Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with numbers on the airborne spread of the virus that are being challenged….
The longer scientists study the Covid-19 virus the better they get at actually knowing about it and how it works….
There is no doubt that the vaccinations and mask wearing work….
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines last month for mask wearing, it announced that “less than 10 percent” of Covid-19 transmission was occurring outdoors. Media organizations repeated the statistic, and it quickly became a standard description of the frequency of outdoor transmission.
But the number is almost certainly misleading.
It appears to be based partly on a misclassification of some Covid transmission that actually took place in enclosed spaces (as I explain below). An even bigger issue is the extreme caution of C.D.C. officials, who picked a benchmark — 10 percent — so high that nobody could reasonably dispute it.
That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation….
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This isn’t just a gotcha math issue. It is an example of how the C.D.C. is struggling to communicate effectively, and leaving many people confused about what’s truly risky. C.D.C. officials have placed such a high priority on caution that many Americans are bewildered by the agency’s long list of recommendations. Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina, writing in The Atlantic, called those recommendations “simultaneously too timid and too complicated.”
They continue to treat outdoor transmission as a major risk. The C.D.C. says that unvaccinated people should wear masks in most outdoor settings and vaccinated people should wear them at “large public venues”; summer camps should require children to wear masks virtually “at all times.”
These recommendations would be more grounded in science if anywhere close to 10 percent of Covid transmission were occurring outdoors. But it is not. There is not a single documented Covid infection anywhere in the world from casual outdoor interactions, such as walking past someone on a street or eating at a nearby table….
Dr. Fauci on mask wearing….
“We’ve had practically a nonexistent flu season this year merely because people were doing the kinds of public health things that were directed predominantly against covid-19,” Fauci said.
Fauci added that it is “conceivable” that during seasonal periods where respiratory-borne viruses such as the flu are prevalent, people might decide in the next year or two to wear masks to diminish the possibility of either spreading or catching these diseases.
Common viruses such as influenza have virtually disappeared this year, partly because of coronavirus restrictions like face masks. And a sharp decline in flu infections during this year’s season has led to only one registered pediatric death, compared with dozens in past years, official data shows….
I tried to make this point the other day.
There is no real reason to wear masks outdoors.
The is no real evidence that the virus spreads there.
If one wants to,go ahead .I don’t do that anymore myself.
The CDC itself has said that fully vaccinated people need no longer do so and the evolving evidence seems to suggest that even unvaccinated people dont really need to.
Earlier ,it was revealed ,that there is little evidence that one can contract the virus from surfaces.
All this points out that ,as said, as we go along and learn more about how this virus spreads things will change in some cases fairly quickly.
Knowledge and time….
Yes Jack…..
Los Angeles Times
@latimes
“Respected immunologists say the concept of herd immunity is widely misunderstood — and in fact the conditions for its attainment in the U.S. may be close or already have been reached.”
From columnist
@hiltzikm
:
Yes I’ve been reading a lot on this subject and there does seem to be a lot of disagreement over what the term “herd immunity “ actually means.
Things HAVE Changed again as more data become available….
There is also a political side to all this that drives certain narratives…
And the media….
You can’t make this shit up!
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88nnwg/anti-maskers-ready-to-start-maskingto-protect-themselves-from-the-vaccinated
Stupidity has no bounds...
Seven vaccinated members of the NY Yankees recently tested positive for COVID-19.
Here’s the link…Something doesn’t add up…The SEVEN had shot’s….You CAN get the virus afterwards but in mass cases like this it’s been the test that was wrong…We’ll see
Gov. Cuomo says NY isn’t ready to follow federal advice on going maskless
Pandemic-weary New Yorkers had their hopes deflated Thursday when Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he wasn’t ready to ease the state’s mask mandate — even though the feds gave the green light for vaccinated Americans to finally show their faces and gather indoors again.
In a late-afternoon statement, Cuomo said he and Health Commissioner Howard Zucker had yet to decide if the Empire State would adopt newly announced guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In New York, we have always relied on the facts and the science to guide us throughout the worst of this pandemic and in our successful reopening,” Cuomo said.
“We have received the newly revised guidance from the CDC regarding mask wearing and social distancing for those with vaccinations and are reviewing them in consultation with Dr. Zucker and our partners and health experts in surrounding states.”…
More…
The Yankees are not showing symptoms though apparently. They are getting tested far more than the average person. So, a person might have it and never know and never have any adverse health problem thanks to the vaccine.
There are plenty of other vaccinated people who subsequently came down with the virus and even died from it.
Yup…..
At least 5,000 in this country that we have reports on…
plenty? really?
Did Ron Johnson steal your handle?
the claim is that 0.008% of people who were vaccinated have died, and most of them elderly.
Pretty good odds in favor of the vaccine.
Good odds in favor of the vaccine, but 74 deaths is not insignificant.
How many people die in car accidents every day? Are we about to shut down the roads?
The vaccines are very effective and will be even more so once more people are vaccinated.
At this point, not being vaccinated is pretty much a choice, I definitely do not want anything to happen to those people, but they have to bear some responsibility for a choice.
The vaccines are very effective, but vaccines and masks combined are even more effective.
There is virtually no risk of a vaccinated person, especially if they do not having a serious underlying health issue, catching a case of Covid that could kill or hospitalize them, We all lived for many years with the possibility of catching the flu. The masks were definitely needed at one point but they are not needed forever. Of course, America is about freedom, and if people want to wear them, they should, without the risk of harassment.
THE 4 KINDS OF PEOPLE WHO AREN’T VACCINATED — Health care reporter Dan Goldberg emails Nightly:
Governors and public health officials have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about the so-called movable middle, an amorphous group of people who aren’t opposed to getting the vaccine but aren’t eager to do so either. It’s led to a lot of creative thinking, culminating this week with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine offering five $1 million prizes to adults who get their shot.
But these incentive-laden efforts get at only one segment of the population. There are actually four main groups of people who aren’t getting the vaccine….
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A plurality of voters said they think that people in their area should continue to wear masks outdoors regardless of the guidelines, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds.
Forty-two percent of registered voters in the May 10-11 survey said everyone in their area should continue to wear masks outdoors regardless of the CDC recommendations.
Thirty-nine percent of respondents said everyone should follow the guidelines and not wear masks outdoors except in crowds.
Nineteen percent said everyone should do what they want regardless of the guidelines.
More….
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were found to be 94 percent effective in health care workers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) ongoing largest effectiveness study.
The interim study results released on Friday further support previous data on the effectiveness of the two vaccines, which use mRNA technology and have been widely administered in the U.S.
The researchers estimated that those who were fully vaccinated were 94 percent less likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19, while people who were partially vaccinated were 82 percent less likely…
More…