Science Is Dumb, Conservatives Know Best

[billvon 2,991]

24 minutes ago, airdvr said:

But the mask isn't there to protect Pence.

 

Exactly.  It's there to protect at-risk people (i.e. people in hospitals) from him.

It's not that he's stupid; he's not.  It's not that he doesn't know he puts other people at risk; he does.  It's that he doesn't care.  He belongs to the ruling class, and he feels that such tasks that benefit others are beneath him.

[airdvr 210]

1 minute ago, jakee said:

How does this relate to whether Pence is setting a damaging precedent or not? 

Should he have worn it?...sure.  Is it that big a deal that he didn't?...seems to be for those of you that are grasping at anything.  I get claustrophobic in a mask.  Maybe he does too.

[airdvr 210]

4 minutes ago, billvon said:

Exactly.  It's there to protect at-risk people (i.e. people in hospitals) from him.

It's not that he's stupid; he's not.  It's not that he doesn't know he puts other people at risk; he does.  It's that he doesn't care.  He belongs to the ruling class, and he feels that such tasks that benefit others are beneath him.

Now you've become the Great Carnack.  Neat trick to know what other people are thinking and feeling.

Would you admit that there are other possibilities?

[headoverheels 333]

1 minute ago, airdvr said:

.  I get claustrophobic in a mask.  Maybe he does too.

Then stay away from other people.

 

[Phil1111 1,149]

3 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Now you've become the Great Carnack.  Neat trick to know what other people are thinking and feeling.

Would you admit that there are other possibilities?

Trump names VP Pence to lead coronavirus response   Well after 31/2 years everyone with a brain knows what great leadership and selecting the "best people", looks like.

[jakee 1,490]

11 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Should he have worn it?...sure.  Is it that big a deal that he didn't?...seems to be for those of you that are grasping at anything. 

Why do you agree that he should have worn a mask?

 

And no, once again 'terrorist fist jab' and 'dijon mustard' was grasping at straws. This is a lack of awareness and lack of leadership from the two people in charge of your nation's response to the virus. We know that there are a lot of people who will take their cue from what Trump and Pence say and do, especially if it gives them an excuse not to do something they find inconvenient. What Pence is doing will result in fewer people wearing masks in general social situations and with at risk people. And guess what, if that means more people get infected, that could mean more time that lockdowns and distancing will be required, more time before businesses get back to some form of normality and that runs counter to everything that they want to achieve. All because they don't want to look silly on camera.

 

Quote

I get claustrophobic in a mask.  Maybe he does too.

He's never said so. But if he is then you know what, he should grow the fuck up and stay out of premises that have rules in place concerning the wearing of masks. I would say it's funny to see the right promoting the idea of 'one rule for the elites...' but it's not really anything new.

Edited April 29, 2020 by jakee

[wmw999 2,447]

16 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Now you've become the Great Carnack.  Neat trick to know what other people are thinking and feeling.

Would you admit that there are other possibilities?

What possibilities would justify the leader of the United State's Coronavirus response not following medical requests? Give an example.

Claustrophobic doesn't cut it, unless it's a disabling level of claustrophobia. 

Didn't you ever do something you didn't enjoy to be a good example for your kids?

Wendy P. 

[kallend 2,027]

Lemmings running off cliffs in a mass suicide is just a 1958 Disney movie fantasy.

[billvon 2,991]

2 hours ago, airdvr said:

Now you've become the Great Carnack. 

Nope, just observant.  He's not stupid, and he has demonstrated that he feels he is above the rules everyone else follows.  You may disagree, of course.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

6 hours ago, billvon said:

Yes, we do.

Can we simply concede defeat and call the forum Turtlespeeds Needs instead of Speakers Corner?

[billvon 2,991]

5 hours ago, airdvr said:

The point is most folks think the mask protects them.  It doesn't.

I LOVE this.

Trump suggests that injecting disinfectant could cure COVID - it "knocks it out in a minute. One minute.  . . .by injection inside or almost a cleaning.  It does a tremendous number on the lungs."  People say "it seems irresponsible to suggest that injecting disinfectant cures COVID-19."  Trumpies say "he didn't say inject it!  And no one is stupid enough to assume that."

Pence doesn't wear a mask in a hospital.  People say that seems like a poor decision.  Trumpies say "but people _think_ that it's to protect Pence.  Most people are stupid enough to assume that."

Most people are stupid when stupidity protects Pence; no one is stupid when intelligence protects Trump.

[gowlerk 2,193]

5 hours ago, airdvr said:

The point is most folks think the mask protects them.  It doesn't.

Wrong. Most people by now understand the purpose of the mask is to prevent them from potentially spreading virus. Most people also understand that they don't have the virus and that the mask is not really needed. But they also want to be good citizens and to set a good example. Unlike Trump and Pence who clearly want to send a completely different message.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

I think you are overestimating the understanding and intelligence of 'most people'.

[Phil1111 1,149]

18 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I think you are overestimating the understanding and intelligence of 38 percent of the American electorate.

FIFY

[headoverheels 333]

8 hours ago, airdvr said:

The point is most folks think the mask protects them.  It doesn't.

I wear a P100 respirator when I go out (almost never since March 12).  It does more to protect me that it does to protect others, since it has an open valve (no filter) for exhaling. 

This if for those people to which you refer:

[Baksteen 84]

2 hours ago, headoverheels said:

I wear a P100 respirator when I go out (almost never since March 12).  It does more to protect me that it does to protect others, since it has an open valve (no filter) for exhaling. 

This if for those people to which you refer:

Not necessarily targeting you.

