Follow the Science? How COVID Authoritarians Get It Wrong

[Muda69]

[Muda69]

COVID-19 Hygiene Theater Is Out of Control

https://reason.com/2021/04/22/covid-19-hygiene-theater-is-out-of-control/

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The 9/11 attacks gave us the heightened security theater now on display in all U.S. airports. Day after day for the last two decades, Transportation Security Administration agents have patted down travelers from teens to the elderly, looking for weapons that nobody expects to find. While airplane cockpit doors are now locked to prevent hijackings, the pat-downs remain.

And now we have pandemic hygiene theater to give uninformed people a false sense of control and sustain their fear of the virus.

Think of the number of hours that schools, restaurants, and other businesses spend wiping down surfaces to prevent COVID-19 transmission even though we've known since last July that this wiping isn't necessary. Yet Americans continue to spend untold hours and dollars wiping surfaces to provide the appearance of virus protection to their patrons.

In Arlington, Virginia, my kids' schools have implemented overly stringent and frankly illogical measures that create barriers to accessing an effective education. For starters, the schools have only welcomed back a subset of their student population for two days a week for in-person education. They've also reduced the number of actual teaching days from five to four, during which the kids get only half of the education time they used to get. But they do spend time and energy wiping down surfaces and making students wipe their desks. They're also instructed daily to "limit touching of surfaces to only when is necessary."

That isn't the only form of hygiene theater some schools perform.

Every morning I must fill out a form for each of my kids, assuring the school that they have no fever, yet the school still has temperature checks at every entry point of the building. The alleged need for temperature checks is one stated reason for why kids cannot be taught on site more than two days a week and why more kids can't be brought back for in-person instruction.

These theatrics continue even though Anthony Fauci admitted last August that temperature checks "are notoriously inaccurate." Nobody should be surprised. We've known for months that up to 40 percent of Americans with COVID-19 are asymptomatic.

Our schools also claimed that they couldn't bring the kids back last fall because students must stay six to 10 feet apart. I'm reminded of this every morning when I electronically agree to my kids following the safety standards. That's 4 feet more than even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended for months. And even the origin of that 6-feet rule is mysterious. It's twice the length recommended by most countries and the World Health Organization.

Adding insult to injury, the CDC finally changed its guidelines from 6 to 3 feet, yet Arlington schools still require distances of at least six to 10 feet and universal mask use. Never mind that teachers have been prioritized for vaccination, and research shows that schools don't increase COVID-19 spread in the community.

And as the Manhattan Institute's Connor Harris notes, the evidence behind some of these mask mandates "turns out to be quite weak." The "widespread use of masks throughout the United States and Europe has failed to stop massive pandemic waves in the fall and winter," he observes, adding that "preliminary signs also suggest that mask mandates may be causing considerable harm. Several state governments have recently rescinded their mask mandates, and a look at the science suggests that more should consider following."

Likewise, for a number of valid social-development and health-related reasons, Harris's colleague John Tierney concludes that "mask mandates are especially cruel to young children." As Tierney's research explains, "The CDC's policy placates the leaders of teachers' unions but flouts the guidance issued jointly by UNICEF and the World Health Organization."

These theatrics play out in a world where many of us reuse our face masks such as the one we keep in our car, reuse surgical masks many times, or wear masks below our noses. There are many actors starring in this daily health drama. The same applies to the number of Americans who continue to wear masks outdoors despite evidence that transmission rarely takes place outside. And the same will be said of those who, although vaccinated, will continue to wear masks long after we reach herd immunity.

While some of these examples may seem silly, hygiene theater has huge costs and wastes precious resources. It also keeps Americans unjustifiably scared of the virus while promoting the delusion that with enough such measures, we can finally live in a world free of risks.

 

[Muda69]

Experts Agree That Outdoor Post-Vaccination Masking Is Useless

https://reason.com/2021/04/22/experts-agree-that-outdoor-post-vaccination-masking-is-useless/

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"Is It Time to End Outdoor Masking?" That was the question posed by Spencer Bokat-Lindell, a staff editor at The New York Times, in a recent opinion piece. Bokat-Lindell noted that journalists at Reason—as well as Slate, The New Republic, and The Atlantic—had expressed skepticism of government mandates requiring mask while outdoors, and decided to ask the experts to see what they thought.

"Is Mr. Soave right?" asked Bokat-Lindell. "Here's what public health experts and journalists are saying."

As it turns out, they largely agree that outdoor masking is useless.

Take it away, experts:

"Transmissions do not take place between solitary individuals going for a walk, transiently passing each other on the street, a hiking trail or a jogging track," Dr. Paul E. Sax, a professor at Harvard Medical School, wrote in NEJM Journal Watch. "That biker who whizzes by without a mask poses no danger to us, at least from a respiratory virus perspective."…

Experts have been preaching the importance of distinguishing between indoor and outdoor transmission risks since the early months of the pandemic. But now that the vaccination drive is underway, the expectation of universal outdoor masking "almost becomes ridiculous," Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco, told Slate. Dr. Gandhi isn't alone: Several epidemiologists have called for an end to outdoor mask mandates, which some 24 states still have in place.

