in this position now - ongoing lockdowns, supply shortages, and the like. One need only look at Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. to know it didn't have to be this way.
>> N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
No they are not. This misconception is absurd. I bought 200ct of KN95 in early April from AliExpress and got them in 10 days. They are still plentiful.
> I bought 200ct of KN95 in early April from AliExpress
How certain are you they are authentic? Remember a couple years back when everyone bought glasses online for watching the solar eclipse and then it turned out they were all fake and wouldn't protect your eyes?
Especially given the economic incentive present today for anyone willing to sell "N95" masks.
N95's are available on eBay as a black market ish item. Sellers come and go. I've bought dozens and given them to friends and family and use them when in an Uber.
KN95s are fragile, have crappy fit (leak air enormously, obvious if you wear glasses since they fog), and aren't very well regulated. But they are better than surgical or those ridiculous cloth masks.
N95s would have had to be produced non-stop for a decade prior to a pandemic to satisfy demand. We are 10 years behind schedule because our government only prepares for wars with $300M tanks instead of $100M stockpiles spread around the country.
> Cloth and non-medical disposable masks are not considered protective
> anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones
How's this for a solution? Make masks with inhalation valves. You can find masks for dusty work with exhalation valves. It wouldn't be too big a change to reverse those valves. The lost protection against inbound particles isn't much, and the gain would be near elimination of the inherent discomfort of re-breathing CO2. I'm not an anti-masker, but I notice I'm a lot more comfortable with my mask off.
The mask still protects other people from transmission by you.
Anti-maskers wearing lace 'masks' does not protect other people.
They are completely different, and that is the main point of mask wearing for the general public - to protect each other by reducing the chance of ourselves transmitting it if we have it.
Your comment assumes the entire purpose of a (nearly) sealed mask is to protect the wearer from incoming droplets or particles. I don't understand where this ignorance comes from; it's been widely known and repeated for some time that masks do much more to protect others from infection from the wearer. There's only a small amount of protection for the wearer from infection from others.
An inhalation valve preserves the mask's primary purpose by closing off during exhalation. It gives up a small amount of protection for the wearer, but obviously a lot of people aren't interested in that anyway and refuse to wear masks. With an inhalation valve they could at least protect others.
> Your comment assumes the entire purpose of a (nearly) sealed mask is to protect the wearer from incoming droplets or particles
It doesn’t just assume it. It’s the whole point of the masks.
If your aim is just to prevent making people sick, a surgical mask is just fine (exhibit A, normal doctors).
If your aim is to prevent getting sick yourself, a N95 respirator is a better choice (exhibit B, doctors treating COVID patients).
An inhalation valve does less to protect other people, because the expelled air still has to go somewhere, and will just blow out of the sides of the mask. It could theoretically go through the mask material if it was thin enough, but there’s probably too much pressure inside and it’ll burst out the sides.
That in reverse is the whole idea for masks with an exhalation valve. Breathing in creates negative pressure inside the mask, so air gets pulled inside through the mask. When breathing out the valve opens and releases the extra pressure without blowing out the sides (not really a problem per-se, but would compromise your protection).
> An inhalation valve does less to protect other people, because the expelled air still has to go somewhere, and will just blow out of the sides of the mask. It could theoretically go through the mask material if it was thin enough, but there’s probably too much pressure inside and it’ll burst out the sides
No, an inhalation valve makes 0.0% difference here. Here's a simple mental exercise to understand better. Imagine two people side by side. They are wearing identical masks, except one has an inhalation valve. They breathe in, pause, breathe out. In your mind, freeze the frame at the pause between breathing in and breathing out. At that moment, what's the difference between the two? Nothing. Now watch them breathe out. What's the difference? Still nothing.
Where is this coming from that only a small amount of protection is provided to wearer. For a while I kept on posting studies showing the effectiveness of masks in protection infection by wearer, but it's hopeless - somehow public health authorities have gotten everything so muddled in folks minds.
> Where is this coming from that only a small amount of protection is provided to wearer [...] public health authorities
I clicked the HN link to your comments. I couldn't quickly find studies, just a mention of Korea having success with KN94 masks. I think it's safe to repost them now without being repetitive.
The "95" in N95 refers to it filtering 95% of all particles in general, and particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers specifically.
The relationship between particle size and the ease of filtering them is U-shaped, not linear, with the dip at around 2.5 micrometers being the bottom of the trough.
> I think health professionals lost a megaton of credibility in claiming masks don't help, to not wear masks, or that masks can only help reduce transmission not infection. Other countries went all out on masks - with great results.
I think for the most part health professionals answered specific questions about specific types of situations or types of transmission, and the media runs with overly broad statements when are then pushed/rejected by different parties.
There are many inputs that go into something as simple as a recommendation of "should the general public wear masks", including "are there enough masks for health professionals currently", "what's the current infection rates", "how far has it spread", "what type of masks". Additionally the answer might be different at different times in the past depending on whether talking about a locality with an outbreak or the whole nation. Expecting the answer as to whether wearing a mask to help to not change over time is as silly as expecting it to not change pre-COVID-19 start and after it.
The bottom line is that the inputs that influence the recommendation are fluid and change over time, so we should expect the recommendation to change over time, and the only reason people aren't getting that is because it's in the best interest of different groups to position it otherwise so they can use it to score points (and while the obvious groups in question are political, they aren't limited to one side of the spectrum, this is a common tactic used across the board which is particularly troublesome when it attacks the credibility of the people we trust to tell us how to protect ourselves).
> I think for the most part health professionals answered specific questions about specific types of situations or types of transmission, and the media runs with overly broad statements when are then pushed/rejected by different parties.
> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm
Highlighting
> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus,
Also Fauci saying that there's "no reason" for anyone to be going around in a mask. (Not, "we don't know if it will help", not "there are more effective measures you could take", but "no reason".)
(Edit: This is from March, just to be clear that he's not saying that now.)
>Fauci: Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
>LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
>Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.
Sure, and what I think you have here is a bunch of people not being exact in their terminology and not explaining themselves, which makes their statements seem wrong out of context.
Consider, the situation is that people think if they get a mask, they are protected, and can go about their lives as they were. Also, there's a shortage of masks. Given the option of "stay away from large groups of people and public events" or "wear a mask and feel protected", saying "stop buying masks" might mean something slightly different then than it does now.
At the same time, I acknowledge that's a particularly egregious example. To that I say that the Surgeon General is a political appointee, and our government and the politicians that make it up (all of them) have failed us to various degrees. That interacts with what and how the health professionals have communicated with the public, but in a much less straightforward way (if there's different messaging coming from government health services and the general health community, and the government sources are counterproductive, who did you trust, and who do you blame?).
It is not an excuse. Those early wrong statements have cause irreparable harm that's still ongoing. If all they wanted was to ensure health professionals get it first they should have SAID so (lots of responsible people in this country, even if there are plenty of bad apples) and should have gone to the supply chain sources to ensure health professionals get it before regular citizens do. What they SHOULD NOT have done is to straight lie to the population that masks are not useful at all and now turn around. Trust has been lost and good luck rebuilding this before the pandemic infects everyone.
You can hold people liable for making the best guess at the time with the information they have, but you can't expect them to keep giving you advice then. All the professionals were saying "given what we know now" with all their statements, and revising them as they went along. The problem isn't that they were wrong, it's that when correcting themselves, that was immediately used as evidence that they were incompetent, which means people are then forced to choose between the new messaging of the professionals and the counter-messaging of the politicians (and media, since they carry that signal).
You can read Fauci's statements on what he said and why here[1], but the main things to thing about are:
- What did we know about transmission at the time those statements were made?
- Where was the outbreak at those times? Localized to specific areas, or nation-wide?
- Was it responsible to report to the whole nation that they should be wearing masks given those facts? What if we know there's not enough masks, and that means masks go to areas that don't need them?
