Post by Admin on Jul 24, 2021 10:50:25 GMT -6
Originally posted on FaceBook Aug 17, 2020 with article link (may be dead) - moved here July 24, 2021
I have been thinking this over for a while now and I believe I can identify a root of some of the issues we are having right now regarding COVID-19. There is such a level of fear out there fomented by the Main Stream Media (MSM) and other sources that it has simply fanned the flames of another issue that has cropped up in the psyche of Americans. Somehow, in the last several decades, fear and paranoia has risen to a level that, by and large, Americans are no longer risk aware . . . we are risk averse. At least it appears to be that way on the items that are most controversial these days.
In some ways, we are still risk aware and can operate through our daily lives knowing, in at least a vague sense or in some cases in a much more real sense, what we are risking, but still existing and going about life. Cancer affects approximately 1.8 million new people every year. The overall 5-year survival rate is about 67% . . . that is all types of cancer in a broad spectrum. More than 30 million people have been diagnosed with heart disease and it kills almost 650,000 every year in the US. The difference here is, those diseases are not contagious. You cannot pass them from one person to another. Only your personal choices or individual genetics put you at risk for those. So, there is not a large outcry for reform or to outlaw red meat or sugary sodas. There was one for secondhand smoke, which is a minor way for those making personal choices to pass cancer to others and thus steps were taken in some parts of the country. It is still left up to personal choice in many other parts.
So, as we start to realize that the abundance of Americans have moved, due to whatever reason, from a risk aware mentality to a risk averse one . . . and not only that, but seem to put the demands to assuage their fears upon the government, how can we move forward in any sort of balance? What is the logical solution for progress, or, maybe more importantly, is there even one?
I believe it is information . . . accurate, unbiased, direct facts. Unfortunately, many of our most popular sources for such things have found the power of fear and spin on raising the bottom line and pander to that base greed. Thus, the information is warped in one way or another to generate revenue and the debate between the risk aware and the risk averse begins.
It is better for 10 guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to suffer at the hands of the state. This is a point where our republic, as a whole, is risk averse. There are those that would dispute that the system is corrupt and no longer holds to this standard, but that is a different discussion.
As Americans, we were only held to being risk averse in matters where the government held power over the individual.
At least, that was the intent. The founders were afraid of somehow coming under the sway of monarchs or elite oligarchies that would again remove the choices of the individuals and the freedoms that were, as they believed, given directly upon birth to every human being. So, there are wide ranging items for the people to be risk averse from government intervention.
We have dialed back a lot of that since then. There is a lot of government intervention in many sectors of our lives. Many, many requirements that the government can thrust upon us and force us to comply to, but we are starting to see where the rubber meets the road with the crisis of the coronavirus.
What are the facts as best we know them?
COVID-19 Stats: These values are from worldometers.info unless stated differently below.
5,571,700 cases and 173,148 deaths as of August 16th in the US. This equates to 16,820 cases and 523 deaths per 1 million in population.
The US has registered 2.2 million more cases than any other country. Brazil is 2nd with 3.34 million, India is 3rd with 2.67 million and all other countries are reporting less than 1 million cases.
The US is reporting 65,000 more deaths than any other country in the world. Brazil is 2nd at 107k and no other country is reporting more than 56,800 deaths from COVID-19 as of August 16th.
In total cases per 1M population, the USA ranks 8th, though most of the countries ahead of them are small and the values could be due to small sample size bias.
In total deaths per 1M population, the USA ranks 10th, behind Belgium, Peru, Spain, UK, Italy and Sweden, among others.
In total tests per 1M population (tests administered whether positive or negative) the US ranks 17th. It should be noted that none of the top 15 countries have populations of over 10 million people and the 16th ranked country is Russia, with about half of our population and testing 224k/1M to our 214k/1M. The UK and Australia are just behind the US in testing rates. With the exception of the countries above and Spain, all other countries with populations of 25 million or more are testing at rates of 127k/1M or less. About 60% of the rate in the US, at a maximum.
The US has conducted nearly 71 million COVID-19 tests. Double that of any other nation on Earth except for China. China reports to have conducted over 90 million tests and has reported just under 85,000 total cases of COVID-19 nationwide.
Conclusions that I draw from the above:
The US is overwhelmingly testing and finding as many cases as possible. I do not know if the case numbers reported for the US are over-reported (due to testing irregularities) or under reported (due to asymptomatic cases) but given the raw numbers seen here, they result in an infection rate of about 1.7% in the total population.
