AGO

That is absolute rubbish, like all of your other posts.

leftj Loc: Texas

Typical response when you can't counter with something of substance.

FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

Some use umbrellas when raining right?

FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

Typical from them

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

DeAnna Lorraine said of COVID-19 in February, 2020 that Dr. Anthony Fauci "was telling people that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large." Politifact called that "Mostly False". But look it up and you will see it was Mostly True.

On Jan. 21 - the day the first COVID-19 case in the U.S. was confirmed - Fauci appeared on conservative Newsmax TV. “Bottom line, we don’t have to worry about this one, right?” asked Greg Kelly, the host.

Fauci said, “Obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kind of things the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the Department of Homeland Security is doing. But this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”

Anthony Fauci, Interview on Newsmax TV, Jan. 21, 2020 (4:25 mark).

So Fauci, in a qualified response said, don’t worry “right now;” “you need to take it seriously;” and although “this is not a major threat,” keep an ear open to the CDC and Homeland Security. What would be your takeaway?

Fauci, “Radio interview with John Castimatidis,” Jan. 26, 2020. Catsimatidis interview:

On Jan. 26, Fauci gave an interview to John Catsimatidis, a syndicated radio host in New York. “What can you tell the American people about what’s been going on?” Catsimatidis asked. “Should they be scared?”

“I don’t think so,” Fauci said. “The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States, but it’s something we, as public health officials, need to take very seriously.”

Fauci reiterated that COVID-19 “isn’t something the American people need to worry about or be frightened about” because, at the time, it was centered in China and the U.S. could screen travelers from that nation.

So would you be worried about this after his statement? Was DeAnna Lorraine's statement about Fauci mostly true or mostly false? You be the judge.

DeAnna Lorraine ran against Nancy Pelosi in 2020.

AGO

Looking over your posts, I also see a complete absence of substance.

btbg

We are not all in this together. We probably should be, but that isn't the case. Democrat politicians have pitted people against each other. Well, a couple of Republican's have also, but it is mostly Democrats that have locked down states and destroyed businesses.

You can't say that we are all in this together when a liquor store owner is allowed to continue to make a living, but a gun store owner is shut down by the state for everyone's safety. You can't claim that we are all in this together when big box stores have been able to stay open and make record profits, while mom and pop businesses have been shut down by the state.

We will only all be in it together when policy treats everyone the same.

As far as what you said about World War II, that's B.S. Japanese Americans were no more likely to spy on or sabotage things than German Americans. It was racist and unconstitutional. The situation we have now is not the same, none the less, if we trample on people's constitutional rights in the name of public safety we will neither have safety nor will we remain a free nation.

Those constitutional protections were put in place to protect people from government. In other words had the constitution been followed the Japanese would not have been interned. Had the constitution been followed small businesses would not have been shut down and destroyed.

When government decides who can and can't keep their business open on a whim, then we are not all in this together.

leftj Loc: Texas

That’s because you’re blinded by the koolade you’re drinking.

btbg

From your article "VFE is not recognized as a standard test method" You see, that's the problem. The data that your side keeps providing to prove that masks work does not prove anything. In this case it is not recognized as a standard test method. And, even if it was this is testing what is filtered out in a laboratory setting, not what happens in the real world. In addition, none of the tests or studies that you have linked to have done anything to test the difference in the real world between wearing and not wearing masks. The only studies that have actually done that show that masks don't work.

https://globalbiodefense.com/2015/04/28/cloth-masks-increase-infection-risk-for-healthcare-workers/

This is the first and most complete study done to study how cloth masks perform in the real world. And the answer is not well.

Here's a link to the actual study. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.full?sid=aab3d05b-512a-40fa-8a9f-3a2648699fe1

Not only did cloth masks not work, the control group performed almost identically to the N95 mask group, which means that they don't really work either. However, what the study shows is that cloth masks are worse than nothing.

You say we need to keep an open mine. So, do what you say, look at the study. Look at the other studies that show masks do not work in real world settings, and keep an open mind.

