Tucker Carlson or the CDC: Who Do You Trust More for Advice About Masks?

Brandofan's Avatar
I think those wiser, leftist elitists should continue to demonstrate leadership by wearing not one, not two, but as many masks as it takes to completely obstruct airflow. If you can still breathe you're selfishly spreading the virus of indeterminate but definitely natural origin who is going to kill grandma!!!!

The rest of us common folk can continue to serve as a control group.
I think those wiser, leftist elitists should continue to demonstrate leadership by wearing not one, not two, but as many masks as it takes to completely obstruct airflow. If you can still breathe you're selfishly spreading the virus of indeterminate but definitely natural origin who is going to kill grandma!!!!

The rest of us common folk can continue to serve as a control group. Originally Posted by Brandofan
This is a great idea. We should take this data to AOC as part of the green new deal, if she sees how much pollution AND disease a person spreads, she might orders all the woke-ees to kill themselves to save the planet.

Hell, they've already convinced them to stop having children and are convincing them to make up genders and species.
The_Waco_Kid's Avatar
I think those wiser, leftist elitists should continue to demonstrate leadership by wearing not one, not two, but as many masks as it takes to completely obstruct airflow. If you can still breathe you're selfishly spreading the virus of indeterminate but definitely natural origin who is going to kill grandma!!!!

The rest of us common folk can continue to serve as a control group. Originally Posted by Brandofan



and they are just smart enough to be stupid enough to fall for that. or is that stupid enough to be smart enough ..


BAHHHAAAA
bambino's Avatar
Geez, looks like someone is dipping his toe into the water. The Spider Hole is completely dead.
HedonistForever's Avatar
You are misquoting the statements made by the CDC.
Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX
The CDC misquotes itself, often.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html

A Misleading C.D.C. Number

We have a special edition of the newsletter on a misleading C.D.C. statistic.


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. Mediaorganizationsrepeatedthe 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.


Are they talking about vaccinated people? I don't think so since there haven't been any large gatherings of vaccinated people to test that I'm aware of. I believe what they are saying is that even if you were not vaccinated, your chance of getting Covid outdoors was so low as to be negligible.I give it a couple of weeks a months and they'll be telling us that if you are vaccinated, a non vaccinated Covid carrier standing right in front of you outdoors, can not pass Covid to you but of course, everybody should make their own decision on this. I'm just saying that MAYBE, just MAYBE, the CDC has gotten this wrong to. You decide.

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.


Today’s newsletter will be a bit longer than usual, so I can explain how the C.D.C. ended up promoting a misleading number.
The Singapore mystery

If you read the academic research that the C.D.C. has cited in defense of the 10 percent benchmark, you will notice something strange. A very large share of supposed cases of outdoor transmission have occurred in a single setting: construction sites in Singapore.

In one study, 95 of 10,926 worldwide instances of transmission are classified as outdoors; all 95 are from Singapore construction sites. In another study, four of 103 instances are classified as outdoors; again, all four are from Singapore construction sites.


This obviously doesn’t make much sense. It instead appears to be a misunderstanding that resembles the childhood game of telephone, in which a message gets garbled as it passes from one person to the next.
The Singapore data originally comes from a government database there. That database does not categorize the construction-site cases as outdoor transmission, Yap Wei Qiang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, told my colleague Shashank Bengali. “We didn’t classify it according to outdoors or indoors,” Yap said. “It could have been workplace transmission where it happens outdoors at the site, or it could also have happened indoors within the construction site.”


As Shashank did further reporting, he discovered reasons to think that many of the infections may have occurred indoors. At some of the individual construction sites where Covid spread — like a complex for the financial firm UBS and a skyscraper project called Project Glory — the concrete shells for the buildings were largely completed before the pandemic began. (This video of Project Glory was shot more than four months before Singapore’s first reported Covid case.)


Because Singapore is hot year-round, the workers would have sought out the shade of enclosed spaces to hold meetings and eat lunch together, Alex Au of Transient Workers Count Too, an advocacy group, told Shashank. Electricians and plumbers would have worked in particularly close contact.


Are schools outdoors?

How, then, did the Singapore cases get classified as they did?
When academic researchers began collecting Covid data from around the world, many chose to define outdoors spaces very broadly. They deemed almost any setting that was a mix of outdoors and indoors to be outdoors.

“We had to settle on one classification for building sites,” Quentin Leclerc, a French researcher and co-author of one of the papers analyzing Singapore, told me, “and ultimately decided on a conservative outdoor definition.” Another paper, published in the Journal of Infection and Public Health, counted only two settings as indoors: “mass accommodation and residential facilities.” It defined all of these settings as outdoors: “workplace, health care, education, social events, travel, catering, leisure and shopping.”


I understand why the researchers preferred a broad definition. They wanted to avoid missing instances of outdoor transmission and mistakenly suggesting that the outdoors was safer than it really was. But the approach had a big downside. It meant that the researchers counted many instances of indoors transmission as outdoors.


And yet even with this approach, they found a minuscule share of total transmission to have occurred outdoors. In the paper with 95 supposedly outdoor cases from Singapore, those cases nonetheless made up less than 1 percent of the total. A study from Ireland, which seems to have been more precise about the definition of outdoors, put the share of such transmission at 0.1 percent. A study of 7,324 cases from China found a single instance of outdoor transmission, involving a conversation between two people.


“I’m sure it’s possible for transmission to occur outdoors in the right circumstances,” Dr. Aaron Richterman of the University of Pennsylvania told me, “but if we had to put a number on it, I would say much less than 1 percent.”

