Cmon Matt, you're better than this. There's a difference between being maskless at optional places like restaurants and manditory places like supermarkets and pharmacies. Requiring masks at the latter isn't "theater".
N95 masks, when worn properly by professionals, have been shown to refuse transmission. The same masks have shown some benefit in unvaccinated populations. The problem with determining whether something like improvised cloth masks reduce spread amongst an already vaccinated population, is stickier. The ambient transmission is lower, so an NPI needs to take a bigger “bite” to swing real world numbers. It’s far from conclusive that the masking policies at places like Yale are preventing transmission appreciably more than vaccines, and even farther when you talk about outcomes like hospitalization and death. I’m actually a little more tinfoil hat than Matt, in that he says we need to realize the pandemic will never be over. I say we need to realize that, for those of us in the first world who have access to vaccines, it already is.
NIH acknowledges gain of function research occurred with US grant funding in Wuhan. A Democratic strategist responds to questions about it with essentially “these are not the droids you’re looking for”…and then goes on to talk about FOX News. 🤔
I'm mildly disgruntled by current COVID19 restrictions, and wouldn't mind seeing them wound down somewhat. Wearing a mask makes going out to eat less pleasant, and it makes going to the gym not worth the effort.
I'd really like to see more cheap antigen tests, so I could feel better about visiting parents or immuno-compromised friends.
(I'd also like to see a vax mandate for airplane passengers.)
This is a weak article. I live in SF, which I believe has had the strictest lockdowns / masking restrictions / school closures in the country, and we do, in fact, have benchmarks for how low cases need to be before further relaxing restrictions. I assume vaccination cards will be around for quite some time. But we lifted all mask restrictions right before Delta, and I see no reason we won’t do it again.
We also went through a period where restaurants weren’t handing out menus. You had to look up the food online. We’re now back to sticky menus.
Nor do I think that putting a remote in a plastic bag is a serious inflationary driver.
"That’s not a rhetorical question; it deserves an answer. If institutions say the current level of spread in their community is too high, that’s reasonable, but they should pick a target number, and at that point, the masks come off."
I think there is a target. Most colleges are claiming to base their indoor masking policies on CDC recommendations. The CDC recommends indoor masking for the vaccinated in 'substantial' or 'high' transmission areas. In other words, as soon as your area drops into 'moderate' levels of transmission, the masks for the vaccinated could come off.
But here we run into a problem. The CDC rubric lists 50 cases per 100K population as the boundary between 'moderate' and 'substantial.' What's that you say? Your area has been below that rate for weeks? That's what I thought. But the CDC actually claims it means 50 cases per 100K of population *in total, over a 7 day period.* That is, they are using a weekly case-rate, not a daily case-rate. So you won't get below the masking threshold until you get to 7 cases a day per 100K. To be clear, I think this was a sloppy mistake they made-- they basically meant to, but then forgot to divide by seven-- but have not wanted to correct it, since it errs (massively) on the side of caution.
Rant warning: I'm pretty broadly in agreement with this (excessive focus on surfaces and especially the restaurant mask shuffle are absurd) but I'm a bit surprised that almost nobody brought up long COVID. My remaining question is what % of vaccinated breakthrough cases get these kinds of intense symptoms: https://twitter.com/maosbot/status/1450465063056420874 There is very little good data on it.
The person in the thread was AFAIK not vaccinated at the time but there have been studies claiming a 50% reduction in long COVID symptoms between unvaccinated and vaccinated breakthroughs, though I assume that the type of symptoms would be quite different (and presumably milder).
I think the hospitalization/death risk to fully vaccinated < 50/60ish people is minuscule and still quite low for older adults, but if the serious chronic fatigue % is even a few percent for vaccinated people that would seem quite serious and problematic to me. Unfortunately there have been very few quality studies, particularly around assessing severity/length of symptoms (mild after effects for a few months seem fine, serious after effects after a year do not).
My group therapy got moved to Zoom-only last month, which is just terrible. No one thinks we're getting the same level of efficacy that we'd get in person; it's a farce. I pointed out that the mask mandate in our state/county is for public places only, and it's perfectly safe if everyone in the room is vaccinated. It didn't matter; the decision was already announced & too many people would lose face if they reversed it.
I decided this was a deal-breaker for me and tried to find another group that was meeting in person. Turns out every single mental health provider in my big coastal city that offers this kind of therapy has moved to remote-only. I have no other options. I explained to them that the mask mandate here is only for public places where vaccination status can't be verified, sent them PDFs of the mask order & the public health recommendations it was based on. None of it matters; people have just become hysterical, and when I try to talk facts and logic they brush me off like I'm the crazy one (ha).