The bottom line is, should we have expected anyone to act differently given those conditions and that knowledge at that time? You can note someone made a wrong decision in the past, but if they made the correct decision given the information they have, you can't rationally hold them accountable for the outcome (and if we're not speaking rationally, then we're not actually discussing anything, just airing grievances).
> The bottom line is, should we have expected anyone to act differently given those conditions and that knowledge at that time?
Yes? This isn't a school classroom. It's okay to cheat on the test. You know who's best at handling this because you know they handled it last time. You ask your boss to ask his boss to get on the line with Chou Jih-Haw and ask for some of his best people. They're an allied nation with close ties who want even closer ties. They will gladly help.
And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
> You know who's best at handling this because you know they handled it last time. You ask your boss to ask his boss to get on the line with Chou Jih-Haw and ask for some of his best people. They're an allied nation with close ties who want even closer ties. They will gladly help.
You think that's Fauci's call? That's Trump's call. You're blaming healthcare professional's for doing what was best given the knowledge and resource they had available. I've made it pretty clear that the politicians failed us, and you've just pointed out another way.
> And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
All this does presuppose they have any actual help they could provide. It's unlikely they were willing to ship us a few tens (or hundreds!) of millions of N95 masks.
> The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
The problem is that they are beholden to the politicians, and even more so now, where appointees that speak out using their experience but contradict the party line are replaced.
There's been a lot of talk about how Trump is eroding people's faith in government and institutions, and here we have a prime example of that, where the institutions were clearly dysfunctional for obvious reasons that have to do with the executive branch, and we still have people shooting the messengers.
I was "educated" by health professionals that said masks do not help you avoid infection, despite showing paper after paper that they do (PPE is so fundamental to infection control the whole health professional - anti-mask things was so random).
That includes my county health department (I asked if they would arrest me if I put a mask on or didn't take my mask off on a crowded transit vehicle - they said they would STRONGLY encourage me not to wear a mask on crowded transit vehicles if I was "healthy" despite my higher level of risk and that I shouldn't believe "disinformation". A month later they issued a mask mandate!)
Masks are cheap. For 10 cents to $1 you can save a life - perhaps cheapest intervention out there.
I noted this in a reply to a sibling comment, but I think there should be a real difference in how you view health advice from a government agency, and from general healthcare professionals and the healthcare community. Your county health department is subject to political pressure, even if not directly. If National health agencies are issuing guidelines, states may use those as references, and local agencies might use the state or national ones, but probably aren't going to go out on too much of a limb to counteract them because it endangers that local agency in case they are wrong.
Unfortunately, health recommendations regarding this outbreak have been seen as fair game from both sides for political plays (there's no point in debating why or who started it for this discussion), and as such recommendations from the top had a political bent.
If there is a difference between what healthcare professionals and government agencies employing healthcare professionals recommended, we should note that and target our ire to the correct location.
> There are many inputs that go into something as simple as a recommendation of "should the general public wear masks", including "are there enough masks for health professionals currently"
When there was a toilet paper shortage, businesses were still able to get their supplies since they used a different supply chain compared to the end consumer. I'm surprised that this isn't the same case with PPE.
The separate supply chain for toilet paper was because the products are fundamentally different (different kind of paper on different rolls), low margin, and expensive to convert.
PPE is often literally the same product sold in consumer vs. healthcare markets. Sure, the distributors may be different, but it's the same goods from the same factories, and often the same packaging.
Denmark didn't go all out on masks initially but curbed the pandemic by socially distancing and shutting down early.
Masks are currently not required in public transport across the country, but that changes this Saturday. Up until last week I can count on one hand how many people I have seen wearing masks.
Now that people seem to have forgotten what social distancing means, masks are a useful tool. But if everyone just keeps their distance, they're not a must have.
Such KF94 masks are non-washable, and must be handled with much care since you will be breathing whatever particles get on it from your hands, hair and environment. Accidental mask contamination is an issue and really negates the whole idea of masks for self-protection, so please be careful.
Much less pathogen is needed to get you sick if it is stuck to something covering your breathing pathways on every breath.
Your surgical mask reduces your risk of getting covid by about 30%.
Your N95 mask reduces your risk of getting covid by about 99.9%.
Why even wear a surgical mask?
Anyway, I think the issue with going to the beach isn’t the part where you play in the open air on the beach. It’s where a bunch of people go to a beach house and drink a bunch of beer in a small room.
To prevent others from getting covid from _you_ [0]
N95 masks are more expensive, take more effort (and training?) to use correctly and have limited reusability IIRC.
As a society, it's more efficient if everyone wears surgical masks, because that means every infected person is also wearing one, even those that don't know (yet) that they are covid positive. So in my opinion, it's a good thing if countries force everyone to wear them.
Good surgical masks are much nicer to breath in then fabric ones.
> In EVERY other country you can buy masks, and they were strongly encouraged, that prevented YOU from getting sick.
What? I’m East Asian from a country known for mask wearing and this is definitely not how mask wearing is treated. It’s definitely to protect other people from you!
I'm still surprised there is so much misinformation about this. There are two categories of masks. The first category only prevent you from spreading the disease. These include paper surgical masks, cloth masks and those blue disposable paper masks. These are only made to prevent you from spreading droplets in the air from your moth and nose. If someone with covid isn't wearing a mask this category won't do anything prevent you from catching it.
The second category are masks such as N95, P95, N99, P100, etc. Things like disposable painter masks or reusable masks with replaceable filters. These are meant to filter out particulate in the air and they do reduce the likelihood of you getting the disease. To call your mask P95 it must be certified by NIOSH and tested to meet the given rating, ie P95 must filter out 95 percent of particulate and be resistant to oil.
In the beginning the US and CDC were not recommending using masks. I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
> I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
Yeah, but instead of saying that they lied and said masks don't work.
I wonder how much of the current anti-mask sentiments arise from these lies.
Which person lied? I did not hear the claim (from a public health authority) that masks were not effective in preventing transmission. I did hear the claim that we are unsure if masks provide protection for the user (rather than just protecting others from the user), which still reflects our current knowledge for most mask types AFAIK. I did hear the recommendation against buying masks early on to protect the supplies for more critical users.
I also don't see how you can blame the health authorities for this when half the political leadership in this country continually questioned (and in some cases still questions) the efficacy of masks and successfully politicized the issue.
>“What the World Health Organization [WHO] and the CDC [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have reaffirmed in the last few days is that they do not recommend the general public wear masks.”
But in neither of those cases did anyone say, you shouldn't wear a mask because they won't work. They recommended against wearing masks because they thought the harms of people wearing masks would outweigh the benefits at that point. I tried to make the distinction between saying "we not do not recommend the public wear masks" and "masks do not help prevent sick people from spreading the virus" clear in my original comment. All comments I saw were the former statement, which I think is not misleading the public or lying, not the latter.
It's possible they were wrong w.r.t. the harms outweighing the benefits but that's easier to say in hindsight.
"They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" reads to me exactly as "you shouldn't wear a mask because they won't work".
Exactly, and at that time my wife and I were wearing masks (that we already had from before the pandemic!) going in stores and people gave us looks, made comments, etc. That is what happens when our leaders are irresponsible, ineffective and plain stupid.
Not really, at least not Fauci. What he said was they wouldn't work for most Americans. What he was implying is that most Americans wouldn't bother to learn to wear them properly.
I think he was right. If your glasses are fogging, RainX isn't your answer. Make the damn mask fit better.
Anthony Fauci quoted below with his primary motivations:
"I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci told O'Donnell.
"When it became clear that we could get the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he said.
"And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing."
But a leader speaking out to the population is not the same thing as an engineer/researcher formulating a theory and correcting themselves as information comes through in their research notes. One of the important things you have to consider as a leader is political capital, which is a limited resource. Every time you tell people that they should do something that is different from what they wanted to do, you are burning that capital. You cannot change your mind "as new information comes through" every day, soon enough, everyone stops trusting whatever you say and are back to doing whatever they think is best.
