It’s only this past fall when the U.S. began allowing non-residents who had been to Europe in the previous 14 days to enter the country by air. The March 2020 policy that was supposed to help keep Covid-19 out of the country somehow lasted more than a year and a half. This was replaced by a policy of requiring vaccination and testing, and requirements were just extended to land crossings for non-residents this month.
When the U.S. imposed travel bans on some African countries once the Omicron variant was detected this was supposed to ‘buy time’ for the government to be able to do something about the virus, before it entered and started spreading across the U.S. However,
- The Omicron variant turns out to have already been here and spreading when the ban was put into place
- The travel bans were porous, they applied only to non-U.S. resident foreigners, U.S. citizens could return with the virus
- The U.S. didn’t really have much of a plan to ‘do something’ with any time this might have bought anyway, even if the virus wasn’t already spreading here and even if it were strict enough to matter
Travel bans can make some sense for a country that has kept the virus out and has pursued a policy of containment. It’s debatable whether that’s the right strategy for a country to pursue, but it is a coherent one. The U.S. has never seriously entertained such a strategy, or been in a position to pursue such.
A vaccination requirement could make sense for entry for one of two reasons,
- When vaccines are sufficiently neutralizing, as mRNA vaccines were against earlier strains (we’re still vaccinating against the ancestral Wuhan strain). There’s some chance that variant-specific vaccines or boosters could restore this, and there’d be confidence that the person entering the country wouldn’t be spreading the virus. But it’s fairly non-sensical to require this when there’s no such requirement for everyone else already in the country.
- Because vaccines are highly effective against hospitalization, boosted individuals using mRNA vaccines are 90% less likely to be hospitalized from Omicron than unvaccinated individuals. If the concern was someone coming into the country who might become hospitalized in a situation where beds are scarce and health systems overwhelmed and every hospitalized case counts then this would be a logical requirement.
The first case is unsupported by current vaccines, and the second case is time-limited. Once hospitals are no longer overwhelmed a vaccine requirement makes little sense. There’s no more threat from unvaccinated foreigners than unvaccinated Texans.
Meanwhile a testing requirement as currently deployed makes far less sense.
- Antigen tests are accepted, and these show current infectiousness rather than detecting infection. Someone may be infected and spread the virus after they’ve arrived in the U.S. even though they tested negative.
- This is doubly true since tests are permitted any time the day prior to travel departure. A negative test might be about 48 hours old by the time someone arrives.
Now, if The U.S. testing policy actually kept infected people out of the country (it doesn’t), what would this be accomplishing?
- The virus is already spreading widely in the U.S., so this doesn’t ‘keep the virus out’
- Vaccines and boosters are already available, allowing most Americans to be protected against severe outcomes anyway
- Outstanding treatments are about to become more widely available
You might think we’re trying to keep out new variants but,
- That hasn’t worked thus far with the most serious variants
- With the level of infection in the U.S. it’s likely that residents already here are one of the main sources of creating new variants in the first place
Our current policies aren’t just failing, they have failed. But there’s a stickiness to current policy because lifting them creates a problem of optics. There’s can’t be a recognition that these policies have failed, except by a new administration that hasn’t already owned them. It took over a year and a half to even allow vaccinated Europeans testing negative for Covid into the country even when coming from a place where prevalence of the virus was lower than in the United States at a given time.
That’s why I’ve held out hope for the 2022 midterms creating the opportunity to end policies that don’t make sense for public health, as part of a political necessity to ‘declare victory’ over Covid-19.
But what does that look like in practice? It’s not clear whether lifting all restrictions that make little sense has to happen for this. For instance, Argentina just announced an end to testing for vaccinated residents entering the country. This half-measure still allows politicians to,
- Frame themselves as responsible, because they’re only lifting restrictions on vaccinated even though that vaccination requirement provides modest protection of others and doesn’t affect the aggregate course of the nation’s experience with the virus
- Differentiate between foreigners and non-foreigners, which entails both a distinction between voters and non-voters and perpetuates the ‘fear of foreigners’ that have characterized the pandemic.
We will start to see restrictions of various kinds lift this year – different restrictions and different times and in different places at different times. Even though most tests the Biden administration is sending out aren’t able to be used to meet the administration’s testing requirements to enter the country it seems unlikely they’d lift testing requirements at the same time as ramping up testing distribution. The idea that testing is both needed and not needed isn’t a great political narrative.
