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How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

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Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#281

Post by nullc »

endorphone wrote: post #58
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read repeatedly (and heard on the radio several times) that wearing a mask if YOU are infected will help protect other people, but if you are not infected then it has no known protective effect ie. is not thought to be any more protective than not wearing one. Do you have any evidence to back up you talk of masks? (And if YOU are infected you should not be out anyway) Edit: I was thinking of non-medical situatio…

"no known protective effect" Right. No one has ever studied contagions among the community at large and the effect of masks. When you hear people say there is no evidence, this is what they are referring. "is not thought to be any more protective than not wearing one" This is taking that claim too far, and is seldom what they're saying. Or rather never what they are saying. Early on there were PDAs that discouraged m…

> Right. No one has ever studied contagions among the community at large and the effect of masks.

It's been studied. There has not been a randomized controlled trial because performing one would be extremely unethical.

There is plenty of study evidence to support their use, just nothing meeting the gold standard of a RCT and there never will be one against a true live fire contagious disease.

The irony with all this is that the US administration really want to get people back to work as soon as possible. Massive deployment and mandatory usage would be the safest way to do that the soonest.

Too bad they already foreclosed that option by materially misleading the public.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#282

Post by a_tractor »

cmurf wrote: post #251
ceejayoz wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with using "masks don't work!" to keep the supply available for healthcare is later on, when supply is available for universal mask wearing, they'll have eroded public trust when they do the 180 on the advice. They should've instead: * Banned sales of masks to the public until healthcare and other essential workers had enough stock. * Honestly conveyed the reasons for the above ban, in WWII-style "do your…

a) implies competency b) where's the profit? U.S. is a country where solidly 1/3, with enough political capital to prevent alternatives, believe that healthcare is a product not a right (another 1/3 don't care because the system doesn't affect them, until it does)

>where solidly 1/3... believe that healthcare is a product not a right

And I guess the opposing 1/3 just don't understand the difference between positive and negative rights?

Healthcare, as a matter of fact, does represent a collection of products and services, and access to those products and services represent a positive right because it requires somebody else to provide something for you.

It is only negative rights, those which define what other people can not do to you, that should be considered inalienable. The right to free spreech doesn't require somebody else to go to school for 20 years so that you can express yourself, they just aren't allowed to prevent you from doing so.

Intentionally or not, people like you confuse the issue by treating both positive and negative rights as the same, and actually do not seem to understand, or are avoiding acknowledgment of the fact, that treating a positive right as some kind of natural right carries the high potential that you will be demanding access to another human being's labor or resources against their will, and in America, 1/3 of use are against the enslavement of others.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#283

Post by tooltalk »

robocat wrote: post #279
tooltalk wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the difference between checking them in mid-air versus at the port of arrival?

I am guessing, but: 1. They can make someone with a temperature wear a mask immediately, reducing transmission to others on the plane, and containing them on arrival. 2. It avoids crowding and possibly cross-contamination on arrival at a testing station. 3. It prevents delays for passengers.

Wouldn't it make more sense to test and ask all passengers to wear masks before they board the plane? By the time they are flying in crowded airplane, it's too late. This approach doesn't seem to make much sense.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#284

Post by yboya »

mcsb4 wrote: post #21

Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just again…

Many more people would use masks and gloves if they were available for purchase. This could never be implemented in the US unless the government was supplying everyone with masks. At this point it’s almost criminal to buy masks for yourself when health workers don’t have access to enough of them.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#285

Post by PeterStuer »

Roritharr wrote: post #118
ValentineC wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just against pollution (i.e. Thailand). Singapore resident here. Not enough people are wearing masks in Singapore, and the government has only distributed a token 4 masks per household (family members living at the same address), with no further measures to allow a family to replenish their mask supply. A lot of us can't buy new o…

German resident here, our chief virologist that everyone listens to, Christian Drosten, was firmly against mask usage in the common population, until just now, the RKI was similarly unhelpful when communicating advice for the disease. The population is completely confused and feel righteous anger now telling people off when they wear professional (medical disposable, or ffp3/n95) masks to go shopping or elsewhere. It…

It is saddening to see the experts also succumb to straight lying to the public. I'm sure they think this is 'for the best', because there aren't enough masks to go round and what there is needs to go to first line healthcare workers.

But trust is hard to gain and easily lost. A real compounding factor in this crisis is also that our leaders have lost all credibility. In many, if not most, countries, the citizens just know that actions that were and are being taking are neither competent nor in their best interest. The specific implementations of democracy we implemented never selected for reason, precaution nor long term benefits or well-being for all.

So most of us have a political 'leadership' (and I do not mean a specific country or party, it's mostly across the board, with few exceptions) that has lost all credibility, trust and moral authority long before this happened, leaving the population already at best confused, but mostly mistrusting and (justifiably) cynical.

For scientists to go 'on message', telling obvious non-truths, just further undermines the already shaky ground they were on after decades of anti-science propaganda.

I really, really hoped they would refrain from this, but, judging by what is happening in my own country and what the science community is publicly communicating (privately it is a completely opposite discourse), I sadly must say that the opposite is true.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#286

Post by iso1631 »

sct202 wrote: post #220
iso1631 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said "better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate" Random and self-selecting testing doesn't seem to offer much in that. Imagine going to a Nics game and asking everyone there who they support, chances are you'll get a lot of Nics fans. How does that give you a better indication of mortality rate or severity if you have no idea how many people ac…

The purpose of random testing or testing of more people who have exposure but no symptoms would be to limit household spread by separating people from their households or having the households act differently knowing that they'll be constantly exposed.

If you're testing people without symptoms, you need to be testing large numbers otherwise you'll be ignoring 99% of houses.

Globally there have been fewer than 5 million tests performed since the start of January.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#287

Post by [deleted] »

hristov wrote: post #174
mcsb4 wrote: post #21

Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just again…

The problem with use of masks in the US is that we do not have enough masks and we need them all for health care workers. If there aren't enough masks for health care workers, doctors and nurses will stop coming to work people won't be able to get medical attention the death rate will sky rocket because of lack of simple medical procedures, there will be panic in the streets, etc. For this reason our media seems to b…

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