So if you think masks _can_ help (now or in the future, with training, used correctly, when we have enough of them in the future, etc etc) then DO NOT say they do not help and then come back to that because you have "new information".
If the problem was sourcing PPEs for health professionals why didn't the government use emergency powers to seize shipments and ban selling of such critical products to the general population? At least temporarily while building stocks for health professionals (which I'm surprised we didn't already have stocks of, you know, that seems like normal preparation procedure for a national health emergency?)
Yes- he's negotiating a difficult position. At the time there was a big concern that people wouldn't wear the masks properly. "It takes training" was the implication.
But all the good quality evidence we have so far struggles to find a benefit to masks. This is especially true for DIY cloth masks that are being mandated for the public, but it's also true of high quality N95 masks. We only see a benefit when we drop the quality of evidence down, but this means we have less confidence in the result.
> RCT evidence was limited and showed no effect but accumulated evidence from retrospective case controls and cohorts all showed these strategies decreased transmission. N95 respirator mask OR 0.17 (CI 0.07–0.43), Gloves OR 0.32 (CI 0.23–0.45), Gowns OR 0.33(CI 0.24–0.45), All OR 0.09 (CI 0.02–0.35)
Note that this is for an N95 mask, not worse masks like surgical loop masks or cloth face coverings.
There's some research looking at post-operative wound infection rates. It can't find a benefit to surgeons wearing masks in clean surgery.
> We included three trials, involving a total of 2106 participants. There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials. We identified no new trials for this latest update.
> Authors' conclusions
> From the limited results it is unclear whether the wearing of surgical face masks by members of the surgical team has any impact on surgical wound infection rates for patients undergoing clean surgery.
> Conclusion: From the limited randomized trials it is still not clear that whether wearing surgical face masks harms or benefit the patients undergoing elective surgery.
Here's the most recent, very high quality, paper about masks and covid-19. This wasn't available when Public Health organisations were making their recommendations.
> Although direct evidence is limited, the optimum use of face masks, in particular N95 or similar respirators in health-care settings and 12–16-layer cotton or surgical masks in the community, could depend on contextual factors; action is needed at all levels to address the paucity of better evidence. Eye protection might provide additional benefits. Globally collaborative and well conducted studies, including randomised trials, of different personal protective strategies are needed regardless of the challenges, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence could be considered to inform interim guidance.
This para is saying we just don't have the evidence yet. It's saying people should wear facemasks because masks may help, but we don't know, and maybe masks cause harm.
> Interpretation
> The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.
Look at the difference in the description of distancing (supported) and masks (optimum use may help).
> Face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection (n=2647; aOR 0·15, 95% CI 0·07 to 0·34, RD −14·3%, −15·9 to −10·7; low certainty), with stronger associations with N95 or similar respirators compared with disposable surgical masks or similar (eg, reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks; pinteraction=0·090; posterior probability >95%, low certainty).
Tucked away in this para is "low certainty". This comes from GRADE. Low certainty means that masks may be much more effective, or much less effective, than they estimate.
>> In the beginning the US and CDC were not recommending using masks. I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
This happened anyway. Telling noble lies to the population just increases populism and makes people distrust the government even more. Which is paying off wonderfully right about now.
There are no studies that I know of that show that cloth masks provide protection for the wearer. The consensus now seems to be that they are effective at decreasing the likelihood that a sick person spreads it to a healthy person if sick people wear them.
In addition to what other commenters are saying just like vaccines masks only really work on a population level and even there they don't work as well as vaccines. The figures I've seen claim something in the range of a 20 to 40 percent reduction in risk of catching from an infectious person. That isn't anything like what I'd call protection
The argument isn't about whether masks do or do not work (they do). The argument is about whether or not it makes sense to shut down the entire economy when only the very sick, very old, or very obese are really at serious risk.
The obvious solution is: If you are at risk, or worried about COVID, don't leave your house. To everyone else: wear a mask, stay away from people, follow the precautions...but go do what you like (mostly).
What we're doing now is the worst of both worlds: not enough to actually eliminate the virus (not gonna happen in the US...it's just not. Welcome to America) and just enough to mess up the economy and put a lot of businesses out of business (and also just generally make life annoying).
So it seems to me pretty clear: let people do what they want as long as they wear a mask, and just pass a bloody law that says you can't fire someone cause they don't want to come into work because they are overweight. Seems a lot cheaper to just support those people staying home with a welfare payout/BI than shutting down the country for no reason.
> The argument is about whether or not it makes sense to shut down the entire economy when only the very sick, very old, or very obese are really at serious risk.
Tell that to my buddy who almost died. Healthy, early 40s, no pre-existing conditions.
Also... there are plenty of people who do not fall in out-group rhetoric of being “Very sick, very old, or very obese” who are extremely vulnerable. Or, is that you just define “very sick” as anyone who is not like you?
Outliers exist in any distribution. Healthy people die suddenly every day. Of course it’s difficult when it’s someone close to us and I’m sorry for your friend’s struggles, but it happens.
Somehow other first world countries manage to keep infection rates under control and not completely kill the economy. Maybe they are super lucky and we are very unlucky or maybe they have better leadership?
This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
(1) Best available evidence indicates pretty clearly that masks will prevent you from getting it sometimes. This is sharply different from early messaging that masks could increase your risk due to them somehow being viral-magnets and thus you risked infecting yourself.
(2) We have done many studies on many viruses and the consensus seems to be that the initial viral dose matters a great deal -- the lower the dose, the lower the severity. It's also fairly clearly established that, at their worst expected performance, masks will lower the dose you receive.
This is a disease in which the severity matters a great deal. We see wildly different ranges of outcomes/levels of severity.
And indeed, many of the worse outcomes are setting where it's reasonable to assume that there was a significant viral dose.
I think it's irresponsible to promote the idea that masks only help protect others from the wearer. While they clearly do that, the balance of probabilities of available data strongly indicates that they sometimes protect the wearer.
We've even had studies as specific as having examined masks with SARS-CoV-1 -- to pretend that none of our medical knowledge indicated that masks are helpful for SARS-CoV-2 is insane.
The "risk compensation" concern which was claimed as one of the reasons to pretend that masks weren't helpful has been thoroughly debunked as a false concern. Additionally, while they were busy talking about "lack of evidence", their "risk compensation" concerns were also completely lacking a foundation in evidence.
The whole situation disgusts me. "Doctor knows best" and "we can't tell people the truth because they might not respond the way we want" attitude has to stop -- it destroys the fabric of society and the credibility of health experts.
Why would people ever trust words of officials when it is obvious to anyone paying attention that their messaging was focused on avoiding blame for contingency planning failures instead of focused on providing true, accurate, not-misleading and helpful information.
Here's an example from the United States Surgeon General:
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
You want people to believe that your plan is to use these ineffective masks to protect healthcare workers? Are the healthcare workers a different species than the general public?
The head of the strategy of Sweden, keep repeating that he is not sure masks are working, how you can be so sure that he is wrong, and decides that's others who are not listening ?
Of course it is clear that if someone has covid and wear a mask, the probability to transmit covid will decrease (I was actually encourage people to wear a mask 6 months ago), but will it stop ? no. people can still transmit it by touching you. So yeah this is decreasing the risk, but is it decreasing the risk high enough that it will prevent the virus to spread ? Nobody has answered the question yet.
In France the mask is mandatory almost everywhere and still the number of cases keep increasing
The head of Sweden's response is quoted as saying:
> "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."
and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
> He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up:
So if cases started going back up, which is not the case for now, so this is not an argument
> The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
You compare the economic impact of one country which was hit by the virus (Sweden) and one which was not (Germany,Finland, ...). What is going to happen if the virus restart in Germany and Finland and not in Sweden ?
