They’re not wrong…read a report about 6 months into the covid thing saying that if the govt had conveyed it as our enemy we likely would’ve had much more success in battling it Vs the divide we’ve had on it.
@PHRoG yeah, unfortunately it became a bit political. Somehow wearing masks became a party-line issue and it never should have been.
Perhaps if the narrative from the then President had not been “wearing a mask means you’re a commie bastard” and instead been “wearing a mask is a matter of national pride to protect against a ‘chinese weapon’” some of the far right who refused to wear masks would have worn them and lives would have been saved.
The wrong choice of ill-informed propaganda was used unfortunately.
@OnionSoup Some governors requiring covid positive patients be housed in nursing homes didn’t help the death count either though… and I feel like that had a more direct effect on people catching and dying of COVID than any other factor.
@mbersiam@OnionSoup
not an issue in my state where way too many people died.
one of the most interesting statistics is actually that of how few influenza cases there were and how few people even had winter colds related to basic public health.
@Cerridwyn@mbersiam yeah, I’m sure the masks cut back on all sorts of illnesses that normally go around.
Unfortunately, I live in the kind of place where wearing a mask was very political. A lot of people didn’t wear them at the height of the pandemic because it was “liberal” to wear masks.
Unfortunately, eradicating this virus may be too hard. In the days of polio and smallpox, there were less people total, and far less travelling, especially internationally. That made it easier to get ahead of it with vaccines. Additionally, the mutation speed and transmission rate of this virus are working against us. If we can get to the point where nearly everyone is vaccinated with the current vaccines, nearly everyone should have at least partial immunity even to new strains, hopefully strong enough immunity to keep the symptoms down to “common cold”
It turns out that the “common cold” is actually causes by any one of multiple viruses. A couple of those viruses are coronaviruses, and it’s theorized that one of them, which came from cows, may have been the cause of the 1889-90 pandemic, which recurred into 1895. This comes from genetic research showing the virus jumped to humans around then, and matching up symptoms.
There’s a reason why doctors have been for years unsuccessfully trying to “cure the common cold” Actually a couple of reasons. 1. There are multiple viruses causing colds, with similar symptoms. 2. It’s moving targets. By the time you come up with an effective vaccine for a strain and distribute enough of it, because there are so many people carrying and spreading it, new strains pop up that may be resistant.
@kevinrs Which makes masking and social distancing an important part of public health policy until this thing is under control globally, not just the hot spots “somewhere else” that are affecting “other” people. A certain political party’s demonization and propaganda makes it essentially a xenophobic death cult.
They’re not wrong…read a report about 6 months into the covid thing saying that if the govt had conveyed it as our enemy we likely would’ve had much more success in battling it Vs the divide we’ve had on it.
@PHRoG yeah, unfortunately it became a bit political. Somehow wearing masks became a party-line issue and it never should have been.
Perhaps if the narrative from the then President had not been “wearing a mask means you’re a commie bastard” and instead been “wearing a mask is a matter of national pride to protect against a ‘chinese weapon’” some of the far right who refused to wear masks would have worn them and lives would have been saved.
The wrong choice of ill-informed propaganda was used unfortunately.
@OnionSoup Some governors requiring covid positive patients be housed in nursing homes didn’t help the death count either though… and I feel like that had a more direct effect on people catching and dying of COVID than any other factor.
@mbersiam @OnionSoup
not an issue in my state where way too many people died.
one of the most interesting statistics is actually that of how few influenza cases there were and how few people even had winter colds related to basic public health.
@Cerridwyn @mbersiam yeah, I’m sure the masks cut back on all sorts of illnesses that normally go around.
Unfortunately, I live in the kind of place where wearing a mask was very political. A lot of people didn’t wear them at the height of the pandemic because it was “liberal” to wear masks.
Unfortunately, eradicating this virus may be too hard. In the days of polio and smallpox, there were less people total, and far less travelling, especially internationally. That made it easier to get ahead of it with vaccines. Additionally, the mutation speed and transmission rate of this virus are working against us. If we can get to the point where nearly everyone is vaccinated with the current vaccines, nearly everyone should have at least partial immunity even to new strains, hopefully strong enough immunity to keep the symptoms down to “common cold”
It turns out that the “common cold” is actually causes by any one of multiple viruses. A couple of those viruses are coronaviruses, and it’s theorized that one of them, which came from cows, may have been the cause of the 1889-90 pandemic, which recurred into 1895. This comes from genetic research showing the virus jumped to humans around then, and matching up symptoms.
There’s a reason why doctors have been for years unsuccessfully trying to “cure the common cold” Actually a couple of reasons. 1. There are multiple viruses causing colds, with similar symptoms. 2. It’s moving targets. By the time you come up with an effective vaccine for a strain and distribute enough of it, because there are so many people carrying and spreading it, new strains pop up that may be resistant.
@kevinrs Which makes masking and social distancing an important part of public health policy until this thing is under control globally, not just the hot spots “somewhere else” that are affecting “other” people. A certain political party’s demonization and propaganda makes it essentially a xenophobic death cult.