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Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

nytimes.com

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Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#811

Post by ghaff »

blakebreeder wrote: post #719
baby wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I traveled a bit during this pandemic and in Arizona it’s like the virus didn’t exist. Nobody was wearing a mask, nobody. Even indoor. Even the waiters. I’m back in SF now and everybody is wearing the mask. Everybody. The adults, the children, Even the vaccinated people. Yesterday the waiter asked me if we could put back our mask so she could hand us our plate. Country of extremes. I feel like there’s no going back t…

I live here and I see the vast majority of people wearing masks.

From what I hear, the Bay Area seems especially mask-wearing at this point. I live in the well known Trump bastion of Massachusetts and, while I don't know what things are like in Boston proper, an hour west where I live, essentially no one is wearing masks at this point on hiking trails and the like. People may do the theater of pulling up a bandana for a few seconds to pass but that's mostly it. (People are still mostly wearing inside though.)

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#812

Post by qubit000 »

Someone behind the scenes must be pulling the strings at the CDC as this is terrible advice considering all vaccines are far from being 100% effective.

Additionally it takes at least 2wks after inoculation for the vaccine to work and there is no definitive answer on how long the efficacy lasts.

All of this combined with the fact that millions of Americans refuse to be vaccinated will serve as prime reservoir for the virus to spread.

It was rather troubling when CDC first stated masks were unnecessary but this recent announcement is criminally negligent, on par with Boeing/FAA publicly stating 737 Max was safe even knowing full well there was high probability of another crash.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#813

Post by happymellon »

walrus01 wrote: post #434

I have a personal theory that humans do not fully understand death rate when it's spread out widely across many geographic areas. Let's say, for instance, that the covid19 death rate is about 450 people a day. It might be more or less than that right now, I haven't specifically checked (but I do recall that it's easily been 2000-3000 a day for some periods of time in very recent memory). But that might be 450 people…

We should probably change how it is talked about then, because there is a fairly constant flow of medical reports showing that even young who catch Covid and have minimal symptoms actually have severe hidden internal organ damage which is predicted to result in a generation with heart and lung problems in the next couple of decades.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#814

Post by splithalf »

wholinator2 wrote: post #714
avereveard wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of th…

Im not saying what they did was right, but look at toilet paper. Obviously the masses cannot handle news that something is in short supply. The CDC knew that if they said, "masks work, there's not enough masks, don't buy them cause doctors need them" that 95% of America would hear only the first two clauses and go out to buy as many masks as possible. All the masks would disappear, there would be a panic and hysteria…

I’d say that what they did was right. The noble lie is by definition noble. The news media acting as (not always unwitting) accomplices is the real problem.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#815

Post by dguaraglia »

scrollaway wrote: post #574
kelnos wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent's main objection is that you seem to be showing glee at the prospect of a business failing because it shows an overabundance of caution even after the state no longer requires it. That's... kinda petty, no? Especially when wearing a mask inside a store or whatever isn't a particularly difficult thing to do.

Not parent but although i disagree with them, i kinda get where they're coming from. Some businesses give in to security theater and it is immensely frustrating. For example here in Belgium some shops force you to take a trolley even if you just want to buy a single item and have your own bag. They do this "because COVID". So what happens? A pile up of people at the entrance trying to move caddies over, leading to fa…

I have no idea what happens in Belgium, but nothing like that happens here in the US. They barely ask people to wear a goddamn mask, and they are all up in arms about it.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#816

Post by dguaraglia »

slowmotiony wrote: post #581
_euac wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a bullshit strawman. Most of my friends are family are very liberal. Most of them are already vaccinated. Not a single one of them wants to wear a mask unless absolutely necessary and everyone is ready for this to be over.

If they've been vaccinated and still insist on wearing the masks, I kinda think you're proving OP's point here. What do you even mean with "waiting for this to be over"? You're vaccinated, it's over, are you now waiting for a super-vaccine or something?

You are kind of proving my point by reading 'unless absolutely necessary' (meaning: they don't want to use a mask and they don't most of the time, except when there's a rule saying they should) as 'THEY TOTALLY WANT TO KEEP USING A MASK!!!'.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#817

Post by _euac »

sokoloff wrote: post #512
dguaraglia wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't flatten the curve and then immediately throw away all caution and go back to the behavior that made the curve a geometric progression.