Back in mid-May, when the US was still behaving pretty well, the angry right-wing facebookers started talking about how great Sweden was. So I did a per-capita death calculation and Sweden's was 30% higher than the US's.
Of course, a lot of the US has lost patience with the difficulty of safety, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's worse now. But that's not because of lockdown not being effective. In fact, it's the opposite.
And let's not forget, in the US H1N1 infected 60M people and only killed 12K of them.
There's a common talking point that because masks aren't perfectly effective, they therefore aren't effective at all or worthy as a safety mechanism. It's a total farce of an argument.
Tegnell is a fucking idiot. Look at the numbers, look at how it spreads, look at the countries that were doing OK at first and why. That's Taiwan, South Korea, Iceland, Singapore. Look at what Sweden did (nothing). Look at Swedish GDP change compared to neighboring countries.
US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful.
The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.
They did at the outset of the current administration but chose to fire the people trained for 'reasons'. When the pandemic finally pressed on the country, the game plan handed down from the previous admin had been abandoned for years at that point by the current administration.
"Why should American taxpayers throw good money at pandemic planning when they only happen about once every hundred years in the US? The last one was what, almost exactly a hundred years ago, what are the odds it would happen during this administration?"
The logic remains breathtaking, and the irony would be delicious if it weren't so deadly.
> The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on.
I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky
Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion.
The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens.
The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
>The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds.
1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.
2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
>> 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.
Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others.
>> 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries.
>> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.
>>The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one.
Acting like this is a foregone conclusion is the height of arrogance. Diseases spread in waves. They could just be at the low point between two waves.
We won't know until years from now. Just asserting you're right when there are still this many unknown factors smacks of someone looking for data after coming to a conclusion.
fair point, but do you know that the under 65 excess deaths metrics for Sweden is already almost identical to previous years ie. if you were looking at the charts you would not even know they had a pandemic. I suspect "years from now" looking at the US metrics it will be similar.
You can clearly see excess mortality for Sweden, higher than previous years.
Edit: missed the under 65 bit, would be interested in seeing that data for Sweden, but you can see the collated graphs for all the countries that contribute and you definitely can spot spikes in the lower age ranges.
This is a very specific claim. I don't doubt you but something like this should always be backed up with sources or people will dismiss you immediately.
The metric by which it's doing better, is freedom. Nobody has been forced to change their lifestyle, if they did, thats because they decided so.
The number of case is under control [1], almost no death now (and not hiding after a lockdown, really no death) so probably less death in the future compared to those countries
The key metric Sweden is winning at is that they're already at the finish line. They never locked down and their death counts are the lowest they've been since before the pandemic. Single digits and zero in recent days.
No, they are not. Death rate is low everywhere in North hemisphere right now because of summer period. In winter, death rate will climb back to 4%, like in Brazil right now.
I don’t understand how Sweden could be a good example to follow: they now are at 573 deaths per million, close to Italy 585. (France is 466, Germany 110, Norway 48, all flat. US 585 and rising fast)
If you look at Belgium 859 deaths per millions, Sweden (and the US) could go much higher without any preventive action (I believe Sweden is now acting more in line with other countries?).
The Champions League finals definitely aren't an indication this part of the world has dealt with it and is moving on. There's a huge amount of intrusive Covid-19 restrictions around those, from obvious things like no spectators to putting the entire teams in isolation (compliance has been... mixed), and even then I have my doubts that they'd be able to finish the season if it went on any longer due to the exponential growth in cases again in Europe.
Also we shouldn't forget that "American independence" really also means "selfish". Many Americans can care less who dies, as long as it directly doesn't affect them, thus fights about simple things like mask compliance, or not going to a bar for a while.
That in addition to the federal government not supporting people and businesses while the economy is shut down, leads to this obvious outcome we're experiencing right now.
If people like you wont wear a mask or social distance and the portion that are asymptomatic pass it around you will help it spread far and wide maximizing the chances that even careful people will become ill eventually.
Wearing a mask is mostly about keeping the respiratory droplets of the ill, including the 40-50% which don't have obvious symptoms from spreading around. If only the vulnerable wear masks they wont be safe.
I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
That's the thing though...You don't need to lock yourself inside, just wear a damn mask when you go do your stuff. For example, I wear a mask to go run on the boardwalk because I like running there. It honestly takes 0 effort to wear the mask and I get to do what I want.
Sure, you can be selfish, but you're also negatively impacting society and saying that you don't care. You do you, but I don't get it.
If a gym can't be open and avoid killing people who don't actually use the gym then it can't be open. Classic example of your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
I do think it's best if we are able to do certain things with appropriate precautions (masks inside, things outside when possible, etc).
Sorry if I was a bit harsh - had someone yell "America" at me while running with a mask the other day but I shouldn't project that frustration onto others.
Oh come on. How is just wearing a mask or working out at home during a global pandemic that's literally killing millions "sacrificing a lot of my freedom". You're selfish, and kids in history classes are going to look back on people like you forever and question why people were so selfish and stupid.
If you're going to attack others for their alleged ignorance maybe you should get basic numbers right? Covid hasn't killed 'millions', it hasn't even killed one million people. You're off by at least an order of magnitude.
Well, we’re at 800k “official” numbers, but when looking at excess deaths for countries with data available vs official numbers nearly all are undercounting the COVID deaths, or at least were at some point. There can be many reasons for this, such as the testing capacity at the beginning of the outbreak but I would definitely say we are over 1 Million.
This is uncalled for. Lot of exercises cannot be done at home without required equipment unless you are a Hollywood actor and have a huge mansion with private gym and equipment. Think of weight lifting, power lifting etc. Impossible to do at home for most people (meaning not rich 0.1%).
You are assuming you have spare room for this equipment (ignoring that the prices you quoted are quite high and actually it costs more for serious equipment if you want realistic weights of 200-300 pounds which is not even that heavy).
I rent a room in downtown of a big city and I simply don't have space for equipment (my room is mostly just bed with small kitchen and bathroom). Don't assume everybody is rich and owns a house with spare room / garage where you can put equipment.
I am 30+ years old and never lived in a place where I would have spare space for gym equipment. You must be very privileged if you have that (top 1% at least).
I didn’t downvote you. (I don’t downvote if it’s worth commenting.) If I had to guess, people downvoted the hyperbolic nature of your comment. Lifting is clearly a middle class activity. If it’s too expensive for a working software developer, then they have other priorities, which is fine.
And by the way I looked at that reddit and almost all posts are from the gym, to do any of those exercises (seriously, I mean normal weight like 200-300 pounds for squats or deadlift) at home you must be very rich and have a large house with basically a private gym.
I agree it’s hard for city apartment dwellers to build a home gym (although a set of kettlebells can get most people by). But anyone with a small house and/or a spare room can easily and fairly inexpensively build a home gym.
I agree, if you got a house with spare room then it should be easy to build a basic gym, if you don't drive and don't need car, you can even use garage as a small gym. But in apartments it's not so easy unless they are quite big. Once I own a house I would probably convert garage into a gym as I don't really have interest in cars or driving.
Good luck finding equipment at those prices. I was looking to pick up some extra equipment a little while back and everywhere was either sold out or crazy marked up because everyone is trying to build a home gym now. Just rechecked dick sporting goods and "Due to exceptional demand, Weight Sets are unavailable in your area".
A person can workout on the cheap though, and still gain strength and mass. A few kettlebells and a pull up bar can deliver a crushing workout to even the most in fit person. Kettlebells in particular are easily portable.
Pull up bar is not something I can't install in my apartment as landlord won't approve. I am only renting so can't do many modifications here. I would love to have that option.
The door frame pull up bars are non-permanent, and can work in many cases. At most you might have to paint a bit.
If you're in a city there has to a playground nearby providing all sorts of options.
I think people just get too tied to a gym, when there are countless options to get really good workouts if the gym is unavailable for a period of time.
