If school openings caused covid outbreaks, you would see maps of states with open schools showing higher rates than states with closed schools, but that’s not the case. Also, kids having to quarantine because of school policy doesn’t mean school is unsafe. How many of those kids were actually sick? How many were hospitalized? How many died? The fact is, a kid that tests positive for covid doesn’t even mean that the kid was sick. So positive tests in a school doesn’t mean the school is unsafe.
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But that’s not what happened, it wasn’t the “few controversial soundbites”, it was the fact that it was presented by flat-earthers (basically). And yes, I agree with your friends and disagree with you – there’s no negative implication, because the really stupid, heavily disputed, and politically polarized (mis)information should not be spread by the most used platform. Keep it to the dark corners of the web that few care about. Keep the real research to scientific papers or medical journals, should your theories (and “theories”) be accepted.
What these “scientists” have been doing is an ongoing political stunt.
Real world data from PFE vaccine in a nursing home outbreak with a variant virus. VE = vaccine effectiveness, ie chance of preventing the same outcome vs unvaccinated.
Vaccinated residents and HCP [health care workers] were less likely to be infected than were unvaccinated persons. Attack rates in unvaccinated residents (75.0%) were 3 times as high as those in vaccinated residents (25.4%; RR = 3.0; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.7–5.2) and in unvaccinated HCP (29.6%) were 4.1 times as high as those in vaccinated HCP (7.1%; RR = 4.1; 95% CI = 1.5–11.6). The estimated VE against SARS-CoV-2 infection among residents was 66.2% (95% CI = 40.5%–80.8%) and among HCP was 75.9% (95% CI = 32.5%–91.4%).
VE against symptomatic COVID-19 was 86.5% (95% CI = 65.6%–94.7%) among residents and 87.1% (95% CI = 46.4%–96.9%) among HCP. VE against hospitalization was 94.4% (95% CI = 73.9%–98.8%) among residents; no HCP were hospitalized. Three residents died, two of whom were unvaccinated (VE = 94.4%; 95% CI = 44.6%–99.4%).
With numbers like that, allowing HCP to remain unvaccinated is criminal. Somehow I doubt they were properly shielding with PPE at work, which, understandably, is probably somewhere between difficult and impossible at a nursing facility. More reason to have 100% vaccination among staff, since some patients may not be.
News out of Canada this morning:
Canada has stopped incoming flights from India and Pakistan. This was done to protect Canadians from COVID-19 which is rampant in those countries.
Canada has also placed limits on ability of persons from India and Pakistan to travel first to a third country, thence on into Canada. Same reason.
Has Biden taken similar measures to protect us Americans here at home? I remember back at the end of January 2020, Trump stopped incoming flights from China. Biden at that time excoriated Trump for so doing and viciously called him every name in the book. That was then. This is now. I hope Biden is putting America and Americans first, and not Indians and Pakistanis.
The first step to mandatory vaccination is to have an approved vaccine to mandate. What would be criminal is forcing people to be test subjects injecting experimental substances into their bodies. That is far, far worse than any of the multitude of other “unfair” things people love to complain about.
I’m glad there is a vaccine available for all those who choose to take it; for many, the potential risks are far outweighed by the immediate benefits. But if it was proven to be safe, it would already be approved. It is not, because medicine is not approved based on people thinking it’ll probably eventually be proven safe.
Update
There is more now. It’s not just Canada.
From the Guardian:
Airlines have attempted to lay on extra flights to cope with passengers hoping to leave India and beat the Covid ban on entering the UK, but have been hit with rebuttals by airports and by cancellations.
India, which reported more than 314,000 new coronavirus infections – a daily Covid-19 infection record globally – is facing a critical shortage of hospital beds and oxygen, and will be added to the UK red list from 4am on Friday 23 April.
This red list restriction bans entry for all but British or Irish nationals, or people with residence rights in the UK. These arrivals are required to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days in the UK at their own expense after leaving India.
Australia is also tightening up.
ETA
I have searched online. Am unable to locate any news of flight restrictions regarding travel from India to the USA.