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reached the same conclusion:

Even if one is wary about the risks right now, those risks will abate considerably over the next month. More than half of all eligible Americans have received at least one coronavirus vaccination shot, which means that by the end of May more than half of all Americans will be fully vaccinated. A growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated Americans are highly unlikely vectors for transmitting the disease. This means the need for mask-wearing should be reduced even further….

Just let time work its magic. As more and more vaccinated people feel comfortable going maskless outside, the social norm of putting on a mask will subside slowly, then suddenly.

The evidence is clear: COVID-19 is a disease that spreads when humans breathe, talk, laugh, and sing in each other's faces during close contact—particularly indoors, in poorly ventilated spaces. The outdoors, on the other hand, are associated with very little transmission. Moreover, the vaccinated are essentially immune from severe disease and death, and their odds of contracting the virus at all are very low. Their odds of spreading the disease are even lower. Vaccinated people who have incidental contact with other people outside are not going to spread the virus, and requiring people to mask up during such circumstances is pointless.

That's not a matter of opinion: It's the expert consensus. If you don't want to hear it, then you aren't listening to the science. Government policy makers take heed; it is long past time to end COVID-19 restrictions—especially the ones that aren't even serving any actual public health purpose.

I guess this year's running of the Indianapolis 500, where 135,00 fans are expected, will be a good test of this.  Will people be dying in droves 2-4 weeks after the event?

 

[swordfish]

[swordfish]

They are hoping we forgot.....

a

[Muda69]

The CDC's Guidance for Summer Camps Is Insane

https://reason.com/2021/05/04/cdc-summer-camp-guidance-masks-covid-19/

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Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidance to help summer camps mitigate their coronavirus risk. Given that summer camps involve both children and the outdoors—two factors that render COVID-19 significantly less worrisome—and will be opening in the wake of widespread vaccination, one might have expected the CDC to depart from its characteristic over-caution.

Nope: This is among the most restrictive, unrealistic guidance the agency has released during the pandemic. It's more limiting than the CDC's guidance for vaccinated people exercising outside more generally. If followed, summer campers would be miserable, deprived of physical contact, and in considerable danger of overheating. The government has essentially recommended that summer camps treat kids like prisoners.

Here are just some of the restrictions:

• Everyone at the camp—including staff and every kid over the age of two—must wear masks at all times, unless they are eating or swimming. They should wear two layers of masks, especially when social distancing is difficult, regardless of "whether activities are indoors or outdoors."
• Campers should be placed in "cohorts," and their interaction with people outside the cohort must be limited.
• There should always be at least three feet between campers of the same cohort, and six feet between campers of different cohorts. Staff should keep six feet away from campers at all times, whether inside or outside. Distance should be maintained while eating, napping, or riding the bus: The CDC suggests seating kids in alternating rows.
• The use of physical objects that might be shared among kids—toys, art supplies, electronics—should be limited wherever possible.
• Camps should not permit close-contact sports and indoor sports, and should require masks regardless.
• If anyone is curious there are separate restrictions for outdoor gardening.

This is bonkers. First, COVID-19 is not easily transmitted outside, even if people are maskless. Second, all camp staffers will have likely had the opportunity to be vaccinated by the time summer arrives. Third, the campers themselves are not at risk of a negative health outcome: For kids, COVID-19 is probably less hazardous than the flu. (In a typical year, more U.S. kids drown than will have died of COVID-19.)

From a pandemic standpoint, kids playing together outside is an extremely safe group activity. And again, the vaccines work. They offer almost complete protection for anyone who is worried about getting sick.

David Zweig interviewed several health experts for New York magazine who assailed the guidance as "cruel," "irrational," and little more than "virtue signaling." He writes:

Mark Gorelik, a pediatric immunologist at Columbia University and an expert on MIS-C, the rare COVID-19-related inflammatory syndrome, said, "We know that the risk of outdoor infection is very low. We know risks of children becoming seriously ill or even ill at all is vanishingly small. And most of the vulnerable population is already vaccinated. I am supportive of effective measures to restrain the spread of illness. However, the CDC's recommendations cross the line into excess and are, frankly, senseless. Children cannot be running around outside in 90-degree weather wearing a mask. Period."

An infectious-disease scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci's agency, spoke with me about the CDC guidance on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. "With staff and parents vaccinated, there is no reason to continue incredibly strict mitigation efforts or put severe limitations on activities," they said. "Charitably," the scientist, who has an expertise in respiratory viruses, continued, "masking kids at camp outdoors is simply virtue signaling. Requiring kids to continuously wear masks at camps, even while outside playing in the heat, when it provides little additional protection is unfair and cruel to our children. Considering that children are at incredibly low risk for developing severe illness, the minimal benefits of mask wearing do not outweigh the substantial costs of discouraging children to be active and their overall health."

Kids and vaccinated adults do not need to wear masks or adhere to strict social distancing while outside. The guidance should be updated immediately to reflect this reality. Failing that, it should simply be ignored.

