Covid 19 -

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by xxx000

There is a point where tolerance and acceptance of others views is not really possible or reasonable.
Examples are when the views are highly offensive or go against science and what we know to be fact.

This is the problem I have with the group promoting the bleach enemas for autistic kids. It's child abuse pure and simple. We all have an obligation to speak out and those in leadership positions have a stronger obligation to do so. For people in a position of power to fail to speak out when they become aware of situations where harm is happening is not just a failure of leadership, it is a failure of character.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Romulus

we have mask wearers wearing N95 masks when the packages they come in stating the masks provide no protection against Covid-19. Both are as stupid as eachother.

Originally Posted by Romulus

From Moldex website;

https://www.moldex.com/faqs-coronavirus/
[I]7. Will a respirator protect me from the coronavirus?
The CDC has provided guidance on the use of PPE and recommends the use of a fit-tested NIOSH-approved N95 or higher level respirator for healthcare personnel. While no form of respiratory protection will eliminate the transmission of viruses such as COVID-19, a N95 respirator, properly fitted and used, will help.

Seems like a big difference between those two statements.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

Seems like a big difference between those two statements.

He is technically correct though. Masks don't provide protection for you, which is what n95 is saying. I think it also has a bit to do with liability. Mask protects others, it limits the way you spread if you have it and you don't know. .

That's why it's so contentious for some people, "if it doesn't protect me then why should I care. "

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

He is technically correct though. Masks don't provide protection for you, which is what n95 is saying. I think it also has a bit to do with liability. Mask protects others, it limits the way you spread if you have it and you don't know. .

That's why it's so contentious for some people, "if it doesn't protect me then why should I care. "

Except the N95 is fitted with the one way valve that filters on inhale and does not filter on exhale, in complete contradiction with what you just said.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Except the N95 is fitted with the one way valve that filters on inhale and does not filter on exhale, in complete contradiction with what you just said.

That I wasn't aware of. Can the user close the valve?

A person coughing with a mask, valved or not, is going to make a massive difference in spread of particles, compared to someone not wearing a mask. That I don't need packaging to tell me.

N95 may have it's uses in highly populated infecteds areas like hospitals?

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

That I wasn't aware of. Can the user close the valve?

A person coughing with a mask, valved or not, is going to make a massive difference in spread of particles, compared to someone not wearing a mask. That I don't need packaging to tell me.

EXACTLY.

The silly silly people going on about what grade to wear, something is better than nothing. So if you are in a public space be a good digger and put something over ya trap.

Its not hard, doesnt need to be overly analysed and its got nothing to do with your rights, just try to help each other out.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

Seems like a big difference between those two statements.

There is. Moldex state the mask may help. They also state is will not protect against an airborne virus such as Covid.

I understand the concept of wearing a mask, those who are comfortable wearing one should wear one. To mandate wearing one under the guise of providing protection if false and misleading, especially when outdoors, exercising of travelling alone in a vehicle.

[Tickford.]

Seems as though some are confusing 'masks' and 'respirator masks' types, to suit their agenda. Looking directly at birdman living in his "Ivory tower."

Taken from the TGA website:


Utility mask: A simple, flexible barrier that is placed over the nose and mouth during short exams and visitations, or during short procedures that do not produce fluid, spray or aerosols. Utility masks are not regulated as medical devices and are not recommended to provide protection from COVID-19.




Surgical mask: A fluid-resistant, disposable device intended to be placed over the nose and mouth of medical personnel or patients who are infected or displaying symptoms, to create a physical barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and prevent the transmission of airborne organisms during surgery or patient examination. Surgical masks are graded as level 1, 2 or 3 based on the level of protection provided, or fluid resistance.




N95 respirator: A filtering face piece respirator (FFR) that is designed to form a very close seal around the nose and mouth, protecting the wearer from exposure to airborne particles including pathogenic biological airborne particulates such as viruses and bacteria. N95 respirators have been tested for particulate filtration to ensure they remove a minimum of 95% solid and liquid aerosols that do not contain oil. N95 respirators are a single use item.

