PA Counties locked down

[bogey1]

At least so far the lockdowns are the most outrageous thing I have seen in my life and to the day I die I will never forgive or forget those responsible and any civil, legal thing I can do to punish those people I am happy to contribute.

We knew early on who the virus would impact and for the average person out there and especially kids, it amounted to a bad cold.

Lockdowns did nothing to stop it and here we are paying for the damage 3 years later and I estimate it will take a generation, assuming things go well, to correct and steady all the financial damage done and put it in the rear view mirror.

I never yelled at or confronted anyone in my life until the scamdemic. Next time I'm not going to be so nice.

[JenniferG]

At least so far the lockdowns are the most outrageous thing I have seen in my life and to the day I die I will never forgive or forget those responsible and any civil, legal thing I can do to punish those people I am happy to contribute.

We knew early on who the virus would impact and for the average person out there and especially kids, it amounted to a bad cold.

Lockdowns did nothing to stop it and here we are paying for the damage 3 years later and I estimate it will take a generation, assuming things go well, to correct and steady all the financial damage done and put it in the rear view mirror.

According to the trash media and the democrats the very people that created the lock downs got 81 million votes. The deep state still wants you to believe that and there are people that actually do believe it.

[oldengineer]

According to the trash media and the democrats the very people that created the lock downs got 81 million votes. The deep state still wants you to believe that and there are people that actually do believe it.

I get the electronic version of the A-town paper and always read the letters to the editor. From what I see the Dems are likely to get 91 million votes next year even without cheating. There was one in the other day blaming Republicans for the border crisis because they have had control of the House for almost 11 months and haven't done anything about it.

[ImminentDanger]

Review of 47 studies concludes indoor masking best reduces COVID-19 spread
By Sean Salai - The Washington Times - Tuesday, October 31, 2023
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...sking-best-re/

Consistent masking reduced the likelihood of spreading COVID by about 30%-70% in most of the studies, with rates highest where people wore *high quality masks* more consistently indoors, said Tom Frieden, a co-author of the study who served as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Barack Obama.

*Because much of COVID * approximately half * is spread before people feel sick, widespread masking indoors when COVID is spreading can be an effective way to reduce spread,* Dr. Frieden, an infectious disease specialist who now leads the public health advocacy group Resolve to Save Lives, told The Washington Times.

In the study, the five researchers noted that these findings challenge the disagreements of masking critics who focused only on randomized trials during the pandemic, which they said *are limited in number, scope, and statistical power.*

*Many effective public health policies have never been assessed in randomized clinical trials; such trials are not the gold standard of evidence for the efficacy of all interventions,* the researchers wrote.

Their review of the 47 studies found surgical masks had higher rates of preventing the spread of airborne pathogens than cloth masks, and high-filtration N95 or KN95 masks were more effective than both.

How well a mask fit and how consistently people wore it also influenced how well it stopped people from spreading respiratory illnesses to others.

However, the researchers noted that *whether masks work is a different question from whether mask mandates work,* which they said depends on several factors and *can be challenging to demonstrate.*

While high rates of indoor masking during the early pandemic may have reduced infection and death numbers in some parts of Asia where masks were already commonplace, the doctors wrote that *a mandate is unlikely to have an impact* if few people obey it.

*Masks don*t protect people if they aren*t worn and may not protect well if they aren*t worn properly,* Dr. Frieden told The Times.

Bolding & underlining is mine.


So - The claim "indoor masking reduces COVID-19 spread" may be technically true, but the caveat that is only tangentially mentioned is that requires "surgical masks". Like usual, the shouted claim is intended to convey a claim that is a lie. The typical masking (of using $2 cloth masks) done by 99% of the people during the PANIC did almost nothing to affect the transmission rates. Notice also the "INDOOR" characteristic, because, again, there is almost no affect on the spread of the virus when wearing your cheap mask OUTDOORS. Of course, it became a great means of 'virtue signalling' especially when accompanied by accosting others for not complying with their useless mandate.

Like advertisers who make factual statements that actually are lying, because they imply something that is not true, the facts here are distorted by what is not emphasized - 99% of people do not mask according to what the study claims is effective.

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[bogey1]

Next time someone makes me wear a mask, I'll steal their face.

[markshere2]

I have to ask. If a mask works in an healthcare facility why wouldn't you wear one at the gym ,wawa,school etc etc.Sick people could be anywhere .

Lotsa sick people at hospitals. Its where they go to get mo betta.

Smaller percentage of the out and about folk are actively contagious.

[eatmydust]

NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET!! And I'm not talking 9/11 here.

[ImminentDanger]

No mandate needed: Voluntary mask-wearing gains cultural foothold in post-COVID America
By Tom Howell Jr. - The Washington Times - Tuesday, November 21, 2023
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-foothold-pos/

The American population is looking more like Asians, with voluntary face masking as people go about their daily routines.