Also this "guidance" about not sharing physical objects is asinine.  Studies have shown contacting COVID-19 thru the touching of physical surfaces is extremely low, like 1 in 10,000.  The CDC itself even admits this:  https://consumer.healthday.com/cdc-low-risk-of-catching-coronavirus-from-surfaces-2652264315.html

No, exactly like the article says these recommendations are nothing by CYA virtue signaling by the CDC.

 

[swordfish]

[Muda69]

Vaccine Passports Will Outlast the Pandemic

https://reason.com/2021/05/12/vaccine-passports-will-outlast-the-pandemic/

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With support from politicians, businesses, and the public, vaccine passports (formalized proof of health status) appear to be inevitable, at least for travel and for attending large events. But as competing offerings try to accommodate rival priorities and expectations, no single standard is near wide acceptance. In short, vaccine passports appear to be destined to become part of everyday life, but probably only in limited application and after the COVID-19 pandemic that spurred their development is long gone.

"A new Ipsos survey for the World Economic Forum finds that, on average, about three in four adults across 28 countries agree that COVID-19 vaccine passports should be required of travelers to enter their country and that they would be effective in making travel and large events safe," the polling firm announced at the end of April.

Gallup also found that "U.S. adults favor mandated vaccination certification for travel by airplane (57%) and to attend events with large crowds, such as concerts or sporting events (55%)."

After that, though, polling finds a steep drop in support for requiring proof of health before people are allowed to go about their lives. Specifically, majorities of Americans in Gallup's survey oppose requiring proof of vaccination for people headed to the workplace, hotel stays, or restaurants.

Proof of vaccination for work seems to be a non-starter, in particular. While "no jab, no job" may trend as a search term, few businesses are interested in antagonizing employees with a vaccination requirement. "Less than 1% of survey respondents have actually decided to implement a mandate, and only 20% say they are even considering it," Mercer found in a February survey of employers. Encouraging and incentivizing employees to get their shots has much more support than requiring them to prove they are vaccinated for COVID-19.

And if you're not going to require vaccination of employees, imposing such a condition on customers who can take their business elsewhere seems even less likely. 

But international travel, concerts, and sporting events may well be enough to make vaccine passports a regular feature for many people in the years to come. All involve moving through checkpoints that are frequently under government control or otherwise subject to relatively easy regulation.

Iceland, for example, announced in March that "all those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be allowed to travel to Iceland without being subject to border measures, such as testing and quarantine" and also accepts proof of negative tests and of prior infection. Because there is not yet a single internationally accepted standard, Iceland's Directorate of Health specifies the information that certificates must contain, lists acceptable languages, permitted vaccines, and warns that "Border control will evaluate whether a certificate is valid."

Showing up at Customs checkpoints in hope that your vaccination passport will be accepted is bound to pose headaches for travelers and the airlines transporting them. To address that concern, the International Air Transport Association developed the Travel Pass, one of the competing standards for proof of health status. The app- and paper-based Travel Pass, which is being tested by 30 airlines, lets travelers upload proof of health, testing, prior infection, or other government requirements. Like many proposals, it promises to let users control data and present only the minimum information required.

IATA's initiative, like Iceland's requirements, illustrates certain challenges faced by vaccine passport advocates. IATA offers (and Iceland accepts) paper documents as proof of vaccination, testing, or prior infection. But digital documents are "considered superior to a paper-only vaccination certificate, which can be fraudulently obtained, easily lost and damaged, or simply difficult to read due to illegible handwriting," as the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out in its first crack at guidance for such documentation. And WHO should know, since there's a thriving international black market in forged versions of the organization's "yellow card" certificates for travelers who need to demonstrate vaccination for yellow fever and other ailments.

Requiring digital certificates of everybody is impossible, though, unless you're going to exclude the great many people who don't have smart phones. That leaves authorities in the position of setting tighter standards for vaccine passports that put them out of reach of much of the population, or else loosening standards and accepting the reality that some documents will be bogus.

Not that digital documents are without their own flaws. It took only 11 minutes for Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project to forge New York's Excelsior Pass, which was introduced as a ticket "to gain entry to major stadiums and arenas, wedding receptions, or catered and other events." The Excelsior Pass is based on IBM's Digital Health Pass technology, which means that its vulnerabilities might be shared by other implementations.

Israel's Green Pass is reportedly similarly easy to counterfeit. It runs off a central database, has poorly implemented encryption, and constitutes a "security disaster" according to Haaretz. 

To be honest, even the most secure vaccine passport can only be as reliable as the information it has been given. If somebody compromises the sources of information about vaccinations or identity, the passport will blithely testify that it's all true. Ultimately, no matter how many standards are established and how many requirements legislated, authorities have to place some trust in the people presenting the documents—and accept a degree of flaws, errors, and deliberate evasion.

Such considerations are part of why, so far, there's been more talk of adopting vaccine passports than actual establishment of standards. The Biden administration has deliberately sworn off any interest in linking itself to a requirement that could turn into yet another battle. The European Union is creeping towards such a requirement, though it's coy about what it will look like or how it will be administered. Only Britain seems ready to take the plunge and use its existing National Health Service app as proof of vaccination (though the BBC emphasizes that it's not clear if anybody outside the country will accept it).

