I read ahead in the thread before responding to this message, and given the things you say it seems that "wowsa" is actually a pretty appropriate title for this subthread, as in, "Wowsa! The things you say!"
drlove writes:
quote:
Thank you for your research efforts. Unfortunately the Internet is full of misinformation, and you have to be careful in choosing your sources
As do you
Well of course I do, but I cited no sources except for quoting Paul Elias Alexander's comments from Wikipedia. Did you find anything in those quotes to be inaccurate? Are they not what Alexander actually said? Did he not argue that people should get out and spend money while we were still in the middle of a pandemic? Did he not argue that government scientists shouldn't challenge what the president says when it is contradicted by science?
Rather than a personal attack on some guy whose politics you apparently don't like, what does that say to the studies that were not done by him?
Nothing was said about Alexander's politics, and Alexander didn't perform any covid studies. While serving in the Trump administration Alexander censored "COVID-19 analyses to make them consistent with Trump's rhetoric." (
Paul E. Alexander - Wikipedia)
Do we hear you complaining about those that try to suppress voices in science and medicine?
I think if you present the evidence of the suppression of voices in science and medicine that most people here will be upset about it. When will you be presenting such evidence?
Today, thousands of them are in Wa DC testifying that we have been lied to about what is science or not.
Today? You wrote this on Sunday. You're saying that thousands of scientists are testifying in Washington D.C. on a Sunday? To who? Neither house of Congress is in session and no congressional committees have meetings scheduled. A Google News search couldn't find a thing.
quote:
Since none of the first three studies I examined showed masks ineffective
There are thousands of links for either opinion. The point is that if either side were fact and science, that could not be the case.
But we weren't talking about links. We were talking about studies. Of the three studies I examined (and that you obviously didn't and still haven't examined), none showed masks to be ineffective. I didn't examine more studies than that because your claim was already zero for three and it was very apparent that examining more of the studies would be a waste of time. If you think there are studies in that list that support your claims of mask ineffectiveness then find them and link to them. If you prove masks are ineffective at preventing covid infections so we can stop wearing them, everyone will thank you.
So since you originally claimed there are many
*studies* showing that masks are ineffective, your claim that there are "thousands of links" is a bait and switch. You haven't yet produced a single study showing masks ineffective.
But let's say, hypothetically, that masks are actually ineffective. How could that possibly be? Is it untrue that an N95 respirator captures 95% of particles 0.3 microns and larger? Or is it untrue that SARS-CoV-2 viruses are transmitted in the air by small droplets predominantly larger than 0.3 microns? Please, tell us how it's possible for masks to be ineffective. Give us some reason for seeing your claim as something that is possible in the real world.
Even putting a lace doily over your face would be be effective in stopping at least some virus. Probably not a lot, but more than zero. So why would a specially designed and manufactured mask be ineffective? Please tell us?
example
"study and paper issued by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) which is part of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks…It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
First Masks Now Social Distancing Proven Ineffective Per New MIT
You're changing the subject, but nearly two years ago I was already arguing against the six-foot rule. I began one paragraph by saying, "The six-foot safe distance is nonsense," see
Message 576. We agree about the six-foot rule and social distancing. Unfortunately many people continue to believe the social distancing nonsense. Just last night in our kitchen we commented to friends (all of us masked) that we're still not going to restaurants, and they said they were still going but they always sit a table away from other people. Because we value them as friends we said nothing, especially since we doubt they'd change their behavior just because of anything we said. We hope they don't get sick.
But your point is that masks are ineffective, and you still haven't produced a single study showing that. You did provide a link to
First Masks Now Social Distancing Proven Ineffective Per New MIT which provides a link to the mask study (
Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis - PMC) which contains this notice:
This article has been retracted.
I don't like wearing masks. I'm sure very few people like wearing masks. I would be absolutely delighted if it were shown that masks provide no benefit so that I could feel safe not wearing them. If you have evidence that masks are useless please bring it on. You'll be doing everyone a favor.
All aspects of the agenda around the pandemic (lockdowns,vaccinations,boosters,mandates,vaccinating children,etc) are opinion based, not science. Either side claims science.
You're repeating yourself and not responding to anything I said.
I can provide scientific studies for everything I say. In fact, that there are scientific studies is why I say what I say. But so far all your claims of links to scientific studies supporting what you say have found only a single study, and that one contained a retraction notice.
quote:
The question was whether lockdowns reduce viral spread, thereby reducing illness, permanent disability, and death.
If you put everyone into max security prisons that might reduce crime. It might even reduce some diseases.
I'll take this as grudging acknowledgment that preventing the sharing of air also prevents the spreading of respiratory diseases.
There is not one science opinion on all this. Some say one thing and others another.
I'm not sure what you meant to say here, but as written this is contradictory. If there are no scientific opinions, then how can some say one thing and some another since they don't exist? Please restate.
This isn't a study, just an article at WND with links to other articles at WND. When you finally drill down to the actual Israeli study (
https://www.medrxiv.org/...01/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf) you find that it doesn't claim what the short headline makes it seem to be claiming.
To understand the study you have to remember that the vaccines were developed for the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. For this virus these vaccines provide better immunity than natural immunity. But then variants evolved, and it was suspected that the vaccines might not perform as well against the variants. This Israeli study confirmed this, that infection with the delta variant produced stronger immunity
against the delta variant than the vaccines, which remember were developed not for the delta variant but for the original virus.
Of course this Israeli study involving the delta variant is irrelevant now, because omicron has replaced delta. Studies are underway to see how well the vaccines perform against omicron, but initial indications are that they perform much less well, even worse than against the delta variant. Preliminary results seem to indicate that boosters are much more effective against omicron than just the two shot series.
This is all pretty much expected. Viruses evolve, we know that. Drug companies are developing variant specific vaccines now, and those will very likely provide superior protection from the variants than that conferred by infection by the variants.
In other words, you're forgetting (or at least WND is forgetting and is helping you forget) that the virus presents a moving target. The vaccines are for the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. They provide less protection from alpha, even less from delta, and yet less from omicron.
quote:
But that lockdowns are the best approach in a pandemic is not a position of science.
That sounds like you are coming down on the side of the people claiming that lockdowns are not science based. How about vaccinating little children? How about vaccine mandates?
I think a significant issue for you remains confusing science with attempted applications of science, which I've explained several times now and which you're still ignoring. Briefly this time, science has found that preventing the sharing of air prevents the spread of respiratory diseases. Public health policy has taken information from many areas into account, including science, in deciding whether lockdowns are appropriate for fighting the coronavirus. Science doesn't have a position on lockdowns.
About vaccinating little children, just a few messages ago I wrote how hours old infants are vaccinated, and that there's a vaccine regimen beginning around one year. You write as if you never read any of it.
About vaccine mandates, science has studied herd immunity, and whether vaccine mandates are an appropriate way of achieving herd immunity is public health policy. Public health policy takes science into account, but public health policy is not itself science or a scientific study or anything like that.
--Percy
™ Version 4.2
