Unverified Voracity Is Moving To South Korea If They Let Him Which They Won't
[Lead photo HT: Tony Barnhart]
Sponsor Note. If you've got a small business this is a good time to have a lawyer check out your Ps and Qs. If you're starting one there's no time like the present to get yours off the ground. Here's an idea: drive around picking up children and taking them somewhere. It doesn't matter where. Just, you know, away. You can bring them back if you want. Later.
![hoeglaw_thumb[1]_thumb (3)](https://mgoblog.com/sites/default/files/hoeglaw_thumb%5B1%5D_thumb%20%283%29.jpg "hoeglaw_thumb[1]_thumb (3)")
If you're starting a voluntary child abduction company, that sounds like something with a lot of legal bits to figure out. Richard Hoeg is the man to do that. He's got a small law firm specializing in small businesses. Even if you're not planning on going into a business as fraught with complications as child… well, I don't want to say "care"…
Even if you're not going into a business as fraught with complications as child relocation, having a solid legal foundation for what you're doing will prevent problems in the future. Hoeg it up! This slogan is unauthorized.
If only. South Korea has resumed playing baseball, albeit in a modified form.
KT Wiz held a socially distant first pitch before their game today pic.twitter.com/DR0R9wulRi
— Dan Kurtz (@MyKBO) May 5, 2020
Random sports things have resumed!
We have a smoke delay, there is a building on fire near one of the stadiums pic.twitter.com/b5mUnkO10t
— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) May 5, 2020
The Bundesliga is preparing to resume as well.
Both South Korea and Germany had no-bullshit, hardcore responses to coronavirus. This Atlantic article describes the Korean response in exacting detail. South Korea had the advantage of a preseason game, as it were, when MERS ran through their hospital system a few years ago. The government reacted with a lack of transparency and was blasted out of office afterwards. Mask wearing is culturally entrenched; idiots cosplaying as militia aren't roaming around demanding that nail salons re-open; public health is not politicized.
So they get baseball and soccer. We get nothing.
[After THE JUMP: maybe I'll start writing about old television shows]
Nothing, defined. Warde Manuel on the possibility of resuming sports in the fall:
“It is very difficult, if not impossible, for me to ask our student-athletes to return to campus to play a game when other students are not going to be returning,” Manuel said on a “Get Lit” virtual town hall with Edyoucore, a financial literacy advocacy group.
“That is just unfathomable to me as I think about it. I could listen to arguments and be a part of discussions, but it is just hard for me to imagine that happening.”
The current plateau where R0 is ~1 with everything in lockdown isn't going to cut it, because as soon as you start relaxing portions of your half-ass lockdown your R0 goes above 1 and then you have to shut everything else down again. Without massively expanded testing capacity and tracing ability—both of which would have to be coordinated from the federal level—we aren't getting sports this fall.
Warde also addressed the G-League thing whilst Getting Lit:
"I don't think college basketball was hurt because Lebron James, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant went early to the NBA," Manuel said. "That is terrific for them. Now we missed having them in college, but it didn't hurt college basketball. It didn't put college basketball in a bad position."
The NCAA is wrong about many things but not wrong that the enterprise is about more than having mutants who can leap over buildings.
A couple of building blocks. "Returning" is doing a lot of work in a conference that just shed Chase Young and AJ Epenesa but Michigan's defensive ends were very good a year ago:
Highest graded returning B1G edge defenders:
— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 5, 2020
1. Aidan Hutchinson, Michigan - 82.9
2. Kwity Paye, Michigan - 80.9
3. Samdup Miller, Northwestern - 78.6 pic.twitter.com/PlrHo6t7Xd
Another reason that Uche's snaps were relatively limited: everyone who pushed him to the bench was pretty good.
Sigh. Wilton Speight confirms his status for the Spot game:
never been a shoulda/coulda/woulda guy. all I know is The Game with a collarbone cracked in half wasn’t ideal. https://t.co/Wv9W5FT8Ct
— Wilton Speight (@WiltonSpeight) May 1, 2020
I am emphatically a shoulda/coulda/woulda guy! That sucks! Aaaaaaargh!