I do not know whether deaths reported in the US are under-reported or over-reported (as deaths “with” COVID rather than deaths “from” COVID) but I see no reason for them to have been under-reported at all. I am apt to believe the values given here, meaning a death rate of 3.1% of those infected and 0.05% in the total population. These numbers may rise as deaths lag behind cases by 2-3 weeks and as the number grows the 0.05% value over total population will rise as well.
The US ranks in at the most deaths and cases on raw numbers by a huge margin and on a per capita basis we are still in the top 10 across the board. Among highly populated countries with semi-reliable data we are first in raw tests by an overwhelming margin and 2nd in per capita. This level of testing will inflate the case numbers seen in the US.
I honestly believe that even at this level of testing, the US is only catching 20-50% of the total cases because of asymptomatic infections. This would mean that the actual number of cases in the US is somewhere between 10 million and 28 million so far. This is mostly an opinion. There are some minor studies done by Stanford that back this claim, but this is still an opinion I hold. It would mean that asymptomatic cases account for 50-80% of the total cases.
Let’s talk about that for a minute, especially in the contexts of masks, which seems to be a very hot button topic for the people in my social networks with passionate people on both sides of it posting on my news feeds very often.
Mask Facts:
Masks are rated in two different ways. They have a letter rating (N, R or P) and they also have a number rating. Mask ratings are the combination of these two items. N95, P100 and so on . . . what do those values mean?
N, R and P ratings have to do with oil-based effectiveness of the mask. They are either non-effective in oil particle environments (N rating), resistant in oil-based environments (R rating) or they are oil proof in their effectiveness (P rating) . . . these letter ratings have little to no effect on a mask’s particle effectiveness in a biological exclusion test. In other words, the letter rating does not matter, only the number part does.
The number rating on a mask has to do with the exclusion of airborne particles. The rating is equivalent to the percentage of particles that the mask, filter or respirator will keep out. 95 means 95% of particles excluded and so forth. However, to be rated 100, the mask must only keep out 99.7% of particles. Some manufacturers put higher standard on themselves. I know that 3M requires of itself 99.97% effectiveness to rate a mask at 100, so check manufacturers website for their standards. It will be no lower than 99.7% though, as that is a minimum requirement.
Now, the money question . . . how do they test that exclusion value? They test it with an airborne mist of particulates that averages 0.3 microns (300 nanometers) in diameter. So, if the mask keeps out 95% of 300 nanometer mist particles it can be rated as N95 compliant.
Dry coronavirus particles on their own are between 0.06 and 0.14 microns (60-140 nanometers) which is smaller than the mist particles that the masks are rated on.
Filter permeability equations show that filter effectiveness is decreased with smaller particle diameters, a brief review of the literature shows a decrease of 3-5% in the overall effectiveness when cutting particle diameters from 0.5 microns to 0.25 microns. So, dividing in half the airborne particle diameter could decrease the rating by 3-5% . . . with every halving again reducing by 3-5%. So, a mask rated for 100% at 300 nm would be 95-97% effective at 150 nm and 90-94% effective at 75 nm.
Coronavirus does not typically transmit via dry, airborne virus. It typically transmits in aerosolized droplets from breathing, talking, laughing and typical actions that humans often undertake. An article from the Journal of Thoracic Disease on the NIH.gov website rates the effectiveness of an N95 style respirator on influenza and similarly sized viruses (60-300 nm) as very high, but speculates that this is because the delivery system used in the experiment was aerosolized droplets of approximately 3 microns in diameter. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5906272/)
Per the CDC, evidence suggests that coronavirus can live for hours to days on surfaces, but transmission of COVID-19 to persons from surfaces contaminated with the virus has not been documented. Cases have most commonly occurred by droplet transfer from people within 6 feet of one another.
Those are the facts . . . now for the conclusions that I draw from those and my opinions.
Studies show that masks are effective in preventing outflow and inflow of aerosolized droplets that are the main cause of transmission of COVID-19 from person to person.
The outcry of “Why do I have to wear a mask, yours works, doesn’t it?” has been widespread amongst posters on my timeline as well as in-person colleagues and acquaintances. The facts above seem to support that position. However, there is something not being taken into account.
Yes, the virus has not been shown to be transmitted from viral contaminated surfaces to humans and wearing a properly rated mask prevents an individual from breathing in aerosolized particles directly, but what about those particles that are not direct and do not land on inorganic surfaces?
What about our hands, uncovered parts of our faces, clothes and other items? How many of us are properly instructed on mask donning/removal and can do so in a safe manner? How often are we re-using masks previously worn in possibly infectious situations?
