Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Boris Johnson moved to ICU. Govt says his condition has "worsened"

[iam416]

Welp, he's probably dead as fried chicken.

[iam416]

Where do you even get the masks?

You can make masks at home with rubber bands and some sort of cloth or paper towel. It's pretty easy. Again, these don't protect you. But, they do offer some protection for others from you. They decrease your germ-infested aerosolizin'.

[Ghengis Jon]

Al Kaline, MLB Hall of Famer (and battery inventor) has passed away.


One of baseball's greatest gentlemen.

[froot loops]

Hopefully Johnson pulls through, he is kind of a clown but I don't think much of the potential replacements.

[Dr. Strangelove]

That's too bad about Al Kaline.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Where do you even get the masks?

I searched last week on-line for surgical masks. Outside of N95s and full face respirators, these are the only masks purported to provide some benefit if worn properly...... NADA. From what I can tell here in FTL, there aren't any available in stores unless you happen to just walk in on shipment of surgical masks to a pharmacy. Here's what one pretty through research group had to say about cloth masks:
Conclusions


While this is not an exhaustive review of masks and respirators as source control and PPE, we made our best effort to locate and review the most relevant studies of laboratory and real-world performance to inform our recommendations. Results from laboratory studies of filter and fit performance inform and support the findings in real-world settings.

Cloth masks are ineffective as source control and PPE, surgical masks have some role to play in preventing emissions from infected patients, and respirators are the best choice for protecting healthcare and other frontline workers, but not recommended for source control. These recommendations apply to pandemic and non-pandemic situations.

Leaving aside the fact that they are ineffective, telling the public to wear cloth or surgical masks could be interpreted by some to mean that people are safe to stop isolating at home. It's too late now for anything but stopping as much person-to-person interaction as possible.

Masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security. If masks had been the solution in Asia, shouldn't they have stopped the pandemic before it spread elsewhere?

The article containing this quote was published on April 1st, 2020. Here's the link. The study itself and numbers are in the weeds but interesting nonetheless:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...sed-sound-data

The link below is to the CDC page that I posted about up thread providing instructions on how to construct home-made masks. I have one of these and will wear it in public knowing full well it is nothing more that social signaling. There's a link in this page to the page that outlines the CDC's new position that everyone should wear face masks in certain public setting (e.g. grocery stores).

If you read it carefully, though, it says exactly the same thing the U of AZ research team looking at face masks says ...... cloth face masks don't provide adequate protection alone and there is the risk that the general public will relax social distancing thinking they are protected by wearing a mask.

I'll reiterate what I said above when this entire face mask controversy - should we wear them in public or not - came up: Face masks of any type can be effective when donned in connection with had washing, social distancing and not touching your face. Any of these measures taken alone will NOT prevent infection with COVID-19 if you are exposed to virus containing droplets or aerosols. Period.

I do believe wearing a home made mask has social value as a means of getting everyone on board with taking steps to sop the Chinese virus.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...coverings.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

What exactly is preventing the Wisconsin Health Director from ordering polls closed tomorrow like Acton did here?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hours after Modly huffed that he stood by everything he said, he's issuing a "heartfelt" apology to Captain Crozier, his family, and the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt.

[Jeff Buchanan]

What exactly is preventing the Wisconsin Health Director from ordering polls closed tomorrow like Acton did here?

Why? Stupidity.......it's like Kemp in GA, Yeah, open the beaches or, "I didn't know that you could transmit COVID-19 virus when you're asymptomatic" until today (a week ago).

There are plenty of stupid people out there. Unfortunately they are in postilion to affect public health policy.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hours after Modly huffed that he stood by everything he said, he's issuing a "heartfelt" apology to Captain Crozier, his family, and the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt.

Count on the DON to make fucking ass-holes of themselves.

It is why for over 200 years the USMC has denied that it is a subordinate organization of the Navy.

[froot loops]

[froot loops]

[iam416]

What exactly is preventing the Wisconsin Health Director from ordering polls closed tomorrow like Acton did here?

The Ohio Director of Health has certain powers granted to her/him by Ohio Statute. Given how federalism works, it's quite possible Wisconsin's health director is not so endowed with those powers. Or perhaps they think the courts won't support them (like the Ohio Supreme Court eventually did with the DeWine administration).

However, the Governor probably does have the power. So, the question is why is this D not doing it? I would look into party politics for that one. Or he's just completely feckless.

[iam416]

The institutional battle that went on was Wisconsin's feckless Governor more or less wanting the courts to own the decision, not him. So, a District Court weighed in and literally made up stuff and the Supreme Court overturned that decision and let it go forward. Now, politically, the D Governor can blame the "conservative" Supreme Court, always a great political bogeyman for his party. It's a rather fascinating game of political hot potato.

And then, I guess, once the Supreme Court declined to "own" what happens in Wisconsin (properly, I might add), the Governor finally blocked in-person voting and extended the election date.