But the EU certificate is supposed to be unveiled this month, and New York's and Israel's passports remain in place despite their flaws. IATA's Travel Pass continues its trials, and other initiatives are going through their paces even as people get vaccinated or gain immunity from prior infection and COVID-19 diminishes as a threat. Ultimately, a public demanding assurances about the health of foreign travelers and about the safety of crowded events will get such assurances, whether or not they're meaningful. 

Given current trends, COVID-19 may have largely faded by the time vaccine passports are widely accepted, but the documents themselves will undoubtedly remain. It will be interesting to see just what uses authorities find for them after the reason for their existence is forgotten.

Yet another piece of security theater, ensuring the bureaucracy continues.

 

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[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/05/19/saint-fauci-a-lying-sinner-devine/

This is how confused New Yorkers are about masks. At Barnes & Noble Wednesday, no mask was required to browse the bookshelves, but on the other side of Union Square, the Strand bookstore had mandated masks for all shoppers. Practically everyone inside both stores was wearing a mask anyway, despite CDC advice that you don’t need one, indoors or outdoors, if you’re vaccinated against COVID-19.

Considering that more than half of Manhattan has been fully vaccinated, something is very wrong with the way we are processing risk. The trust between public health experts and the public is broken and now no one knows what to believe.

We can blame one man above anyone for this parlous state of ­affairs: Saint Anthony Fauci, the coronavirus czar once hailed as the most trusted man in America for his leadership through the pandemic. He has flip-flopped on every piece of advice, never admits doubt and tells lies with ­brazen indifference.

But just as with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Fauci’s halo has fallen off with a thud.

It was just on Tuesday that Fauci admitted it was not science but theater that kept him wearing a mask — even double-masking — despite being fully vaccinated for ­almost five months.

“I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals,” he told “Good Morning America.” “But being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.”

In other words, he was not being truthful in March when he denied Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s accusation at a Senate hearing that Fauci’s obsessive masking up was pure “theater.”

But by Wednesday morning, Fauci was already walking back Tuesday’s comments, saying people was “misinterpreting” the CDC’s advice on masks.

“I think people are misinterpreting, thinking that this is a removal of a mask mandate for everyone. It’s not,” Fauci told Axios. “It’s an assurance to those who are vaccinated that they can feel safe, be they outdoors or indoors.”

Fauci at this point is being deliberately confusing. He is feeding the mental disorder of vaccinated Karens who cling to their masks. He needs to tell them the truth and stick to it.

The rest of us are not going to have our lives ruled by neurotics anymore. We’re not going to believe his “noble” lies. And we’re not going to allow children’s lives to be further ruined.

Fauci gave cover to teachers ­unions for keeping schools closed beyond the point of reason last year, when he should have stated clearly the science that children are the least at risk from the virus, and the least likely to pass it on.

He should have used his power and prestige for good. He should have acknowledged that it is cruel to children and detrimental to their social development to force them to wear masks all day, and that doing so is just a sop to ­malign teachers unions that should not be dictating CDC policy.

A wonderfully brave boy of 10 in Florida did Fauci’s job last week when the kid articulated the feelings of the nation’s children to his school board.

Fourth-grader John Provenzano said the masks were hot, gave him headaches, stuck to his face, and made him feel “claustrophobic” and anxious.

“All of this seems unfair, and it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I miss seeing people’s faces. I miss the way things used to be. I’m scared they’ll never go back to normal.”

He spoke poignantly about feeling sad when his teacher did not recognize him without his mask.

“I don’t recognize anyone. It’s this simple state. Do we know any other people? It’s just dehumanizing.”

Reading faces is a crucial part of children’s socialization and helps them learn empathy. There is no telling the damage done to them from the overreaction of the last year.

The admirable stoicism of younger generations speaks well for their ability to face the challenges they will meet in the ­future, caused almost entirely by the selfishness of their elders throughout the pandemic.

There was no need for young people in the prime of their lives to be muzzled and locked in and denied education, jobs and opportunities.

Older people could have locked themselves in and relied on the young to pick up the reins. But those in charge preferred to shut everything down rather than lose their grip on power. Now they’re piling crippling debt on generations to come.

This is what happens when you let geriatrics run your country. The average age of the three most powerful politicians in the country is over 76. President Biden is 78, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 81 and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is the spring chicken at 70. Fauci is 80.

It’s not healthy. By all means we should incorporate the wisdom of elders in decision-making but not when they are so clearly motivated by self-interest.

It was selfish of grown-ups to pander to their own hypochondria at the expense of children who are not at risk of dying or of spreading a disease that primarily hits the elderly and the obese.

That was the hidden blessing of the coronavirus we never recognized and have squandered.

Couldn't agree more......I said it before, Dr. Fauci is a brilliant politician more than an MD.  He has (as I pointed out early in this pandemic over a year ago now) articulated both sides of EVERY argument as his own stance(s) and guidance and was successful in creating the aura that he is always right.  The result has always been both sides being "kinda" confused, but not really confused but right according to Fauci.  I think......

