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

YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 803 posts

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#571

Post by sethammons »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #69
vlovich123 wrote: post #53

Took a bit of searching to find Paul’s statement where he claims to have support from studies. Does anyone know which studies these are? > A Danish study of 6000 participants found that wearing a surgical mask did not significantly reduce a person's risk of COVID-19 infection, compared to the risks facing those who did not wear masks. > And a Vietnamese study of 1600 participants found that cloth masks allow for 97%…

There is a portion of the population who believes that if you've already been infected, then having a mask over your face just causes you to reinfect yourself over and over again.

Not sure why you were downvoted. I know people who hold that view.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#572

Post by wizzwizz4 »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #465
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's just one study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8002747/ That's “non-zero”; not the same thing as abundant. How do you even know R>1? I'd say “found in wild animals” is the standard for “abundant animal reservoirs”; that's “some animals can catch it from humans” which we already know. > Smallpox had no known animal or reservoirs. Smallpox had cases in practically undocumented people. The last fe…

> That's “non-zero”; not the same thing as abundant. How do you even know R>1? I'd say “found in wild animals” is the standard for “abundant animal reservoirs”; that's “some animals can catch it from humans” which we already know. I literally linked you a study that alleged that the virus jumped back from minks to humans. There's far more studies on the animal reservoirs, I just don't feel like doing an exhaustive li…

> I literally linked you a study that alleged that the virus jumped back from minks to humans.

I understand that. But unless each infected mink infects (on average) more than one healthy mink, mink populations are not reservoirs. (You don't need much animal-to-human transmission for it to count as a reservoir, so that's an almost irrelevant point and I don't know why you're focusing on it.)

> Good luck chasing down the smaller rodents. Better not miss a single spot!

They didn't eradicate smallpox by vaccinating every human. I'd encourage you to look it up… maybe start at that Wikipedia page you linked me?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#573

Post by jimmygrapes »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #479
iammisc wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may not have a bachelor's but he does have an MD, which is a higher degree and one that confers some expertise on medical matters last time I checked. > asking a random computer science graduate to tell you how to fix your Windows domain A random computer science graduate who does a bit of research should be able to tell you everything you need to know about your Windows domain. Certainly, they'd be better suited…

An MD is a generalist's degree. It doesn't confer anything but that he graduated from med school and knows a bit about human physiology. Infectious diseases are AT LEAST as far out of his wheelhouse as Windows domain servers are to computer science graduates, aka, anything that he even pretends to know about the subject is something he read online.

Do you think a computer science graduate cannot be an expert at Windows domain management as well?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#574

Post by __blockcipher__ »

fitzie wrote: post #550
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you still need someone to evaluate the research. I can find a citation that says thing X, and then a different citation that says !X. This is twice as much of a problem when public health authorities like the CDC will issue statements or guidance that is directly contrary to the clinical research, as has been done repeatedly in claiming that masks work to slow community transmission of SARS-2 desp…

I disagree. for example, a journalist could simply ask the CDC about page 20, in this leaked presentation here:. https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/cdc-breakthrough-infe... where it uses metrics of ~20% effective in protecting masks wearers from catching the disease in a model. instead, we have the media saying that rand is wrong, and CNN chasing doctors that dare say that masks don't prevent all spread. the medi…

To be clear I’m not saying there should be a centralized authority. I’m just saying that a “use citations” rule doesn’t get around the conundrum that somebody has to evaluate the citations.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#575

Post by serf »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #423
srinivgp wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty conclusive. It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. There's no question at all that masks reduce infectiousness through the extremely obvious method of preventing some virus particles from going from one person to another, and also no question at all that probability of infection depends on number of virus particles around, and that viruses in general produce worse symptoms when the ini…

> It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19 What? The overwhelming literature showed the exact opposite! That cloth masks did not prevent Influenza whatsoever. I'd start with https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/ as a great review, and then take a look at some specific studies like this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/ > The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cl…

>I'd start with https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/ as a great review, and then take a look at some specific studies like this one:

for one, this was last updated a year ago. That's OK -- but it's jam-packed with 'citations' (many are from non-medical groups like NY Times, so on) from 2020, around 50 of them. Much of the data changed, was redacted, or non-reproducible by other groups.