The facts show that you may have COVID-19 and be shedding virus (aerosolized droplets) while not knowing it. Admittedly, I have seen claims that say that asymptomatic persons have not been shown to transmit the disease, but in my searches, I have not seen this from any credible source.
The facts show that masks prevent direct transmission, but if you happen to be a transmitter and you do not wear a mask, then your aerosolized droplets can remain in the air for a while after you have gone through an area, can deposit on the clothes, skin, hands, and other non-covered biological or porous surfaces and may transmit to another person when they have later removed their mask and maybe forgotten to pursue proper protocols before eating, drinking or touching their face.
These may be minor threats of transmission in the grand scheme of things, but they can be 100% eliminated by everyone wearing a mask when in public spaces. If you legitimately have breathing issues that prevent you from wearing a mask, well, you are likely in a high risk category and you are already taking your life in your hands by going out at all, not wearing a mask while doing so seems counterintuitive to me.
All you technically need to prevent outward droplet spray is a common surgical mask or a bandana or even a t-shirt pulled up. It is the inward droplet prevention that requires a higher level, more expensive rated mask. So, while it is my opinion that all of us should be wearing masks in public because it simply makes logical, scientific sense, I understand that there are still those that will disagree for whatever reason. Please let me know what those reasons might be, especially if I have not addressed them.
With all of these facts in place . . . why is there so much division among all of us on how to proceed forward? What we are running into is the issue I stated in the very beginning of this . . . risk awareness versus risk aversion. This is an individual decision. Not only that, but some people will shift from risk aware to risk averse on different subjects due to personal experiences, beliefs, narratives or opinions.
How do we handle this? In the same way that we should be handling everything else. Through personal choice. I will admit that this opinion comes from my overall, libertarian-style belief in individual sovereignty. It applies all across the board in every situation. Unfortunately, due to fear, power, control and the rise of risk averse culture (or a combination of these items) it rarely seems to win the day without large debate and several people being unhappy with the outcome when it prevails.
Where can this be applied? In several areas of controversy, actually. There are some areas where I agree wholeheartedly with one side of the debate, but I can see the argument from the other side as well. I will avoid that singular issue, but bring up several others.
LGTBQ (I hope I got the order right, apologies if not) rights – these individuals should have the right to live how they want and still be allowed access to the basic services, permits, applications and opportunities as those who choose to live differently. Filing for marriage licenses, government benefits or permits, none of it should be limited from those that have lifestyles that are represented by any of those letters.
Vice laws in several states and counties (and a few on the federal books) are mostly outdated. Several of them are in place simply because a majority has a certain belief about the morality/immorality surrounding the practice, whatever that may be. It should be the individual’s right to choose whether to pursue that activity or not (along with all of that activity’s consequences) rather than having that choice thrust upon them by the government acting as a moral arm of a certain sector of the population with a common belief.
Practices with no potential benefit or entertainment value (hard drugs come immediately to mind) are of course, excluded . . . but there is no reason that alcohol, marijuana, gambling of all types or even legitimate sex work (not to be confused with sex trafficking or exploitation) should be illegal.
In fact, the government, by keeping them illegal and spending any money in enforcement at all, is turning a potential revenue stream (by taxing legitimate, licensed practices) into an unnecessary budget deficit. Don’t get me started on budget deficits though . . . trust me.
The individual should be free to make their choices as to whether to partake in these practices just like we can in most of the country in terms of alcohol, tobacco, gambling of some kinds and even sex work in certain locales. These items work and yes, there are cases of abuse and overindulgence, but why can’t we learn the lessons of prohibition already and expand that into other items.
Allowing the individual choice should be the default position, not the hard-fought result of protests, signature campaigns and endless debates. Why are we not free to choose these things and do these things and be allowed to have the experiences and face the consequences?
It’s simple . . . because someone out there thinks that it is a bad idea and has passed laws to make it illegal. It doesn’t matter if these laws are based on faulty science, overreaching morality or pure greed from competing industries that happen to have links to those that make the laws. The default position now becomes, “well, this is how we have always done it, so we aren’t going to change now.” This position would even be taken in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and in the face of exposure of the root causes and original reasoning for the laws being passed in the first place.
It is a dangerous mindset and it makes it all the more important when we are running into novel situations and developing initial policies to make sure that we are taking into account the ideas of individual sovereignty and making sure that we aren’t forcing decisions that we would make personally onto the bulk of the populace out of fear, anxiety, stress or a misguided sense of altruism.