As someone who power lifted for many years I get it. I needed > 500 pounds in order to max. But, I also know that's on the extreme end. Even then though, give me a 70+ pound kettlebell and I can crush my posterior chain using cleans and snatches.
It is possible to get good workouts with minimal equipment.
Yes, I agree that a second floor apartment is a bad place for a gym. I disagree that this equipment is the domain of the super rich. What I listed is less than the cost of a decent, not fancy, road bike.
Yeah consider the additional rent you have to pay excluding the machines. An additional room for your apartment is more expensive than a $50 gym subscription.
>I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
The problem is that you are effectively deciding how others live their lives through your careless actions. Everyone should have a say on how they want to live their lives, not just you.
I was warned very early, end of January, and locked down my family about a week before required. I track someone who reviews the literature and news and give bi-weekly updates on the state of knowledge and politics surrounding the pandemic.
Originally he erred way on the side of caution, because we did not know enough. We learn more every week, and his current outlook is a lot like what you just wrote.
The big remaining problem is this is not going away anytime soon. There's more politics than science going on, and there have been institutional failures world-wide from top to bottom.
>nobody successfully proved to these people (me included)
>sacrificing is the worst solution for everyone
>this is not your fault if they [high risk people] catch it
>we stop everything for the rest of our lives
This is nothing more than a tantrum. Nobody can "prove" it. Humanity is still learning about COVID-19. No model is going to predict the outcome of closing the economy. It has not been done in modern times at this scale.
>0.5% death rate for population
Google is showing the death rate at ~3% worldwide. 6 times higher than your nonsense 0.5% water-level figure.
You're commenting later down the chain that you wish to frolic at the beach. The fact is, you're sick of inconvenience and will stomp your feet until someone hears how sick of it you are. Go cry elsewhere.
It is important to differentiate terminology here. According to DDG (which closely aligns with Google's results) the case fatality rate, the ratio of deaths to confirmed case, is 3.5%. For the death rate, the ratio of deaths relative to population size, is 0.01%.
Confirmed Cases: 21,991,954
Deaths: 777,018
World Pop.: ~7,800,000,000
Case Fatality Rate = Deaths/Confirmed Cases = ~3.5%
It would be ridiculous to assume the Deaths/World Population figure is the risk for yourself.
That's similar to claiming that, because only 93% of all humans ever born have died so far, your risk of dying is 93%. It may be mathematically sound, but completely ignores the context of the problem: That for the living/not-yet-infected the result is still outstanding.
You've just identified the difference between "Proven" and "Proven to me." The former has already been done, but obviously the latter requires a person to not actively refuse to listen.
If you're ready to listen, the proof is already there.
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of weighing the cost of action vs the possible outcome. Just like insurance, there's a low cost of action (low continuous payments) to hedge against a possible large negative outcome. It's also worth noting that some types of insurance are mandated because people are bad at calculating risk in general, and when they fail, we as a society don't necessarily want that to have too extreme an outcome, so we have societal guards in place to help. Mandated insurance shifts the burden from society (taxes) back the the individual. We see this in health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, etc. Sometimes it depends on region (some localities requires fire/earthquake/flood, etc insurance).
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
To clarify, wearing a mask, as recommended by most officials currently, is not about protecting oneself, but about protecting those around you in the case you are unknowingly contagious. It greatly reduces the spread of your contagion, it does not greatly reduce your chance of being infected unless you are using a high-grade mask very securely fastened such that all airflow is through the mask and not around it.
> so this is not your fault if they catch it
It very well may be your fault if someone catches it if you're contagious but ignoring recommendations about avoiding gatherings of people, or not wearing a mask, etc. They could literally catch it directly from you with little ability to block it. A sneeze can travel very far, yelling expels particles with more force, and direct contact with people or surfaces they touch shortly after and then may touch themselves or something else they touch after washing their hands is not something easily protected against.
> but you need to stop living your life.
This, right here is the crux of the issue. What is being asked for from people ranges from not working to curtailing social group gatherings and activities. The work portion is horrible, and life altering, and actual affects people living their lives. The group activities being classified as "living your life" is both a) relatively recent for the vast majority of the world, which did not have the free time or money to do such things on a regular basis decades ago, and b) shows a complete mismatch by people of what the need and what they like and want.
A vanishingly small number of people actually need to go to the gym (those in physical therapy that need certain equipment), and the others can get basic exercise at home or outside without anyone around. Nobody needs to go to a bar. That we classify these niceties as "living our life" is really just a shift of priorities of modern people in first world countries away from actually having to worry about survival. But this is a matter of survival, and those thought patterns are doing us real harm as a society during this crisis.
> It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
No, it's that people are unwilling to separate simple and (relatively) easy sacrifices from hard sacrifices, and acting like they're all the same. Get food from restaurants, but limit or eliminate the in-restaurant eating/time (you don't have to order door-dash, just pick it up). You don't have to stop drinking, or talking to friends, but you shouldn't do those in person when avoidable.
Collectively, people stopping the non-essential gatherings such as gyms and bars will not only reduce the spread and save lives, if everyone did it we might get back to the point where the increase in cases was so low more optional services could reopen again, lessening the economic impact.
It's not about scarifying, it's about making people actually understand how this works, and how their actions actually play into this when carried out by massive amounts of people. And when it comes to bars and gyms and people being unwilling to change their habit, it is also a bit about people not wanting to sacrifice. In the grand scheme of things, those are fairly small changes to ask for, and if people can't even bother to do that, what hope is there that they'll follow through with other things?
Masks protect people who aren't sick yet. Their primary mode of operation is making it harder for the virus to spread. But since we don't know when people get sick they have to wear a mask before they get sick for masks to be effective.
Introverts vs extroverts. Humans are social animals. Socialization is a basic human need. It is much harder for some people to stay inside and not socialize than others.
We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything. I continue to obey the orders, but I totally get why some people are starting to crack.
> "Keep your distance, wear a mask, and stick to small groups" is not the same as "do not socialize".
Ok, but then we have people doing solo activities, all by themselves, minding their own business -- getting arrested by lunatics[1] because we said no beach allowed during Covid[2]!
You'll find California (and everywhere else) has loosened up substantially on outdoor activities, as we have substantially more information in recent months on outdoor versus indoor transmission. We've learned a lot since April about COVID-19.
people who act like joggers are the real threat mostly don't exercise, just as people who say things like "I don't understand why people need to get together" mostly are introverts, people who think the anti-lockdown protestors are lunatics generally don't own brick and mortor businesses, etc. people are scared and want someone to blame, ideally someone who isn't like them. and it's naturally much easier to see the things you do as essential, but the things you don't do as nonessential
Maybe some people think enforcing compliance is about safety.
This whole discussion is absurd. If people actually did comply, then they wouldn't get arrested and we would have had a far more successful outcome nationwide.
No one (statistically) was spreading it at the beach, so all the hand-wringing and blaming now and then that you're engaging in has shown to be arrogant and incorrect.
We said "No beach during Covid" because a bunch of lunatics flooded the open beaches.
And while the beach may not be a problem, those same lunatics flood the gas stations, Walmarts, etc. and DON'T WEAR MASKS.
In addition, California never really locked down. California has almost continuously had an R0 above 1.0. Mostly due to the lunatics in Southern California.
If you want to open the beaches and arrest anybody not local, fine. The problem with THAT is that you now have to patrol for it--which creates in-person contact.
So, we shut the beaches completely. Sorry you can't surf. Tell your population cohort to wear your masks and stay the hell out of parties and maybe California will get below R0 one day.
Or not. And this crap can continue until we get a vaccine.
Why is it not OK to jog on the beach by yourself? You don't seem to have an answer for that.
Don't allow large gatherings? OK fine, I might object to this, but I can see the other side at least.
Not allowing individuals to do individual activities? That seems misguided at best.
After all, we do allow Ice Cream Parlors to be open, and outdoor seating at restaurants where you sit in close proximity to other people who are not wearing masks... how is that better than jogging on the beach all by yourself?