 

[Muda69]

A New Study Confirms That Reopening Texas '100 Percent' Had No Discernible Impact on COVID-19 Cases or Deaths

https://reason.com/2021/05/21/a-new-study-confirms-that-reopening-texas-100-percent-had-no-discernible-impact-on-covid-19-cases-or-deaths/

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After Texas became the first state to eliminate both its face mask mandate and its business occupancy limits in early March, President Joe Biden said the decision reflected "Neanderthal thinking." Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, described Gov. Greg Abbott's order as "extraordinarily dangerous," warning that it "will kill Texans."

Anthony Fauci, Biden's top COVID-19 adviser, said lifting mask mandates "is really quite risky," because "when you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you've seen a surge" in cases and deaths. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she had a "recurring feeling" of "impending doom," warning that premature relaxation of "public health prevention strategies" could lead to a "fourth surge."

More than two months later, the public health disaster predicted by Abbott's critics has not materialized. A new analysis by three economists confirms that his decision had no discernible impact on COVID-19 cases or deaths in Texas.

"We find no evidence that the Texas reopening led to substantial changes in social mobility, including foot traffic at a wide set of business establishments in Texas," Bentley University economist Dhaval Dave and his two co-authors report in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. "We find no evidence that the Texas reopening affected the rate of new COVID-19 cases during the five weeks following the reopening." They say their findings "underscore the limits of late-pandemic era COVID-19 reopening policies to alter private behavior."

Dave, San Diego State University economist Joseph Sabia, and SDSU graduate research fellow Samuel Safford looked at smartphone mobility data from SafeGraph and COVID-19 data collected by The New York Times. They compared trends in Texas before and after Abbott's order took effect on March 10 to trends in a composite of data from other states that retained their COVID-19 restrictions but were otherwise similar.

"We find that the Texas reopening had little impact on stay-at-home behavior or on foot traffic at numerous business locations, including restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, retail establishments, business services, personal care services, and grocery stores," Dave et al. write. "We find no evidence that the reopening affected the rate of new COVID-19 cases in the five-week period following the reopening. In addition, we find that state-level COVID-19 mortality rates were unaffected by the March 10 reopening."

Those "null results" were essentially the same in a separate analysis that excluded Austin and Travis County, which maintained local face mask mandates after Abbott lifted the statewide requirement. They also persisted when the researchers compared more urban to less urban counties and when they compared counties where most voters supported Biden in the 2020 election to counties where most voters supported former President Donald Trump, based on prior research indicating that Trump supporters are less likely to wear face masks and follow other COVID-19 safeguards.

Dave et al. suggest several possible reasons why the Texas reopening did not have the impact that its opponents anticipated. First, increasing vaccination (a trend that Abbott's critics surely were aware of) "may have mitigated the contagion effects of interactions" between members of different households. Second, "it may be that there was limited compliance with and enforcement of mask mandates or capacity constraint requirements prior to the March 10 reopening." Third, removing occupancy limits, which were previously 75 percent of capacity for most businesses and 50 percent for bars and professional sports, may have been too minor a change to "affect net population-based social mobility and statewide spread of COVID-19."

Finally, the authors say, "it may be that the types of individuals who
were affected by the policy" were "those least likely to affect the trajectory of COVID-19 growth." Or perhaps "any increase in social mobility or COVID-19 caused by such individuals was offset by others in the community who engaged in risk avoiding behaviors in response to the reopening."

It should have been clear when Abbott announced the reopening on March 2 that the changes he planned were unlikely to have much of a direct impact on virus transmission. While he said face masks would no longer be legally required, he urged Texans to continue wearing them in public, and businesses remained free to require them. In Dallas (which may or may not be representative of the state as a whole in this respect), I have not observed any change in business mask policies or customer compliance. And it seemed implausible that removing the 75 percent occupancy cap (the one that applied to most businesses) would have a medically significant effect even in businesses that were frequently butting up against that limit.

Still, it was possible that Abbott's announcement would affect people's behavior by changing their risk perceptions. That apparently did not happen either, or at least the effect was not large enough to measurably increase virus transmission. "Even if the initial adoption of restrictions is effective and elicits a population response," Dave et al. note, "as individuals update their risk assessment and amass information about the pandemic, their behaviors can become highly inelastic over time."

This study does not prove that lockdowns or less severe COVID-19 restrictions had no initial impact on risky behavior. But it underlines the primacy of private decisions by individuals and businesses.

While there is evidence that stay-at-home orders and mask mandates "were effective in curbing COVID-19 spread early in the U.S. pandemic," Dave et al. say, "a number of studies have documented that [such interventions] account for a relatively small share of the total variation in individuals' COVID-19 mitigation behavior." Those studies indicate that "most of the variation can be attributed to voluntary (non-policy-related) private demand-side responses, likely due to (i) new or updated information on the novel coronavirus, or (ii) changes in individuals' assessments of contagion risk and developing serious COVID-19 symptoms."