Rates of COVID-19 are manageable, normal life has resumed and mandates are gone, with few exceptions at discrete businesses or schools. Yet masks have gained a foothold in American society, a remarkable change after face coverings sparked public spats and questions about cultural acceptance.

"Masks are at least acceptable, even though they are not widely employed," said William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University. "At the moment, there's a segment of the population that is very interested in health, very interested in prevention. I think they tend to be older."

Mask use is not as ubiquitous as it was at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. Still, it is not unusual to see a smattering of people wearing masks at grocery stores, at indoor concerts or on commuter trains.

Ray Meeks regularly wears a black mask with his green cap and fluorescent jacket as he works as a crossing guard at a busy intersection in Maplewood, New Jersey. He caught COVID-19 in 2021 and would like to avoid a repeat.

"It wasn't nice," Mr. Meeks said. "I'm 70 years old and, you know, I guess it's easy for my immune system to be compromised."

A KFF survey taken this month found that 30% of Americans would consider wearing masks in crowded places when asked about COVID-19 precautions for the colder months.

Mask-wearing ranked second only to avoidance of large gatherings, at 35%, though half of respondents said they did not plan to take any COVID-19 precautions this fall or winter.

Cloth and medical-grade masks were common before the pandemic in parts of the world. Subway riders in South Korea and Japan donned masks as a courtesy if they started to feel sick.

Yet face coverings were rare in the U.S. before the coronavirus hit, except in surgical rooms and dentist offices or among patients trying to avoid infection in public while undergoing treatment.

Dr. Schaffner said Americans' adoption of masks is "quite remarkable."

"Pre-COVID, masks were used by health care workers in hospital settings, in medical care settings. That was understood, but not by the general public. Now, I think there's more acquaintance," he said. "Certainly, in segments of the population, there is a sense that masks are useful in protecting one's self beyond COVID - flu, RSV and other viruses."

The share of Americans who told KFF that they are willing to wear masks is roughly equal to those who said they would consider face coverings during the threat of a "tripledemic" last year from COVID-19, flu and RSV, a common virus that can be harmful to infants and seniors.

Canada's health ministry tells residents that "masks are still in style this season."

"Wearing a well-fitting mask is one measure you can use to help prevent getting or spreading a respiratory infectious disease," it posted on social media.

Mask use may differ by geographic region. Rural and conservative areas are more likely to balk at masks, which have become a polarizing symbol of government mandates and potential overreach.

Opponents say masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID-19, and former President Donald Trump has campaigned this year on a vow to prevent mask mandates from reappearing. "I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate," Mr. Trump has said.

Conflicting studies about whether masks work and which types to wear add to the confusion.

"I think people generally agree that masks are helpful but not perfect," Dr. Schaffner said. "They are an additional layer of protection. It's something you can do."

Beyond COVID-19 fears, masks are common among patient populations, especially lung transplant recipients or children with cystic fibrosis. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, wears a mask on Capitol Hill because his immune system is vulnerable while he undergoes chemotherapy for blood cancer.

More broadly, "I think COVID has revealed how these masks can prevent infection and help prevent spreading infections," said Panagis Galiatsatos, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "I do hope they are here to stay as a kind of tool for the two objectives above. For instance, I wear masks when traveling because I don't want to catch something that would ruin my travels."

The persistence of mask-wearing is off-putting to some, though much of the controversy has subsided as requirements disappear.

The Metropolitan Opera and other large arts venues in New York dropped their mask mandates in October 2022, though a smattering of patrons still wear face coverings to performances.

"Audiences who wish to continue to wear masks are, of course, welcome to do so. We also continue to ask that if you are suffering from cold-like symptoms, you please stay home," the opera house says on its webpage.

Mr. Meeks, the crossing guard, said nobody gives him a hard time about wearing a mask.

"All the parents are pretty cool with it," Mr. Meeks said. "If it was something that was a distraction to the kids, they would actually let me know."

(Bold & Underline Mine)

So it looks like the Brain Washing (and LIES) about masks ($1 napkins) has solidly infected 30% of the populace.
It may not be effective, as studies show, but at least "It's something you can do!"

I couldn't care less if someone chooses that as a personal choice (ONLY) - but I am 100% sure that that belief will convince the authoritarians that they were and can be successful at controlling the people.

...

[ImminentDanger]

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs Says COVID About 'Massive Government Lying,' Quits Democrats
By Charlie McCarthy | Friday, 24 November 2023 11:06 AM EST
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/dr...24/id/1143515/

A prominent "lifelong Democrat" scholar and economist who chaired a COVID-19 commission blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci and others for promoting "massive government lying" regarding the coronavirus, and accused Senate Democrats of refusing to investigate the virus' origins.