They aren't better, and none of this is actually about safety nor is it about "Flattening the Curve" anymore. We flattened the curve long, long ago.
No, it's not about safety, it's about compliance. You will comply, regardless of how illogical or contradictory certain County Health Official Edicts are.
> Not allowing individuals to do individual activities? That seems misguided at best.
Please reread my post. I already told you what the problem was.
A zillion people flooded the open beaches. The problem is that those zillion people then go places other than the beach and spread Covid.
The only real way to prevent that is to simply close the beach. Yes, that sucks for locals. So far, you have not presented an alternative solution. "Reopen the things!" is NOT a solution--it's idiocy.
However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners because you work at the grocery stores, gas stations, etc. that they all flood after the beach.
Stop being a selfish prat. If you just have to be outdoors, go hike the mountains.
The solution to your problem is to not allow large gatherings on the beach. That's pretty simple, right? We're doing that already everywhere else - lines to get into stores, etc. Or enforce wearing a mask? There's plenty of ways to do this that don't result in a squad of cops running down a solo jogger, or a task force of patrol boats and helicopters for a solo surfer... just because the Mayor or County Health Official said it must be so!
So, what's wrong, for the 3rd time, with a solo jogger on the beach, with nobody around them?
The answer, for a 3rd time, is nothing.
> However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners
You really think that risk doesn't exist for locals going to grocery stores too? Touching a can of food, then putting it back on the shelf? Handling paper money, grocery bags, etc.
What we have here are not rules for the sake of safety. What we have here are not rules for the sake of "Flattening the Curve".
No, we have rules for the sake of rules. They make some people feel safer, even though there's zero evidence to suggest they are effective at achieving their intended goals. The reason people are disobeying these "orders" is because the government has not done a sufficient job convincing people the rules are based on logic and actual science, not "science" and politics.
It is not inherently more risky to jog on the beach by yourself than to go sit at an outdoor restaurant, no mask, and be around a bunch of other people.
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue otherwise. Yet, here we are.
I think you're being really unreasonable here. He's not saying he went to a flood of people at the beach. He's saying that should not be allowed, and is asking why he should not be allowed to go jogging on the beach alone. Emphasizing the word AFTER doesn't make any sense.
There are ads on pretty much every medium that say "Stay Home", which is not at all what you're describing. To say "nobody is saying do not socialize" is untrue, but to say "We're not allowed to socialize" is also untrue.
Considering most states have been in full on shelter in place lock down mode, there aren't many places people can socialize anyways.
All of the normal places where you see people socialize have bee closed or went out business. Restaurants, bars, night clubs, sporting events, live music (festivals and stadiums) and many, many others.
It would be one thing to conform to what your saying, but its become hard if not impossible to find safe places where people CAN socialize, so they take what they get regardless of the risks to them or others.
I had just graduated college and moved to a new city on a new coast before lockdowns started. I essentially have no in-person social network to speak of, currently. My parents lived overseas up until a month ago. Folks my age (early 20s) are happy to socialize with their established friends. Less so with strangers. All the places shut down are the standard avenues for folks like me to meet new people. I was entirely alone for 4 months. My life was hell. And all the while my company talks about difficulties being at home with family, and figuring out childcare (and has freed up resources to help their employees do so). No mention, ever, of any effort to establish meetups for low-risk, early-career employees, not that I'd expect that. No one particularly cares about people in my situation (not that rare).
Comments like this and the ever popular "it's just a mask!" show a remarkable lack of awareness and understanding. Yes, that's perhaps overly selfish of me. Yes, there are people at serious risk, and many people dying or developing life-long serious complications. But this has been the worst period in my entire life, by far. I was regularly, very seriously, suicidal (have since moved back in with my parents now that they're stateside, starting to get better). All the policies and all the talk are oriented around having a network of close relations to fall back on. That doesn't exist for everyone.
I think cases like this are almost completely overlooked. I'm also concerned/saddened by young children who's parents just moved to a new town (moving is not uncommon when many can't afford mortgage/rent due to covid lay offs).
We're going to see pretty significant long term effects to both the economy and children / young people due to a lack of social development.
I couldn't even imagine how shitty being a 20 something in a new city would be now. Dating has to be practically non-existent.
Should say that I'm for and obey covid restrictions in my country (Canada), but I'm amoung the privileged few already working from home, and have a family and kids that keep me busy.
the media have consistently demonized people at beaches and parks. Lightfoot fenced off the beaches in Chicago, Newsom did the same in CA. It's ridiculous; and its why people are skeptical of their intentions.
No state in the USA is or has ever been "in full on shelter in place lock down mode" during the pandemic. Many states issued half-assed stay at home orders, which in practice ended up being voluntary and unenforced. Throughout it all, there were people who were out horsing around, doing whatever they wanted, and not facing legal consequences. Vanishingly few people were arrested for violating stay-at-home, despite it being legally enforceable as a misdemeanor. Thankfully most people did their part, but to call it "lock down" is a bit of an exaggeration.
>2. Why can't people socialize online? It's even easier nowadays. It might not be the same thing but it can get pretty close.
It is not anywhere near close. Video calls transfer speech, tone of voice, and facial expressions at best. Body language is a vital part of face-to-face communication, and there is no video call equivalent of leaning in towards someone or putting your hand on theirs.
I find the topic of introverts vs extraverts to be extremely fascinating. My wife and I are pretty big introverts, but she is somewhat shy whereas I am not. She loved group exercise due to the external motivation factor but has actively avoided getting into conversations in that setting.
I am also not one for striking up conversations with strangers but have been known to get quite chatty with people who initiate.
On the whole, both of us loved the lockdown for the 2-3 months but after that, not being able to see our close friends really started wearing on us. We were some of the first in our group to start expanding our quarantine units. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, but the right amount of social interaction is a very rewarding and enriching part of the human experience.
> We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything.
What? That's a pretty exaggerated misrepresentation of what's actually being recommended. You can socialize and see or do plenty while still obeying the recommendations. For instance, my elderly neighbors regularly socialize with others -- they just put chairs out on the driveway or patio and maintain two or three times the distance as they would before the pandemic.
I'm an extrovert. I can find ways to occupy my time. I've picked up drawing, meditation, and running. I want to talk to people in person, get drinks, go to shows, etc. It's not hard to find something else to do for a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Get a therapist if it's that difficult. Preventing the spread of disease is more important than hanging out with your friends. The burden of the disease falls on people like nurses, essential workers, etc. and you are making their jobs miserable because they can't even take any break now (this is the situation at mother's hospital). Just be less selfish. It's easy
Mid to late March after news of Italy started blowing up. Started with spring break extensions and "temporary shutdowns". It's incredible how quickly recent history gets mixed up..
Buy yeah, we are just finishing out month 5 and heading into 6. But the most stringent lock downs were only into May for a lot of places; at least hear in San Antonio.
I don't understand this. Under what circumstances are you proposing that we'd be able to open back up? What's different now (or could have been) than it was when you claim we should be been locking down the first time? Certainly no amount of locking down would completely eradicate the virus, so what's the exit strategy?
I don't disagree with phased lockdown -> re-opening plans similar to what we did here in VA. The lockdown started in late March, round one of opening was rural areas and small gatherings, then extending to suburban areas, etc. And if numbers start to go back up, we might shut down again.
The problem I do have is a substantial number of people appear to be ignoring any/all orders to stay home, distance, etc. Everything from the speakeasy gyms mentioned in the article to churches holding indoor services to in-person classes at local schools. All three of which, by most accounts, are likely to result in new COVID clusters.
Whilst I am certain pool parties are indeed happening, something about the fact that they happened and ended up in international news strikes me of being a little, maybe, propaganda-ish.
What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Well luckily we have this thing called the internet that lets you see images, video, and text from far away places.