I read through it until I came upon the second or third 'conclusion' that was at odds with the conclusion of the paper-authors she cites.

The 'curator' of that data is an anesthesiologist who 'teaches constitutional law to non-lawyers', and posts political blogs regarding 'mainstream media propaganda regarding the vaccine and ivermectin' and articles that refer to Kamala Harris as 'another snake slithering out of the swamp'.[0]

Her conclusions may be right, it may be wrong -- but the political axe being ground, combined with the conclusion/data inaccuracies portrayed against the cited works, leads me to believe -- anecdotally -- that the opinions are likely unreliable and biased; it prompts me to want to find other professionals to consult.

[0]: https://marilynsingletonmdjd.com/category/politics/page/5/

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#576

Post by __blockcipher__ »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #470
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year, ~647,000 Americans die from heart disease alone. Even if the COVID death numbers aren't over-inflated, I guarantee you that if I were to time-travel to 2019 and ask you if you think that it would be worth precipitating a global supply chain disruption, missed schooling and medical appointments for children around the globe, both first and third world, and the greatest erosion in civil liberties in Western…

I can’t tell if this is a serious comment. Surely you know heart disease isn’t contagious.

The contagiousness is irrelevant (I’ve heard the “it’s not exponential” talking point a million times in the last year, and boy am I tired of it), but you should know that all social behaviors are contagious, and social behaviors correlate with health outcomes like cardiac disease. If you smoke your friends are likely to start too. If you sit on a couch all day your friends are more likely to, etc.

My point was just about putting a contextless “600k omg” in perspective

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#577

Post by danhak »

jacquesm wrote: post #150
danhak wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that areas with greater mask compliance also have greater compliance with social distancing and other, more effective mitigation measures.

Do you realize you are now arguing against yourself in the same thread?

I’m curious how so?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#578

Post by amanaplanacanal »

syshum wrote: post #538
robotresearcher wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how to get the fraction of people vaccinated high enough, so that costly mask+behavior mandates are obviated. Mask wearing and behavior changes last year were massively effective against flu, by accident. Flu is usually much less deadly than COVID. That factor matters in how we treat it. (edit: added data) The 2017-2018 flu season was an historically bad one in the US, resulting in an estimated 30,453…

>>Mask wearing and behavior changes last year were massively effective against flu, by accident. This is assuming facts not in evidence. there are other factors at play 1. Many people avoided seeking medical treatment that normally would have for the flu this year due to covid, this do not mean they were not infected just it was not recorded 2. There are indications that some people testing positive for COVID could h…

I'm vaccinated, but still wear a mask indoors in public for a simple reason. The virus can colonize the mucus membranes of even healthy vaccinated people. I'm scheduled to go on a Caribbean cruise next month. If I test positive on the dock, they won't let me get on the ship.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#579

Post by jimmygrapes »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #567
poopypoopington wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, he doesn't care about the science or saving lives. He cares about maintaining and growing his power and he thinks the way to do that is with these sorts of dog whistles to his base.

There are a set of politicians who believe that long term the best option for getting their preferred policies into law is by doing everything possible to get and keep their party in power. I assume they have the best of intentions, but the end result is that anything is permissable if they think it will lead to that outcome. I'm sure we can all (left or right) think of some who fit this description.

Yep: https://www.bamn.com/

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#580

Post by aeternum »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #415
aeternum wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is there often is some shred of truth in any extreme claim that is pulled far out of context. A better approach might be to leave it up but flag it and link to a page that explains what parts of the claim are true and which are misconstrued or embellished. Social media excels at optimizing that one more engagement , leverage it here to lead people closer to the truth.

That doesn't scale, though. Who's going to do the research as to what parts of the claim are true? Does YouTube have people with the medical research knowledge to do this? Do they have people with the knowledge who don't already have firmly entrenched positions on this question ?

It definitely scales. Snopes does a great job. People aren't all that creative when it comes to embellishing facts or perpetuating rumors.
Post reply on HN