Fortunately, we’re not. In between, there was a vaccine developed and deployed and the science strongly (overwhelmingly is probably more precise) suggests that fully vaccinated people are at minimal risk to themselves and minimal risk to spread, which is of course the entire point of vaccines and entirely unsurprising given our understanding and long experience with other vaccines, which almost all exhibited the same…

There's almost a year between the time we originally went into lockdown to 'flatten the curve' and the time a significant part of the population got vaccinated. You can't pretend that not using a mask now - once someone is vaccinated - is the same as not using a mask back then.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#818

Post by garmaine »

ivraatiems wrote: post #377
garmaine wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I want the virus eliminated.

Can I ask why? That feels like an enormously bigger lift for not much more gain over "the virus exists but vaccines relegate it to the level of a mere cold amongst vaccinated people," for instance.

COVID's long incubation time while infectious makes it potentially the most lethal disease ever. Most colds and flus evolve to be less lethal because lethal variants die out before spreading too far, making them evolutionarily less advantageous. That is NOT true of COVID, so there is potentially nothing preventing it from morphing into something more like MERS with a 20-30% fatality rate.

As bad as COVID was, we dodged an existential bullet. But why stay in the line of fire? We need to eradicate this disease.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#819

Post by _euac »

cout wrote: post #607
ptaipale wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite agree, but I think the message from health authorities has also been problematic here: they repeated that "vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection". That is true of course: some vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection because efficacy is not 100 %. But the public has, predictably, got this message wrong: I keep getting told that "vaccinated people will get the infection and sprea…

Yes, that's the confusing bit. In February, the CDC said that those with the vaccine can have asymptomatic infections ( https://web.archive.org/web/20210209162120/https://www.cdc.g... ). The NY Times used the term "silent spreaders". Then in March the CDC's guidance was to continue wearing a mask after vaccination, except in situations where transmission risk was minimal (such as when everyone present has been vaccin…

The changes can be explained by two simple factors, without the need for some grand nefarious conspiracy:

* The CDC's default position is caution * We know more now than we did in the past

In February, we realized vaccinated people could still get asymptomatic infections. Out of an abundance of caution, the CDC recommends vaccinated people keep wearing masks because the vast majority of the population isn't vaccinated.

As evidence accumulates in the intermediate time, we realize that vaccines also lower the percentage of people with asymptomatic Covid-19 [1]

With even more evidence, we realize vaccinated people overwhelmingly avoid hospitalization, which is the real issue we are trying to avoid [2]

With those two pieces of information, the CDC can now change their recommendation. Nothing nefarious going on, nothing 'unknowable' to anyone paying attention.

The problem is when people who are already predisposed to distrust the CDC - most likely due to their media diet - and put 0 effort in understanding the changing landscape see the CDC change the recommendation and assume it must be 'something political'. Those of us who were paying attention weren't that surprised about the announcement.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0428-vaccinated-adu...

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#820

Post by dguaraglia »

cycomanic wrote: post #461
dguaraglia wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I understand your point, but as someone who follows the conspiratorial world passively, I can tell you the whole 'but they told you masks were useless' thing is a post-facto rationalization to gain some common ground with the less conspiratorial people. In reality, the usual suspects were pushing conspiracy theories about the CDC even before they determined masks were useful. A famous conspiracy peddler famously…

This, so much this! I had a friend (who unfortunately has become completely lost to conspiracies) tell me, that the German government was incompetent because they did not take the virus serious enough and that covid was overblown and much less severe than the flu, in the same argument! When I pointed out the contradiction he said "you just think there is a contradiction because you have been indoctrinated by the MSM"…

It's honestly been fascinating to watch the conspiracy world twist themselves into logical pretzels to fit their narrative to both reality and the political landscape. At some point, Alex Jones - who unfortunately is a weather vane for all the crap circulating in the conspiracy world - claimed the following within the span of a month:

* The virus is lethal and the government is hiding it

* The virus is just the common cold and tests are a conspiracy to make Trump look bad

* The virus is lethal and a conspiracy by dark forces to kill people

* The virus doesn't exist and people wearing masks are idiots

* The virus is lethal (again!) and a conspiracy by the Chinese to destroy the world's economy

It's no surprise that people who are marginally sucked into the conspiracy world have their brains completely fried by the constant narrative shift.

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