So I maintain hope that ‘sometime before the midterms’ will bring some relief. That will mean after the current virus wave has subsided, of course. And I’m cognizant that the administration won’t want to remind the country about promises we’d be over this come July 4th, and that bureaucratic rules tend to outlive even their logic-as-narrative. Although the U.K.’s recognition that travel testing served no useful purpose provides some hope that the U.S. will do the same, perhaps first for vaccinated citizens in order to draw on convenient narratives and continue to appear responsible.
All of you pleading your case that no masks are needed, testing isn’t needed, nobody is dying, and on and on: maybe you should spend a simple week in a hospital treating these people. None of you entitled people would be able to survive that week with the efforts being required by the entire hospital staffs involved. They have been on it for two years now with no signs of relief because morons won’t vaccinate or wear a mask. Grow up you over-entitled cry babies. Wearing a mask, testing, or getting a shot every six months is nothing to cry about. Your parents failed, that is the failure in this story.
‘Can’t wait till the mid-term elections so I can vote all these clowns out of office!’
Yup, we should go with the smart folks who ‘think’ (using the term loosely) that horse meds are cures for COVID !
@Ray — “They have been on it for two years now with no signs of relief because morons won’t vaccinate or wear a mask.”
Yet the *vast majority* of current patients who required care at a typical hospital in USA was comprised of those who were *already jabbed,* as exposed during Summer, 2021, by Deborah Conrad, a Physician Assistant whistleblower at United Memorial Medical Center, Batavia, NY —
“As Ms. Conrad has detailed, her hospital serves a community in which less than 50% of the individuals were vaccinated for Covid-19 but yet, during the same time period, approximately 90% of the individuals admitted to her hospital were documented to have received this vaccine.”
Do you also believe that being jabbed prevents you from getting infected with Omicron and will stop its further spreading to others?
@JF — “Yup, we should go with the smart folks who ‘think’ (using the term loosely) that horse meds are cures for COVID !”
You should really *educate* yourself about Ivermectin for human use, before perpetrating such *DIS-information*! Try to learn some *Facts* about Ivermectin’s COVID-19 treatment track records — like having already saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives worldwide!
Since vaccines don’t stop the spread – why would a government care if someone is vaccinated.
It has no impact on public health.
Also, 2 years of this. Masks, vaccines, don’t travel, fauci is god.
And look, we’re worse off than ever.
And you people LOVE it.
Unreal.
You’ve been sold up a river, and the top 1% got rich (including Fauci).
Vote them all out of office, do not pass go, go directly to jail.
It’s time for governments to admit what the rest of us already know: the vaccines and travel bans/impediments do not work.
I think the figures that you are referencing re:better protection against hospitalization were drawing upon data in time when other variants were dominant.
Like death and taxes we will always have the unvaxxed among us. The question is when the rest of us can get on fully with our lives without worrying about protecting those who choose to risk a slow, miserable, pointless death.
Within weeks it will be time to restore normal procedures to almost all facets of life with vaccine and/or masking requirements for certain especially risky settings. We will need a program to provide specialized health service those who choose to go to the ICUs and morgues with Covid without denying proper medical attention to the rest of us. My cousin can’t get a needed knee replacement right now because the hospitals and medical personnel are swamped by the unvaxxed. It may take constructing special hospitals that could later be converted to another use.
As Gary points out, the current masking rules in aviation are pointless. If there must be a mask rule for a few more weeks, then require a mask that really works, not a symbolic cloth mask that is useless against omicron. The current international travel restrictions requiring multiple tests, quarantines and huge measures of inconvenience are of value only in places which really can keep Covid out, like Tuvalu or Nauru, They are useless here and in most of the world.
And we need to get serious about getting vaccines out to the rest of the world, especially Africa. If we keep on hoarding, we’ll see the pi variant on March 14, the rho variant on April 20 and the sigma variant coming soon.
I am tired of this miserable Covid semi-life and have been for a long time.
StrictlyFacts probably gave to Ms. Conrad’s GoFundMe, yet another in the line of conspiracy dupees at a higher risk for receiving the Herman Cain Award. Is the far right echo chamber just a giant circle jerk of falling for each others’ scams?