And, you still have not provided a lick of proof that masks protect against covid. If you know as much about science as you claim to then you know that none of the studies or statistical analysis that you have provided links to follow correct scientific procedure to test the efficacy of masks. To do that you would need a cloth mask group, an N95 mask group and a no mask group who actually had the same lifestyle and were in the same public settings.

And, the only studies that have even remotely tried to do that show either no statistical difference between N95 masks and no masks, or they show that masks, at least when cloth masks are included perform worse than no mask.

Keep an open mind and look at the studies. Those studies that are closest to following correct science protocol are the ones that we should be paying the most attention to.

The two covid masks studies that should be carrying the most weight because of how they were administered are the Marine study at Paris Island and the Danish study. The Danish study showed no advantage to mask wearing where the Paris Island study showed the masked group got sick with covid at a higher rate. So, you can spout all of your scientific wisdom about how masks are effective, but until you look at those three studies and what they showed it is you that is not keeping an open mind.

btbg

I am not an authority. However, I have read the studies and none of you who support mask wearing have provided a single study that is correctly done scientifically that shows even the slightest advantage to wearing masks, while there are at least three good studies that show they don't work.

Have you bothered to read the 2015 study in Vietnam, the Marine study at Paris Island or the Danish study that medical journals refused to either peer review or publish. Because if you look at those three studies they are clear masks do not work.

Until you bother to look at them or provide valid studies that contradict them, it is you who is acting like at authority without bothering to look at the evidence. I have looked at all the evidence provided by both sides and so far there is absolutely no evidence provided that shows any evidence that masks work. In fact most of the studies that are cited to show that masks work say something like "masks may provide some protection" Well, from a scientific standpoint that is no proof of anything.

I would love for you to be right. If I have to wear a mask to go into a store I would like to know that it is helping rather than hurting, but the fact is the evidence says cloth masks are worse than no mask. So, until someone shows evidence to the contrary of course I am anti mask, because the data says that I am more likely to get sick with one than without one.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Covid viruses are around 10 BILLIONths of a meter (10 nanometers) in size
N95 masks stop particles down to .3 Microns in size. .3 microns is HUGE compared to a covid virus.
Covid is supposedly an airborn virus spread when attached to air born water molecules.
A water molecule is about .2 nanometers.

These are facts as far as I could determine. The information is fairly easy to verify but feel free to research it yourself rather than take the words of journalists, political hacks, supposed "experts", me and so on.

You can, with out much effort, find a lot of virologists that say masks are ineffective at stopping the virus.
You can with out any effort find a lot of "experts" of one sort or another, mostly government hacks and journalists that can't tie their own shoes tell you masks work, or don't work, often, like Fauci they say both because they are only experts at BS and lying.

Furthermore, I noted most people wearing silly masks are wearing cloth bandana's made out of handkerchief like material.
These are WAY less effective than the N95 surgical masks, and have about the same efficiency (none.) True, it's hard to spit on someone, particularly directly into their mouth or nose when wearing any sort of face covering, but for all practical purposes masks are a joke.
If you can breath though the mask, viruses have zero trouble negotiating there way though the GIGANTIC holes in all masks worn for this virus, other than the masks worn by the likes of lab workers at the Wuhan lab or other research facilities.

In the words of one of our favorite Gov't "experts" before he changed his mind, if it makes you feel warm in cuddly, wear the mask, but it ain't doing anything. Now he want's 2 masks that ain't gunna do doodly, but won't hurt anything!

btbg

I have. There are three studies. I have provided links to a paper and the actual study from 2015 in Vietnam. That study shows conclusively that cloth masks are worse than no masks.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25903751/

Then, I have cited the Danish study from 2020 which saw no statistical difference with our without masks. Here is a link. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-facemasks-idUSKBN27Y1YW

And here is a link to the paper from the study group. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33205991/

You will note that there was a small benefit found, but it was so small as to be statistically insignificant as they could not control for people's actual behavior so the small difference could have been masks or could have been lifestyle choices. And, it was a very small difference, as in .3 percent. Here's a quote from their conclusion.

