In the early begiining I downplayed COVID-19....BUT

If it is a very real health threat, then why scoff at the recommendations of health experts and virulogists? I just don't understand the need to continue to downplay it?

I'm glad to hear that mrholmes is no longer downplaying it. We're in for a long, hard, sad haul over the coming months and the only way we're going to make it through it without killing a ton more people is to actually listen to the health professionals.

Sometimes, a necessary action is a tough decision to make. That doesn't mean it's a political one or some sort of "conspiracy". None of us "like" shutdowns, masks, etc. Who would? That still doesn't mean that those aren't the right things to do. I'd think a quarter million dead (so far) in the US alone would have already shown that.

Yep. Covid is NOT the flu, despite what some people want to continue to believe.

One of my best friends got Covid and recovered, luckily. Another one of my best friends has it currently. Hopefully he comes out of it unscathed. We'll see. My dad is in poor health, to the point that my girlfriend and I are basically quarantining ourselves between now and Thanksgiving, and still intend to have Thanksgiving dinner outside (and 10 feet away at a separate table) with my parents, because, if he gets it, he's dead. He will not survive it.

The numbers right now are not pretty, and they continue to climb. Here's to a speedy recovery for your family member that currently has Covid.

The best news so far is that the Moderna Vaccine is even more effective than the Pfizer. Can you imagine a world transport and storage system to keep it at -70!!!
For now where a mask! Yeah it’s that simple! The only possible excuse for not would be some respatory problem ( yeah it breaks down graphs and is hard to wear with one ear but I do) my wife was on a procedure with a respetoty specialist asked how many patients he had advised not to wear masks his answer O!

Saying that masks and lockdowns didn't or don't work is ignoring that masks and lockdowns, as they were implemented (and ignored or delayed) in many parts of the US, were not initiated in an effective manner, and then were further watered down by governors in some states (and the president) pushing to reopen things sooner than they should have.

A coherent policy from the top down never existed and, to the extent that any policy existed, it wasn't really ever adhered to in a meaningful way because of the lack of a coherent policy with any real teeth and because many places and states were openly fighting the implementation of ANY policy on masks or lockdowns. Add to that the general public fatigue with lockdowns and masks at this juncture, and you get to where we are now.

Doctors and health experts recommended these policies, based on sound science and to the extent to which the understanding of Covid was known and has continued to evolve. Also, masks and lockdowns, even in a best case scenario, were never intended or expected to completely stop the virus, but simply to slow it down until a vaccine and/or therapeutics could be developed to more permanently address the situation.

All of that is to say that, just because we are dealing with a surge of cases right now, it doesn't mean that masks and lockdowns still are not and were not the correct thing to do. In other words, how much worse would things have gotten if nothing had been done at all?

Masks and lockdowns just need to be (and should have already been) implemented as part of a top down, coherent policy with effective messaging, and people need to adhere to them for the good of everyone instead of making it political (not calling you out specifically).

The economic pain associated with lockdowns is very real, but so is the reality of hundreds of thousands dead.
A coherent policy with appropriate enforcement could have created an appreciably sufficient delay in the huge onset of cases, to get us to the vaccine finish line whereas the current strategy has not. I think that, had we had a coherent strategy, some of the economic pain actually could have been avoided. As an example, if a higher number of people had taken masks and social distancing seriously, it could have potentially reduced the need for some (not all) of the more draconian lockdown measures.


www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash


The problem we face now is that, from a public policy standpoint, the whole thing has been poisoned by politics, so it's going to be an even tougher battle to change some people's perception of masks and lockdowns.

I'm with you on concerns about the vaccine. I'm not anti-vaccine either, but the speed with which this has been developed does give me pause. I guess it will just come down to cost versus benefit. I myself, though I won't be pushing to be one of the first ones, will likely get the vaccine once it becomes widely available.

Except that a lot of states that did not lock down early did not have nearly as many deaths-per-capita due to covid as those that locked down early.  I have done much research on this and outlined it in the other thread that was locked.  There is much discussion over why many of the late-states still have very low infection and death rates than the early-states that are seeing another huge increase in cases.  It's created quite the scientific quandary since nobody has been able to effectively determine why, other than hard lockdowns affect the most at-risk of any death disproportionately by suppressing healthcare seeking behaviors. 

I have a long list of scientific papers that show the insignificance of masking effectiveness, if you're one to follow scientific discourse from the people doing the actual work and not political faces.  Most average people aren't interested though as it can be frightening to learn that masking advice is little more than "we don't know what else to do" and the political ease (and cathartic feeling) with which to point fingers at others and scream "it's your fault!" when the plan does not work.  The USA is seeing somewhere between 70-80% masking rates and most of the locations that are seeing wild increases in cases are those that have mandates. 

Doubling down on things that are specious does not make them actually work.  Like I said, studies show that nothing seems to make a difference regardless of adherence to a specific policy and it's much bigger than a simple "those folks over there didn't wear their masks" because there is zero correlation to mask usage stats and the rise in covid cases.

In fact, some scientists believe that breath-moistened masks concentrate viral particles in front of the face leading to increased exposure, not decreased exposure.  It could make sense seeing that most mask wearing countries are seeing drastic increases in cases.

I think part of the problem with a lack of consistent messaging from the top down has been that a lot of people genuinely don't understand that the type of masks generally available to the public, and which we are being asked to wear, are not the N95 or medical grade type of mask that is intended to protect the wearer from breathing the virus IN. The cloth masks we wear are moreso simply to keep the wearer from actively spraying particles OUT to greater distances, creating a much larger sphere of potential transmission.

In other words my mask isn't to protect me, but to protect you! This of course requires buy in from everyone for it to work.

I agree. It is sad to see how some people have chosen to respond to a little thing like wearing a mask to protect others around them.

We can agree to disagree on the efficacy of masks, as there are peer reviewed studies which support the efficacy of masks. Nothing is fool proof, but masks are not un-beneficial either.

I'll just say this. The lack of correlation you describe, between lowered infection rates and rates of mask usage, is likely moreso due to sociological/psychological reasons rather than scientific/physical/biological reasons. There are a lot independent variables going on that can also affect the rates of infection, so I don't at all think that you can simply jump to the conclusion that masks are ineffective based on a comparison of infection numbers between two locales which differ in their use of masks.

The best laid plans in the world don't matter when people wear a mask under their chin, or not also over their nose, or constantly take it off to talk to someone next to them, or think that an old t-shirt qualifies as a mask, or decides that they're going to take a break from social distancing this weekend, or......

I agree. Although I think the messaging has been pretty clear on that personally and consistent from lot's of different place's. People still won't do it though. Sad really. 

And to be clear, I'm not anti-doing something, I'm anti-doing things that have no proof they work and actually convince people that they're safer than they are, such as wearing masks.

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash

I posted this up above in the middle of one of my responses, but I place it here for emphasis. Sweden's numbers have significantly spiked and they are now having second thoughts about their initial herd immunity strategy. It looks like they are going to follow everyone else and go the more traditional route of lockdowns, masks, etc.