When it comes to the debate about the costs and benefits of legal restrictions, that observation cuts both ways. "There is evidence that much of the variation in local unemployment during the pandemic is not attributable to lockdown policies, but rather to voluntary demand-side responses," Dave et al. note. Even without lockdowns, in other words, businesses would have suffered as consumers afraid of catching COVID-19 reduced their excursions and spending.

Likewise, Abbott's remaining COVID-19 restrictions were hardly the only obstacle to a full economic recovery in Texas. "Too many Texans have been sidelined from employment opportunities," Abbott said when he announced the reopening. "Too many small business owners have struggled to pay their bills. This must end. It is now time to open Texas 100 percent." Contrary to the implication that the March 10 reopening would reduce unemployment, Dave et al. found no evidence that it did.

 

[Muda69]

'Not convinced' Covid-19 developed naturally, says Dr Fauci

https://in.news.yahoo.com/not-convinced-covid-19-developed-052826869.html

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America's top expert on infectious diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci said he is "not convinced" the novel coronavirus developed naturally and has called for an open investigation into the origins of Covid-19 virus.

When Dr Fauci was asked at an event whether he was still confident that the coronavirus developed naturally he said: "I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened."

"Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that's the reason why I said I'm perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus," Dr Fauci was quoted by Fox News.

The Biden administration's top medical adviser made these remarks during 'United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking' event.

When he was asked categorically about whether the Covid-19 virus could not have occurred by serial passage in a laboratory, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that he is fully in favour of any further investigation of what went on in China.

However, he did not explicitly rule out such a possibility. He repeated that the NIH and NIAID categorically have not funded gain of function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Last year Dr Fauci had largely dismissed the theory that the deadly Covid-19 virus due to which over 165 million people have been infected worldwide and over 3.5 million peope died so far, was genetically engineered and had leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Fox News noted that the Donald Trump administration officials and Republicans have long argued there is a high chance Covid-19 was the result of a lab leak in China, as per Fox News.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had last week declared the lab leak theory "extremely unlikely", but even Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO chief, has said the research team's assessment on whether the virus entered the human population following a laboratory incident was not "extensive enough" and requires further investigation.

The White House has not yet said whether it's seen evidence to disprove the lab leak theory, but has joined calls for an independent investigation. (ANI)

Changing their tune.

 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9615117/A-year-left-wing-news-TRASHED-theory-COVID-originated-Wuhan-lab-outlets-idea.html

The liberal media have finally conceded that COVID-19 may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory - after a year spent ridiculing the suggestion.

The first fatality from COVID-19 was reported by Chinese state media on January 11, 2020, when a 61-year-old man who was a regular customer at a market in Wuhan died. The first confirmed case in the United States was 10 days later, when a man returned to Washington state from Wuhan.

Within a week, on January 26, 2020, the first article blaming the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the outbreak was published, in The Washington Times. Yet most mainstream media disputed the claims, dismissing them outright or even decrying them as racist.

When Donald Trump, on May 1, 2020, said he had 'a high degree of confidence' that the virus escaped from a lab, the New York Times, CNN, and NPR were quick to mock his comments.  

CNN, which by the end of the Trump administration was brazen in its hostility to the president and his advisors, was almost gleeful in its mockery of the idea that the virus could have come from a laboratory. 

The Washington Post, New York Times, and NPR were equally dismissive of suggestions that the virus could have come from a laboratory.

 

From a "Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory" last year (since the Trumpster was promoting it) to the MSM now accepting and even investigating the Wuhan Lab as the origin of this thing.  Something the Washington Times has never wavered on it's coverage of.......

The original (officially unreported) were workers from within the lab itself......

https://www.livescience.com/covid-lab-leak-wuhan.html

 

 

 

 

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/restaurant-owner-blasts-gov-gretchen-whitmer-for-covid-hypocrisy/

A Michigan restaurant owner who was jailed and fined for violating COVID-19 restrictions said Tuesday that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer should face similar consequences for disobeying her own health department’s guidance too.

“I feel like all of us should be on the same page. If I have to face penalties which I went through … I think she should face the same penalties,” Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, who owns Marlena’s Bistro and Pizzeria, said on Fox News.

“We the people, we [are] all equal. It does not matter [that] because you’re the governor, we need to forgive you.”

The restaurateur spent four nights in jail and paid a $15,000 fine in February for violating the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, according to a report.

“Treat us with dignity and respect,” Pavlos-Hackney added. “We [are] all equal, we the people.”

Whitmer, a Democrat, was forced to apologize Sunday for violating the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, saying she made a “mistake” by crowding with 12 other patrons at a local pizzeria.

“Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been committed to following public health protocols,” Whitmer reportedly said in a statement.

“Yesterday, I went with friends to a local restaurant. As more people arrived, the tables were pushed together. Because we were all vaccinated, we didn’t stop to think about it.

“In retrospect, I should have thought about it. I am human. I made a mistake, and I apologize.”