P2 respirators are also particulate filter respirators that provide similar protection from airborne or aerosol spread, but are designed, manufactured and tested to different, but comparable, standards.

For the purposes of reducing exposure to COVID-19 both P2 and N95 respirators can be used interchangeably.




Surgical N95/P2 respirator: A filtering face piece respirator (FFR) with a similar structure and design to standard N95 respirators to protect the wearer from exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates, therefore meeting the same testing requirements for a minimum 95% filtration against airborne particulates.

Surgical respirators have also been tested for fluid resistance against penetration by synthetic blood under different pressures, such as may occur during certain high risk medical procedures.

In summery, face masks do provide others protection from infection if you are infected. They do not protect you from infection.
P2 and N95 grade respiratory masks do provide others protection from infection if you are infected, and also protect you from infection if they are infected, when worn properly.

See: https://www.tga.gov.au/behind-news/r...t-and-covid-19


For further information on the use of face masks and respirators in the context of COVID-19, please read below:

https://www.health.gov.au/sites/defa...f-covid-19.pdf

Like most respiratory viruses, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is principally spread by respiratory droplets produced when an infected person speaks, coughs or sneezes, and/or by contact via hands with a surface contaminated by virus-containing respiratory droplets, before touching the eyes, nose or mouth. A mask can be used by a person with a respiratory viral infection, including COVID-19, to protect others, by decreasing the spread of droplets. Masks (or, in selected circumstances, respirators) and eye protection are used by health care workers (and some other occupational groups) to protect themselves, when it is impracticable or inappropriate to maintain physical distancing from a person with a respiratory infection, including COVID-19.

[russellw]

118 new cases for Australia and 23 deaths sees the CMR rise to 2.259% while active drop to 4,384. NSW recorded 9 cases, Queensland recorded 2 case with the balance in Victoria. It was also the third highest count for deaths in a day but also the lowest daily case numbers since 3rd July nationally and the lowest since .

7 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.293% and active cases drop to 126.

The UK had 1,792 new cases and as we know they are now not counting their mortalities by the WHO guidelines we are going to ignore those figures.

Just over 44.5k new cases in the USA yesterday and 1,289 deaths sees CMR drop to 3.061% and active cases drop to 41.7% with the raw numbers rising again and now over 2.5M. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
The USA passes 6M cases;
South America passes 6M cases;
The USA completes 79M, India 38M and the UK 16M tests;

South Korea (441), Palestine (522), Lebanon (689), Nepal (1,111), Romania (1,504), Indonesia (2,719) and India (76,826) all recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[Romulus]

Yep....agenda....nice choice of words lol. I do indeed have several masks I purchased back in April. Fortunately I've not had the need to use it yet.

Sundstom brand. Very comfortable to wear, the lens has been tinted.

Sends quite the message too!

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Except the N95 is fitted with the one way valve that filters on inhale and does not filter on exhale, in complete contradiction with what you just said.

That is true only if you are wearing a N95 graded mask WITH a exhale valve fitted. I posted this earlier in this thread as well.

As mentioned above, the general masks are for catching droplets that you expel. Won't protect you from other people's coughs but will offer 'some' protection to other people from your coughs.
IMPO you can't rely on others to mask themselves. Given that there's a high enough percentage of the population that don't care about others, I actually wear two masks when going out now.

One has replaceable N95 filters in it but it is exhale valved, so it will catch airborne particles before I breathe them in but won't offer any protection to other people from me if I'm sick and don't know it. Then I pop a disposable surgical mask over the top. As mentioned above, offers me no protection at all but is to protect others and I can throw it out when I'm done shopping/whatever.