Steps that take away people’s choices and freedoms should be arrived at slowly, should be overwhelmingly proven necessary before being implemented and should be lifted just as quickly when they are found to be ineffective or to have done their jobs.
This is where the risk averse and the risk aware are in disagreement on the current COVID-19 issues. For whatever reason that the risk averse are taking that pathway, they are of the mindset that since we have already given up these items, we should not have them returned until it can be proven that all is safe. Each of them has a different mindset for what that means. For some that means that no one will die from COVID-19 and if we get back to normal too quickly and 1 person dies as a result, then that is a failure.
Those who are risk aware cannot abide by that. They see the decisions surrounding COVID-19 in the same way that they see decisions around traveling, eating sugar or red meat or smoking. Yes, there are risks involved, but we know what those are and the level of freedom reduction has far exceeded the protections that it gives us. Those who are risk aware were willing to give up freedoms in the beginning because of the factor of the unknown and the fact that many of those who had earned the public trust at the time painted a picture that turned out to be much more pessimistic than the reality.
This combination of pessimistic predictions in the beginning, the data coming in now and the willingness to accept a level of consequences for the risk aware has become too much and they are unable to see why we can’t just go back to normal (or at least much nearer to it than we are now) already. It becomes more and more frustrating for the risk aware to continue to tolerate the risk averse guiding public policy and that is the basis of a lot of the issues.
There is another level to it, of course, and probably the real reason that the risk averse are being so easily allowed to continue to guide and implement public policy. Liability. Liability guides all of this from a big budget, government standpoint. It is not so much that there are so many risk averse individuals, but the corporations, government and those that currently sit in seats of power simply must take the risk averse approach or else be blamed for the results, both the actual results and the imagined/spun results that occur.
This is the entirety of what is going on in this country right now. There are leaders (in both business and government) that are risk averse and leaders that are risk aware, for whatever reason that they are each of those things and they are having a great debate about how to move forward. There are also leaders that want to be risk aware, but that are being forced to be risk averse because either they cannot afford the consequences of the possible results or they can, but they want to get something in return for it. To hell with the will of the people and what is best for the country, what’s in it for me as an individual in power? Now that we have removed these freedoms, what can I get for me if I return them or how can I return them and put my hard-earned position at risk, I’m simply not willing to do that. There are many, many leaders that are in those positions and are making that choice in that way . . . they do it over and over and over again on a multitude of issues and continue to get re-elected, re-appointed or re-hired.
The bottom line is this . . . I believe that we are moving away from the risk aware, individual sovereignty principles that this nation was founded on. We have locked up and shut down a great proportion of this country unnecessarily and are suffering the consequences of that for whatever reason . . . and everyone has an opinion on why it is happening. I believe that we should be opening up, everything should be at 25-50% capacity at a minimum, with face masks in public.
That’s a middle of the road position and let’s see how it goes, but at the same time, let's get honest reporting on case increases and hospital capacities and death rates so that we can all be together to make informed decisions to move forward.
Transparency in government, truth in reporting, this is what we have as facts to analyze, these are the decisions we are making, and this is why, this is what we believe the consequences of these decisions are going to be . . . hopefully they are not as dire as that, but this is based on the best information that we have available.
Why can’t we be treated as adults by those in power over us?
Isn’t it about time we made that a requirement?
One last fact to sum everything up and to support my opinions stated above.
Sweden is known for having never shut down and is currently, depending on which source you consume for news, a tale of caution or a tale of triumph for doing so. Their daily cases curve has a high, flat area to begin with, a massive spike in the middle and has trailed off in the past several weeks. The US curve has a high flat area in the beginning, a massive spike and is only now beginning to trail off at all from that spike.
Sweden’s daily death curve looks very much like the US’s curve, a massive spike and trailing off to diminishing returns.
However, they do not seem to have the second bump that the US is experiencing. This could be explained away by the geography of the US vs Sweden and the fact that the US can have different areas become hot spot across much larger lengths of time.
However, and this is probably the most telling fact of all . . . per 1 million population death count – USA 523, Sweden 573. I’m not even sure that a difference of 50 per million population is statistically significant, but we let the fear take hold, gave up our freedoms and now are having to fight more fear and the simple inertia of government to get it back. If we had simply held to the founding principles of risk awareness and individual sovereignty, perhaps, none of this would have been an issue. The data from Sweden seems to point towards that being so.
Do not let your beliefs (fears) infringe upon another’s freedom without overwhelming evidence in place that doing it is necessary. When evaluating whether doing so is necessary or not, be risk aware and not risk averse in your choices, otherwise, none of us would ever travel anywhere via car or plane because of the inherent risks. Apply those standards throughout life and everyone can be happier and freer across the board.