Try to wrap your head around it. Virtually every article about name and image rights that quotes an NCAA-affiliated person is guaranteed to have at least one quote that breaks your brain:
Smith and co-chair Val Ackerman, who also serves as Big East commissioner, said some of the most important details about how these future moneymaking opportunities will be regulated are yet to be determined. Ackerman said finding a way to prevent boosters and "overzealous individuals" from using endorsements as a way to pay for athletic performance or recruiting enticements remains one of their chief concerns. NCAA members will have to figure out a way to use school compliance officers and NCAA staff to make sure that endorsement deals reflect a real market value for the services provided.
"It's vitally important that we maintain some level of integrity and fairness," Ackerman said. "We believe guardrails on boosters will help us mitigate the potential of recruiting inducements."
I know that this woman's job requires her to shut off various avenues of thinking but jeeeeez. This is phrased to imply that bringing some money above the table is a reduction in "integrity and fairness." Even if narrowly targeted at the idea that boosters are going to buy croots, that happens all the time now and you do nothing about it.
The NCAA wants to regulate it so that players can make money on the fame their athletic exploits bring them… as long as none of that compensation is actually for the athletic exploits themselves. The only thing more futile than an impossible task is a pointless impossible task.
DO NOT READ BRAIN WILL BREAK. [throws cutlery]
Mark Emmert with an all-timer: "Our efforts over the years to improve the student-athlete experience have often been met with increased litigation and challenges that significantly limit the NCAA's ability to address those needs and opportunities."
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
I got nothing.
Silencing Chase Young will do that. One Michigan player cracks Mel Kiper's too-early 2021 first round:
14. Jalen Mayfield, OT, Michigan
HT: 6-5 | WT: 319 | Class: Junior
There is some projection here because Mayfield has started only 13 college games at right tackle. But I really liked what I saw from him in the biggest games, including when he was lined up against No. 2 overall pick Chase Young in the Wolverines' loss to Ohio State in the regular-season finale. Mayfield has some upside, and I'll be watching closely this season.
Ben Mason is the top-ranked FB and Kwity Paye the #5 DE.
And if you're thinking "wait shouldn't there be an implausible Big Ten West QB on this list", well, yeah:
1. Trevor Lawrence, Clemson
2. Justin Fields, Ohio State
3. Trey Lance, North Dakota State
4. Jamie Newman, Georgia
5. Tanner Morgan, Minnesota
Morgan is far less ludicrous than most guys in the bin after a 10 YPA, 30 TD, 7 INT season but his offense relies so heavily on RPOs and two totally rad receivers that I'm guessing he doesn't project to the league particularly well.
Waivers might stay. The NCAA legislation process is the very definition of byzantine so I can't tell you exactly what this means but it doesn't seem good for the prospect of a single free transfer for D1 athletes:
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors said Thursday that it does not recommend potential changes to the transfer waiver process.
The Division I Council is expected to vote on a one-time transfer waiver in May that would allow student-athletes in football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and men's ice hockey to transfer and compete immediately at their new school. As it stands, student-athletes in those five sports have to sit out one year before competing.
The Transfer Waiver Working Group recommended waiver guidelines change to allow the one-time transfer waiver, but while the Board of Directors recommended lifting the moratorium on transfer legislation, it disagreed on changing the waiver process.
This is permanent legislation and unrelated to any COVID-19 special exemption, and also this thumbs down is merely advisory. It could still go through. I don't know how much influence the Board of Directors has over the membership.
Terrible content, excellent grave dancing. If I wanted to make money writing about sports I would not hire this person. If I wanted to cause the most agony for the people who left en masse I would hire this person:
ROB PARKER JOINS REVAMPED DEADSPIN
“As the FOX Sports personality announced he was joining Deadspin, Parker also stated he was leaving The Shadow League, where he contributed as a columnist since 2013.”
Next hires up: Jason Whitlock and Hulk Hogan's jimmer-jabber.
Etc.: The Luiz Suarez handball turns ten years old. Yelp and Grubhub are undeserving of your business. Michigan econ professor on cubic fits and the appropriateness of applying them to a pandemic. CHET. The Athletic is welcome to call it "Draftageddon." EA is begging to pay people for their NIL rights.
So, let me make sure I understand how this works: anyone who disagrees with you on an issue is politicizing it. Got it.
No, but what else would you call a Public Health response being attacked with philosophical arguments about Freedom/Liberty?