“THE FACTS: The false assertion that vaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized is based on one former physician assistant’s claim that 90% of all patients admitted to her hospital during a recent period were vaccinated against COVID-19. But the hospital records show the vaccination rate was far lower and there was no evidence of any connection between vaccination status and the various illnesses that led to the hospitalizations. A post circulating on Instagram last month cites a blog post by a lawyer representing Deborah Conrad, a former physician’s assistant at United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, New York, to falsely claim that people are “9x more likely to be hospitalized if they are vaccinated over unvaccinated patients.” Conrad wrote to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration earlier this year warning of possible “serious injuries from COVID-19 vaccines.” In the blog post, it notes that Conrad saw the number of patients in the hospital had “increased dramatically” and claimed that 90% of them were vaccinated against COVID. The hospital disputes her figures. Conrad provides no information for when the patients she reported were hospitalized, and her spokespeople declined to clarify”
Flew internationally in 2020 and 2021. The 3 day requirement in 2021 was a pain but doable.
This 1 day requirement is ridiculous.
If those who are frightened just NEED a security blanket, then as a minimum go back to the 3 day requirement.
I have 96 hours for Egypt, 72 hours for Dubai but can’t get back into my own country easily because of the 1 day.
Finally. For those who proclaim from their safe space, nobody needs to be traveling, stop projecting your fears on me. There’s still a lot of this big blue marble I want to see and not many years left to do so.
The return-testing requirement caused me to cancel a biz trip to Bogota this past week 24h before departure. I had a positive pre-flight COVID test, but then challenged that result with 2 subsequent negative tests within 4 hours of the first test. Even 1/3 caused me to back out of the trip, as I did NOT want to get stuck for a week in Colombia on a positive test trying to return to the US. If the return testing requirement was not in place, I would have taken the trip as normal.
So if the US wants to restart global biz travel, ending this needless testing requirement on return to the USA needs to end. IMO.
I used binax ag emed test to come back to usa. Worked well and easy.
@DaveS — “The question is when the rest of us can get on fully with our lives without worrying about protecting those who choose to risk a slow, miserable, pointless death.”
Yet *Facts* from current times of the Delta and Omicron variants contradict your claim —
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/10/29/fully-vaccinated-82-percent-deaths-66-percent-hospitalisations-in-england/
https://gellerreport.com/2021/12/phs-report-fully-vaccinated-account-for-9-in-every-10-covid-19-deaths-over-the-past-4-months.html/
“My cousin can’t get a needed knee replacement right now because the hospitals and medical personnel are swamped by the unvaxxed.”
Uh … perhaps you need to blame that obscene “vaccine” mandate which this administration UN-Constitutionally coerced upon our populace (which was partially struck down by SCOTUS recently, but still remains in effect for medical/health workers) —
https://www.theepochtimes.com/bidens-vaccine-mandate-will-worsen-pennsylvania-nursing-home-staffing-crisis_4025044.html
https://www.westernjournal.com/ever-covid-hospitals-ask-infected-staff-cut-sick-leave-short-return-work-amid-labor-shortage/
“And we need to get serious about getting vaccines out to the rest of the world, especially Africa.”
Ever heard that old saying “… if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it”?
https://hannenabintuherland.com/mideast/only-6-vaccinated-in-africa-and-very-low-covid-numbers/
———————————————————————————————-
@brad — “StrictlyFacts probably gave to Ms. Conrad’s GoFundMe”
I don’t know anything about her “GoFundMe” …
“The false assertion that vaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized is based on one former physician assistant’s claim that 90% of all patients admitted to her hospital during a recent period were vaccinated against COVID-19.” **plus** “… to falsely claim that people are ‘9x more likely to be hospitalized if they are vaccinated over unvaccinated patients.’ ”
So you want to contest Ms. Conrad’s claim for her particular hospital, but do you even realize that her 90% statistic has *also* been exhibited in many other hospitals *worldwide*? Just read those references that I gave in my response to @DaveS above (from the websites dailyexpose.uk and gellerreport.com)!
“But the hospital records show the vaccination rate was far lower and …”
You *do* understand how USA CDC has *intentionally* jiggered the definition of “vaccinated” to refer *only* to those whose status are at least 2-weeks *after* their “last mandated jab,” right? This was done in order to mask the #Deaths that may occur shortly after getting those cellular genetic therapy jabs, and to classify those deaths as being *Not* “vaccinated” — this is *Why* I trust UN-manipulated data from governments overseas (eg, EU, Israel, South Africa, etc) much more than from USA NIH/CDC/FDA; for example, UK actually breaks down their statistical status reports into separate groups, as to how many sequential jabs their patients had already gotten (or not) to date!