I have been thinking this over for a while now and I believe I can identify a root of some of the issues we are having right now regarding COVID-19. There is such a level of fear out there fomented by the Main Stream Media (MSM) and other sources that it has simply fanned the flames of another issue that has cropped up in the psyche of Americans. Somehow, in the last several decades, fear and paranoia has risen to a level that, by and large, Americans are no longer risk aware . . . we are risk averse. At least it appears to be that way on the items that are most controversial these days.
In some ways, we are still risk aware and can operate through our daily lives knowing, in at least a vague sense or in some cases in a much more real sense, what we are risking, but still existing and going about life. Cancer affects approximately 1.8 million new people every year. The overall 5-year survival rate is about 67% . . . that is all types of cancer in a broad spectrum. More than 30 million people have been diagnosed with heart disease and it kills almost 650,000 every year in the US. The difference here is, those diseases are not contagious. You cannot pass them from one person to another. Only your personal choices or individual genetics put you at risk for those. So, there is not a large outcry for reform or to outlaw red meat or sugary sodas. There was one for secondhand smoke, which is a minor way for those making personal choices to pass cancer to others and thus steps were taken in some parts of the country. It is still left up to personal choice in many other parts.
So, as we start to realize that the abundance of Americans have moved, due to whatever reason, from a risk aware mentality to a risk averse one . . . and not only that, but seem to put the demands to assuage their fears upon the government, how can we move forward in any sort of balance? What is the logical solution for progress, or, maybe more importantly, is there even one?
I believe it is information . . . accurate, unbiased, direct facts. Unfortunately, many of our most popular sources for such things have found the power of fear and spin on raising the bottom line and pander to that base greed. Thus, the information is warped in one way or another to generate revenue and the debate between the risk aware and the risk averse begins.
It is better for 10 guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to suffer at the hands of the state. This is a point where our republic, as a whole, is risk averse. There are those that would dispute that the system is corrupt and no longer holds to this standard, but that is a different discussion.
As Americans, we were only held to being risk averse in matters where the government held power over the individual.
At least, that was the intent. The founders were afraid of somehow coming under the sway of monarchs or elite oligarchies that would again remove the choices of the individuals and the freedoms that were, as they believed, given directly upon birth to every human being. So, there are wide ranging items for the people to be risk averse from government intervention.
We have dialed back a lot of that since then. There is a lot of government intervention in many sectors of our lives. Many, many requirements that the government can thrust upon us and force us to comply to, but we are starting to see where the rubber meets the road with the crisis of the coronavirus.
What are the facts as best we know them?
COVID-19 Stats: These values are from worldometers.info unless stated differently below.
5,571,700 cases and 173,148 deaths as of August 16th in the US. This equates to 16,820 cases and 523 deaths per 1 million in population.
The US has registered 2.2 million more cases than any other country. Brazil is 2nd with 3.34 million, India is 3rd with 2.67 million and all other countries are reporting less than 1 million cases.
The US is reporting 65,000 more deaths than any other country in the world. Brazil is 2nd at 107k and no other country is reporting more than 56,800 deaths from COVID-19 as of August 16th.
In total cases per 1M population, the USA ranks 8th, though most of the countries ahead of them are small and the values could be due to small sample size bias.
In total deaths per 1M population, the USA ranks 10th, behind Belgium, Peru, Spain, UK, Italy and Sweden, among others.
In total tests per 1M population (tests administered whether positive or negative) the US ranks 17th. It should be noted that none of the top 15 countries have populations of over 10 million people and the 16th ranked country is Russia, with about half of our population and testing 224k/1M to our 214k/1M. The UK and Australia are just behind the US in testing rates. With the exception of the countries above and Spain, all other countries with populations of 25 million or more are testing at rates of 127k/1M or less. About 60% of the rate in the US, at a maximum.
The US has conducted nearly 71 million COVID-19 tests. Double that of any other nation on Earth except for China. China reports to have conducted over 90 million tests and has reported just under 85,000 total cases of COVID-19 nationwide.
Conclusions that I draw from the above:
The US is overwhelmingly testing and finding as many cases as possible. I do not know if the case numbers reported for the US are over-reported (due to testing irregularities) or under reported (due to asymptomatic cases) but given the raw numbers seen here, they result in an infection rate of about 1.7% in the total population.