What else would you call a Public Health response being manipulated by both parties to buy votes this fall?
Scoreboard, twotrue, look at the scoreboard. Our county Leeds the world in everything bad about Corona. The federal agencies in charge of fighting this are run by one party. Ball don’t lie
We moved beyond “Public Health response” with indiscriminate arrests based on wildly inconsistent guidance
Idiotic. And one that represents a trivial amount of the population and certainly has nothing to do with whether we'll have sports.
(Comment withdrawn)
I apologize for attacking a strawman argument with a just as equally hurtful strawman argument of my own.
As soon as I saw the militia cosplay comment, I knew we'd get a good head count of alum to "Walverines" ratio in the thread. That may actually be Brian's hidden agenda in occasionally throwing a potentially inflammatory political comment in perhaps? For advertiser demographic purposes...?
But attempting not to speak for Brian, but just to shed some light on how the people perhaps on the other end of the political spectrum from 'J' view the pandemic and the reaction to it - we believe the medical, and especially infectious disease, specialists are the proper source of giudance, not a (barely) elected president who has plainly, with every action and word, shown he cares more about how this affects his reelection chances than he does about preventing the spread of the virus.
Further - we are absolutely convinced that if it was Obama treating the pandemic so cavalierly, those same armed citizens would be marching to demand everyone wear masks!
So yeah, politicizing it, you're God Damn right (Heisenberg voice)
Just want to point out that for advertisers this is still a sports site, and any opinion disseminated by Brian/Staff et al. wouldn't really impact the type of advertisers on the site, and from a programmatic standpoint wouldn't trump/override users' cookies/browser history
Sorry Cuz, i forgot the /s after the demographics jab...
my bad!
This is offensive on any number of levels. I assure you, my desire for personal liberty has nothing to do with the President, for whom I did not, and will not, vote. Also, while I support the protesters' right to bear arms, I question how useful it was to show up armed at a protest.
These same "experts" (how can anyone be an expert on an unknown disease, I wonder) are saying the same thing I've been saying from day 1 -- you can't stop a virus when there is virtually no immunity in the populace. Go back and read the messages from the "flatten the curve" crowd when they were first instituting these rules -- they all said that the number of cases would be the same, but they'd be slower, so the hospitals wouldn't be overrun.
It wasn't until people realized that their local hospitals never got overrun, and were actually laying off staff and risking bankruptcy, that they started claiming that the measures we have in place will stop the virus. Anybody who's looking at the number of reported cases can see that we've been doing this "lockdown" stuff for six weeks and it hasn't stopped the virus yet...
I have very good reasons not to want to wear a mask. 1 - it's pseudoscience; they don't stop a virus. The CDC was right, originally, to recommend against wearing masks in public. They only switched that position when it got politicized. 2 - it's dangerous. Not for me personally, as a middle-aged white man, but try to put yourself in the shoes of a young black man, wearing a mask, in rural Alabama, and stopping at a gas station to use the restroom. Masks have been shown, repeatedly, scientifically, to trigger subconscious feelings of mistrust -- basically, they exacerbate the "us" vs. "them" feeling that's a huge problem in this country right now.
Masks work in Korea? Sure, Korea is over 99% ethnic Korean. There's no "us" vs "them" mentality there; it's more of an "us vs the world" feeling. They've also been at war for 70 years.
And finally, as to why speak up about liberty during a pandemic? The answer is simple: the constitutional guarantees are in place because the founders knew that emergencies are when rights get trampled -- and once they're gone, they don't come back (see: the Patriot Act, the TSA, and full-body scanning, in a submissive, hands-up posture, to board an airplane).
There will always be another emergency, which is why we, as a society, always need to remain vigilant.
Couple things (I agree with most of this):
Isn't the point of the masks to try and prevent you from spreading the virus if you are an asymptomatic carrier?
I think you CAN stop the virus if you react to it quickly, but a lot of that might be luck (i.e. would South Korea have reacted the same way if they hadn't had the MERS outbreak? What if New Zealand's first known case was in January before we knew the severity of this instead of late February? Is just being an island an advantage? What about a tourist destination? So on and so forth).
