It's an OP based on a meta-analysis study below. Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses? | Cochrane Authors' conclusions: The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions. There were additional RCTs during the pandemic related to physical interventions but a relative paucity given the importance of the question of masking and its relative effectiveness and the concomitant measures of mask adherence which would be highly relevant to the measurement of effectiveness, especially in the elderly and in young children. There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated. There is a need for large, well-designed RCTs addressing the effectiveness of many of these interventions in multiple settings and populations, as well as the impact of adherence on effectiveness, especially in those most at risk of ARIs. A piece on that study: https://slate.com/technology/2023/02/masks-effectiveness-cochrane-review.html “The Cochrane Review tells us two important things. First, there have been very few high-quality studies examining the effectiveness of masks during the COVID pandemic, and second, from the little high-quality data we do have, we don’t see large impacts of masking in preventing viral infections on the population level,” Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic center at Brown University School of Public Health, told Slate. “This doesn’t necessarily mean masks don’t protect individuals. But it could mean that the way they’re used at the population level is not effective. We need more randomized trials to understand why.” Another piece of that study: The Cochrane review on masks and Covid shows the limits of science - Vox What we know about masks and Covid Nearly all of us wore masks at one time or another, and many of us still do. Did that even help? It doesn’t seem like it, according to the Cochrane review: “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks.” Some observers have taken this as a final, authoritative conclusion on the matter, an opinion shared by the man behind the review. “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop,” Tom Jefferson, the study’s lead author, said in an interview. Even fitted N95 masks in health care settings, the interviewer asked? “It makes no difference — none of it.” I think Jefferson — an Oxford University epidemiologist who has a number of eccentric and flatly nonsensical opinions about Covid-19, including that it didn’t originate in China and may have been circulating in Europe for years before its global emergence — is overstating his case. There is something we can learn from the Cochrane paper, but it’s as much about the process of science as it is about the effectiveness of masks. First, the reasons I don’t totally buy the Cochrane review’s conclusions: The review includes 78 studies. Only six were actually conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, so the bulk of the evidence the Cochrane team took into account wasn’t able to tell us much about what was specifically happening during the worst pandemic in a century. Instead, most of them looked at flu transmission in normal conditions, and many of them were about other interventions like hand-washing. Only two of the studies are about Covid and masking in particular. Furthermore, neither of those studies looked directly at whether people wear masks, but instead at whether people were encouraged or told to wear masks by researchers. If telling people to wear masks doesn’t lead to reduced infections, it may be because masks just don’t work, or it could be because people don’t wear masks when they’re told, or aren’t wearing them correctly. There’s no clear way to distinguish between those possibilities without more original research — which is not what a meta-analysis of existing work can do. ...
I know about the Cochrane study and have mentioned it before. It confirms what I have been saying for a while now: Masks have little to no impact on preventing Covid. Hence, mask mandates are not only stupid, but illegal.