Britain’s scientific approach

I asked the C.D.C. how it could justify the 10 percent benchmark, and an official there sent this statement:
There are limited data on outdoor transmission. The data we do have supports the hypothesis that the risk of outdoor transmission is low. 10 percent is a conservative estimate from a recent systematic review of peer-reviewed papers. CDC cannot provide the specific risk level for every activity in every community and errs on the side of protection when it comes to recommending steps to protect health. It is important for people and communities to consider their own situations and risks and to take appropriate steps to protect their health.
Erring on the side of protection — by exaggerating the risks of outdoor transmission — may seem to have few downsides. But it has contributed to widespread public confusion about what really matters. Some Americans are ignoring the C.D.C.’s elaborate guidelines and ditching their masks, even indoors, while others continue to harass people who walk around outdoors without a mask.
All the while, the scientific evidence points to a conclusion that is much simpler than the C.D.C.’s message: Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter
outdoors.



The health authorities in Britain, notably, seem to have figured this out. They have been more aggressive about restricting indoor behavior, locking down many businesses again late last year and requiring masks indoors even as most of the country is vaccinated. Outdoors, however, masks remain rare.
It certainly doesn’t seem to be causing problems. Since January, daily Covid deaths in Britain have declined more than 99 percent.



SpeedRacerXXX's Avatar
HF, I did not say the recommendations from the CDC have not been confusing to say the least. I am saying you misquoted them when you said:

"We now have the evidence that masks outside were never needed from the beginning. Of course we didn't know that at the time ( maybe ) but we know it now and anybody that suggested we never needed masks outside was right, period."

Even with its most recent statements, the CDC recommends the wearing of masks outdoors for all under certain circumstances.

The only times I wore, or still wear, a mask outdoors is when required.
HedonistForever's Avatar
HF, I did not say the recommendations from the CDC have not been confusing to say the least. I am saying you misquoted them when you said:

"We now have the evidence that masks outside were never needed from the beginning. Of course we didn't know that at the time ( maybe ) but we know it now and anybody that suggested we never needed masks outside was right, period."

Even with its most recent statements, the CDC recommends the wearing of masks outdoors for all under certain circumstances.


And I'm saying that they are saying that not because they know but under an "abundance of caution", which had us wearing masks outside, alone, for months and then that changed. I'm saying that I believe this to will change.
The only times I wore, or still wear, a mask outdoors is when required. Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX

Where "required" sure. I'm not going to be thrown out of a building that "requires" them, but crowed places outside, are not going to require them I'm betting. It will be your choice then. I misquoted them because I don't believe they "know" but of course it is your right to continue to believe they know what they are talking about and continue to defend them.



Millions of people are going to decide not to get vaccinated and I'm betting that concerts and football games will not require a mask or proof of vaccination and if any vaccinated person chooses to wear a mask at those venues, more power to them.
dilbert firestorm's Avatar
Millions of people are going to decide not to get vaccinated and I'm betting that concerts and football games will not require a mask or proof of vaccination and if any vaccinated person chooses to wear a mask at those venues, more power to them. Originally Posted by HedonistForever

read that the NFL is requiring players be vaccinated to play.
Strokey_McDingDong's Avatar
It's kind of against the law to ask someone for their medical records. They could ask people for one of those vaccination cards, but I think one could sue for that. They can ask you, but I don't think you are required by law to tell anyone whether you have or have not been vaccinated.
Jacuzzme's Avatar
  • Tiny
  • 05-16-2021, 01:37 PM
I think those wiser, leftist elitists should continue to demonstrate leadership by wearing not one, not two, but as many masks as it takes to completely obstruct airflow. If you can still breathe you're selfishly spreading the virus of indeterminate but definitely natural origin who is going to kill grandma!!!!

The rest of us common folk can continue to serve as a control group. Originally Posted by Brandofan
But, getting back to the original post in this thread, what do you do about the leftist elitist children? Do you let them double up on masks, or do you do as Tucker recommended:

Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart."

“Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.
Just remember. Fox is entertainment, not factual news. Follow Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, et al at your own risk.

But, getting back to the original post in this thread, what do you do about the leftist elitist children? Do you let them double up on masks, or do you do as Tucker recommended:

Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart."

“Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.
Originally Posted by Tiny
pfunkdenver's Avatar
Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart."

“Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.
Originally Posted by Tiny
If anyone calls the police, on a parent, for having their child wear a mask, we'll probably see a parody on comedy central.

I'd love to see that!
HedonistForever's Avatar
But, getting back to the original post in this thread, what do you do about the leftist elitist children? Do you let them double up on masks, or do you do as Tucker recommended:

Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart."

“Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it. Originally Posted by Tiny

And if you don't know that was sarcasm, then there is no hope of explaining this to you but you do know it and I know you know it. It just irks you that he does it mainly, I think, because you think many people are just to stupid, to gullible, not sophisticated enough to understand what I understand and what I would bet you understand, you just don't like it. Am I right or am I wrong?
HedonistForever's Avatar
read that the NFL is requiring players be vaccinated to play. Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

Requiring players is a whole different story but even there, it will have to get past the players union and if enough players say "fuck that", what do you think the owners will say "OK, then we aren't going to play football till you do"? Not likely.


This is about what the stadium will do. The last we heard and SR made sure we understand, the CDC said, if you are vaccinated, you do not have to wear your mask outside UNLESS you were at a stadium or say a theme park where there are crowds of people who can't really social distance.


Well guess what, Disney World just said, you will not have to wear a mask outside but please carry one with you to use inside. SO, Disney must have come to the conclusion, as I did, that even in crowds, there is very little to no chance of catching or giving Covid.


Delta Airlines just announced that all new hires will have to prove they have been vaccinated. I have no problem at all with any business making this decision for their new hires. There existing employee that did not sign a contract saying they would get vaccinated if the boss wants them to, is another story entirely.