Yes, that is the stated rationale for the masks, although I suspect that most people don't know that. I just don't think it's productive in practice, because (a) people seem to think masks confer immunity, so they engage in riskier behavior than they otherwise would, but also (b) I don't think you can stop a viral spread that's gotten as far as ours has. The longer we stick with these distancing measures, the more damage that we cause, and, in the end, we may not save a single life. And, again, that's to use the statements of the "flatten the curve" crowd: same number of cases, but no hospital overruns. If the hospitals weren't going to be overrun, then there's no difference in mortality.
Being an island -- or, in Korea's case, effectively an island -- is absolutely an advantage. Early detection is an even larger advantage.
I know your heart is in the right place. But first off there is shit tons of infighting in Korea among different areas, religions, age, demographics. Have you even seen the relatively recent videos of politicians brawling? The sky high suicide rates? The entire society is a pressure cooker, there is tons of 'us' vs 'them' mentality in Korea.
Korea successfully contained the virus because the population fucking listened to the government health guidelines. This has NOTHING to do with ethnic homogeneity.
Unlike America where any idiot can go grab a Glock or AR, shoot anyone that tells you to wear a mask and march into government buildings in the name of 'fighting tyranny' or constitutional rights or some other bullshit.
It's just batshit insane.
Masks have proven to work, numerous hospitals in Korea have reported patients who had covid19 but were undiagnosed had mandatory masks on for weeks, and the patients in the SAME ROOM for those weeks did not get the virus.
It's mind boggling. Do you want your job back? Your economy back? Then everyone wear masks.
The entire society is a pressure cooker, there is tons of 'us' vs 'them' mentality in Korea.
Poor choice of words, because you're absolutely right. But I'm speaking specifically about the subconscious cues that people pick up from appearance -- basically, tribal identifiers. Those aren't present to the same extent -- except for those 1% who aren't ethnically Korean (ask Hines Ward).
Unlike America where any idiot can go grab a Glock or AR, shoot anyone that tells you to wear a mask and march into government buildings in the name of 'fighting tyranny' or constitutional rights or some other bullshit.
"Constitutional rights" aren't bullshit. They've been the bedrock of a society that has been a world power for decades (and a regional power going further back still). Shooting somebody for telling you to wear a mask, on the other hand, isn't a constitutional right; it's, quite correctly, a crime. (I feel for the family of the security guard in Flint).
Citation needed on your mask theory there bub.
Google "mask while black." If you honestly can't see how covering your face makes you look more suspicious, I don't know what tell you. We have thousands of years of social evolution that have trained us to look for meaning in the face. Covering your face gives off a sign that you have something to hide.
Holy. Sheeeeiit.
Yes constitutional rights have been a bedrock. But the second one has NOT been a bedrock since the last war with England and their latest invader was Ed Sheeran.
I know what you mean. I have guns. I love them. I ordered another 1000 rounds of federal hollow points the other day. My latest 'tactical' mods have been delayed because they're out of stock. But my latest light mounts did arrive. I never carry them, they're locked up inside a safe I never open unless to upgrade something and put back in. It's purely for last resort home defense as I have a family.
But ask almost any European, Australian, Japanese of guns are the bedrock of their rights? If they would like to bring American gun culture both good and bad to their countries?
The answer is alway, alway a hard, hard, hard no.
Uh, doctors can be experts on pandemics and infectious disease, and I will absolutely listen to them over anyone else when it comes to a brand new infectious disease that might possibly spread easier than most anything we know off (and asymptomatically, for weeks, at that!)
I assume you skip the TSA line at the airport also, since that's just security theater, right?
I believe there's at least a little tiny benefit to covering my face, in case I could possibly spread something while out in public, so I'll wear one since it costs me nothing. And now that I do, I can say the "us" vs. "them" is only triggered by the people who are ignoring that recommendation/order (here in MA).
If you live in a place where the hospital isn't at danger of being overrun (how could you know that now?), I'm glad for you. The nature of public health is such that some measures are going to be unnecessary in local pockets. It's unfortunate for sure and there are very real impacts. I think the experience of other countries might show us that aggressive short term measures would help us reopen more quickly - in fact, the US is not "locking down" anything for the past 6 weeks to the level of other countries, so that's not a meaningful argument against measures so far. Unless you want to look at NY's curve...
