Well played boys. Well played

First off masks are 0% effective at stopping an airborne virus. Period.

Secondly, onto the vaccines. Nobody is asking for 100% efficacy, we are asking for 99% efficacy, which is what every other vaccine has. Every other vaccine has over 99% efficacy but the covid shot has at best 95% efficacy for 3 months. There is a huge difference between these two numbers.

A 99% efficacy rate means that only 1% of vaccinated individuals will contract the disease, compared to 5% with a 95% efficacy rate. This reduction in risk translates to fewer cases of illness, hospitalizations, and potentially even deaths. A higher efficacy rate like 99% provides more convincing evidence of a vaccine’s ability to prevent disease. This increased confidence can lead to better public acceptance, adherence to vaccination recommendations, and ultimately, improved population-level protection. A 99% efficacy rate might be more relevant to real-world settings, where vaccines are often used in diverse populations with varying levels of exposure to the disease. In such scenarios, a higher efficacy rate can provide a greater margin of safety and protection. Although asymptomatic transmission is possible even with high-efficacy vaccines, a 99% efficacy rate reduces the likelihood of asymptomatic transmission more effectively than a 95% efficacy rate. This is because a higher efficacy rate indicates a stronger immune response, which could reduce the amount of virus shed by vaccinated individuals. 99% efficacy rate could contribute more significantly to herd immunity, as it would require fewer individuals to be vaccinated to achieve a critical threshold of protection for the community as a whole.

It’s essential to note that the differences between 95% and 99% efficacy rates might seem small, but they can have significant implications in practice. Just think of the difference, with a 99% efficacy rate in a room of 100 vaccinated people, there is only one person who can contract the disease but nobody to spread it to or get it from. Now with a 95% efficacy rate there are 5 people in that room of 100 and now there are people to get the disease from and spread it to. Since most people interact with around 150 people in their daily lives, a 99% or greater efficacy rate is needed for herd immunity. Anything less than 99% and you will not get herd immunity and now you are breeding variants that will escape the vaccine.

So instead of arguing a strawman argument that nobody believes, that vaccines need to be 100% effective to work on populations to give herd immunity, try the real argument--that vaccines need to have 99% or greater efficacy to work on populations to give herd immunity and that the 95% efficacy for 3 months is insufficient protection to give herd immunity in the population. You claim that if a vaccine is 75% effective that it leads to herd immunity, a vaccine that has 75% efficacy will never lead to herd immunity. That would mean that 25% of the vaccinated people can still get and spread the virus, how could that ever achieve herd immunity with the vaccine? You are just letting the virus blow through the population causing herd immunity through infection not the vaccine but it would still do that with no vaccine, so it doesn't help.

tl:dr version: nobody was asking for 100% efficacy, we were asking for 99% efficacy and for good medical reasons.

Presentation is everything.
Thank goodness for barbless.
I will release this down streamer to get pinned against a log jam all on his own.
Safe travels.

With some of your post, yes, you are wrong. There are pieces that I agree with but most of it I disagree with and or is incorrect. FishPrince beat me to some of it but there is another piece he didn’t mention that you are wrong about.

You make the assumption that in these circumstances that an action must be taken. Quite often, the idea and solution of “do nothing” is often the best course of action. You wrongfully assume that in the case of covid the government “doing nothing” will result more people getting sick and dying. That is purely speculation and you have no evidence to support that claim.

How many lives were saved by wearing masks and 6 foot social distancing? Both of these measures have proven to be highly ineffective in stopping the spread. So much time, effort, energy and unintended consequences resulted with little or any measurable effect. “Do nothing” would have perfectly sufficed in this circumstance. As far as the vaxxx goes, it doesn’t stop the spread, *possibly* saved some lives, but also likely caused some or possibly more deaths. Again, in this case “do nothing” wouldn’t have caused more sickness or death and likely could have caused less than the vaxxx/mandates.

In Buddhism in the Tao Te Ching they have the concept of wu wei. It's usually translated as action-inacton or effortless action. It's when your action/non-action and intentions flow effortlessly in natural order, overcoming suffering and obtaining enlightenment. This idea should have been applied to covid as well. The evidence shows it would have done the same or less harm, while avoiding the unintended consequences in the economy, peoples mental health, and academic achievement with children.