The apology came after Breitbart first published photos of Whitmer, originally posted online by a friend, crowded with a dozen others at a table in an East Lansing restaurant — violating the state’s May 15 order that mandates a six-person maximum per table and that tables must be 6 feet apart, according to the Detroit News.

The photo quickly sparked backlash, with a conservative group criticizing the governor’s hypocrisy — and demanding Whitmer lift the pandemic restrictions.

“Whitmer continues to defy her own ridiculous restrictions while everyone else is forced to abide by them,” said Tori Sachs, executive director of the Michigan Freedom Fund.

 

SF has to agree with the guy who was jailed and fined for basically the same "human mistake"....

[Muda69]

19 hours ago, swordfish said:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/restaurant-owner-blasts-gov-gretchen-whitmer-for-covid-hypocrisy/

A Michigan restaurant owner who was jailed and fined for violating COVID-19 restrictions said Tuesday that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer should face similar consequences for disobeying her own health department’s guidance too.

“I feel like all of us should be on the same page. If I have to face penalties which I went through … I think she should face the same penalties,” Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, who owns Marlena’s Bistro and Pizzeria, said on Fox News.

“We the people, we [are] all equal. It does not matter [that] because you’re the governor, we need to forgive you.”

The restaurateur spent four nights in jail and paid a $15,000 fine in February for violating the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, according to a report.

“Treat us with dignity and respect,” Pavlos-Hackney added. “We [are] all equal, we the people.”

 

Nice sentiment, but under the all-powerful state some people, primarily politicians, are more "equal" than others.

 

[swordfish]

[Muda69]

Plexiglass Barriers Are Everywhere, but They're Probably Useless: https://reason.com/2021/05/27/plexiglass-barriers-are-everywhere-but-theyre-probably-useless/

Quote

Eateries have adapted to COVID in countless ways. Hostesses take our temperatures upon entry. We scan QR codes instead of reading paper menus. We are served by masked waiters. In some cities, unsightly plexiglass barriers have appeared between tables and bar seats.

Restaurants should be given broad latitude to adapt how they see fit, to best protect their workers and return a degree of confidence to their customers. But some of these adaptations verge on hygiene theater. When those plexiglass barriers are used in classrooms, they "might be making things worse by blocking ventilation," to quote Zeynep Tufekci, who then points to a new study in Science.

Aerosol scientists kept telling me that plexiglass barriers might be making things *worse* by blocking ventilation. Just out in Science. Desk shields associated with *increased* illness risk in schools. Closing playground? Also uptick. So many upshots. https://t.co/lcyt647Xkm pic.twitter.com/JZs0CcdCO8

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) May 7, 2021

 

For a virus that spreads via airborne transmission of aerosols—something scientists have known for many months, though it took the World Health Organization until the end of April to update its guidance—these plastic barriers between diners were always a confusing addition. Think of the particles that disperse through the air when someone smokes a cigarette. A plastic barrier wouldn't prevent you from smelling that cigarette and breathing some of that same air.

It would be one thing if this form of hygiene theater was limited to restaurants. But school districts across the country have forced children to try to learn while encased in plexiglass desk dividers—that is, if they've allowed kids to return to full-time in-person schooling at all.

Not only does this make it harder for children to connect with their friends and teachers, but forcing them to learn this way may lead them to speak up louder to be heard—an act that increases aerosol production and is more likely to spread COVID than speaking at a quieter volume. Given the incredibly low risk of death to children posed by COVID, and the mounting evidence that Plexiglass barriers do not make people safer, it's past time to remove them; a kindergarten classroom shouldn't be filled with thick, see-through partitions like a convenience store in a bad part of town.

Some might counter that if they make people feel safer, that ought to be reason enough to keep plexiglass barriers in place. But this is misguided. Hygiene theater gives people a false understanding of how this virus actually works and which preventative measures to take. Pervasive COVID anxiety should not be used to justify silly rituals, especially when there's good evidence a ritual may hurt us in the end.

 

[swordfish]

Played poker at Four Winds in South Bend on Sunday.  The plexiglass barriers were removed, and masks were not mandatory anymore.  Finally.  8 players per table plus the dealer......

[swordfish]

The FOIA backlash begins......Fauci's e-mails

https://100percentfedup.com/fauci-forwards-email-warning-virus-was-released-from-wuhan-lab-to-nih-deputy-dir-with-two-word-response-please-handle/

A treasure trove of emails from Dr. Fauci has been released. Many of the emails appear to suggest that it’s possible Dr. Fauci may have known more about the origin of the Wuhan virus than he disclosed. One email, in particular, is raising a few eyebrows…

On February 21, 2020, Dr. Fauci received an email from Michael Jacobs, a Weill Cornel Medical College Associate Professor of Dermatology.

In his letter, Jacobs, who explained that he got Dr. Fauci’s email address from Mr. Michael Lockshin,  wrote: “We have been following the coronavirus pandemic closely,” he wrote. “We think that there is a possibility that the virus was released from a lab in Wuhan, the biotech area of China.”

The Weil Cornell Medical College student added, “We also think the virus might be complexed with another organism, such as yeast or fungus to make it more sticky.”