“The hospital disputes her figures.”
Of course the hospital *must* dispute her figures if they want to continue getting Federal aid in order to keep operating … going against “official NIH/CDC/FDA narratives” will be committing financial suicide for USA hospitals, which have already been totally strapped, financially, due to prior *Dysfunctional* lockdowns and shutdowns that have devastated our Society in so many ways!
The masking and testing requirement is doing more harm than good. It’s clearly not stopping the spread so I agree that the testing requirement should be dropped. At least for those who do the right thing by getting vaccinated. It’s time we let things return to normal for those who do the right thing. I’d be quite fine with a testing requirement for those who are anti-vax – it’s only fair. Let us who actually do the right thing get on with our lives and stopped being punished for the actions of those anti-vaxxers. Keep and even increase the restrictions for the anti-vaxxers and let the majority of people get on with their lives.
@Gary – why do you continually allow your blog to be hijacked by misinformation-spreading anti-vaxxers? Do better.
It has been 24 hours and still no volunteers to sit next to someone on a flight who has an active Covid infection that could have been detected by a test. Not even Gary appears to be brave enough for that. What a bunch of hypocrites. Smh
@UA-NYC
Those people turned out to be right. Like those that took the “horse paste” (which was neither paste or made for horses)
History is not on your side.
StrictlyFacts’s neckbeard must be full of froth and shift-8 must be positively worn out trying to do all that shouting. And s/he’ll just keep going further and further down that rabbit hole until granted his/her Herman Cain Award.
@UA-NYC — “why do you continually allow your blog to be hijacked by misinformation-spreading anti-vaxxers?”
You should just join in the public conversations about controversial issues, so jump right in and defend your points of view with *Factual* info and data that you believe will debunk posts that you disagree with!
Also … do you differentiate between those who are *not* anti-vaccines but *are* anti-mandates, vs. those who are *totally* anti-vaccines of all kinds? People should be free to get jabbed if they so choose, but they should *also* make their decisions to do so, in a *Factually* informed manner, and *not* just because some government authorities want to randomly coerce such actions upon our compliant populace!
For example, Fauci now states that “… kids who are younger than 4-years-old will likely get three doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is approved …”! And all that for an age group that has basically a *miniscule* (if not *Zero*) risk of dying from COVID-19! In fact, there have now been *more* kids under age 18 who have died *after* getting jabbed than have died of COVID-19 itself! Just *how* does *that* justify universal jabbing to feed recklessly voracious $$$ appetites of Big Pharma? So if parents are *against* such recklessly coercive actions, in order to *protect* the health and well-being of their kids, are they, then, to be categorized as “anti-vaxxers”, even if they’ve already gotten themselves jabbed for personal or employment reasons?
@kdogger – go please yourself while listening to your false idol Rogan
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/why-ivermectin-should-not-be-used-prevent-or-treat-covid-19
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-01-14/ivermectin-covid-cost?_amp=true
Btw ivermectin is literally a horse paste. Knock yourself out though anti vaxxer.
Another idiotic comment by @UA-NYC — “why do you continually allow your blog to be hijacked by misinformation-spreading anti-vaxxers?”
Did your limited intellect ever allow you to consider the fact that the Government, CDC and other organizations might ever be wrong. ?
I am fully vaccinated and am against mandates. Bidens idiotic policy has now caused me to be quarantined in the Philippines for the past 7 days due to myself and my daughter testing positive. My wife did not? They are also both fully vaccinated. We have no symptoms and are fine. Six of our other relatives in the PI who are all vaccinated also tested positive and are not sick. If the US and world economy hopes to recover silly mandates such as these must go away.
This ends when you stop complying and vote them out. The science left the building a long time ago.
@StrictlyFacts — Please be sure to send these twisters of the truth some cash, because they “desperately need it.” Talk about selective facts.
@ ChadMC — “It’s clearly not stopping the spread”. Yes, but is it clearly not reducing the spread? Wearing a mask isn’t going to kill anyone.
@ Gary — There sure are a lot of stupid people in the world. I guess someone has to hold the average IQ down to 100.
@UA-NYC — Congratulations … you have provided some reports for public discussions!