The TSA line is security theater. In fact, it gives a bad actor an obvious target. However, I don't skip it; there are guys with guns who enforce it, and I'm not quite ready to die on that hill. Incidentally, I find the TSA Pre program to be over-the-top offensive ("Don't like the new intrusions on your rights? Pay us some money, grovel appropriately during an "interview" to "prove" that you're not a threat, and you can have the old, still unconstitutional and pointless search back!")
As for the cost of wearing a mask -- it costs me my self-respect in a way that the TSA line doesn't... quite. You can have a different opinion about that, and I respect that. I'm staying home -- angry -- until the mask rules are gone. That's doing my part in a way that wearing a mask wouldn't be.
Most doctors aren't epidemiologists. And most public health officials aren't personally affected the economic devastation that their suggestions are causing. Their jobs are safe. Heck, some of them are becoming TV stars! I'm not saying that they should be ignored. I am saying that we need to have a nuanced discussion about a balance between public health and economic survival, because there will be no public health for anybody if the economy collapses. And the problem is, it's really hard to have a nuanced discussion when we're in "won't somebody please think of the children" territory -- and it doesn't help when people start claiming the other side is "politicizing" the debate. That's not an argument -- that's a way to belittle your opponent and refuse to engage in discussion.
Yeah not every doctor is an epidemiologist, but you said “experts” as if there’s no such thing as an epidemiologist. Cause there are experts in infectious diseases and you’re attempting to erode their credibility by using quotes.
The point of flattening the curve is two-fold. 1) You don't overwhelm hospitals and 2) It gives you tie to ramp up your testing and contact tracing so that you can actually contain outbreaks to small groups. The fact that hospitals weren't over run would seem to indicate that #1 worked. Even places that didn't institute strict guidelines had large portions of the population take some form of precaution on their own. There is no way you can possibly say that #2 was accomplished. The president refused to use the DPA and there are still testing supply shortages.
I'm genuinely curious: We have 1.25 million confirmed cases. I would guess this likely means we have at least had 5 million cases. How would we go about doing contact tracing at this point? I'm not saying its impossible, I just can't see it. It seems like that strategy makes more sense if you catch things early.
It is impossible. It is not even a real suggestion at this point. The only question remaining is are we going to be a free society or not. People are, and are going to die from this disease, that cat is out of the bag. Is your uncle Bob’s life the same to me as my son’s life, no it isn’t. That is not something you can force on people. What is crazy is that there are people who don’t understand you cannot “change” human nature, it is flexible but not bendable, to try to do so is unnatural, it is the definition of totalitarianism. It always has one outcome, and it is always bad, often time really, REALLY, bad.
You can’t do this “asymptomatic carrier” stuff. Nope. Anybody who looks at my kid and calls him a “vessel” or a “carrier” of a virus that is harmless to him and tries to take away his and my rights as a parent because of it better be ready to fight. Like a real fight.
The only remaining question now is what kind of life the overwhelming majority of people who don’t die are going to have from this point on. That is the battle we are in now.
You are beyond melodramatic
You are beyond melodramatic
Not at all. You are the radical. I am a regular American citizen.
You'd be so much cooler if your name was SloopJohnB.
Ah, I get it now. This is a parody account.
For contact tracing to be possible, you follow what has worked in S Korea, NZ, and elsewhere. You have to get new cases per day down to a very “low” traceable level and get testing to millions per week with 2 hour results before you release on other more extreme measures. Once that happens you can get back to normal faster. If you try to open things up without that and without any plan we are right back where we are now and the economy is even worse.
This is where I don't think its possible: Even with the lock downs we're averaging over 20,000+ confirmed cases a day 45+ days after they began. How many people are we tracking down on a daily basis? 100,000? 250,000? And that's just confirmed cases, we have no idea how many we are missing. If the antibody tests are correct, we could already be averaging 100k+ days and not even know it.
Given the number of deaths in nursing homes, and the low CFR for people under 40 (not even taking into account IFR), wouldn't the more reasonable response at this point be to pour our resources toward keeping the elderly safe while the rest of us practice social distancing with a return to as normal as possible?
1. And when people look around and see empty hospitals and see that they can't get their other medical needs seen to in anticipation of a crisis that has yet to arrive they are going to ask questions. They're especially going to ask questions now that "Flatten the curve" is slowly shifting to "No new cases ever".