I’m glad to debate the topic with you, but we have to agree on the basic facts first. What you just said is incorrect. YouTube gave their reason for deleting the video and NBC News outlined the statements that coincide with the policy YouTube said they violated. It was indeed a few controversial soundbites. If you are willing to start from the point that NBC reported directly from YouTube and not the false claim you just made, we can discuss this.
We all saw the result of reluctance to stop disseminating violent incitement by an “elected official” on January 6th.
IMO, a nutjob being elected to some office should not give them the ability to violate terms of services and compel private companies to spread their dangerous false information. At least not in a “free” country…
It’s a poor policy these companies had previously settled on to exempt elected officials from their terms of service.
MIT professors Martin Bazant, who teaches chemical engineering and applied mathematics, and John Bush, who teaches applied mathematics, developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor setting that factors in a variety of issues that could affect transmission, including the amount of time spent inside, air filtration and circulation, immunization, variant strains, mask use and even respiratory activity such as breathing, eating, speaking or singing.
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the six-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks,” Bazant said. “It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
The important variable the CDC and WHO have overlooked is the amount of time spent indoors, Bazant said. The longer someone is inside with an infected person, the greater the chance of transmission, he said.
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Groundbreaking. Almost as if no one has been arguing this fact for over a year… 
I’m pretty sure people were dismissed and berated for suggesting that “6 feet!” is arbitrary, and it is the size of the space, concentration/number of people in that space, and time spent in that space that actually makes a difference as far as exposure risk.
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OK, I see what I did wrong. I agree with you that the stated reason for removal was specific controversial soundbites. What I actually meant to say was that I agree with the removal, but my agreement is not a result of those specific soundbites. I think these people should not have a big platform in the same way that I think flatearthers should not have a platform – they do not deserve the attention they’re getting.
You are comparing their beliefs to what you believe. When I look at them, I compare it to the massve platforms given to various religions, which are also based solely on personal, unsubstantiated beliefs that are asserted to be fact.
If you’re going to allow beliefs to be expressed, you allow all beliefs to be expressed. If you’re going to purge claims as being baseless, lacking facts, and false, there’s a whole lot more that needs to be silenced on those same grounds, including (I suspect) a lot of your own beliefs.
As with anything else, if you feel something isnt deserving of attention, the first step is to stop giving it your attention. And once you’ve done that, there is no second step because a second step would be giving it more attention.
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Great, I’m glad we can start from the same place. I actually think I can argue what YouTube did was wrong without even delving into the quality of the information that those guys presented, but I do appreciate your honesty. Your problem is with them and YouTube shouldn’t give a platform to people you disagree with. I think more people that advocate for speech restrictions believe this, but claim they don’t. I’m glad you are being honest.
The first reason that YouTube shouldn’t remove this content and content like it is because their policy that they point to is essentially garbage. It’s nearly impossible to know if you’ve broken it and therefore it is unenforceable. They told NBC news, “We removed AIER’s video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19.” The specific policy says: “Don’t post content that promotes prevention methods that contradict local health authorities or WHO.” And, “Don’t post claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19.”
Local health authorities and the WHO contradict each other when it comes to who should wear masks. The CDC says over 2 years old. Virginia says 5 years and older. The WHO says 12 and older. These guys said kids in school don’t need masks. Would they still be violating the policy if they said “Kids in school under 12 don’t need masks?” It’s impossible to tell based on the way the policy is written. If you are going to call certain speech on the topic of COVID blasphemy and remove blasphemy, you need a gospel to follow. But YouTube is hedging because they don’t know which gospel to point to. So no one knows if they’ve blasphemed unless YouTube says so. That’s an unworkable policy. Another example of how unworkable it is - had any of those guys said the J&J vaccine was unsafe during that panel, YouTube’s policy would have called for its removal. Days later, that same statement was essentially the law of the land. A policy that changes day to day based on the way the wind is blowing in front of a particular bureaucrat’s house is a policy that is impossible to follow and enforce.