He requested a meeting with Dr. Fauci to discuss their findings, saying, “We feel that immediate action must be taken by United States scientists to try to neutralize this threat.”

Fauci forwarded this in February to a colleague with the words "please handle"

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/06/02/gop-lawmakers-blast-fauci-after-covid-origin-emails-released/

 

 

 

[Bobref]

Compare what Fauci ... and everyone else ... knew about the virus when the e-mails were written to what we know about it a year and a half later. Frankly, this is pure BS.

[swordfish]

[swordfish]

On 6/3/2021 at 11:56 AM, Bobref said:

Compare what Fauci ... and everyone else ... knew about the virus when the e-mails were written to what we know about it a year and a half later. Frankly, this is pure BS.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-report-concluded-covid-19-may-have-leaked-from-wuhan-lab-11623106982?mod=hp_lead_pos11&fbclid=IwAR0eEuu2o7ZGpLnvPdmAq0HX6mS7LyvbvTpC_yC3_XrY--zMJVKOmMdX0Uk

Questions are mounting about whether officials intentionally suppressed a top secret government report concluding COVID-19 could have originated in a lab leak, after it emerged that the study took five months to reach the State Department.

Lawrence Livermore National Lab's secretive 'Z Division' intelligence unit produced the report on May 27, 2020, but it did not reach the State Department until last October, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Dr. David J. Rakestraw, a senior science adviser who formerly ran LLNL's biodefense programs and coordinated the lab’s COVID-19 technical response, was reportedly intimately involved in the preparation of the Z Division report. 

The classified study weighed the lab leak possibility as well as the theory that the pandemic crossed over naturally from an animal, and concluded that both scenarios were plausible and could not be ruled out.

Two U.S. experts have penned a damning essay saying that science strongly suggests the novel coronavirus was manufactured inside a Chinese laboratory.  

The claim was made by Drs Stephen Quay, CEO of biopharmaceutical company Atossa Therapeutics Inc, and Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California Berkeley, in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

In the op-ed, the men say their proof lies in genome sequencing, or analyzing the DNA, of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

There are 36 DNA segments - made up of three-letter 'words' - that viruses use to make an amino acid known as L-arginine.

L-arginine helps make proteins but is also often used in so-called 'gain of function' research, which alters viruses to make them more transmissible and more deadly.

The new virus contains a segment called CGG-CGG, which is considered rare even in experiments in which researchers are trying to manipulate virus.

But even more telling is that this combination has never been found naturally in any other type of coronavirus, including in SARS and MERS, both of which are cousins of the new virus.

'A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn't present in any other virus,' Quay and Muller wrote.  

'The CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here.'

 

Why did a US lab that was obviously under Fauci's purview sit on this report for 5-6 months with this damning "manufactured" conclusion in direct opposition to Fauci's "conclusion" of "natural origin".  This virus has a gene combination that has never been found naturally.

IMHO - Dr. Fauci knew then and has been caught.

[swordfish]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3057850/celebrity-millennium-passengers-vaccinated-america-covid-positive/

TWO passengers onboard the first fully-vaccinated cruise ship in North America have tested positive for coronavirus.

The passengers, who shared a room on the Celebrity Millennium, tested positive during the end-of-cruise testing which is completed three days before returning to the US.

 

In a statement released today, Celebrity said: "Two guests sharing a stateroom onboard Celebrity Millennium tested positive for Covid-19 while conducting the required end of cruise testing.

"The individuals are asymptomatic and currently in isolation and being monitored by our medical team.

"We are conducting contact tracing, expediting testing for all those close contacts, and closely monitoring the situation."

All passengers were required to show proof of vaccination along with a negative Covid-19 test within 72-hours before the ship departed.

The cruise departed the Caribbean island of St. Maarten on Saturday.

The Celebrity Millennium is now docked in Curaço with the passengers who tested positive remaining in isolation.

The ship will return to St. Maarten this Saturday to disembark.

The Celebrity Millennium became the first ship to sail with guests from North America in more than a year.

Just under 600 guests were welcomed onboard on Saturday.

 

Are we just this stupid?  Just because someone has been vaccinated doesn't mean they can't carry the virus.  The vaccination was intended to give your body the ability to counter the virus.

[swordfish]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9712973/Nearly-4-000-Massachusetts-residents-fully-vaccinated-against-COVID-tested-positive-virus.html

Nearly 4,000 Massachusetts residents who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have tested positive for the virus.

These so-called 'breakthrough' cases occur when people contract the disease 14 days or more after receiving their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or the Johnson & Johnson one-shot jab, and which officials say are not surprising.

With more than 3.7 million people in Massachusetts who have completed their vaccine series, this means breakthrough infections have occurred in about one out of every 1,000 - or 0.001 percent - according to the state's Department of Public Health (DPH).

WHY IN THE WORLD is everyone so surprised?  Just like the flu vaccination, the virus/flu/bug/germs still exist and ANYONE can carry it/them.  Apparently this virus is pretty dagum smart....it is SO dangerous it can dodge a vaccine better than anything else.....  Although - it cured the flu.  So there is that.....