There isn't going to be much that offers 100% foolproof protection but isn't it about reducing risk? And we all have different levels of what we consider acceptable risk so what I am happy with is going to be different to what others are happy with. Sure, I could catch it via my eyes but there isn't much I can do about. But avoiding indoors spaces and groups of people is what I'm comfortable with at this stage. If I were in victoria it'd probably be different but I'm in qld so at this stage I'm not about to go and put goggles on.

Though I do keep little spray bottles filled with metho/water in the house and in the car and spray anything suspicious like parcels from vic/nsw. Probably worth spraying the bottoms of your shoes too as droplets are going to fall to the ground and get walked over.

[GasoLane]

I still have two of these in a drawer somewhere, now all I need is some really strong elastic to try them out

[russellw]

Today we will look at the polynomial trend curves across various Asian countries. It is important to note that we have changed these from 3rd to 5th order polynomials because the data sets are now much larger and 3rd order doesn't show enough detail.

The first graph looks at those countries with the higher case numbers and it is clear to see that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh had been on a downward trend since mid to late June but are now trending upward again the last couple of weeks. Iraq and the Philippines had been climbing almost unabated and while that remains true for Iraq with almost no dip in the 'line', the Philippines might just have turned the corner although another week or two will need to pass to be sure.



To prove the point in the opening paragraph, here is the same chart as a 3rd order polynomial trend which really tells quite a different story:



The intermediate case size group is a little less consistent in the trend lines. Heading clearly the right way are Japan, Kazakhstan and Israel while Indonesia and Iran are heading in the wrong direction. Turkey and Qatar look to be climbing again as does Oman although the latter is only just starting to trend upward.



The final chart is the lowest case number group and the most obvious trend here is the steep rise for Nepal over the last 4 weeks which looks a bit like our second wave in terms of being (much) worse than their first. Wed can also see that Singapore, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and the UAE have started slight upward trends over about the last fortnight while Kuwait has neither really gained or lost ground since late May. The good news stories are Kyrgyzstan, Singapore and Uzbekistan with the former pair dropping to almost nothing and the latter trending downward for the last 3 weeks.

[russellw]

For those unfamiliar with the mathematics behind polynomial trend-lines, here is an example of one country plotted using 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th order polynomial trend lines.



The 3rd order shows a fairly smooth curve that trends downwards from almost the start until it trends upward again from late July.



The 4th order shows that it actually climbed during the latter part of March before declining through to early July when it trended upward again before trending down again over the last fortnight.



The 5th order shows a steeper climb in late March as well as an upward climb over the last 2-3 weeks.



Finally, the 6th order trend line shows much the same pattern as the 5th but not as pronounced.

So which is actually right given that 3 of the graphs show an upward trend at the end of the graph while the other shows it moving downward?

Let's break it into sections.

Looking at the raw data, the initial part of the graph should show a higher entry point before a small dip and then a steady climb through to about mid-March so that pretty much rules out the 3rd order graph as it doesn't even do that.

In the latter part of the graph the raw numbers started to climb again from early August and then more steeply over the last 10 days or so on which basis, the 5th order is the most representative of the raw data.

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by Polyal

EXACTLY.

The silly silly people going on about what grade to wear, something is better than nothing. So if you are in a public space be a good digger and put something over ya trap.

Its not hard, doesnt need to be overly analysed and its got nothing to do with your rights, just try to help each other out.

Absolutely no issue, the mask may not prevent infection but will likely reduce viral load of someone’s exposure giving their immune system less to deal with initially.

Everyone needs to look after yourself and set your self for success, more studies have come out backing the basics, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Zinc combined with good rest will boost your immune system to where it should be and likely have you in the 99% category when it comes to this virus.

My comments on the N95 were simply correcting the mechanism of how it worked.

[russellw]

A while back we looked at some modelling predictions about case numbers and likely deaths in Australia and the USA.

Starting with the USA and the model for case numbers, it is tracking pretty much in line with the higher of the two possible models so on target for 11M cases by the end of October.