2. It's not just DPA, you're trying to step up production to scale of about 10X from where it is now, then you have to be able to process the tests in a timely manner. These are legitimate logistical problems. There's a lot more to this than the President pressing a magic button. I too, wish that the time bought by the lockdown was used to develop better plans, but at the same time leaving this up to the various states and localities that can respond more nimbly to the facts on the ground in their areas than the government can, maybe its the best of what we could expect to get anyway.
J, I'm not sorry you were offended I suggested you support trump, I'm pleased you're offended!
But I have to point out, after all your declarations about "pseudoscience" - you go straight from saying masks don't work, to saying they do work in Korea because they lack ethnic diversity?! Did I read that right? Sounds pretty pretty pseudo if so!
Also the numbers you cite about flattening the curve and the rate of new infections are just plain WRONG! It is working, amazingly well, as new cases are going down in places with stringent measures, while they go up in places that don't.
So... (shruggy emoji here)
No, you didn't read that right. Masks don't work in Korea either. They're just not actively dangerous there.
If flattening the curve would eradicate the virus, the virus should have been gone by now.
Masks work. Not perfectly, but they do reduce the amount of respiratory droplets that are spread when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. I worked in a cleanroom environment. I've seen slo-motion videos of people sneezing. It's disgusting. To think that a mask DOESN'T help is just insane. Stop displaying your ignorance on this issue and I might take you seriously on your other complaints.
P.S. Taiwan exists. They wear masks, as a part of a comprehensive strategy to battle the virus. They are one of the most successful countries in dealing with this.
And Taiwan is also a culturally homogenous island (meaning, masks aren't dangerous) with pandemic experience, a different culture than the US, and the benefit of early detection.
And wait a second -- if you're talking about sneezing and/or coughing, you're taking about a person with symptoms. By all means, if you're sick, wear a mask.
The mandatory mask rules are about asymptomatic transmission, and, honestly, unless you're a Seinfeldian close-talker, how many respiratory droplets do you really think that you expel will actually reach other people?
The mandatory mask rules are about asymptomatic transmission, and, honestly, unless you're a Seinfeldian close-talker, how many respiratory droplets do you really think that you expel will actually reach other people?
‘Recent studies show that people infected with the new coronavirus could be spreading "aerosolized" viral particles as they cough, breathe or talk in a 13-foot radius, and viral particles can also move around on people's shoes.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-exhaled-aerosols-coronavirus-feetand-virus.html
‘Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with a growing body of evidence that the virus can be transmitted through aerosols — particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.”
“Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech and an expert on airborne transmission of viruses, said some people happen to be especially good at exhaling fine material, producing 1,000 times more than others.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-exhaled-aerosols-coronavirus-feetand-virus.html
Speaking calmly and at a normal volume produces liquid droplets so small they can remain suspended in the air long enough to enter the airways of other people, potentially exposing them to viruses including the one that causes Covid-19, according to a new study led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health.
“Aerosols from infected persons may therefore pose an inhalation threat even at considerable distances and in enclosed spaces, particularly if there is poor ventilation,” Harvard University biologist Matthew Meselson wrote in a commentary accompanying the paper, which used a laser to visualize airborne droplets created when volunteers uttered the words “stay healthy.”
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/15/simply-speaking-could-transmit-coronavirus-new-study-suggests/
Thank you Blue in DC for some much needed, non-political factual data on spreading any germs, not just COVID. It was very informative!
Yet, somehow, I've never gotten the flu. And me we a flu shot. I should lottplay the lottery, eh? Or will you tell me that corona carries in the air better than the flu ?
#horseshit
Your first story:
"The truth is this: We don't know what it truly takes to get infected with the virus, including the amount of virus necessary to actually initiate an infection," Glatter said. "In fact, it may not require infected surfaces or droplets after all, just aerosols. We just don't know. Research on this concept continues to expand and evolve."
It may just require aerosols -- or, aerosols may not transmit the virus. I'd say the chance of widespread aerosolized transmission is nearly zero, because otherwise we would have been in exponential growth months ago. Unless, perhaps, the virus mutated into a form that can be transmitted via aerosol.
Second story -- you pasted the same URL twice.