“Btw ivermectin is literally a horse paste. Knock yourself out though anti vaxxer.”
With respect to those reports you presented about Ivermectin, we all need to be cognizant that there *are* some who will go and do *silly* things out of *desperation* because federal agencies engaged in an *arbitrary* and *coercive* policy of “Vaccines or Nothing” that has absolutely harmed the entire public’s best health interests, and, thus, some in the public will resort to “desperate” means to circumvent that policy, but out of incomplete information upon which to proceed. This is exacerbated when pharmacies blindly follow the mandated “Vaccines or Nothing” policy and refuse to dispense Ivermectin to patients, even when prescribed by their physicians!
Look up the history of Ivermectin and you will find out that this anti-parasitic drug has been around since it was discovered in 1975 and approved for human consumption in 1987, with a Nobel Prize given in 2015. It is also on the W.H.O.’s List of Essential Medicines. And it has a stellar safety track record throughout its market history.
This said, the entire controversy revolves around off-label uses of Ivermectin for treating COVID-19 illnesses after it was discovered that its use, usually in conjunction with some additional medical compounds, proved to be tremendously safe and effective, as an alternative *therapeutic* treatment from “vaccines.” This discovery (just as with HydroxyChloroQuine) contravened the “Vaccines or Nothing” policy and became a centerpiece of DIS-information by federal agencies and media against its use.
Note that there are 2 formulations of Ivermectin — one for human consumption and another for animals. While both are based on the same underlying drug compound, its dispensed dosage strengths are different, with the animal version being stronger. For human use, Ivermectin is a prescription drug, but for animal use, it’s commonly available over-the-counter. Herein lies the issue, when pharmacies blindly follow a “Vaccines or Nothing” policy and refuse to fill Ivermectin prescriptions from doctors, and those who are *not* properly informed try to use the animal formulation as a workaround, only to end up with over-dosing issues.
With respect to the controversies surrounding use of Ivermectin to successfully treat COVID-19 illnesses (just as with HydroxyChloroQuine), note that those purported “medical studies confirming its lack of efficacy” are *totally* flawed and self-defeating, based on *how* they’ve been structured — one of the most glaring faults is how those “studies” purport to “test” Ivermectin against COVID-19, but do *Not* follow the well-established treatment protocols that doctors have used to successfully treat and save the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of patients worldwide. For example, one famous study, that I personally debunked, was carrying out its testing with a *lower* dose and for a *shorter* duration than what well-established treatment protocols were prescribing! How is *that* representative of *Real* world treatments being given? Furthermore, the concept of using the “scientific method” in those “studies” makes their tasks really difficult, to attain meaningful results, because, as stated above, Ivermectin is usually used in conjunction with other medical compounds and not just by itself. This being the case, the idea of doing a “controlled” experiment that monitors *only* Ivermectin vs non-Ivermectin, once again, does *Not* represent the *Real* world treatment protocols, and, as a result, such “studies” that purportedly show Ivermectin, used alone, to be “ineffective” against COVID-19 are *totally meaningless*!
Note that there *have* been other “studies” and experiential data that *do* confirm the safety and efficacy of Ivermectin use against COVID-19 —
https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/
https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/epidemiologic-analyses-on-covid19-and-ivermectin/
Also note how so many non-1st world countries, that do *not* have a “Vaccines or Nothing” policy, have very successfully “conquered” their COVID-19 crises with proper usages of Ivermectin — something that USA can *Not* even pretend to claim!
@Gene — “Please be sure to send these twisters of the truth some cash, because they “desperately need it.” Talk about selective facts.”
Instead of merely making personal proclamations about “selective” facts, why not present *your* perspective with some *Factual* documentation? Do *Not* be naive and gullible in believing whatever the Establishment wants you to believe, without *First* looking at actual *Facts*!
@Gene — “Yes, but is it clearly not reducing the spread? Wearing a mask isn’t going to kill anyone.”
This depends on the *type* of mask you’re talking about … for example, cloth masks are basically nothing more than “facial decoration” with respect to stopping or even slowing the spread! Over-wearing of masks can incur adverse breathing situations for a significant cross-section of our populace, especially among those who already have underlying breathing ailments, and among young children still in the process of maturing their lungs!
@Eergoed — “StrictlyFacts’s neckbeard must be full of froth and shift-8 must be positively worn out trying to do all that shouting. And s/he’ll just keep going further and further down that rabbit hole until granted his/her Herman Cain Award.”