> What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Full lockdown, including stipends to help people out economically, heavy maks usage, massive amounts of tests (when they saw six new cases after not having any, they did 6.5M tests in a week in wuhan), and scanning temperatures of pretty much anyone anytime they go into public area.
The US had a concert with thousands of people just last week. I'm sure we can agree it shouldn't have, that it was a very dumb decision for Smash Mouth to do it - but I don't see much reason to believe that this Wuhan pool party was a smart decision.
There's a genuine culture difference in America, call it American Exceptionalism if you want, that's caused all sorts of normal preventative measures to be ignored or actively rejected. Many businesses actively rejected the idea of requiring masks, today some businesses still refuse service if you're wearing a mask. That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
Moreso in this thread you have hundreds of comments hemming and hawing, nitting and picking at every detail of proposed lockdowns and mask requirements. People hate this stuff and they call it an imposition on their freedom.
In other countries people just put on masks and stayed home. They didn't make nearly as much of a fuss about it all.
> They didn't make nearly as much of a fuss about it all.
Yes. But my point is, I don't see how that could make them any closer to re-opening. The virus still exists. All the factors in play when the lockdowns started are still in play.
The problem is the relaxed attitudes to COVID is causing clusters to appear and expand, delaying efforts to re-open.
Remember, lockdown isn't about 100% prevention, it's about keeping infections at a level that's acceptable (generally defined as keeping enough ICU beds and ventilators available for COVID+normal use).
If people all wear masks, keep distance when possible, and generally "follow the rules", we should be able to return to a more normal lifestyle.
But, as politicians force schools to open, pastors insist on in-person services, and the "mah rights!" crowd refuses to play by the rules at all, we get more COVID clusters than we might otherwise.
NYC was far from acceptable. The point was to prevent the rest of the nation getting to a similar point.
That levels in other urban areas generally stayed below thresholds is proof that the lockdowns worked.
Until the pandemic passes (either via mutation, vaccine, or herd immunity), we should be in a state of maintenance where we move in/out of various levels of lockdown/open to keep it that way.
I don't believe this for a second. The total number of people that managed to contract it in New Zealand within the last week was under 10, and they locked down an entire city because of it.
"Everyone stop moving around for a few days so we can contact trace and test these people without it spreading more" seems like a very good mitigation.
It has worked well for NZ thus far; they've been able to demask, hug, and live life pretty much normally for a while now.
I'd happily take the occasional few days hard lockdown in exchange for that.
You have to consider what would happen otherwise. If you lock down cities at 1000 infections then how many other cities manage to reach 1000 infections before you take action?
We live in an unprecedented age of communication and media. I have a hard time taking any so called 'extrovert' seriously when they say that they can't handle the current state of 'non-socializing.'
Maybe these extroverts aren't extroverts and instead they're regular people suffering from withdrawal because we live in an over-socialized society.
Let me preface:
I've abstained from going to the gym since we went into lockdown, and even now that we are out of it here. I am looking into equipment at home, and I can at least keep my fitness, if not my strength, by going mountain biking.
That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency.
There is certainly a social aspect to it as well, I love training with a couple of friends, the atmosphere can't be replicated at home. But like I said, I've abstained, and I would have been hopeful others would have to.
> That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency.
Yeah, this is pretty important. I used to lift and there's simply no way that I would make the investment to have all that equipment in my house. In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others. [0]
I switched to a more equipment-light calisthenics routine years ago with a few items I have around the house, so the current pandemic does not impact my own fitness routine - but for people looking to get really strong this is no substitute for lifting heavy.
[0] As an aside: this shouldn't only apply to gym equipment, communal resources should be way more common for economic and sustainability reasons. There's no reason at all every homeowner should have a lawnmower, for example.
> In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others
This has not been my experience at all. I used to have a membership to my local gym for my wife, myself, and their childcare program (basically watch your kids while you exercise for 1 hour).
I cancelled that membership and instead put that same amount of money into buying equipment at home (where I have enough space for it) and it only took me about 5-6 months to get enough equipment to replicate about 90% of my routine from the gym. Now I also don't have to wait in line or spend the time travelling to/from and I can exercise whenever I want. For me it has been way more effective.
And when I'm done using the equipment it's not going to go in the trash, I'll sell it in the local classifieds.
Wasteful on a societal level, not an individual level. If everyone did what you did, we'd all need more space, and a non-trivial amount of steel. Hard to do that if you live in a studio apartment, etc. You just can't apply your situation across the population.
Personally I can walk to my gym, and I get far greater quality and variety of equipment by not having to pay for, maintain and store it myself. There are no duplicate machines at my gym, yet it spans a whole warehouse, and I've used every machine at some point as my programme evolved.
As a renter, when I move I don't have to lug hundreds of kg of weights and equipment with me.
>Yeah, this is pretty important. I used to lift and there's simply no way that I would make the investment to have all that equipment in my house. In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others.
I don't see a problem with lawnmowers but I think maker spaces should be in every city. I can easily buy high quality tools for myself but I have no space in my apartment and once I'm done with a tool it feels like a waste to let it collect dust in a drawer.
There is one big problem with communal resources. Not everyone is qualified to use a tool and communal resources make it easier for unqualified people to get tools and break them.
Can't you do calisthenics ? There's a ton of possible exercise which uses only your body weight, or only minimal equipment like a pull-up bar. Can you do a one-legged squat? Pushup with a hand stand? Dragon flag? Many other exercises on youtube which make you sweat in minutes.
It really depends on your discipline. Powerlifting really starts at 100kg of weight on a barbell, and many need more than 200kg of weight on a bar to perform their training. You could keep healthy with a home fitness regime, but you'll lose some of your total strength, and you certainly won't be progressing.
That's all I'm trying to point out, for many disciplines there is no substitute for equipment. But so be it, these are unique times.
Body weight exercises can be great and useful in maintaining a certain level of fitness, but you're very limited in the ability to increase your muscle mass using them.
Kettlebells can get you a long way for sure, but are not really suitable for the bigger lifts from disciplines like powerlifting and olympic lifting. The biggest kettlebell I can find online is 92kg, even with one in each hand that's not enough for many. Part of the benefit of plates and barbells is you load them up 20/25kg at a timel, two 92kg kettle bells would be cumbersome to get into position!
That's true. But for parent's objective of keeping their fitness and hopefully their strength, a couple of kettlebells are probably better that mountain biking, and it takes far less equipment and space than a proper rack, bar and plates.
What specific long-term gain will we achieve with that short-term sacrifice? Sure we can keep most gyms closed for several more months, and that might marginally reduce the spread of the virus for a while. But the virus is now endemic and will be with us essentially forever. We have to reopen gyms eventually, and then we'll be right back where we started. As long as the curve has been flattened sufficiently and the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed then what are we really accomplishing by waiting?
I think you answered your own question: "As long as the curve has been flattened sufficiently and the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed"
The difference between "overwhelmed" and "not overwhelmed" is pretty subtle. You can measure this in ICU beds and hospital capacity, but that's not sustainable. You have to start asking "How many hours are health care workers working?". You also have to ask, if we did have any setbacks/outbreaks, what buffer do we have in terms of people and PPE availability?
You can't run the system at the red line, it's not sustainable. And any distance between our current capactity and that red line is somewhat open to interpretation, but I bet that distance feels a lot smaller for our EMTs and Doctors than it does for the average person on HN.
The healthcare system isn't running at the red line. Almost all hospitals have adequate capacity. Most healthcare providers are still working shorter than normal hours. So your concerns are unfounded.
And let's not forget all the people who decided to postpone care during COVID: most of them will have worsened conditions once they get to some hospital. The fearmongering may add a lot of avoidable deaths: cardiac problems not taking seriously, cancer found too late etc.
> What specific long-term gain will we achieve with that short-term sacrifice
It's a collective action problem. If everyone keeps to mask mandate and social distancing for a month, there is no need to close gyms and schools after. Germany and Italy are fine now with maybe ten deaths a day.