"Results: A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was -0.3 percentage point (95% CI, -1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results. Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.fd" Key point is the results were not statistically significant. In other words they don't help, and that was medical grade masks.

Then there is the Marine study at Paris Island https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717
The important part of that study is the control group, those who did not volunteer to participate in the study had a lower transmission rate than those in the mask wearing group. In other words masks did not work.

And then, there is this. Doctors at Mt. Sinai Hospital published a study showing how well masks work, and then subsequently had to retract it because it turns out they don't work.

https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-pro-mask-study-withdrawn-after-virus-spread-in-counties-analyzed-by-researchers

So, yes, I have provided proof that masks don't work. You just choose not to read it. All of these studies were done with proper scientific method and procedures and all show either no benefit to masks or that they perform more poorly than no masks. We can argue about N95 masks. It is possible that they provide some protection, but that is actually pretty irrelevant since all of the current and former mask mandates allow for cloth masks, and all of the studies show that they don't work. So, until the mask requirements are N95 masks only then, mask mandates do not work. If they are N95 masks, then so far the best study shows that there may have been a slight benefit, but that it was statistically irrelevant.

How much more proof do you need?

DennyT Loc: Central Missouri woods

They were America citizens !!

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Kool-Aid is starting to taste rather nasty. People are being overwhelmed with fake, false, unsupported propaganda on lots of things, and this covid crap is a prime example. Masks are a joke, that should be clear to anyone that looks past the surface. There is more BS that has occurred around testing for the virus, deaths occurring FROM the virus vs WITH the virus, level of sickness and so on. Out of all the people I've known in my 75 years of fairly active life, I know ZERO that died from, or even with the virus. I know one that had it but only had cold like symptoms. I know one friend from 40 years ago that I heard his family had it, and only his wife was hospitalized, not sure if other health issues were involved, but she is around 73-74 years old.

This is all antidotal, but at least I know I'm not making it up to trick myself. In light of all the garbage spewed forth, most of it makes no sense what-so-ever, and conflicts with my "antidotal" first hand experience over a 1 1/2 years of covid nonsense. For example, I had the flu once in my life, many years ago. I was healthy as a horse, and I thought I was going die. I was really, really sick. I didn't need a test, I KNEW I had the flu. Everyone I've asked also had the flu at least once in their life, and every single one of them said the same thing.

This Covid thing, many supposedly have it with NO SYMPTOMS or cold like symptoms, some get pretty sick, some get hospitalized, and no body knows how many die FROM it because they lie about who has it and what they die from. I've read, probably false, that there's more money in it for the institutions if patients die with the virus. That doesn't raise any red flags, does it? I also read that over 600,000 died from the virus. Well, that's more than the US deaths in WWII. Something fishy going on there, particularly with my "antidotal" experience. WWII everyone knew people that died. Small towns have monuments with tons of deaths listed. I don't know anyone that died with it, or from it, and I know they lied a lot about the cause of deaths. I saw a video of a CDC woman tell a group that regardless of what someone dies from, if they had the cooties, mark them down as a death from the cooties. No red flag there. This doesn't mean no one died from covid, but it sure does make the reported statistics garbage.

As it stands, I have ZERO faith in the media, ZERO faith in the politicians, ZERO faith in the "experts" little faith in the medical profession, and little faith in scientists.

DukeTarHeel Loc: NC's "Research Triangle"

No I haven't and I won't try because I don't have the necessary scientific training to review a technical, scientific, peer-reviewed study. I trust scientists far more than I trust dilettantes.

Have there been contradictory statements from the scientists? Of course; a reasonable person would expect changes in recommendations as additional data is gained. No one can bats a 1,000 when a novel, deadly virus is first encountered. Expect changes but believe they are doing their best to help people stay healthy.