Does the coronavirus merit investment, or personal, concern or consideration?

pandemic issues with students and disrupted learning and mental health, a Canadian teacher’s perspective.

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I’m 10x more concerned about my wife getting it than I am about myself. Good news so far. My 5 year old tested negative yesterday and my wife tested negative today.

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And what’s wrong with that agenda? Based on what you quoted, hospitalization rates are the highest amongst the unvaccinated who did not recover from a prior infection, right? Why is it so difficult for you to imagine all the hospitals overflowing and turning patients away?

And 80% of deaths have been over age 65. And that’s before considering how many have had 4+ comorbidities. If we’re going to parse relative risks, there’s a lot to be parsed.

This was about pushing vaccines on those who have already recovered. I didn’t say anything about the third group, that isn’t part of either of the other two.

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Sounds far more effective than “vaccine passports”, in numerous ways.

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Seems to me it used best for research purposes. It could tell us without speculation (which is really all we’ve been doing up until now) which people spend the most time around the virus, what those people are doing, how often they do what they’re doing, who are they around, etc. I say give them to everyone in a town in a giant study and find out which workers are actually in “danger” at work. Is it teachers, nurses, first responders, hospitality workers, retail workers, indoor industrial workers, closed office workers, open office workers, etc? If waiters are around the virus more than teachers, give them the N95s at gov’t expense and don’t worry about the teachers. If teachers really are around it more, give them the good masks. Consider OSHA rules based on actual risk data instead of a blunderbuss approach covering every single worker. Kavanaugh and ACB would uphold that OSHA rule.

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Depends on how quickly the device reacts. I could see them much like radiation detectors some professions use in potentially hazzardous environments - where if it changes color, you know it’s time to get out.

I have to assume that if you were exposed to the extent of getting infected, that little device would’ve also been triggered. So with this little thingy, you’d be able to quickly tell if the person walking up to you is a potential threat. Not perfect, of course, but far better than all the speculation over risks. I’d put far more weight on someone’s sensor not being triggered than I do on someone flashing a card saying they got a couple shots at some point.

In the article it said they wore it for a week before the element inside was removed and tested to see how much virus it picked up, so no, not useful in that way. It’s not a self contained environment tester, it’s just a specimen collector, hence my suggestion it’s only good for research.

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Seems like only a couple steps away from getting it to that point, though.

I do like having waitresses and teachers and grocery store cashiers wear them just at work for a week, and see what happens. Although I can only imagine the outrage when the data shows that certain occupations are in fact not particularly unsafe.

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Seemed like we should have been only a couple months away from easily accessing and taking at-home rapid tests back in summer 2020, yet here we are. If it makes sense, it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

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And then we can use @meed18 's blunderbuss! :mask:

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The federal agencies haven’t gotten this message, that’s for sure.

Falsehoods and half-truths have consequences. Publishing flawed science to raise irrational fear, making false statements about the efficacy of treatments, and extrapolating data from one vaccine to another all constitute bad scientific practice. In normal times, scientists would not tolerate such behavior. Yet, repeatedly, federal agencies and respected organizations push recommendations that are deeply uncertain, rely on fearmongering, or provide hollow reassurances. The right answer would be to acknowledge the massive residual uncertainty surrounding these issues and embark on studies to reduce it.

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Covid pills and future viral resistance suggest moving eventually towards multi drug treatment ala HIV so the virus is killed before it can mutate enough to evade all the antiviral mechanisms.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/i-am-done-with-masks-weve-been-idiotic-about-them-since-the-beginning/ar-AAT3h3u?li=BBnb7Kz

I wont hold my breath for appologies to those who have been repeatedly beaten down for saying the same things for most of the past 2 years. We’ll just ignore that you are late…really, really late… arriving to this conclusion and appreciate the fact you finally made it at all.

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Covid humor

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That article links to another about how many times an N95 mask could be worn (up to 5 they say). But the reason for that and the key to longevity is cleanliness. I don’t see a reason why you couldn’t wear one for weeks. The ones I’ve used (3M) don’t degrade, and the only reason to not reuse them is they may get dirty or contaminated when you touch them. So don’t touch them, or put a surgical (or cloth) mask on top to keep it clean, and you can use it until the bands fall off.

There are bunch of legit N95s in stock on Amazon (sold by Amazon). Costco.com has some in stock. Anyone who wants them should be able to get them. I’ve said it once before that proper masks are our best way out of this, only to be corrected by someone who said that vaccines are our best way out of this. But I did not then and do not now believe that, because vaccines aren’t that good at stopping Omicron.

As far as regular cloth masks, we’ve known from the beginning they are ineffective (there were multiple research studies and graphs showing effectiveness of various masks against aerosols). But lots of cloth masks come with filters, like charcoal or something, and these filters are supposed to make them much more effective. The people who wore cloth masks without filters have nobody to blame but themselves IMO.

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A lot of such masks also came with vents… :crazy_face:

Dont say that too loud…

That was me.

Neither are masks. Literally nothing is good at stopping Omicron. Vaccines are our BEST WAY OUT OF THIS, and stopping omicron is NOT part of the way out of this.

But everyone that said it online literally had their posts removed, called misinformation, or were suspended. So no, most people did not know that and didn’t believe people when they said it.

I’ve literally never seen someone wearing a cloth talk about how they are wearing it with a filter.

Please find me a video clip of Fauci or someone like that on TV telling us in 2020 or the first 3 quarters of 2021 that we should only be wearing cloth masks with filters. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use the word “filter” until VERY recently.

So all the public health officials that wouldn’t say they were ineffective like Fauci and all his underlings, and all the silicon valley gate keepers that wouldn’t let people say it freely online don’t deserve any blame? This has to be one of the worst takes I’ve read from you on this forum.

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Did you get your share, or just pay for it?

So far, $100 billion of it has been straight-up stolen, “resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects who span the spectrum from individuals to organized groups,” according to a CNBC report. Don’t worry, though, the feds are on the case, and so far they’ve recovered … $2.3 billion.

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Mostly just paid for it. Had my prior job eliminated at a local government that received tens of millions in relief dollars that went to projects they already had budgeted (new HVAC systems, new ambulances).

But my new employer also received a little over $1.5 mil, probably closer to $2 mil in relief when all is said and done. Curious to see if they do the right thing and factor in 40 year high inflation into raises this year, which they really should since they are flush with cash (we made over 20% on our investments pushing our endowment up to $90 mil this year).

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