I do not know whether deaths reported in the US are under-reported or over-reported (as deaths “with” COVID rather than deaths “from” COVID) but I see no reason for them to have been under-reported at all. I am apt to believe the values given here, meaning a death rate of 3.1% of those infected and 0.05% in the total population. These numbers may rise as deaths lag behind cases by 2-3 weeks and as the number grows the 0.05% value over total population will rise as well.
The US ranks in at the most deaths and cases on raw numbers by a huge margin and on a per capita basis we are still in the top 10 across the board. Among highly populated countries with semi-reliable data we are first in raw tests by an overwhelming margin and 2nd in per capita. This level of testing will inflate the case numbers seen in the US.
I honestly believe that even at this level of testing, the US is only catching 20-50% of the total cases because of asymptomatic infections. This would mean that the actual number of cases in the US is somewhere between 10 million and 28 million so far. This is mostly an opinion. There are some minor studies done by Stanford that back this claim, but this is still an opinion I hold. It would mean that asymptomatic cases account for 50-80% of the total cases.
Let’s talk about that for a minute, especially in the contexts of masks, which seems to be a very hot button topic for the people in my social networks with passionate people on both sides of it posting on my news feeds very often.
Mask Facts:
Masks are rated in two different ways. They have a letter rating (N, R or P) and they also have a number rating. Mask ratings are the combination of these two items. N95, P100 and so on . . . what do those values mean?
N, R and P ratings have to do with oil-based effectiveness of the mask. They are either non-effective in oil particle environments (N rating), resistant in oil-based environments (R rating) or they are oil proof in their effectiveness (P rating) . . . these letter ratings have little to no effect on a mask’s particle effectiveness in a biological exclusion test. In other words, the letter rating does not matter, only the number part does.
The number rating on a mask has to do with the exclusion of airborne particles. The rating is equivalent to the percentage of particles that the mask, filter or respirator will keep out. 95 means 95% of particles excluded and so forth. However, to be rated 100, the mask must only keep out 99.7% of particles. Some manufacturers put higher standard on themselves. I know that 3M requires of itself 99.97% effectiveness to rate a mask at 100, so check manufacturers website for their standards. It will be no lower than 99.7% though, as that is a minimum requirement.
Now, the money question . . . how do they test that exclusion value? They test it with an airborne mist of particulates that averages 0.3 microns (300 nanometers) in diameter. So, if the mask keeps out 95% of 300 nanometer mist particles it can be rated as N95 compliant.
Dry coronavirus particles on their own are between 0.06 and 0.14 microns (60-140 nanometers) which is smaller than the mist particles that the masks are rated on.
Filter permeability equations show that filter effectiveness is decreased with smaller particle diameters, a brief review of the literature shows a decrease of 3-5% in the overall effectiveness when cutting particle diameters from 0.5 microns to 0.25 microns. So, dividing in half the airborne particle diameter could decrease the rating by 3-5% . . . with every halving again reducing by 3-5%. So, a mask rated for 100% at 300 nm would be 95-97% effective at 150 nm and 90-94% effective at 75 nm.
Coronavirus does not typically transmit via dry, airborne virus. It typically transmits in aerosolized droplets from breathing, talking, laughing and typical actions that humans often undertake. An article from the Journal of Thoracic Disease on the NIH.gov website rates the effectiveness of an N95 style respirator on influenza and similarly sized viruses (60-300 nm) as very high, but speculates that this is because the delivery system used in the experiment was aerosolized droplets of approximately 3 microns in diameter. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5906272/)
Per the CDC, evidence suggests that coronavirus can live for hours to days on surfaces, but transmission of COVID-19 to persons from surfaces contaminated with the virus has not been documented. Cases have most commonly occurred by droplet transfer from people within 6 feet of one another.
Those are the facts . . . now for the conclusions that I draw from those and my opinions.
Studies show that masks are effective in preventing outflow and inflow of aerosolized droplets that are the main cause of transmission of COVID-19 from person to person.
The outcry of “Why do I have to wear a mask, yours works, doesn’t it?” has been widespread amongst posters on my timeline as well as in-person colleagues and acquaintances. The facts above seem to support that position. However, there is something not being taken into account.
Yes, the virus has not been shown to be transmitted from viral contaminated surfaces to humans and wearing a properly rated mask prevents an individual from breathing in aerosolized particles directly, but what about those particles that are not direct and do not land on inorganic surfaces?
What about our hands, uncovered parts of our faces, clothes and other items? How many of us are properly instructed on mask donning/removal and can do so in a safe manner? How often are we re-using masks previously worn in possibly infectious situations?