Streamer

Wu wei can mean those things, it is also translated as "not doing anything", "not forcing", "not acting" , "creating nothingness", "acting spontaneously", "flowing with the moment" and my personal favorite "going with the flow." Acting out of wu wei brings you out of balance with the tao or out of harmony with natural order. It cetainly is relevant here, however might be too much to expect from this crowd.

Overcoming suffering and achieving enlightenment are higher order self actualization/transcendence levels of being at the pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs where Salmo, the bureaucrats and the rest of the Covid crowd are down on the bottom tier of physiological/safety.

The COVID crisis response was complex, but there were items that CAN easily be seen as over reaching. Like not allowing any outdoor activities. Like opening the parks for limited periods, which with common sense would mean a higher concentration of visitors. Stopping many jobs that had limited or no need for interaction. Realistically the state should have used the shut down to repave I-5. Then refusing to rehire the people who did not take the vaccine, but not requiring boosters. this provided no benefit other than punishing people for not doing what the state insisted on.

The amount of money handed out with no directions is also insane. I have relatives that are tribal and they were just handing out checks of 1 to 20 thousand or more, many dependent on who they knew in leadership. I talked to one tribal member who was living in Tacoma said he was mailed a big check from his tribe, on top of the other covid checks everyone else got. No reason other than the tribe was given millions to hand out. Blame who you will, but this likely is part of the inflation issue.

Even I got checks in the mail during COVID. I just thought, I'm getting a check for doing absolutely nothing, the democrats must be in power again. Whatever party you blame personally, it's both parties and the actual government that is the problem. Vote out the establishment of both parties.

Hey do you know what? Don't tell anyone this but when they had the shutdown, I was all over the outdoors. Nobody stopped me. It was nice. Way less people.

I never got checks. All I got was wrongfully terminated for not getting the vaxxx. At least I got a decent settlement from the employer after the fact and a much better job. I guess they did me a favor.

I also spent a lot of time outside at that time as well and it was wonderful. It reminded me of what life can be like in an area with fewer people. Makes it all the more tempting to get out of this state.



Streamer

You got jacked under the income limits Steamer. I got 3 checks. One for $2400 in April 2020. Another for $1800 in January 2021. Then $4200 in April 2021. Luckily I had little income those years, although I had a bunch right before and after these years. I think we did $345,000 in 2022 and something similar in 2019. Whoops.

But but but… I had to repay student loans on the income driven payment plan requiring a certain percentage of my income go to payments that would have then qualified me for checks. It’s not fair!!!

My wife and I already paid off all her student loans and we are working on mine. Unlike many other borrowers, we actually intend to pay off our loans and work extra to make sure we are able to do so while many others free load and or get forgiveness.

Working middle class always reaps the least benefits.



Streamer

28 gage, Oh, I have a sense of humor. WDFW x1=0 and I are slightly acquainted, enough to know that he knows when he writes stupid sh!t.

FP, if masks are 0% effective, why are they used by everyone in a surgical operating room?

I agree with you that the higher a vaccine efficacy then the sooner herd immunity occurs. Doing the math, a less than 99% efficacy still reaches herd immunity; it just takes longer.

I achieved enlightenment long ago, having begun Transcendental Meditation in 1972.

WDFW x 1=0, you make comments like that often. I usually avoid name calling, but I decided to take that one at face value and throw the obvious back at you. And you knew it was a stupid thing to write.

Streamer, don't be too surprised, but I agree with you that sometimes the "no action alternative" is the preferred and best alternative. Whether the no action alternative to Covid would have produced the same eventual outcome, meaning no higher number of illnesses or deaths, is speculative. Personally, I'm not buying it that no action would have been just as effective or more effective. I was 72 when Covid struck, so I was a bit concerned about the potential effect on me. Certainly shooting any unvaccinated republican who got within 30' of me would have been justifiable self defense, right?

Ah yes, an area with fewer people. I have occasionally thought that people who were not in WA state prior to 1970 should leave. Not because I don't like people, but because 1968 was the last year when harvesting wild steelhead was still a sustainable practice. After that, too many anglers killing too many wild fish.

