Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 448 posts

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#431

Post by dboreham »

FreakyT wrote: post #287
LandR wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since this is the US, we have no public transport What do you mean you have no public transport? Is it cancelled because of covid?

Public transport doesn't really exist in the US, outside of major cities. In non-urban areas, if there's a bus at all, it'll be like one token bus route that takes a roundabout path to nowhere in particular and comes once every 3 hours.

Yes, we have some bus services (Greyhound, like in the movies, and a bus that goes between towns once a day) but I've never been on one and don't know anyone who has. Kids begin driving age 16 and under that age are typically driven places by a friend or parent, so there's not much need for busses.

Also: younger kids are ferried back and forth to school in special yellow busses that are only used for school service. So actually there _is_ a widespread public transport service all over the US but people don't think of it as such because it's run by the schools and only usable by school kids. Some companies run their own busses too for their workers, to and from the plant, to suit shift hours.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#432

Post by dboreham »

pwg wrote: post #260
curiousllama wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"nose slingers"

My interpretation is that this is referring to those individuals who are wearing a surgical type mask, with the top of the mask resting on their upper lip and their nose not covered by the mask.

Yes. I get the impression that often they simply don't know how to put these masks on -- you need to pull them apart somewhat so they extend from the nose bridge to the chin. If you don't know that's how they're fitted, you'll end up with either of the nose or bottom of the mouth uncovered.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#433

Post by MaulingMonkey »

Exmoor wrote: post #429
Felony_Fred wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the people who do not comply are basically the same people who were problems in the Before Times: belligerent, mentally ill, or both. Or maybe they're one of 12,943 medical and public health scientists who signed the Great Barrington Declaration [0]. [0] ; https://gbdeclaration.org/

The declaration you linked seems to be more about lockdown policy and doesn't even mention masks.

It at least mentions:

> Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.

Wearing a mask seems like a simple hygine measure to me.

Perhaps a signator might not wear a mask as a measure of protest against government "overreach", disregarding that part of the declaration, disregarding the law, and disregarding the risk of their actions to the health of their fellow citizens.

That last bit seems rather hostile. Rather belligerent. So I think we're right back to square one.

There are reasonable discussions and lawsuits to be had about how far is too far, and what reasonable public policy looks like. Even arguing on the internet sounds more productive to me than not wearing a mask as "protest" though.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#434

Post by fooster »

timr wrote: post #294
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is also a lot of reason to believe they are not nearly as effective as was sold to people in the early summer. Mayeb you can post some (preferably peer-reviewed) literature links that show "a lot of reason" to believe this.

The only peer-reviewed RCT ever conducted for Covid-19 and masks found no statistically significant protective effect: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

You are misrepresenting the results.

“ Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.”

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#435

Post by timr »

fooster wrote: post #434
timr wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only peer-reviewed RCT ever conducted for Covid-19 and masks found no statistically significant protective effect: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

You are misrepresenting the results. “ Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.”

Read the latter half of that sentence again. Think about what it means. You can't just pay attention to the part of the sentence that you like, and ignore the other parts.

Also, I quoted this exact line in a comment below, so I'm not sure how you can credibly claim that I'm "mis-representing" something.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#436

Post by rightbyte »

timr wrote: post #379
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the CDC: --------------- Data regarding the “real-world” effectiveness of community masking are limited to observational and epidemiological studies. * An investigation of a high-exposure event, in which 2 symptomatically ill hair stylists interacted for an average of 15 minutes with each of 139 clients during an 8-day period, found that none of the 67 clients who subsequently consented to an interview and tes…

> in a unified hospital system, a German city, a U.S. state, a panel of 15 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. as well as both Canada and the U.S. nationally. Each analysis demonstrated that, following directives from organizational and political leadership for universal masking, new infections fell significantly. Two of these studies and an additional analysis of data from 200 countries that included the U.S. also demo…

There was a empirical trail in Denmark. The difference between infection ratio and wearing a mask vs the control group was not significant.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

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.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#437

Post by bjourne »

addicted wrote: post #368
bjourne wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still no evidence showing that mask usage reduces spread. Worse, people think that mask usage entails fail-safe protection. Like condoms against pregnancy. I know of IT-companies that enforces mask usage in their offices but still does not allow employees to work from home .

This is false. There’s a lot of evidence that mask usage reduces spread. The evidence ranges from the fact that masks almost certainly capture water droplets which are supposed to be major carriers of the virus to the fact that there is correlation between countries that wear masks having reduced spreads compare to ones that don’t. In fact, a recent study compared districts in the same state, grouping them by whether…

> There’s a LOT of evidence that masks reduce COVID spread. What there isn’t, is conclusive evidence that lets us say with a 95% degree of probability that masks work. Or carefully designed scientific studies that prove this.

Well, if we take the view that evidence doesn't require scientific studies then it is just your bullshit vs my bullshit. You say different levels of Covid hospitalizations in districts with mask mandates vs districts without. I say confounding factors. I say the U.S. has high levels of mask use yet still high levels of Covid spread. You say confounding factors. Etc.

The entire IT industry is a great example because there is a massive amount of bullshit, cargo culture, and magic silver bullets that doesn't really work in it.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#438

Post by oxfordmale »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #423
oxfordmale wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be right, in any case the restrictions are not enforced immediately resulting in the bleeding obvious: (steady stream of traffic leaving London: https://twitter.com/Keyboar58668342/status/13403788744594022...

Isn't that single webcam image consistent with essential workers? The trucks are surely not banned; and it's understandable that people have to go home on a Friday night.

There have been other images since that suggests a certain percentage of the London population decided to leave.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#439

Post by tonyedgecombe »

LatteLazy wrote: post #424
LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

[Replying to my own comment] Just been to the Tesco at Roneo Corner in Havering (1 borough further out than Barking and Dageham). 38 customers without a mask inside the store (excludes kids even teens, excludes anyone with a pointless visor, excludes anyone with a green and yellow lanyard which means they're exempt). 8 members of staff without a mask (again, excluding as above). Highlights include: * a woman in Islam…

That's such a contrast to my area (rural Oxfordshire), I haven't seen a maskless customer in a supermarket since the rule came in.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#440

Post by user-the-name »

mejutoco wrote: post #153
user-the-name wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parroting Christopher Hitchens: what is presented without proof can be dismissed without proof This is nonsense that assumes an antagonistic purpose to a discussion, and not actually an attempt to reach a higher understanding.

Isn‘t this the burden of proof under a different name? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

Yes, and the same applies to that.
Post reply on HN