The facts show that you may have COVID-19 and be shedding virus (aerosolized droplets) while not knowing it. Admittedly, I have seen claims that say that asymptomatic persons have not been shown to transmit the disease, but in my searches, I have not seen this from any credible source.
The facts show that masks prevent direct transmission, but if you happen to be a transmitter and you do not wear a mask, then your aerosolized droplets can remain in the air for a while after you have gone through an area, can deposit on the clothes, skin, hands, and other non-covered biological or porous surfaces and may transmit to another person when they have later removed their mask and maybe forgotten to pursue proper protocols before eating, drinking or touching their face.
These may be minor threats of transmission in the grand scheme of things, but they can be 100% eliminated by everyone wearing a mask when in public spaces. If you legitimately have breathing issues that prevent you from wearing a mask, well, you are likely in a high risk category and you are already taking your life in your hands by going out at all, not wearing a mask while doing so seems counterintuitive to me.
All you technically need to prevent outward droplet spray is a common surgical mask or a bandana or even a t-shirt pulled up. It is the inward droplet prevention that requires a higher level, more expensive rated mask. So, while it is my opinion that all of us should be wearing masks in public because it simply makes logical, scientific sense, I understand that there are still those that will disagree for whatever reason. Please let me know what those reasons might be, especially if I have not addressed them.
With all of these facts in place . . . why is there so much division among all of us on how to proceed forward? What we are running into is the issue I stated in the very beginning of this . . . risk awareness versus risk aversion. This is an individual decision. Not only that, but some people will shift from risk aware to risk averse on different subjects due to personal experiences, beliefs, narratives or opinions.
How do we handle this? In the same way that we should be handling everything else. Through personal choice. I will admit that this opinion comes from my overall, libertarian-style belief in individual sovereignty. It applies all across the board in every situation. Unfortunately, due to fear, power, control and the rise of risk averse culture (or a combination of these items) it rarely seems to win the day without large debate and several people being unhappy with the outcome when it prevails.
Where can this be applied? In several areas of controversy, actually. There are some areas where I agree wholeheartedly with one side of the debate, but I can see the argument from the other side as well. I will avoid that singular issue, but bring up several others.
LGTBQ (I hope I got the order right, apologies if not) rights – these individuals should have the right to live how they want and still be allowed access to the basic services, permits, applications and opportunities as those who choose to live differently. Filing for marriage licenses, government benefits or permits, none of it should be limited from those that have lifestyles that are represented by any of those letters.
Vice laws in several states and counties (and a few on the federal books) are mostly outdated. Several of them are in place simply because a majority has a certain belief about the morality/immorality surrounding the practice, whatever that may be. It should be the individual’s right to choose whether to pursue that activity or not (along with all of that activity’s consequences) rather than having that choice thrust upon them by the government acting as a moral arm of a certain sector of the population with a common belief.
Practices with no potential benefit or entertainment value (hard drugs come immediately to mind) are of course, excluded . . . but there is no reason that alcohol, marijuana, gambling of all types or even legitimate sex work (not to be confused with sex trafficking or exploitation) should be illegal.
In fact, the government, by keeping them illegal and spending any money in enforcement at all, is turning a potential revenue stream (by taxing legitimate, licensed practices) into an unnecessary budget deficit. Don’t get me started on budget deficits though . . . trust me.
The individual should be free to make their choices as to whether to partake in these practices just like we can in most of the country in terms of alcohol, tobacco, gambling of some kinds and even sex work in certain locales. These items work and yes, there are cases of abuse and overindulgence, but why can’t we learn the lessons of prohibition already and expand that into other items.
Allowing the individual choice should be the default position, not the hard-fought result of protests, signature campaigns and endless debates. Why are we not free to choose these things and do these things and be allowed to have the experiences and face the consequences?
It’s simple . . . because someone out there thinks that it is a bad idea and has passed laws to make it illegal. It doesn’t matter if these laws are based on faulty science, overreaching morality or pure greed from competing industries that happen to have links to those that make the laws. The default position now becomes, “well, this is how we have always done it, so we aren’t going to change now.” This position would even be taken in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and in the face of exposure of the root causes and original reasoning for the laws being passed in the first place.
It is a dangerous mindset and it makes it all the more important when we are running into novel situations and developing initial policies to make sure that we are taking into account the ideas of individual sovereignty and making sure that we aren’t forcing decisions that we would make personally onto the bulk of the populace out of fear, anxiety, stress or a misguided sense of altruism.
Steps that take away people’s choices and freedoms should be arrived at slowly, should be overwhelmingly proven necessary before being implemented and should be lifted just as quickly when they are found to be ineffective or to have done their jobs.
