The Playground

Quote from JedRothwell

Japan and the UK have roughly the same vaccination percent, but the situation is vastly different. Many people think the biggest difference between Japan and the UK is that people in Japan have been wearing masks in public since 1900 or so. In the U.S., places like Atlanta enforced masks, while suburban and rural areas did not. Atlanta has far fewer cases, even though population density is higher. I think these and other facts show that masks make a big difference.

Data from 1918 also shows that masks reduce the spread of influenza.

Although I never heard about the UK being a trend setter for wearing masks (well known in Japan though), that is anecdotal... which I have no problem with.

By that measure though, Ivermectin not only passes the anecdotal test, but has some science backing it.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I agree there is a lot of complexity in the data about masks.

I disagree that you need all this complexity to reckon Mark U's views are batty.

The standard recommended mask - fabric, several layers - is the minimum effective type, but still enough to provide quite a bit of protection to the environment from aerosols, and to people directly from particles exhaled and going directly into mouths. That 1%/day R reduction is from such. Since most people wear those, they are what we should be discussing. And all the other issues - like touching old masks - are less important (inhalation is main cause of COVID transmission). Masks should be washed or left to cool off at reasonable temperature for a long time before re-use if you want max personal protection. However, main purpose is environment protection for which all those things don't matter muhc.

Now, if you want to discuss other mask types, personally I have an FFP3 mask (they cost about £3 each bought in packs of 5). If I consider environment to be high risk I will wear it. They are not that unpleasant to wear.

If fitted properly it would provide something like 80% protection for me (and more for others). Heaps better than fabric masks.

The trouble is - it needs to fit properly and that is not easy to get unless you are v clean shaven. I reckon it will still protect me, if held on quite tightly via behind-head straps - which are absolutely needed for anything to fit tightly, maybe 75% but that is a guess because it is difficult to quantify what is the air leakage round my not-clean-shaven face.

Unlike our PM Boris, I'm quite prepared to take precautions based on guesses. If you wait till you are sure you will be dead before deciding anything.

THH

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Yeasus, that you spent so much time discussing masks when there is much nicer things going on in the BLP thread, could help with some fresh views and it's more in line with this sites than all this covid stuff. I need to get the rydberg energy level (measured) (full precition). the ground state is amazingly exact with a new version of QED formulation that mimcs what mills is doing but in with QED lingo in stead. But oh well stupid me. It's maskar for dinner.

Quote from stefan

Yeasus, that you spent so much time discussing masks when there is much nicer things going on in the BLP thread, could help with some fresh views and it's more in line with this sites than all this covid stuff. I need to get the rydberg energy level (measured) (full precition). the ground state is amazingly exact with a new version of QED formulation that mimcs what mills is doing but in with QED lingo in stead. But oh well stupid me. It's maskar for dinner.

Behind the scenes, we always try to make THH pay his way here for his being an LENR skeptic. He sometimes dedicates a post or two to appease us, but not many. Good luck getting his attention, and more importantly for his agreeing with your theory.

Quote from Shane D.

Behind the scenes, we always try to make THH pay his way here for his being an LENR skeptic. He sometimes dedicates a post or two to appease us, but not many. Good luck getting his attention, and more importantly for his agreeing with your theory.

Actually I asked if he or anybody could help me find the rest of the measurements in the rydbergh series, n=1,2,3,4 maybe is enough.I want to compare with QED

to see if the good precition I got was due to luck or if there is a pattern

"Callender said the protocols in U.S. hospitals involve giving patients a series of drugs including midazolam and remdesivir, which he said “effectively poisons” the patients."

“They don’t help them, but that’s the protocol,” he said.

"According to Callender, the best thing for Americans to do is to “stay out of the hospital.”

“Stay out of the hospital, and if you need help from a doctor, get a private doctor,” he said. “Go to a clinic that isn’t federally funded because as soon as you’re in that paradigm of federal funding, the hospital says: ‘Our hands are tied and we have to follow the protocol,’ and that includes no outside doctors. That means that you’re going to stay there and oftentimes die.”

Quote from Zeus46

Thank you Mark… For proving my assumption about your u-turn.

You used to quote this paper all the time, before your misunderstanding of it was pointed out. So now you feel it it has become ‘questionable and underwhelming’?

Well, I don't think I 'quoted' the paper at all. I linked to it maybe once and lazily just paraphrased what I thought was its findings. Yeah I should have been more careful in parsing what it was saying.

Quote from Zeus46

It would seem that you prefer to alter which ‘facts’ you believe in, in order to maintain an idée fixe: In this case, that masks are useless. Nice work!