That most people wear masks to protect others instead of themselves is something that I find very hard to believe

I've posted my stance on facemasks several times. But I (perhaps naively) was thinking that social distancing was being observed everywhere. I've since discovered otherwise. 

In your example: If you stand far enough away the guy can't pee on you so it is irrelevant if you are wearing pants (until the cops show up).

When social distancing is not being observed, masks do help - but only if worn correctly and if they properly fit the form of your face. 

The fact that so many professional masks are basically being wasted by improper use while there are so many health care workers who have to do without is just something I still can't get my head around.

[billvon 2,991]

10 hours ago, Baksteen said:

When social distancing is not being observed, masks do help - but only if worn correctly and if they properly fit the form of your face. 

Yep.  And since people here often refuse to social distance (and indeed some are proud of their stance) masks are at best a stopgap.  Which is one of the reasons that the US has been doing so poorly in terms of deaths vs population.

[airdvr 210]

12 minutes ago, billvon said:

Yep.  And since people here often refuse to social distance (and indeed some are proud of their stance) masks are at best a stopgap.  Which is one of the reasons that the US has been doing so poorly in terms of deaths vs population.

Once again...we don't know the true numbers.

40,000 Missing Deaths:

“Whatever number is reported on a given day is going to be a gross underestimate,” said Tim Riffe, a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

[billvon 2,991]

14 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Once again...we don't know the true numbers.

40,000 Missing Deaths:

“Whatever number is reported on a given day is going to be a gross underestimate,” said Tim Riffe, a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

Yep.  And that's even worse in the US.  We are so chronically short of test kits that anyone found dead is not tested, and many people who die of consequences of COVID quickly are not diagnosed.

The US is pitiful in terms of how many people we've tested.  Israel has tested 42 people per thousand; Denmark 33, Italy 32, Spain 31, Germany 30.  The US has tested 18.

[Coreece 190]

24 minutes ago, billvon said:

the US has been doing so poorly in terms of deaths vs population.

It seems countries that are heavily traveled are being impacted the hardest.  The UK, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium all have covid death rates that are 2-3 times higher than that of the U.S.

[normiss 801]

Florida Covid death numbers are lies. Continuing the FloriDUH reputation. Thanks to republican leadership in the state, we continue to be screwed.

[Phil1111 1,149]

18 hours ago, normiss said:

Florida Covid death numbers are lies. Continuing the FloriDUH reputation. Thanks to republican leadership in the state, we continue to be screwed.

I wouldn't have thought Florida was that corrupt. It makes it sound like Mississippi or Louisiana.

[airdvr 210]

19 hours ago, normiss said:

Florida Covid death numbers are lies. Continuing the FloriDUH reputation. Thanks to republican leadership in the state, we continue to be screwed.

"Man with one watch always know time...man with two never quite sure"

[GeorgiaDon 362]

Here is an interesting opinion piece in Scientific American.  The author has been an ER and critical care physician for 7 years, and is also a professor in the Harvard medical school.  He noticed that, despite the CDC's reports of annual flu deaths being between 25,000 and 60,000+, he could recall only one patient death due to the flu.  He contacted a number of colleagues who also work in emergency medicine, and uniformly they recalled none or very few patients who died of the flu.  This contrasts with CDC reports of deaths from car accidents or gunshot injuries or opioid overdoses, which the CDC reports in the same ballpark as the flu, ~30-40,000 deaths/year.  All the ER doctors see patients die of these causes all the time.  Something seems "off" about the flu numbers. 

In actuality, the CDC flu numbers are a statistical estimate with many assumptions about the numbers of people who die without being tested, and limitations in data reporting as the flu is not a reportable disease, except for pediatric cases.  The number of cases in which a patient has a positive diagnostic test (which is the standard the CDC applies to COVID-19 deaths) varied over the last 7 flu seasons from ~3,500 to ~15,000. 

He compared the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the 2nd week of April to the number confirmed flu deaths in each of the last 7 flu seasons.  By that measure, COVID-19 is between 9.5 and 44 fold more deadly than the flu.  Arguments that COVID-19 is just like the flu based on CDC number are highly misleading, because they involve comparing test-confirmed COVID-19 deaths (a large underestimate, because of very limited access to testing) to an inflated statistical estimate of flu deaths.  In fact, the fine print on the CDC website indicates that the flu numbers assume that a very large fraction of pneumonia deaths are due to the flu, despite that fact that several different diseases can result in pneumonia.

Why would the CDC inflate flu deaths?  One suggestion is that higher numbers are more effective at encouraging people to get the flu vaccine, which unquestionably reduce the impact of the flu.  From a public health perspective this is a good thing.  And, of course, the statistical model may not be far off. Certainly many or most flu deaths are not diagnosed by lab tests, so the "real" number cannot be known, only estimated.  However the same is true of COVID-19.  Especially earlier in the pandemic, until quite recently, access to tests were so limited that most hospital patients were not tested, especially if they died before being tested, and many thousands of people who died at home or in nursing homes were never tested.

At the end of the day, comparing lab-confirmed COVID-19 deaths to the high end of a statistical estimate of possible flu deaths is a highly misleading and ultimately deadly basis for decisions about risk from COVID-19, including when to abandon social distancing guidelines.

Don

[DJL 235]

On 4/29/2020 at 1:09 PM, billvon said:

True!  Lemmings running off cliffs reduces their population - and Pence not wearing a mask will have a similar result.  The weak will die off more quickly, and we can reopen the economy sooner and Make America Great Again!

I know we're just using the Lemmings metaphor in the context of it being a metaphor but I'd like to point out that it's an urban legend.  They don't actually jump off cliffs in a response to overcrowding.

Edited May 1, 2020 by DJL