another one for the conspiracy theorists. it was said repeatedly vaxxing was better than natural immunity, even though for decades it was common knowledge in the medical field that natural immunity was always better. yet for covid this changed. of course, it only changed due to the vax mandates because if the news and social media pumped out this "new" info on natural immunity being better, those mandates would have had a much harder time going through. now that mandates are basically over and folks are getting their jobs back, this info now is sent out as if it is new information. I was called a conspiracy theorist many many times for suggesting natural immunity is better https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...ective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02465-5/fulltext
That's good news out of bad news (Omicron infecting so many). It's not surprising news either. For at least more than a year ago, there were comparisons between infection after vaccination without prior infection and infection after prior infection with and without prior vaccination. We already knew infection provided protection, but just like vaccination, it takes months and even years to know how long-lasting the protection is. But it was clear early on that while protection against infection wanes after a few months, protection against severe illness and death should be much longer-lasting. The conspiracy here is not that we didn't already have clues, but that this was hidden (it wasn't). This latest study itself is a meta-analysis that looked at 65 studies from 19 countries from inception to 9/31/22. This study couldn't possibly have been published any earlier than a few months after October of last year. ------------------ "Still, experts stress that vaccination is the preferable route to immunity, given the risks of Covid, particularly in unvaccinated people. “The problem of saying ‘I’m gonna get infected to get immunity’ is you might be one of those people that end up in the hospital or die,” Murray said. “Why would you take the risk when you can get immunity through vaccination quite safely?” When should I get a Covid booster? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends waiting three months after an infection to get a booster dose. It may be reasonable for people with healthy immune systems to stretch that out a little bit more, to six months, as the immune response continues to develop, said Deepta Bhattacharya, a professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona. “We know that the immune response continues to mature over the course of about six months, both for vaccines and for infections,” he said. “Waiting about six months gives you the best bang for your buck.” Wachter said that while it’s not harmful to get a booster earlier, there is some flexibility with the timing for people who recently had Covid. “If you are thinking about getting a booster, it’s a perfectly reasonable call to look at this and say I’ll wait six or eight months before getting my booster,” Wachter said. “That’s a reasonable conclusion from looking at the study.”
Nope! this is why you're using an article on boosters and not the original shots. people were silenced/ridiculed/called conspiracy theorists for suggesting natural immunity was better than the (then) incoming vaccines. show me an article from any major news source pre Fall 2021 that was touting natural immunity as better than vaxxing to prevent serious illness and death. you won't find any because they were all under the same narrative to push the vaccines in order to usher in mandates that would make pharma even more money the reason why people were touting natural immunity to be stronger (early as summer 2020 when the vaccine rollout plans were heating up) is because covid, like all viruses, will give someone recovering from it naturally a stronger immune system than someone who vaxxed against it. in the case of covid, months after vaxxing your immune system starts to regress (it's in the same article I linked).
Rule would mandate defibrillators in high schools The University Interscholastic League voted Monday to require each of its nearly 1,300 member high schools to have an automated external defibrillator on its campus.. ..The unanimous approval by the governing body of Texas' public high school sports follows a recommendation made Oct. 1 by the UIL's Medical Advisory Committee. Both actions followed the sudden deaths of four Houston-area athletes in a span of three weeks. https://www.chron.com/news/health/a...te-defibrillators-in-high-schools-1492855.php NOTE: This was back in 2007. Soon after, the State of Texas made the requirement a law. Anyone who thinks this is something new..didn't care about it before the vaccine came out, and they only care about it now because they oppose the vaccine.
“Conspiracy theory!” “Already debunked!” “Misinformation!” “Fact checkers say it’s not true!” You’re banned!
Not concluded. The Department of Energy's "intelligence" suggests that a lab mishap is the "most likely" source of original transmission (it's important to note that this is different from the idea that the virus was created in a lab). However, their confidence in this assessment remains "low" following the acquisition of new intelligence. Prior to this new information, their assessment was that the origin of the virus was "unknown". I hope people will realize that government departments with intelligence operations are continuously updating their assessments on the origin of Covid-19 as they obtain new information, as directed by the Biden administration.
Well I'll be darned, Republicans (and Trump) were correct again. The virus came from a lab in China. Our own government agencies now admit it! It still amazes me how many seemingly intelligent people still believe the media 100% and even mock those as stupid who do NOT believe the media... even after lie after lie is exposed. Liberals, is it time to reset your beliefs? Republicans telling the truth yet again, liberals aiming to control the masses by purposefully lying yet again.
If you jump to the conclusion that the origin is from a 'lab leak' after a low confidence assessment from the Dept of Energy, then you are showing strong bias if you didn't also jump to the conclusion that the origin is from a 'natural exposure' after the low assessment from the other 4 departments (which remain their assessments). The same goes for the other way around. Note also that these are mostly intel assessments, not scientific assessments. Scientific assessments continue to strongly believe origin is from a natural exposure of an infected animal.