Nah, I don't believe they are 'useless.' How can they be useless if they can decrease the viral load inhaled, at least to some degree? On occasion this might make a notable difference in disease severity, which could be a big deal for the vulnerable.

Quote from Zeus46

Memory failing you Mark? A touch of long covid perhaps?

You're being modest. My memory remains about average, but yours must be stellar to remember that 37x reduction. Then again you were the one who originated it in the first place, and I merely showed how you calculated it, and I clearly soon forgot about it.

But all this is beside the larger point - which is that there is no 37x infection reduction over a year by mask wearing in the real world. In the real world, infection curves go up and down in a timescale of a month or two. You seem to presume a wave continuing to increase for a year. Doesn't happen. I guess that is a main reason the CDC study looked at only 20 day intervals, because in the real world the exponential rise is short lived.

In the beginning, the word was 'flatten the curve'. Back then we wanted to flatten the peak and stretch the wave out in time, so that ICUs wouldn't be overrun in a short duration peak.

The mask-mandates/lockdowns probably did help flatten the curve to some degree, but it may have also extended the curve in time. In other words, the steepness of a curve in a 20 day interval hardly gives a proper indication of the area under the curve over the longer time frame.

Quote from Mark U

In the real world, infection curves go up and down in a timescale of a month or two. You seem to presume a wave continuing to increase for a year. Doesn't happen. I guess that is a main reason the CDC study looked at only 20 day intervals, because in the real world the exponential rise is short lived.

In the beginning, the word was 'flatten the curve'. Back then we wanted to flatten the peak and stretch the wave out in time, so that ICUs wouldn't be overrun in a short duration peak.

The mask-mandates/lockdowns probably did help flatten the curve to some degree, but it may have also extended the curve in time. In other words, the steepness of a curve in a 20 day interval hardly gives a proper indication of the area under the curve over the longer time frame.

For most places - flattening the peak - and therefore also stretching it out - is exactly what NPIs are supposed to do.

The motivation?

1. allow time for PIs (vaccines, new therapeutics) to be available en masse.

2. even without that, a flatter curve reduces peak demand on hospitals, which means better care, better outcomes, and doctors less burnt out.

The omicron variant - fastest ever - would at this ultra-high doubling every 2.5 days still be taking about log2(50,000)*2,5 = 40 days to an uncomfortably high peak at current rate. Due to other NPIs introduced yesterday that will be flattened - maybe to 60 days or if we are lucky 80 days. (I actually anticipate longer than this - because I hope and expect that 2.5 days / doubling is not typical).

Let us look at the effect of mask use at 1% / day:

40 days -> -33%

60 days -> -45%

So the peak demand on hospitals reduces, on these figures, by 1/3 or 1/2 depending on how much you have flattened the peak. And this is an underestimate, based on this very high 2.5 days/doubling being correct (without NPIs) the whole time.

The reason Mark U gets this stuff wrong is that he is led by his prejudices, and makes "gut feeling" arguments about numeric things without working it out.

Everyone is guessing (and the experts know they are guessing) but the fair guesses do not align with those made by the reasonable-sounding but all wrong anti-vaccine libertarian let it rip crowd.

The expert modellers guesses are a bit more carefully done than my back-of-envelope calcs above, but that is enough I hope for you to see the peril of using Mark U style gut feelings to contradict experts.

My motivation here (as on the LENR threads) is to hold out for an attempt at rational judgements led by evidence and articulated, while also being aware of the dangers of pseudo-evidence - which feeds the human tendency towards apophenia.

For many reasons there will always be disagreements about what these are, and disagreement is healthy, but some things are so silly they should be called out.

THH

Quote from Mark U

I linked to it maybe once

I found three of your mentions using the search term “one percent”.

Quote from Mark U

How can they be useless if they can decrease the viral load inhaled, at least to some degree?

Yes… This is the point! Hence why we should avoid doing the Nose Penis

Quote from Mark U

But all this is beside the larger point - which is that there is no 37x infection reduction over a year by mask wearing in the real world.

The paper shows evidence of this. Your reply does not.

Quote from Mark U

but it may have also extended the curve in time. In other words, the steepness of a curve in a 20 day interval hardly gives a proper indication of the area under the curve over the longer time frame.

But no one cares about ‘extending’ the curve! The point, as you realise, is flattening the peak…. i.e….. Stopping hospitals getting filled up by people with a mostly easily-preventable illness, in order for properly sick people to get proper help.

I find it genuinely odd that despite demonstrating a good awareness of all the issues, and basically agreeing with them IMO, you appear to have some kind of final barrier to accepting the overall narrative. Presumably this is a reflection of the political polarisation of the issue… But you’re a Canadian FFS! Thought you lot were a bit more British regarding this sort of US political nonsense.