This is a big deal for me. It might sound like a first-world problem but I fucking hate camera-on group Zoom meetings; this therapy is really important to me, and a lot of other people too. It's terrifying how this is completely arbitrary and open-ended; they can't really explain why they're doing this beyond "Covid", or what kind of criteria they might use for a return to in-person.
More generally, there were a lot of people in my big coastal city who were being completely ridiculous about Covid precautions straight through the summer. I think many of these people felt vindicated by Delta, and I fear they're going to be nearly impossible to dislodge even after the infection rate drops. I wasn't expecting to be so personally affected by it, but here we are.
Unfortunately we'd need a specially-trained psychologist to run it for us, and as far as I can tell they've all gone remote-only in lockstep. I have thought about renting a room somewhere so like-minded clients could assemble in person, and just the psychologist would be on Zoom. I don't think they could prevent us from doing this. Lots of logistical hurdles, though.
If you could snap your fingers and eliminate every single current case of COVD in the U.S. - so the country was COVID free - would COVID zero be a viable strategy?
If the answer is "no" - and I think it clearly is - then stop with the mask mandates and let people adapt!!!
My favorite covid theatrical piece is at an outdoor carousel at an upscale outdoor mall in Southern California. After each ride in which everyone is 100% masked, they fog the entire ride w/ disinfectant, then run the ride empty a few times to dry it off. It's a masterpiece event.
Listen I am not so posh going to an Ivy League but I can assure you that UMD we only go with one mask during sex. Wouldn't be any fun without a little danger.
Cmon Matt, you're better than this. There's a difference between being maskless at optional places like restaurants and manditory places like supermarkets and pharmacies. Requiring masks at the latter isn't "theater".
Thank you for writing this - this stuff irritates me no end, so reading it was therapeutic!
A modern indoor space is hermetically sealed to improve its energy bill.
A modern A/C engineer prioritizes energy efficiency over air quality.
Windows are screwed shut in schools and hotels to prevent suicides.
Opening a window while running the A/C or heater is an eco-sin.
And so disease spreads.
N95 masks, when worn properly by professionals, have been shown to refuse transmission. The same masks have shown some benefit in unvaccinated populations. The problem with determining whether something like improvised cloth masks reduce spread amongst an already vaccinated population, is stickier. The ambient transmission is lower, so an NPI needs to take a bigger “bite” to swing real world numbers. It’s far from conclusive that the masking policies at places like Yale are preventing transmission appreciably more than vaccines, and even farther when you talk about outcomes like hospitalization and death. I’m actually a little more tinfoil hat than Matt, in that he says we need to realize the pandemic will never be over. I say we need to realize that, for those of us in the first world who have access to vaccines, it already is.
NIH acknowledges gain of function research occurred with US grant funding in Wuhan. A Democratic strategist responds to questions about it with essentially “these are not the droids you’re looking for”…and then goes on to talk about FOX News. 🤔
I'm mildly disgruntled by current COVID19 restrictions, and wouldn't mind seeing them wound down somewhat. Wearing a mask makes going out to eat less pleasant, and it makes going to the gym not worth the effort.
I'd really like to see more cheap antigen tests, so I could feel better about visiting parents or immuno-compromised friends.
(I'd also like to see a vax mandate for airplane passengers.)
thank you, I agree, thank you!
I have high schoolers that should get to dance and play volleyball without!! a mask-
any day now would be amazing ,
tired of waiting..
everyone they perform and compete with are vaccinated just like they are.
This is a weak article. I live in SF, which I believe has had the strictest lockdowns / masking restrictions / school closures in the country, and we do, in fact, have benchmarks for how low cases need to be before further relaxing restrictions. I assume vaccination cards will be around for quite some time. But we lifted all mask restrictions right before Delta, and I see no reason we won’t do it again.
We also went through a period where restaurants weren’t handing out menus. You had to look up the food online. We’re now back to sticky menus.
Nor do I think that putting a remote in a plastic bag is a serious inflationary driver.
"That’s not a rhetorical question; it deserves an answer. If institutions say the current level of spread in their community is too high, that’s reasonable, but they should pick a target number, and at that point, the masks come off."