This is where the risk averse and the risk aware are in disagreement on the current COVID-19 issues. For whatever reason that the risk averse are taking that pathway, they are of the mindset that since we have already given up these items, we should not have them returned until it can be proven that all is safe. Each of them has a different mindset for what that means. For some that means that no one will die from COVID-19 and if we get back to normal too quickly and 1 person dies as a result, then that is a failure.
Those who are risk aware cannot abide by that. They see the decisions surrounding COVID-19 in the same way that they see decisions around traveling, eating sugar or red meat or smoking. Yes, there are risks involved, but we know what those are and the level of freedom reduction has far exceeded the protections that it gives us. Those who are risk aware were willing to give up freedoms in the beginning because of the factor of the unknown and the fact that many of those who had earned the public trust at the time painted a picture that turned out to be much more pessimistic than the reality.
This combination of pessimistic predictions in the beginning, the data coming in now and the willingness to accept a level of consequences for the risk aware has become too much and they are unable to see why we can’t just go back to normal (or at least much nearer to it than we are now) already. It becomes more and more frustrating for the risk aware to continue to tolerate the risk averse guiding public policy and that is the basis of a lot of the issues.
There is another level to it, of course, and probably the real reason that the risk averse are being so easily allowed to continue to guide and implement public policy. Liability. Liability guides all of this from a big budget, government standpoint. It is not so much that there are so many risk averse individuals, but the corporations, government and those that currently sit in seats of power simply must take the risk averse approach or else be blamed for the results, both the actual results and the imagined/spun results that occur.
This is the entirety of what is going on in this country right now. There are leaders (in both business and government) that are risk averse and leaders that are risk aware, for whatever reason that they are each of those things and they are having a great debate about how to move forward. There are also leaders that want to be risk aware, but that are being forced to be risk averse because either they cannot afford the consequences of the possible results or they can, but they want to get something in return for it. To hell with the will of the people and what is best for the country, what’s in it for me as an individual in power? Now that we have removed these freedoms, what can I get for me if I return them or how can I return them and put my hard-earned position at risk, I’m simply not willing to do that. There are many, many leaders that are in those positions and are making that choice in that way . . . they do it over and over and over again on a multitude of issues and continue to get re-elected, re-appointed or re-hired.
The bottom line is this . . . I believe that we are moving away from the risk aware, individual sovereignty principles that this nation was founded on. We have locked up and shut down a great proportion of this country unnecessarily and are suffering the consequences of that for whatever reason . . . and everyone has an opinion on why it is happening. I believe that we should be opening up, everything should be at 25-50% capacity at a minimum, with face masks in public.
That’s a middle of the road position and let’s see how it goes, but at the same time, let's get honest reporting on case increases and hospital capacities and death rates so that we can all be together to make informed decisions to move forward.
Transparency in government, truth in reporting, this is what we have as facts to analyze, these are the decisions we are making, and this is why, this is what we believe the consequences of these decisions are going to be . . . hopefully they are not as dire as that, but this is based on the best information that we have available.
Why can’t we be treated as adults by those in power over us?
Isn’t it about time we made that a requirement?
One last fact to sum everything up and to support my opinions stated above.
Sweden is known for having never shut down and is currently, depending on which source you consume for news, a tale of caution or a tale of triumph for doing so. Their daily cases curve has a high, flat area to begin with, a massive spike in the middle and has trailed off in the past several weeks. The US curve has a high flat area in the beginning, a massive spike and is only now beginning to trail off at all from that spike.
Sweden’s daily death curve looks very much like the US’s curve, a massive spike and trailing off to diminishing returns.
However, they do not seem to have the second bump that the US is experiencing. This could be explained away by the geography of the US vs Sweden and the fact that the US can have different areas become hot spot across much larger lengths of time.
However, and this is probably the most telling fact of all . . . per 1 million population death count – USA 523, Sweden 573. I’m not even sure that a difference of 50 per million population is statistically significant, but we let the fear take hold, gave up our freedoms and now are having to fight more fear and the simple inertia of government to get it back. If we had simply held to the founding principles of risk awareness and individual sovereignty, perhaps, none of this would have been an issue. The data from Sweden seems to point towards that being so.
Do not let your beliefs (fears) infringe upon another’s freedom without overwhelming evidence in place that doing it is necessary. When evaluating whether doing so is necessary or not, be risk aware and not risk averse in your choices, otherwise, none of us would ever travel anywhere via car or plane because of the inherent risks. Apply those standards throughout life and everyone can be happier and freer across the board.