Quote from THHuxleynew

My motivation here (as on the LENR threads) is to hold out for an attempt at rational judgements led by evidence and articulated, while also being aware of the dangers of pseudo-evidence - which feeds the human tendency towards apophenia.

For many reasons there will always be disagreements about what these are, and disagreement is healthy, but some things are so silly they should be called out.

THH

Stop labeling people anti vax or pseudo science promoters and maybe you might get that discussion. You do have a habit of labeling people. People here have put a label on you and you complain to mods. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy. Everybody needs to stop the labels

Its right to label anti-vaxxers and pseudo-science, when that is indeed the case.

I don’t think you, or your links from what I recall, fall into those categories.

Not sure you get that label either…

Jed Rothwell please pay attention. You once posted that this would never happen in the United States.

Doctor in Mississippi Fired for Administering Ivermectin

Doctor in Mississippi Fired for Administering Ivermectin

In the ongoing battle against the use of ivermectin to combat covid, Dr. John Witcher was fired from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Yazoo City, Mississippi,

trialsitenews.com

In the ongoing battle against the use of ivermectin to combat covid, Dr. John Witcher was fired from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Yazoo City, Mississippi, for administering the controversial drug to patients.

According to Newsweek, Witcher is the founder of a group of physicians who are against vaccine mandates. Witcher said he was asked to leave his post in the Emergency Room of Baptist Memorial Hospital after the doctor took three patients being treated for covid off remdesivir and then administered ivermectin. Remdesivir is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ivermectin is not. “I was aware I was going against the hospital policy on ivermectin but still felt like, as the treating physician of these patients, that I had that option,” Witcher said. A spokesperson for the hospital said Witcher is not an employee of the Baptist Healthcare System, but an independent doctor on contract with the hospital. The doctor was in the second year of a three-year contract.

The local paper, the Biloxi Sun Herald, said Witcher’s medical license was once revoked, and he is a leader of a group of nine doctors called Mississippi Against Mandates. The group is against forced vaccination for hospital employees. The article in the Sun Herald says the group of doctors has been distributing covid misinformation throughout Mississippi. Less than one half of Mississippi’s population is vaccinated. According to The New York Times, there have been over five hundred thousand cases of covid in Mississippi and over ten thousand deaths.

Dr. John Witcher’s medical license was revoked after an investigation by the Mississippi Board of Licensure. The board claimed Witcher had over a decade of misconduct and concluded he was a “danger to society.”

TrialSiteNews has done many articles on the success of ivermectin in the treatment of covid. In many cases, ivermectin has saved lives. Yet, the continued excuse for not using the drug has been there’s not enough “research.”

In Dr. Witcher’s case, it appears ivermectin wasn’t the issue, but the doctor’s history was.

Quote from Fm1

Stop labeling people anti vax or pseudo science promoters and maybe you might get that discussion. You do have a habit of labeling people. People here have put a label on you and you complain to mods. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy. Everybody needs to stop the labels

I will call it as I see it, especially here in the playground.

I am actually labelling posts (and internet sites which have editorial positions), not posters. But a few posters here (not you) are so consistently outrageous that labelling them as antivaxxers is fair.

You will note that my occasional criticism of you relates specifically to aspects of some of your posts here - uncritically reposting antivax propaganda from TSN, mocking experts, and claiming that you are more likely correct than them.

I'm quite OK with no-one liking me here. I'd rather be honest than liked. And let us face it I won't be flavour of the month here whatever I do. And if people whose ability to process these matters about COVID, on evidence of their posts here, is worse than that of a gnat, think me dishonest, or a member of some global mafia - well it is probably a compliment.

Why the strong language from me? Denying the science, and the utility or safety of vaccines, here kills people, and worsens economic misery for all. The same on a much longer timescale is true for global warming deniers. There appear to be more people who like such views here, than who like more moderate views (such as mine). All the more reason for me to point out when people are misleading others.

That is separate from views about lockdowns etc. Somone can properly have a view that the long term harm of a lockdown is worse than the short-term disaster of not locking down and having large numbers of deaths and economic dislocation in a short time. Nothing anti-science or dishonest in that, it is political.

Similarly with masks. If libertarians accept that the price of liberty is significantly more people dying I have no beef with their political views - though do not agree.

If such a person goes on to claim that COVID impact is no worse than the Flu they are being dishonest (or misled). If they make arguments about deaths from vaccines based on counting VAERS reports they are equally dishonest (or misled). If they claim masks don't work they are equally dishonest (or misled).

