• If you are not fully vaccinated and aged 2 or older, you should wear a mask in indoor public places.
• In general, you do not need to wear a mask in outdoor settings.
  
  • In areas with high numbers of COVID-19 cases, consider wearing a mask in crowded outdoor settings and for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated.
• People who have a condition or are taking medications that weaken their immune system may not be fully protected even if they are fully vaccinated. They should continue to take all precautions recommended for unvaccinated people, including wearing a well-fitted mask, until advised otherwise by their healthcare provider.
• If you are fully vaccinated, to maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.
• If you are fully vaccinated, see When You've Been Fully Vaccinated.

AggieKatie2 said:

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The Agly Duckling said:

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AggieKatie2 said:

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Corporate appears to be instituting vaccination requirement to enter office, but also commented about mask being required in public areas.

Looking at hospital and death rate per 100,000 for vaccinated persons (per NYT site)....the numbers now appear to be well below pre-covid flu numbers, so why are we still forcing masking?

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If you'/re vaccinated you are well protected against getting severe illness, hospitalization and death. You may still contract the virus and spread it to other people.

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You are not telling me anything I don't know. Even with a mask you can still spread it, but if the other party is vaccinated, then the likelihood of hospital/death is SOOOOO freaking low.

In your opinion, what is the goal? Because 0 hospitalization and 0 deaths from Covid, vaccinated or not, will most likely never occur in my lifetime, if ever. You can't save every life, especially when lifestyle choices have such a major impact on severity and survivability.

Everyone's number is different, but for me, I believe the governments original lockdowns did more harm than good to quality of life/economy/etc. So taking that a step further, post-vaccination restrictions of any kind are farcical and sit on the extreme of conservative risk mitigation.

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GAC06 said:

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Do you still not realize that both masking and 6 ft separation were pulled out of thin air?

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GAC06 said:

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I'll be busy later so I can go ahead and answer my own question. As of April of 2021, the CDC said:

"CDC is not aware of any randomized controlled trials that show that masks or double masks or cloth face coverings are effective against COVID-19"

https://clashdaily.com/2021/04/cdc-response-to-foia-request-to-provide-studies-on-the-efficacy-of-masks-is-a-must-read/

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Taiwan took measures early on, including inspecting plane passengers coming from Wuhan starting Dec. 31, banning Wuhan residents on Jan. 23, suspending tours to China on Jan. 25, and eventually banning all Chinese visitors on Feb. 6.

Recognizing that it had to ensure an adequate supply of medical equipment, including face masks, for health professionals and the public, Taiwan's government stopped exports of surgical face masks on January 24 while requesting local companies to step up production. Daily production is set to reach 10 million soon, divided between the public, medical, and industrial sectors.

The government also took control of face mask distribution from the private sector on Jan. 31, ensuring there would be no hoarding of supplies or exploitative pricing, as has happened in other places such as Hong Kong. Taiwan also implemented a purchasing policy on Feb. 6 in which every Taiwanese can buy a certain amount of adult and children's masks per week from pharmacies and clinics for NT$5 ($0.17) each. And to allow for easier distribution and prevent long lines outside clinics, Taiwanese can now start ordering their masks online and pick them up at a later date.

To ensure coordination, Taiwan set up a unified command center, led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which manages resources, holds daily briefings, and is in control of public messaging. The authorities have also moved quickly to track down infected persons and map the cases to show the sources of infection. Educating the public on the risks of the illness and precautions to take through television notices and posters is also a big part of anti-coronavirus efforts.

As a major tech powerhouse, it's no surprise that Taiwan made use of tech tools to fight the outbreak. This includes using big data for analytics and developing platforms to inform people where masks are currently available and where infected people have been. Taiwan's health insurance and immigration agencies integrated local and foreign residents' 14-day travel history with their health insurance card data, allowing hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies to access that information when dealing with patients. People undergoing self-quarantine were called frequently by officials and had their phones tracked to make sure they didn't leave their residence.

It also helps that Taiwan has one of the world's best health systemsthanks to massive reforms in the 1990swhich provides affordable, comprehensive, and convenient services to its entire population, including the elderly and low-income groups. User health data is stored on a centralized system accessible to hospitals and clinics, so doctors can quickly see their patients' history.

While travel bans might seem a little controversial, the main priority for any country must be the safety of its own citizens. Though China criticized countries such as the United States and Australia for imposing travel bans on Chinese, the country locked down an entire province of about 60 million people in late January. This was still not enough to prevent Hubei from being ravaged with more than 67,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths, and the entire province remains in lockdown.

The measures came too late. By the time Wuhan was locked down on Jan. 23, 5 million people from the city were estimated to have had already dispersed across the country and overseas, leading to the spread of the coronavirus to every single Chinese province and region.

Wuhan's plight shows that a travel ban is only useful when it is enacted early on, not after an outbreak has happened. This is why Taiwan was right to enact one from early February.

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The spike is somewhat logical, even if the timing is unusual. When the pandemic hit, sending people inside and behind masks, respiratory illnesses like RSV circulated at "historically low levels," the CDC said in a report published today. Now that people are easing up on COVID-19 precautions, they are also coming back into contact with pathogens that have existed, but weren't spreading much, throughout the pandemic. RSV infections began to tick upward in April 2021, the CDC says.
In the U.S., RSV case counts are "incredibly high for the summer," Antoon says, "but it's about on par with what we see in the winter." That suggests COVID-19 prevention delayed the normal RSV season. A similar RSV spike happened during Australia and South Africa's summer seasons.
But what's harder to explain, Antoon says, is why RSV is circulating widely while some other respiratory viruses, like influenza, aren't. (Though infection rates for parainfluenza, which causes croup in children, are also rising right now, he notes.)

RSV is quite transmissible, more so than some other viruses. But one reason for the surge may be that children who typically wouldn't be susceptible to RSV are vulnerable this year.

Human immunity builds up over time. You're likely to have the worst reaction to a pathogen the first time you see it. After that, your body knows what it's up against and is better at fighting it off.
Typically, the CDC says, almost all children catch RSV in their first two years of life. But babies who were born during or shortly before the pandemic may not have encountered RSV as they usually would have, meaning they're extra susceptible to it now.
"These viruses don't disappear in the summer; they're just much, much lower in frequency," explains Dr. Richard Malley, a senior physician in pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital. Coming off a year when few children got RSV during its usual season, infections may spike "at times when they would normally not be present, presumably because a little bit of the immunity in the whole community was not reinforced by exposure," he says.
That's no reason for parents to panic, Antoon says. "All the instructions we give to parents winter after winter apply this summer," he says.

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scd88 said:

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The primary reason I took the shot was to ditch the mask. I'm not putting it back on except to fly.

It's bullshlt. Fogs up my glasses.

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The Agly Duckling said:

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scd88 said:

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The primary reason I took the shot was to ditch the mask. I'm not putting it back on except to fly.

It's bullshlt. Fogs up my glasses.

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An appropriate, well-fitting mask should not fog up your glasses. If you've got your breath coming up from your mask, there's likely a problem with your setup.

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