[ExI] I caught the covid

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 7:05 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  I am not wearing a mask, unless directly forced to. They have been proven
> useless in the context of the Wuhan virus spread.
>
> Rafal
> I read where the governor of Kansas issued a mandate but the legislature
> voted to make it optional by counties.  So they did.  The infection rate in
> the counties that did not follow the mandate  was 100% increase.  In the
> counties that followed it, it was 6 percent.  What more do you need?
>

### Do you really believe it?

Think about it - there is no detectable individual effect of mask wearing
on Covid-19 transmission in peer-reviewed controlled studies, including a
study published in NEJM. There is no correlation between mask wearing and
disease cases in different countries. There are peer-reviewed studies
explaining why this is the case - masks have 20-80% leak, it takes one
viable virion to infect, a person generates 2,600 droplets per second while
speaking, so if you are next to an infected symptomatic person the mask
will do nothing. Aerosol droplets spread for tens of feet in enclosed
spaces and in cold weather with high humidity the viability of the airborne
virus is prolonged, which is why cases are exploding now, with more people
spending more time in such spaces compared to summertime. We also know
another reason why public mask wearing by asymptomatic people is useless -
asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 is very rare, so it does not matter
if you wear masks, as long as you are surrounded only by asymptomatic
persons, which is the majority of people in public.

Think about it this way - Suppose you are being attacked by 1,000
crocodiles. Some hustler offers you a protective suit guaranteed to keep
you safe from 80% of the crocodiles. Are you going to wear the suit? Do you
think being attacked by the remaining 200 crocodiles will be less dangerous
than 1,000 crocodiles? Or maybe you should just never go to places with
crocodiles in the first place?

If you want to reduce, but not eliminate, the likelihood of being infected
you have to wear an N-95 mask, perfectly fitted, whenever in the same
enclosed space as a symptomatic person. If you want to eliminate the chance
of being infected, you have to never be in an enclosed space with any
infected symptomatic persons whatsoever (or wear a full biohazard suit).
The silly face diaper and the magical 6 feet will do nothing except make
you look like a fool.

And then you tell me that in Kansas, according to some internet gossip, the
mere word of a county official telling people to wear masks has an
astounding 94% efficacy! Wow! Rejoice!

You should be able to realize the story is silly. A county official's
decree does not change mask wearing from 0% to 100% and the actual
differences in mask wearing between various counties are likely to be minor
- most people who wear masks are doing it not because of a county
ordinance but because they watch TV and are shaking in their britches at
the thought of the invisible menace in the air. The people who don't wear
masks are not likely to pay attention to some idiot's order unless strongly
enforced, which does not happen. So, this amazing 94% reduction in cases
would have to be attributed to some minor changes in mask wearing
frequency, if any, not to a strong on-off effect of masks. But if a little
bit more of mask wearing almost eliminates the infections, then almost
universal mask wearing in the US and Europe should have worked like a
charm, the pandemic should have been eliminated - but it didn't, so that's
how you know the story is a hoax.

You need to use your critical faculties. Don't let them bamboozle you.

Bamboozling is bad for your health.

Rafal

PS. People are so weird. I know this nurse, a very nice lady, but she tells
me she needs to wear the N-95 mask because she is scared of the bad virus.
But she also says she does not want to have the vaccine, because, you
guessed it, she is scared of the vaccine! So she'd rather risk being
infected than risk being vaccinated, although, obviously, risk of infection
x risk of complications while working at the Covid unit in the hospital is
decidedly higher than the risk of complications from taking the vaccine.

I bet she is watching TV and got bamboozled.

Rafal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20201224/9a1192f1/attachment.htm>