If 20% of the population keeps ignoring the recommendations because they don't give a flying fuck about the society they live in, R0 will stay above 1 forever and half of your neighbourhood will see their grandparents die in the next year.
Pandemic control measures can temporarily suppress R0, but as soon as those measures are lifted the contagion picks up again.
The average age of grandparents in the US is about 65. The actual infection fatality rate for that age group is 1.3%. That's bad, but nowhere near half the neighborhood.
How short term is short term? It's been six months with no end in sight. If you're a fitness enthusiast living in an apartment, you're screwed. All well and good if you've never had any interest in a gym, but if it's one of your primary hobbies to maintain mental health, then it's not a 'those people' thing. And again I speak as someone trying to replicate a gym in his apartment and getting exasperated.
People with houses and garages shouldn't be as critical, given their comparative privilege here.
Living in an apartment is what has fucked me over. I like living in a small space. But that was fine when everything I did was outside that space - Gym/Pool/Sports/Restaurants.
Swimming is my thing. I don't know why but it makes me feel normal like no other exercise can. but the pools have been closed for months now here in Melbourne (excluding a couple of weeks in the middle there).
Now I'm just depressed, stuck in isolation, borders are closed and can't visit my friends or family. Everyone saying this shit is easy for introverts have no idea. They seem to think introverts don't do anything or never used to leave their house?
Talking to a therapist maybe helps but as other people have said, not knowing if there is any end in sight is what sucks. Not sure why I'm venting to you.
I understand. I think you need to sub in other activities. This could be something like calisthenics if you want something more technical. There's a German online group called Calimove that have an "At home" workout and also some Calisthenics (starting from basics) levels workouts if you want that. There's some free Youtube stuff, and then there's some paid courses that give exact workouts. If something more basic is what you're after, biking or running.
It's a time of adaptation, and it sucks for sure but it's simply Necessary. If I told you what I'm doing instead of olympic weightlifting you would laugh. However it really helps reduce that exact angst you're describing (which I'm very familiar with as well). I consider physical exercise to be as critical to me as everything else, and absolutely essential for my mental health. I happen to be an introvert as well and feel similarly, btw.
> it is really strange that people feel they have to (...) get together (...)
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
These are two related issues, but not the same.
Before we started (half) using the office again - I'd not see anyone outside of buying groceries. For approximately 3 months straight. It's not healthy, and I absolutely can see others having even more trouble with that than I did.
It is natural even introverts need to socialize.
That said, I'm surprised there seem to be less focus on organizing in smaller, regular groups. It's likely better for preventing spread if people met up in the same group of 5 to 10 people, rather than gathering indoors - especially as it now seems quite likely covid-19 is airborne.
So yes, some personal sacrifice should be expected - but I would be careful dismissing the need for people to see other people, in person.
I am one of those people that goes to a small gym near my apartment daily, even in the current times. The gym isn't very full, maybe a total of 4-5 people when I'm there (I picked my time based on how full it is). Everyone is obligated to wear a mask, there are disinfection sprays and one-time-use wipes that we have to use after finishing with a machine. Some people are also disinfecting equipment before they use it. The gym has the windows open and added disinfection diffuser thingies into each corner.
The reason for why I take the risk and keep go is pretty simple: Mental health.
When we had a lockdown, gyms closed and I was confined to my apartment 24/7 I felt horrible. Days just blurred into each other, I gained weight, my motivation to do anything dropped. My life was just work and I hated it.
Of course I bought a set of dumbbells (which were also ridiculously expensive because everyone had the same idea) and tried running but that only gets you so far. I can't get more equipment at home because my apartment is like 35sqm
When the gyms reopned I started going again and kept my guard up: Disinfect everything, don't be near other people, be careful when I take my mask off, wash my hands before I touch anything after I finish. Since then I started feeling much better. Even if I don't do anything else like meeting friends, going out for drinks, or if my workday happened to be shitty, I have something that makes me think more about myself and my health. Sports has incredible benefits on mood, sleep and mental health, hence why I take the risk.
For all we know, this pandemic can continue for a very long time. I'm not saying we should all forget the virus and do what we did before, but we should still try to find a somewhat healthy day-cycle that doesn't knock us in lockdown depression. Going to a small, empty gym while keeping my guard up is my calculated risk of "with corona".
The group thing is real. Some people just really need the motivation from others being present or their perceived judgement to show up regularly. It's not a failing on their part, whatever gets you to the gym and keeps you going, but maybe work on your individual workouts during the pandemic?
They work out in groups because they congregate in places with pull-up bars, bumper plates, barbells, medicine balls and so forth. Otherwise only those with houses and garages get to work out.
Not justifying it, I'm just jealous because my bedroom has turned into a gym and it sucks.
> Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
When problems are on this massive of a scale it is easy for individuals to think "cannot be me". Reality is that it is all of us.
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
That seems to be a very widespread societal issue. Feedback and gratification are very effective conditioning loops and it applies to basically everything directly socially linked. Advertising, education, law enforcement. Everything which shapes anothe life whether done knowing or unknowingly and can come to bite the conditioner one way or another. Like the "tiger mom nightmare" case of forcing a son through med school only for him to show it to his mom say "There I am done it, happy now?" and working in a convenience store because of the sheer weight of negative conditioned meant that poverty was preferrable to six figure income and working days calling back decades of resentment.
Defying it successfully is a way to make or save money and everyone hates it essentially is rare and doing so is an outright resentment magnet. The majority will dislike anyone who points it out as a potential component to a solution. It gets one outright dehumanized even for optimizations innocous as meal prepping the same balanced and cheap meal daily to save up for something.
the patrons apparently don't believe that their behavior is unethical, and in fact, think that the dictates of their rules are unethical, and potentially illegal too.
I think few are willing to sustain a COVID-free lifestyle indefinitely. Using induction some people probably conclude that they might as well not bother.
I see the reasoning and don’t think the ethics of our pandemic behaviors have been fully discussed.
If this was true, we'd see landlords with paid-off mortgages waiving the rent. Since we don't see this on any major scale, we can only conclude that mortgages are inconsequential to landlords demanding rent-payments.
A mortgage is not the only cost of owning a property. Taxes are a third of my mortgage payment every month. Other than the IRS delaying tax day by 3 months, I haven't seen any delay or waivers of taxes due.
In addition, there's basic upkeep and maintenance that you're required to perform to keep a building insured, let alone to make it re-openable at some point.
Depending on the state, calling sufficiently-far up the chain of command may do something.
The officer's immediate superior may be inclined to cut the officer some slack, but the buck stops with the person charged with ensuring that the pandemic is effectively managed.
The buck stops with all of us. We either beat this thing together or it keeps killing our relatives. Those are the only options. Pick one.
The problem is, of course, that those same people in the gym—an environment which is naturally quite conducive to spreading infections—later go to their workplace, or their doctor, or their public transport, or a bar, and back to the gym. By doing that, they can carry an infection around to others, even if they aren’t themselves symptomatic.
This contributes to the general public health problem, increasing the infection rate among the population and meaning more people get sick or die. This applies whether they were in the gym, or just had the misfortune of interacting with someone who had been.
I don’t know who initially said it, but… I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.
Nobody particularly cares about people doing high-contagion activities like going to a gym, for the people in the gym themselves, the ethical problem is that they're very few degrees of separation away from people who can't afford to be exposed. Even if you drive by and mind your own business, that gym almost certainly has a blast radius of unnecessary infections and deaths.
nah, shut you down with the health board for putting everyone's lives at risk. there's no live and let live here. if folks just sit back and do nothing, people will die.
> Proper authorities, photo of car, and a set of local news organisations, plus a few tweets and your state reps, might get some attention.
> Play interests off each other.
What would you tell the authorities? That there are people in a gym and that they need to be arrested? What outcome would you hope to achieve by tattling on them?
I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything.
Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.