Third story:
When people said “stay healthy” through a slightly damp wash cloth, however, the number of droplets reaching the box fell to zero. The scientists did not measure how far the droplets could carry, and remain suspended in the air, under different environmental conditions, and no viruses were used in the experiment. But the earlier NEJM study suggests that droplets containing the coronavirus can become aerosolized.
I mean, nobody's walking around with a damp wash cloth in front of their face, but, point taken. That's more particles than I would have expected to be picked up from speech.
Not sure what your point is about the damp cloth Let’s try the entire selection rather than just your oddly picked quote:
For their study, scientists led by Philip Anfinrud and Adriaan Bax of the National Institutes of Health asked volunteers to say “stay healthy” into the open end of a cardboard box whose inside was painted black. They used a green laser to create a sheet of light three inches from the open end that, after the person spoke, captured any droplets that reached it. An iPhone 11 Pro video camera recorded the arriving droplets, which produced flashes as they passed through the laser light sheet, allowing the scientists to estimate their size.
“Numerous [aerosol] droplets … were generated,” the scientists reported. The “th” sound of the word healthy produced the most droplets, and speaking loudly but still in a conversational voice produced more droplets (347) than speaking softly (227).
When people said “stay healthy” through a slightly damp wash cloth, however, the number of droplets reaching the box fell to zero.
the point is, that absent the damp cloth, numerous droplets were created.
Sorry if I’m going with study from New England Journal of Medicine over internet expert J.
I was accepting your point. :) I still don't think that mask usage should be mandated, and I still think that if it can really spread in an aerosol, we're all completely screwed. But, I accept that aerosolized droplets go further than I had believed. I was just pointing out that it was odd of them to test masks by using a system that nobody would think to try. It would have been better if they had tested something more realistic to see to what extent it helped.
“I'd say the chance of widespread aerosolized transmission is nearly zero” is not really accepting the point,
As for the damp cloth, I’m not sure that they were focused on a solution as much as identifying the problem. I think they may have been trying to increase the particulate size to verify the larger wet particulates spread less, but I’m not sure. Imagine if one read the actual study it would explain.
I accept the point but not the conclusion. If this disease routinely transmitted via aerosol, as contagious as everyone says that it is, it would have overwhelmed the world months ago.
I mean, think about it. A disease, with no natural immunity in the population, that can be spread via aerosol, transmitted by asymptomatic people, first detected in a major university city of about 8 million residents with a high number of international travelers? There's almost no way that the disease could have an R0 number near 1 in that case. It's crazy to think so. By the time anybody realized what was happening, the whole world would have been in chaos.
One of the assumptions has to be wrong -- either it's not readily transmitted via aerosol or it's much more difficult to catch it than people are saying (i.e. you need a very large virus load). The numbers just don't work otherwise.
Ok Dr J. I mean New York State has had more than 5 times as many deaths as a bad year of the flu in about half the time of a regular flu season. And for well over a third of that time they were instituting pretty strict measures to control it. As I think we both agree, the actual mortality rate is likely much less than 1%. That seems to suggest it spreads pretty easily.
Agreed. I think it does spread pretty easily, which almost certainly rules out widespread aerosol transmission, at least initially. As I said, it's possible that it's mutated since then.
It's a simple matter of numbers. As bad as NYC got hit, it would have been unfathomably worse with easy aerosol transmission. With NYC's population density and reliance on mass transit, how could it not? One subway rider could infect hundreds of people.
Here's an interesting paper on aerosol transmission. (I'm not familiar with the publication, but they indicate that they're peer-reviewed). Note the examples that it gives -- chicken pox, measles, and tuberculosis. The R0 values for chicken pox and measles are about 10-12; I saw one estimate for (untreated) TB of about 10, but looking into it more closely, it seems to be more of an "it's complicated" answer.
If the R0 value for COVID-19 were 10-12, it would have spread so quickly that we never could have contained it. No, I'm not saying that all aerosolized diseases will automatically have an R0 of 10+, but isn't it obvious that the more prevalent the means of transmission, the higher the R0 is likely to be?
Hey, if you have ever had front row seats at a Broadway show (I did once in my life), and felt like you should have worn rain gear, you would know.
Don't you dare come in here with facts and links to sources!
How dare you!
/s
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