Hmm … I used to use CAPS as emphasis, but that was interpreted as shouting … so I switched to “*” instead, but you’re saying that is still shouting … what do you use to provide emphasis that is not to be interpreted as shouting? I’m willing to adapt if you can provide an accepted alternative.
As for “going down that rabbit hole,” you should provide Factual documentations that support your perspective, rather than merely making unfounded personal pronouncements against other perspectives that do not conform to yours!
@StrictlyFacts ,
Don’t feed the trolls like @UA-NYC and @Gene, The cult of “Jim Jones” Fauci is strong, and no matter how the facts are presented, you won’t keep them from drinking the covid kool-aid.
The old saying “Arguing with retards on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded” applies here.
@Kevin — “Don’t feed the trolls like @UA-NYC and @Gene, …”
Yes … I totally understand your sentiment! But, at the same time, I also feel as if we *Must* stand our grounds, based upon *Real Facts,* and fight back against *Actual DIS-information,* so that everyone can have a balanced perspective on such controversial topics; otherwise, we will constantly get drowned out by Lies and Propaganda that are incessantly spewed by many government “health” agencies and majority Progressive Media to further their own nefarious agenda that are *Not* necessarily in the best interests of the public — health or otherwise.
I’ve found the best policy is to just hit “delete” whenever simply untrue facts posts…..
@StrictlyFacts it would be appreciated if you could provide DATA to back up your opinion. Mindlessly quoting unknown websites does not constitute FACTS….
It can probably be agreed that cloth masks are really of minimal benefit. 3-layer surgical masks are better and KN95 or N95 – properly fitted – are the best. Like anything else, avoiding infection is by far the best approach. If everyone wears a decent mask when in enclosed areas with others around, the risk of infection is reduced.
However, with regard to vaccination, a review of data is required. The only valid data for analysis is that provided by research organizations that collate statistics and responsible media that publish this.
CDC has published data in this regard: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220131&instance_id=51759&nl=the-morning®i_id=61533053&segment_id=81212&te=1&user_id=0b05efc57fa6ddb0f6a5ae490166dc7f
Detailed analysis of this provides a striking FACT.: as reported by NY Times, a generally well-regarded source of news….. Based on this weekly average daily deaths per 100,000 UNVACCINATED people was 7.8. For those, fully vaccinated without the booster it was 0.6 per 100,000 and for those with the booster, 0.1 people per 100,0000. In simple terms you are 780 times more likely to die from a COVID infection if you are unvaccinated, compared to those who are vaccinated and boosted.
Assuming that you consider this to be fake news – to boost the profits of drug companies or Fauci or whatever, lets take another example…
The British Virgin Islands – just under 30,000 people, was provided with vaccinations for all the population by the British government. Approximately 60% of the population have been vaccinated. There has been two major community outbreaks of COVID, with significant hospitalization of cases and 51 deaths. According to the Minister of Health – who has no link to any pharmaceutical company or Fauci – the vast majority of hospitalizations and ALL of the deaths were of unvaccinated people.
Given these FACTS the balance of probability is that the vaccines are effective…
Amazing that all you “medical professionals” seem to think that somehow your workload would disappear if all the “selfish” and “conservative” people would just wear the mask. Unfortunately, although you aren’t good with facts, most of the people (well over half even according to Mr. Cuomo) who are getting it were vaccinated and even more were wearing the masks. Don’t you hate it when those pesky facts disrupt your version of reality?
Thanks for this click-bait Gary, of course, you knew this would happen.
Every case we keep out of the U.S. probably prevents hundreds or even thousands of new cases (infected person comes in, infects a few others, who infect a few others, and so on.)
The fact that the system isn’t perfect and doesn’t prevent every single infected person from getting through doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable to try to limit/reduce the number of new cases we import. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and we’ll never have the perfect solution here. Your arguments are illogical (we can’t keep out every case, so we shouldn’t try to keep out any cases?)
I hope the testing requirement stays around so long as Covid is a threat, which is to say, indefinitely.
@Analytical —
You must either be new to this forum, or have not read my prior posts about COVID-19 matters, where I’ve gone into painful details about medical research studies and reports. Since you didn’t specify which post(s) you object to, based on lack of supporting evidence, I’m not able to clarify your views about those posts. However, after a bit, I realized that directly referencing those medical research studies and reports are probably not going to be easily understood by the general public, so I now reference cover articles that will very often then refer to the specific medical research studies and reports.