Thankfully, the mortality model is tracking with the lower of the two potential outcomes but that's still going to be ~220k deaths by the end of October.



It's a different story in Australia where the case numbers are currently trending above even the upper prediction but I'd expect that to start heading back down toward the lower of those lines in the next few weeks.



I'm not so confident that the mortality trend will get back down to the lower line or even the upper line given we are still recording high daily numbers however, with the smaller case numbers this week it might.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Absolutely no issue, the mask may not prevent infection but will likely reduce viral load of someone’s exposure giving their immune system less to deal with initially.

Everyone needs to look after yourself and set your self for success, more studies have come out backing the basics, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Zinc combined with good rest will boost your immune system to where it should be and likely have you in the 99% category when it comes to this virus.

My comments on the N95 were simply correcting the mechanism of how it worked.

The overall mask issue is interesting to me. IMO the medical fraternity has a lot to answer for here, but they wont as they are untouchable. They hold a huge responsibility. How any Medical professionals/administrators could have sprouted the early line that "masks don't help, they probably make things worse as they promote risky behaviour" is beyond me. They would have known this was false when they were saying it.

They are either dumb (i don't thing they are) or it was an orchestrated effort to save the PPE for themselves (getting warmer). Now, I would have been ok with that if they were just honest. Say to the general public "you cant have the commercial stuff, we need it, just make something up and wear it"

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by tweeked

The overall mask issue is interesting to me. IMO the medical fraternity has a lot to answer for here, but they wont as they are untouchable. They hold a huge responsibility. How any Medical professionals/administrators could have sprouted the early line that "masks don't help, they probably make things worse as they promote risky behaviour" is beyond me. They would have known this was false when they were saying it.

They are either dumb (i don't thing they are) or it was an orchestrated effort to save the PPE for themselves (getting warmer). Now, I would have been ok with that if they were just honest. Say to the general public "you cant have the commercial stuff, we need it, just make something up and wear it"

Couldn’t agree more.

[buggerlugs]

Damo, get down to St Kilda............................................. ......................quickly...

https://www.news.com.au/national/vic...5298c10f8eaa13

[ute83]

I can't help but shake my head when I see people walking in the early hours wearing a mask or out and about with no one within cooee. And I'm talking one mask. Talk risk for a minute. Half a dozen cases across the country ( excluding Vic ). What is the chance of you copping this virus at these small levels. Even here in vic most cases are isolated to old age homes, so we have half a dozen other cases wandering the streets. If you don't want to get this thing some common sense is all that's needed.

[arronm]

WA justs needs to close our borders from the sick EAST. Then just dont ever open them.

[Mr_G6ET]

Originally Posted by ute83

I can't help but shake my head when I see people walking in the early hours wearing a mask or out and about with no one within cooee. And I'm talking one mask. Talk risk for a minute. Half a dozen cases across the country ( excluding Vic ). What is the chance of you copping this virus at these small levels. Even here in vic most cases are isolated to old age homes, so we have half a dozen other cases wandering the streets. If you don't want to get this thing some common sense is all that's needed.

I am agreeing to what your thoughts I guess, a majority of people would agree, over reaction is more than rife due to lack of real data/info on the statistical probability by location. Nor can that ever be available because that needs input. We can imagine, airborne is all but instant.

I am anti app from Gov't because the app doesn't do early diagnosis bla bla

What you touch on is the whole argument behind the scaremongering, Govt control, lockdown versus common sense, self control like as you mention (wtf), economics, mental effect and so on.

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by tweeked

The overall mask issue is interesting to me. IMO the medical fraternity has a lot to answer for here, but they wont as they are untouchable. They hold a huge responsibility. How any Medical professionals/administrators could have sprouted the early line that "masks don't help, they probably make things worse as they promote risky behaviour" is beyond me. They would have known this was false when they were saying it.