I tend to think dishonest for most posters here saying that since they sound pretty definite and claim expertise. Maybe it is more dishonest with themselves, and they somehow believe what they say.

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

I will call it as I see it, especially here in the playground.

I am actually labelling posts (and internet sites which have editorial positions), not posters. But a few posters here (not you) are so consistently outrageous that labelling them as antivaxxers is fair.

You will note that my occasional criticism of you relates specifically to aspects of some of your posts here - uncritically reposting antivax propaganda from TSN, mocking experts, and claiming that you are more likely correct than them.

I'm quite OK with no-one liking me here. I'd rather be honest than liked. And let us face it I won't be flavour of the month here whatever I do. And if people whose ability to process these matters about COVID, on evidence of their posts here, is worse than that of a gnat, think me dishonest, or a member of some global mafia - well it is probably a compliment.

Why the strong language from me? Denying the science, and the utility or safety of vaccines, here kills people, and worsens economic misery for all. The same on a much longer timescale is true for global warming deniers. There appear to be more people who like such views here, than who like more moderate views (such as mine). All the more reason for me to point out when people are misleading others.

That is separate from views about lockdowns etc. Somone can properly have a view that the long term harm of a lockdown is worse than the short-term disaster of not locking down and having large numbers of deaths and economic dislocation in a short time. Nothing anti-science or dishonest in that, it is political.

Similarly with masks. If libertarians accept that the price of liberty is significantly more people dying I have no beef with their political views - though do not agree.

If such a person goes on to claim that COVID impact is no worse than the Flu they are being dishonest (or misled). If they make arguments about deaths from vaccines based on counting VAERS reports they are equally dishonest (or misled). If they claim masks don't work they are equally dishonest (or misled).

I tend to think dishonest for most posters here saying that since they sound pretty definite and claim expertise. Maybe it is more dishonest with themselves, and they somehow believe what they say.

THH

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Horse hockey Thomas, my gig has been prevention through supplementation. I don't disagree with the experts and the studies I have posted. It is you who never finds a silver lining always asking for more. 40 years of living this lifestyle gives me the right to promote supplementation rather than waiting a year for a vaccine. You fail to understand it works for me and I want to share. My postings from TSN are a different view than what you get from the bought and paid national media. They are one of the few that has the balls to question mainstream information. I have been a TSN reader for about 4 years following cancer research and where all the money I've raised for the cause goes. TSN as a medical information platform is recognized as one of the best, and I think you know that.

Quote from Fm1

40 years of living this lifestyle gives me the right to promote supplementation rather than waiting a year for a vaccine.

Top Tip for bargain hunters….. a 40-year supply of ivermectin supplement is basically a full bucket of sheep dip.

Quote from stefan

Actually I asked if he or anybody could help me find the rest of the measurements in the rydbergh series, n=1,2,3,4 maybe is enough.

here the link:: https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-b…rc_out=on&biblio=on&temp=

Ask for "H I" I roman one. in eV!

Quote from Zeus46

Top Tip for bargain hunters….. a 40-year supply of ivermectin supplement is basically a full bucket of sheep dip.

No no no black seed oil and honey, check it out my friend.

Quote from Fm1

40 years of living this lifestyle gives me the right to promote supplementation

Lots of people have been alive for the last 40 years… its hardly any kind of qualification!

Are you some kind of freakishly healthy nonagenarian? I climbed up a huge dry gorge in Sardinia with a 90 year old guy recently. Then we had a cigarette at the top. A swiss guy… oddly enough. Never mentioned the Nazis once.

Have you recovered from, or managed a serious illness in this time?

If so, presumably some drugs created by pharmaceutical companies were a major part of the treatment?

Quote from Mark U

there is no 37x infection reduction over a year by mask wearing in the real world.

You are right Mark! Only children & clowns believe such nonsense. Infections are not cumulative! Event one:: Either is an infection or not afterwards you start at 0 again.

Here once more an unbiased study about masks from 2008. You must check the particle challenge not the droplets! Evaluating the protection afforded by surgical masks FP2 FP3.pdf

Quote from Zeus46

Lots of people have been alive for the last 40 years… its hardly any kind of qualification!

Are you some kind of freakishly healthy nonagenarian?

Have you recovered from, or managed a serious illness in this time?

If so, presumably some drugs created by pharmaceutical companies were a major part of the treatment?

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I changed my ways when my father died of a massive heart attack at the age of 62 which by the way was the oldest a male had lived on his side of family, his brother at 38, my grandfather at 58. My brother didn't change he died 6 years ago all from massive heart attacks. Do you care to poke some more fun asshole