With respect to masks, as I had posted in the past, a large part of the problem in USA has been that most of the populace in USA, not being used to wearing masks in the past, just do *not* wear them properly, even if made with the better materials (eg, N95s). Those N95s are not as easy to adapt to, thus they’re not as widely used, aside from being discouraged from usages, early on, by CDC, in order to preserve inventories for front-line healthcare workers. However, in Asia, where people are used to wearing surgical masks, even when only having a cold/flu, the results should be better. But is “better” meaningful or significant? Lots of references in these blog posts that do *not* believe so —
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/masks-dont-work
https://gellerreport.com/2021/11/47-studies-confirm-ineffectiveness-of-masks-for-covid-and-32-more-confirm-their-negative-health-effects.html/
And note how masks can inflict damages to kids during their developmental ages —
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1486348069121794054
… while also being dangerous to their overall health —
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/study-shows-how-masks-are-harming-children/
With respect to the efficacy of COVID-19 “vaccines,” note that I’m debunking those who claim that “this is a pandemic of the UN-vaccinated,” which is *not* universally true, despite what CDC wants everyone to believe! Why? There have been statistical as well as empirical data that counter this *false* narrative — just look at the ER/ICU occupancy “vaccination” status of their patients, where the majority of them had already been fully vaccinated vs. not! As just one example —
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/10/29/fully-vaccinated-82-percent-deaths-66-percent-hospitalisations-in-england/
Furthermore, recent data show a very disturbing and concerning declining efficacy trend —
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/11/05/covid-19-have-average-effectiveness-of-minus-seventy-three-percent/
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/new-study-shows-vaccines-must-be
One more note — I’ve always argued that, in hospital ER/ICU settings, it is *not* the per capita “rates” of infections and deaths, with respect to those jabbed vs NON-jabbed, that make all the difference, but the physical numbers of patients who present for hospital ER/ICU care and, therefore, use hospital resources. Why? With the populace of most countries already majority jabbed, even a smaller percentage of a large number can still exceed a larger percentage of a larger number. So all of those comparisons based on percentages or N-times multiples may *not* be relevant within actual real-world hospital settings, as empirical data have shown!
@Analytical —
Oops! I just discovered that I made a typo in my reply post above —
“… even a smaller percentage of a large number can still exceed a larger percentage of a larger number.”
should, instead, be
“… even a smaller percentage of a large number can still exceed a larger percentage of a smaller number.”
I am amazed at the insulting comments, which would seem one has not enough intelligence to stick with facts or data. Just state your opinion or facts and move on. No need for sophomoric comments.
The data on COVID has been dishonest from the beginning with municipalities not reporting negative results, hospitals tagging deaths as COVID when patients have had holes in their chests from gunshots, knife wounds that hit aortas and other medical conditions that caused the overlying deaths but to get aid they listed COVID as the cause of deaths. To add insult, then folks want to state that now a vaccine is needed when one has worked on the front lines without one and the world did not fall apart.
COVID has existed for almost 20 yrs. but is related to the same virus as the common cold so for thousands of years. To relay information that says masks and vaccinations are effective is political and not based in science; but then again neither is the climate change fanatics, which has changed from global cooling to warming to cooling, etc. No one can say why the dinosaurs died from extreme temperature but of course that would not fit the narrative of industrialized nation causal effects.
With the variant not as harsh and causing death (which is the natural course of any virus although not expected by this administration or medical team, really?) the constant push for vaccines, boosters and passports should give everyone pause. If you don’t want to think that governments around the world won’t use this as a control factor, that is fine.
Our government has done worse (think Tuskegee experiment and Salt Peter used on prisoners and military). Do not get made at people who want to think independently without believing every idiot who has a microphone. Some of us choose not to be brain dead and act like crabs in a barrel to drag everyone down to our level.
Get vaxxed, wear a mask, get over yourself. Some things are for the greater good….limit travel to those of us who follow the science of vaccinations which have been in use for 100’s of years not the ignorant people who believe the same medication is in my dog’s heartworm medicine is going to cure them of COVID. Maybe this is just Natural Selection at it’s best . Let the ignorant die off and let everyone else get back to their life.