They are either dumb (i don't thing they are) or it was an orchestrated effort to save the PPE for themselves (getting warmer). Now, I would have been ok with that if they were just honest. Say to the general public "you cant have the commercial stuff, we need it, just make something up and wear it"

Well to be fair everyone would have cleared the mask stock out.

You can't have medical professionals dropping off like flies as they are the people who care for everyone else not only dealing with the Rona but everything else too.

[Mr_G6ET]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

Well to be fair everyone would have cleared the mask stock out.

You can't have medical professionals dropping off like flies as they are the people who care for everyone else not only dealing with the Rona but everything else too.

This is fact: our breeder (dog ) is an emergency doctor, she was suspended for stating that she should wear a mask, refused to work among the patients,
management did not agree because it scared the patients/admissions.
It is in the safety standards from the hospital to wear a mask....

Originally Posted by ute83

I can't help but shake my head when I see people walking in the early hours wearing a mask or out and about with no one within cooee. And I'm talking one mask. Talk risk for a minute. Half a dozen cases across the country ( excluding Vic ). What is the chance of you copping this virus at these small levels. Even here in vic most cases are isolated to old age homes, so we have half a dozen other cases wandering the streets. If you don't want to get this thing some common sense is all that's needed.

Spoken like someone who either isn't in much danger or doesn't care.
There are plenty of people with compromised immune systems, undergoing chemo, with lung problems, or who otherwise can't risk getting sick because they will die.
Shake your head all you like, it's pretty poor form for you to be judging people when you don't know their reasoning or what their risk level would be.

[Mr_G6ET]

Originally Posted by leesa

Spoken like someone who either isn't in much danger or doesn't care.
There are plenty of people with compromised immune systems, undergoing chemo, with lung problems, or who otherwise can't risk getting sick because they will die.
Shake your head all you like, it's pretty poor form for you to be judging people when you don't know their reasoning or what their risk level would be.

My thought was that if someone had as you describe, they would take cover. A good probability too is the people that are unwell are likely not out jogging at the days days break, let them decide if they have a problem.
If not, open air is probably and statistically ok to the third decimal place. If someone approaches in the open area, take a wide path.

Did you go there in a bubble, drive or cross the road ?

[ute83]

Leesa you can't get what's not there. Doesn't matter how many masks you wear at once. We have whole shires that haven't had a single case of this virus and they have to wear a mask. That is retarded.

[gooseneck]

I don't know what you guys are on about. I have no problems getting KN95 masks without a bypass valve. No shortages either, I got mine from Bunnings for $19 for a pack of 5 and there is literally a ton of them at the cash register being sold and nobody buys them.

Most people I've seen wearing masks live in a rich suburb full of people with Porsches for shopping trolleys, you know architect central.

Everywhere else nobody wears anything at all. Especially on Thursday and Friday when everyones buying Chinese/Indian and going to the Pub. So the middle class and lower class don't wear masks at all but the upper-middle class and upper class wear custom knitted types. haha.

Same goes with posh shopping centers like Woolworths that are located in posh cbd areas, they all wear the surgical masks in there, not the N95 type. But in Coles? Nobody wears any masks in there, not anymore at least, a few months ago when they were restocking the shelves after the panic buying they were but not anymore on a regular basis.

Originally Posted by ute83

Leesa you can't get what's not there. Doesn't matter how many masks you wear at once. We have whole shires that haven't had a single case of this virus and they have to wear a mask. That is retarded.

yeah.. until you do have a single case. Except it won't be a single case, it'll silently move through multiple people and won't be known about for weeks, but by then it'll be a cluster and more people will have been infected than needed to be.
The health department have told people to wear masks for a reason. If you get sick and don't know about it, your chances of giving it to someone else is less if you're wearing a mask.

It's a global pandemic. It's just a mask. It's not a difficult thing to do and wearing it doesn't hurt you in any way. Why is it such an issue? For all we know, the reason those areas don't have cases is *because* people are wearing masks.