I think there is a target. Most colleges are claiming to base their indoor masking policies on CDC recommendations. The CDC recommends indoor masking for the vaccinated in 'substantial' or 'high' transmission areas. In other words, as soon as your area drops into 'moderate' levels of transmission, the masks for the vaccinated could come off.
But here we run into a problem. The CDC rubric lists 50 cases per 100K population as the boundary between 'moderate' and 'substantial.' What's that you say? Your area has been below that rate for weeks? That's what I thought. But the CDC actually claims it means 50 cases per 100K of population *in total, over a 7 day period.* That is, they are using a weekly case-rate, not a daily case-rate. So you won't get below the masking threshold until you get to 7 cases a day per 100K. To be clear, I think this was a sloppy mistake they made-- they basically meant to, but then forgot to divide by seven-- but have not wanted to correct it, since it errs (massively) on the side of caution.
Rant warning: I'm pretty broadly in agreement with this (excessive focus on surfaces and especially the restaurant mask shuffle are absurd) but I'm a bit surprised that almost nobody brought up long COVID. My remaining question is what % of vaccinated breakthrough cases get these kinds of intense symptoms: https://twitter.com/maosbot/status/1450465063056420874 There is very little good data on it.
The person in the thread was AFAIK not vaccinated at the time but there have been studies claiming a 50% reduction in long COVID symptoms between unvaccinated and vaccinated breakthroughs, though I assume that the type of symptoms would be quite different (and presumably milder).
I think the hospitalization/death risk to fully vaccinated < 50/60ish people is minuscule and still quite low for older adults, but if the serious chronic fatigue % is even a few percent for vaccinated people that would seem quite serious and problematic to me. Unfortunately there have been very few quality studies, particularly around assessing severity/length of symptoms (mild after effects for a few months seem fine, serious after effects after a year do not).
My group therapy got moved to Zoom-only last month, which is just terrible. No one thinks we're getting the same level of efficacy that we'd get in person; it's a farce. I pointed out that the mask mandate in our state/county is for public places only, and it's perfectly safe if everyone in the room is vaccinated. It didn't matter; the decision was already announced & too many people would lose face if they reversed it.
I decided this was a deal-breaker for me and tried to find another group that was meeting in person. Turns out every single mental health provider in my big coastal city that offers this kind of therapy has moved to remote-only. I have no other options. I explained to them that the mask mandate here is only for public places where vaccination status can't be verified, sent them PDFs of the mask order & the public health recommendations it was based on. None of it matters; people have just become hysterical, and when I try to talk facts and logic they brush me off like I'm the crazy one (ha).
This is a big deal for me. It might sound like a first-world problem but I fucking hate camera-on group Zoom meetings; this therapy is really important to me, and a lot of other people too. It's terrifying how this is completely arbitrary and open-ended; they can't really explain why they're doing this beyond "Covid", or what kind of criteria they might use for a return to in-person.
More generally, there were a lot of people in my big coastal city who were being completely ridiculous about Covid precautions straight through the summer. I think many of these people felt vindicated by Delta, and I fear they're going to be nearly impossible to dislodge even after the infection rate drops. I wasn't expecting to be so personally affected by it, but here we are.
That's awful--I'm so sorry this is happening. Is there a way that you and others in agreement can find someone to run an in-person meeting?
Unfortunately we'd need a specially-trained psychologist to run it for us, and as far as I can tell they've all gone remote-only in lockstep. I have thought about renting a room somewhere so like-minded clients could assemble in person, and just the psychologist would be on Zoom. I don't think they could prevent us from doing this. Lots of logistical hurdles, though.
Here's a thought experiment:
If you could snap your fingers and eliminate every single current case of COVD in the U.S. - so the country was COVID free - would COVID zero be a viable strategy?
If the answer is "no" - and I think it clearly is - then stop with the mask mandates and let people adapt!!!
My favorite covid theatrical piece is at an outdoor carousel at an upscale outdoor mall in Southern California. After each ride in which everyone is 100% masked, they fog the entire ride w/ disinfectant, then run the ride empty a few times to dry it off. It's a masterpiece event.
“Baby wait do you have protection?”
*Pulls out N95*
In this situation does one double mask or?
Listen I am not so posh going to an Ivy League but I can assure you that UMD we only go with one mask during sex. Wouldn't be any fun without a little danger.
you'll have to do some follow-up field reporting for us when you make it to campus.
> It’s true that having this rule in place also doesn’t particularly harm anyone.
It harms everyone. It reduces trust. It harms clear thinking. It encourages tribalism.
Amen!