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor who chaired a COVID-19 commission set up by "The Lancet" medical journal, said he has since left the Democratic Party after seeing how government officials have behaved around the origins of the virus.

"The sad part of this, not with respect to the vaccine per se, but with respect to the origin of the virus, is that it’s yet another case of massive government lying," Sachs said during an appearance on The Hill’s "Rising" show.

"We have since discovered from the start that what the government told us about ‘natural origins’ of this virus were hokey, and really amounting to scientific fraud."

Sachs said that even the scientists who wrote "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" in the spring of 2020 "didn’t even believe that as they were writing it because they knew that there were so many hints that this could well have come out of a U.S. lab, or out of Chinese lab, or out of a U.S.-China partnership in the research."

Sachs admitted he, too, bought into the mainstream media’s COVID-19 reporting at the beginning of the pandemic, especially after a major scientific journal, “Nature,” said there was overwhelming evidence the origin was natural.

He then credited reporting by The Intercept, U.S. Right to Know, and whistleblowers for helping to change his thinking.

"[They] started letting us in on what was really said inside, was shocking," said Sachs, who added that after requesting a certain document he had been refused by a fellow commission member.

"I said, 'Well, you can’t be on the commission. We’re a transparent commission," Sachs said. “And I began to really see close up that there was so much lying coming out of NIH [National Institutes of Health], coming out of Fauci, coming out of, unfortunately, the government protecting all of this and now it’s spilling out."

Sachs insists his desire to investigate COVID-19’s origin has more to do with present-day and future research. He credited Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for focusing on gain-of-function research and for trying to persuade Democrat colleagues to probe the issue.

"It's shocking to me that Democratic senators can't understand this is not a partisan issue," Sachs said. "This is a life and death issue. What kind of research is going on? What kind of laboratory manipulation’s going on? What is going on under what we euphemistically … call our biodefense research? Because who knows what it really is?

"I have gotten to understand well that there is a tremendous amount of dangerous research that is not supervised, and it would behoove our Democratic senators, as well as the Republicans, to find out what’s happening. This is not about getting Fauci, this is not about the past, this is about right now."

Sachs ended his appearance with a plea to Senate Democrats.

"C'mon, we need to understand what’s going on, and we need to understand what kind of dangerous research is under way, and we need to understand where this virus came from," he said.

"Open the books at University of North Carolina, open the books at Rocky Mountain Labs, understand the funding by the United States of the teams from University of North Carolina and other universities with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Let’s understand what really happened."

"massive government lying" - Just as we've stated from the beginning!

...

[ImminentDanger]

Biologist: 'Smoking-Gun' Evidence COVID Lab-Created
By Nicole Wells - 29 February 2024
https://www.newsmax.com/health/healt...29/id/1155510/

Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright said there is "smoking-gun" evidence that SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19, was created in a Chinese lab, according to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

Ebright was referring to evidence found in a 2018 document from the Wuhan Institute of Virology that discussed making such a virus, according to the Journal piece written by former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade.

The documents from the lab contained drafts and notes for Project DEFUSE, a grant proposal that aimed to engineer bat coronaviruses to make them more transmissible to humans.

While the project was ultimately denied funding by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Wade speculated that the work could have been done by researchers in Wuhan who had secured funding from the Chinese government.

"Viruses made according to the DEFUSE protocol could have been available by the time Covid-19 broke out, sometime between August and November 2019," Wade wrote. "This would account for the otherwise unexplained timing of the pandemic along with its place of origin."

In addition to the new documents, Wade said another strong indication of "the virus's laboratory birth" was the specific genetic structure of the coronavirus.

"Whereas most viruses require repeated tries to switch from an animal host to people, SARS-CoV-2 infected humans out of the box, as if it had been preadapted while growing in the humanized mice called for in the DEFUSE protocol," Wade wrote.

Scientists may continue to debate whether the COVID-19 pandemic came about naturally or through man-made engineering, but Ebright believes that the development of COVID-19 can be traced back to the work of EcoHealth Alliance.

After the 2018 documents were obtained by U.S. Right to Know through a Freedom of Information Act request and published, the Daily Telegraph reported that Ebright said the evidence was clearer that the virus had been synthesized in a lab.

In the newly released documents, the researchers proposed adding "appropriate human-specific cleavage sites" to the spike proteins of SARS-related viruses * the same method that a number of biologists have said could have been used to manufacture the pathogen.

Researchers had planned to take advantage of the safety standards at the Wuhan lab * which did not meet U.S. standards * by conducting a portion of the research there in conditions that they claimed would "likely freak out" American scientists, the documents revealed.

On another aspect:
Hospitals are still requiring those ear-hanging tissues as masking - even though they have proven to be unreliable at preventing infection from the Coronavirus.

"Symbolism over Substance" is still a promoted response.

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