The second reason it shouldn’t be removed is because it actually hurts people to take away content like this. This wasn’t the Rush Limbaugh show. This wasn’t even the Alex Jones show. It was a panel at the Florida Capital. The citizens of Florida have a right to know what the people that are shaping their laws are saying about public health policy. Whether you like it or not, what these guys say has an effect on public health policy. If you live in Florida and you want to know why there isn’t a mask mandate, YouTube has made it more difficult for you to find that out. If you say this content should be removed, what about a livestreamed local school board meeting debating what that school district should do about masking? Mask policies for next year are being debated right now. New data is coming in daily. Data that may support these guys’ positions (GASP!). There will be parents at those meetings saying the same thing as these guys when it is time to decide if their 8 year old need to wear a mask in school next year. School boards will be voting on this stuff. Should those videos be removed too? Those discussions are part of our public discourse and YouTube is synonymous with public discourse, is it not? It harms public discourse when they remove public policy discussions just because they disagree with a few things some people said.
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Note I never said anything about silencing them, just that they don’t deserve a big platform.
I also do not have a big platform, so if any of my beliefs are wrong or harmful, it may only affect a very small number of people.
It’s no more a “free speech restriction” than FCC restricting which words cannot be used on public airwaves while kids are awake. YouTube is a private business, they’re not required to let everyone say whatever is on their mind. There are a whole lot of quacks on there, and the recommendation algorithm is meant to steer users deeper and deeper into whatever topics they watch, which makes it extremely troublesome for society.
I would think that the WHO has no authority in the US – CDC does. I suppose Virginia’s CDC-equivalent has authority in Virginia, which then might become a question of where the content is actually hosted or whether YouTube must care.
Sure – put it on a public channel in Florida. Let Florida be… Florida.
In my opinion it was specifically orchestrated this way – a public forum with the governor specifically to make it look legitimate and in public interest, even though their positions are disputed by most scientists. This was not a real public forum and there was no debate – it was a one-sided farce.
It’s YouTube. You have the exact same platform they do. No one “deserves it.” But google doesn’t make you fill out a “Do you deserve this” questionnaire before posting content.
The FCC doesn’t regulate content. It regulates profanity. There’s a difference.
I am not arguing that YouTube shouldn’t be allowed to do what they did. I’m just talking about whether they should have done it.
YouTube is the one that listed the WHO specifically. Do you seriously think the location of the content is the way they should go about regulating it? You have pretty much just proved my point that the policy is unworkable.
So you think YouTube should be more restrictive than… public television? Have you been on YouTube recently? 90% of what’s on YouTube wouldn’t meet the standards for public television.
And more importantly, this isn’t limited to Florida. This is up for debate all over the country.
Whether or not you think it is legitimate, it is being used to shape public health policy in Florida and around the country. That may be good or bad, but that is neither here nor there. My point is that it is irresponsible for YouTube to censor ongoing public discourse over a couple controversial statements that may or may not be accurate based on the data we have today but could change based on new data tomorrow.
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Except for the small detail that undermining federal health policy (if they decided to disseminate the misinformation for the charlatans) is a direct assault on National Security… plus it kills people.
So we’re to the point where disagreeing with our leaders is criminal?
Ignoring, of course, how up to 6 months ago it was your right, and even your duty, to voice your opposition to anything you disagreed with?
Yes, it’s the same. The only difference is you agree with one, and disagreed with the other.
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There is no such thing as “federal health policy.” I don’t know where you live, but I live in County which is in a State. I and everyone around me must follow the local and state law when it comes to COVID-19. If YouTube decided to make its policy “Any blasphemy against the CDC gospel will be removed”, then a video of the Governor of Virginia (a democrat) explaining his executive order requiring kids 5 and older to wear masks would have to be removed from YouTube.
Have you stopped to think, why doesn’t YouTube have a policy that goes in the other direction? There is consensus that keeping kids out of school causes harm. Our current secretary of education said, “Students learn best in schools.” If YouTube were consistent, wouldn’t they have a policy against content that advocated schools remain closed or that claims that kids learn fine on computers? Is it possible they don’t have this policy because the only people that would run afoul of it are people on the left?
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No, where did I say youtube should arrest them?
I said youtube should not be compelled to provide a platform to and disseminate such disinformation. It appears there’s a group that thinks the federal government should step in and compel private corporations and individuals to … undermine said government.
You are free to disagree with federal government policy all you want. You may even be free to actively work to undermine it.
Millions are free to disagree but not free to actively work to undermine the federal government. They’ve agreed to strong criminal penalties for doing so.