Krijack, I agree about over reach. Of course I'm biased since fishing season was included in that shut down. Refusing to rehire anti vaxers after the fact was just stupid doubling down, a Trumpian trait, and a negative reflection on gov't. And handing out freshly printed money with no conditions sure seems stupid. What appears unknowable is what percentage of that money went to individuals and businesses that didn't really need it. Evidence that it was managed poorly is illustrated by MTG getting her $300k+ loan forgiven. Obviously a lot of people did need it due to businesses closing, leaving them unemployed. But yes, all of that extra money, some from Trump, some from Biden, was a major contributor to inflation.

It was a joke.

You seem angry.
Please stay away from elementary schools while angry.
And
Avoid heavy current areas with log jams.....

Tacoma Power sucks entitled a$$!!!!

Is it being speculative?

There is little to no evidence that measures reduced illness or death and increasing evidence that in ways measures may have increased illness and death.

In addition, the impact on the economy was massive. Academic achievement fell when schools were closed. As it stands today, around 50% of students (increasingly in younger grades) are not on grade level with reading, math and science which grew considerably from pre-covid. Rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideations have all drastically increased largely due to lockdowns.

But here you go thinking for yourself “I was a bit concerned about the potential effect on me” instead of looking collectively at what is best for society. FP bringing up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is relevant as you were primarily concerned with your own PERCEPTION of safety before the physiological and psychological needs of others. People like you were allowed to dictate the lives of others out of your own irrational fears. Instead, you should have shut up, let people live their lives and you stayed home in your safe little bubble until you felt ready to come out. If that were allowed to occur, I’m sure life would be a lot better for many people than it is currently and certainly no worse for the majority.


Streamer

to pick on someone for having their own views is bs. Remember? Im not sticking up for salmo, but calling out a hypocrite.

A hypocrite?

Man you better go back to school.

The time we spend on this subject is a perfect illustration of the main problem with the Internet age - We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom. Many good points are made here, the mask comment by Salmo is one of the best. If masks are so ineffective why do hospitals and medical clinics use them? The no action alternative is a red herring. It's unprovable one way or the other. Norway was probably the prime advocate of the no action alternative. As you can see from the following link, Norway was about halfway in the list (based upon death per 100,000). Certainly better than the US and most European countries, but worse than others. And this list is a good piece of data for this discussion. Of course some will say that the information is bogus. And a bunch of people believe Trump won in 2020 and that the Easter bunny exists. In all cases, I would ask for proof. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I've seen the Easter Bunny in my dad's magazines.








Too much time spent??

You must be kidding!
The Government fenced us in and robbed years from our life we will never get back.
They created the problem with their complacent actions at a virus research facility.

Screw our Government and China's!

"General purpose disposable SFMs however, are not specifically designed to protect the wearer from airborne infectious particulates."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24741720/

Right on Evo but they are moving the goalposts. We are not talking about wearing masks in surgery, which are worn for other reasons other than an airbone viruses. What I was talking about and what Salmo knew damn well we were talking about before he changed the goalpoats with his boring non sequitur about surgery was the general public wearing cloth and disposable face masks to prevent an airborne virus. That doctors wear masks in surgery for other reasons, they still don't wear them to stop airborne viruses. For example an airborne virus will be small enough to pass through the mask but respiratory droplets will not pass through the mask and these can contain bacteria and non-airborne viruses.

The Cochrane Review (2023) analyzed 11 new studies, including 611,000 participants, and found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. A study published in Scientific American (2024) reviewed randomized controlled trials and found that the best available evidence suggests that masks do little to nothing to prevent the spread of viruses and might even be counterproductive. The Centers for Disease Control recommends wearing masks, but acknowledges that the evidence is limited and that masks may not provide significant protection against airborne viruses. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2020) found that wearing a mask outside of healthcare facilities offers little to no protection against infection. Another study published in the Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health (2020) concluded that there is “no good evidence that face masks protect the public against infection with respiratory viruses.”

So if Salmo thinks masks stop airborne viruses, show some studies.