Top health officials have changed their minds about face mask guidance -- but for good reason

[Trene4000]

By Holly Yan, CNN

Updated 3:29 AM ET, Mon July 20, 2020
 

(CNN)First, health officials said we shouldn't wear face masks. Then, they said we should. Now, many are saying we must wear masks if we want to protect the economy,  reopen more schools,  and save tens of thousands of lives.

 

"If we all wore face coverings for the next four, six, eight, 12 weeks across the nation, this virus transmission would stop,"  said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

It's true that back in February and March, health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams advised the general public not to wear face masks.

 

 But Fauci, Adams, the CDC and the World Health Organization have all done an about-face with mask guidance. In recent months, scientists have learned more about how easily this new coronavirus can spread in public:
-- This virus can be spread by just talking or breathing

 

-- This coronavirus is highly contagious. Without mitigation efforts like stay-at-home orders,  each person with the coronavirus infects an average of two to three other people.  That makes it twice as contagious as the flu.

 

-- It's easy to spread the coronavirus without any symptoms 

-- This virus has a long incubation period -- up to 14 days -- giving a wide window of opportunity for people to infect others before they even know they're infected.

-- Carriers may be most contagious in the 48 hours before they get symptoms

 

In other words, it's not just people who are sneezing and coughing who can spread coronavirus. It's often people who look completely normal and don't have a fever. And that could include you.

 

See remainder of story at:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/health/face-masks-us-guidance/index.html

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Much of the guidance comes in sound bytes that don't tell the whole story.  Intentionally so, because people can't even be bothered to read a 2 minute Facebook post much less pay attention to something ACTUALLY IMPORTANT.  They are too busy watching TickTok or some other human life imperative.   

So it needs to be a blunt sword message.  Nuance doesn't work on the masses, sadly.   Digging deeply into the WHO website and the CDC website you can find nuanced messages but they aren't on the front page or even the "second layer". 

Hell we can't even get people to care about the end of a livable earth for the bottom 90%. 

The "Don't wear masks" was early on when PPE was especially in short supply and medical professionals need it far more than Joe Blow does.   (This is still true but manufacturing and distribution has ramped up enough)
 They also said "make your own" (which are often better than ones you buy) but 1. People are lazy.  2. People don't have the skill or patience.  3. Its a difficult sell.   (I've never even seriously considered it.)  Meanwhile one of the girls in the zoom meeting was hand making them while chatting. 

 

 

 

The  WHO has never once recommended  6 feet while the western world is unified on the subject. They have to make guidance that wont collapse smaller countries.   6 feet is barely realistic in developed economies.   The WHO has said 1 Meter since day one and its still right on their front page.  Has never changed. 

Also we live in a sort-of democracy.  (for at least the next few months anyway) Most places are STILL just "suggestions" meanwhile its a fact that not socially distancing and not wearing masks kills people.  

Best place to live in a pandemic?  A dictatorship that is on top of this.   You wear your fucking mask and stay socially distanced the end.  No bullshit anti science or debate.  Have any questions about that?  No you don't.  Now shut up. 

 

Dictatorships (almost every single one one earth) is also on board with the Paris Climate Accords, even Saudi Arabia one of the most anti-science places in the world doesn't have the greed enough to be anti-earth.   We have a special kind of moron in america. 

 

We have four things going on all at once that many people are just ignoring:

 

1.  A national obesity epidemic.  The CDC has been screaming bloody murder about this for 20 years.   But, they have no megaphone with which to send the message.   Only 12% of people in america are actually considered healty.   Its called "Metabolic Health".   KEY REASON deaths to covid are worse in america than other places in the world.  Along with the Mad King making it worse. 

 

2.  COVID

 

3. The End of Days  (Impending Climate Change)

 

The younger people being born right now have every right to murder us in our sleep.  We knew what was wrong and did nothing.  Still doing next to nothing. 

 

You'd think his would be the top story every day all day.  Nasa has been screaming about this since the 80s.  In Europe its a daily conversation.   In america the top three networks combined spent a grand total of 200 minutes talking about climate change in 2019.   The rain forest is on fire.   One out of every three breaths you take originated in the amazon.  A near year-round "Hurricane Season".    Some island nations are now underwater.  Miami is being destroyed by rising sea levels same for Hawaii.  Arctic ice that has NEVER melted since humans have been alive are getting record temperatures.   

Some diseases trapped in that ice have never come into contact with humans.  

We are at the start of a MASS EXTINCTION EVENT such as the dinosaurs dying.   In some cases up to 90% of all life on earth had been wiped out.   Every couple hundred million years this happens due to a bad-luck perfect storm (humans have never been around to see one).  This one is man made before. 


4. Rising suicide rate. 

Its now the number 10 leading cause of death in america for the first time in history.  It is the number 1 cause of preventable deaths among millennials.  Isolation and lack of socializing is the core reason.  "Not my problem" seems to be our opinion on everything in america.  Now skyrocketing in the age of covid.  The data can't be compiled fast enough. 
 

[Scary Guy]

Anyone with any sense didn't listen to the WHO then and knew masks were important.  Lots of people didn't trust them when they went back on that (making them look inconsistent.)  Lots of people are idiots.

One of my many friends named  Joe described it as someone pissing on your leg.  I'm paraphrasing here but if neither of you are wearing pants your leg gets wet with piss.  If only you are wearing pants then your leg gets less piss on it, but it still gets wet.  If the other guy is wearing pants then he just pisses himself.  If both of you are wearing pants then you're protected from anyone else not wearing pants.

The problem is that not very many are taking this seriously.  Sure some are masked up but they don't wash their hands and keep touching their face.  Or they wear their mask improperly (under the nose usually.)   Businesses that are open aren't doing enough either.  One table apart really doesn't help at all.  Really 6ft. is the minimum and it should really be 18ft WITH the mask on, and a face shield.  Gloves are a bit overkill admittedly since unless there's an open wound I don't think the virus is absorbed through the skin.

Personally I think we should all be in space suits if we want to save lives.  But that's not realistic.  The reality is that people will die because they will get infected and they wont be able to handle it.  Viruses kill off the weak, it's kind of their thing.  But we love people and we don't want anyone to die, so we try to mitigate that and help the weak survive because we are kind-hearted folk.  We will reach heard immunity eventually.  This isn't a magical thing that kills you as soon as you get it.  You can recover from it.  Children born from parents who have had it will have a better immunity toward it and life will go on.  This is bad, but it's not the worst thing to have ever happened.  That said, I still want a space suit.

As far as climate change goes, we're fucked.  The nice thing about being a nihilist is that I don't have to care.  Hopefully we'll be living underground by then but it will be the most challenging thing humanity has ever faced.