Nancy Pelosi Mandates Masks On House Floor (thehill.com) 247
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will require all House members and aids to wear masks on the floor, after Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert who has at times flouted the health recommendation tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day. The Hill reports: "Members and staff will be required to wear masks at all times in the hall of the House except that members may remove their masks temporarily when recognized," Pelosi said from the House floor. Pelosi warned that lawmakers and staff without masks will not be permitted to enter the House chamber and risk removal by the Sergeant at Arms if they don't comply. Pelosi said that the mask requirement is "a sign of respect for the health, safety and well-being of others present in the chamber and surrounding areas." Public health experts, backed by multiple studies, say that masks are an effective way to prevent spread of viral droplets.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Good idea. There are still too many people going around without masks.
Woe be unto you lawyers... (Score:4, Insightful)
See, half the problem is that people are going about this all wrong. The response to someone not wearing a mask isn't fines, autistic screeching or pepper spray, it's to help that person get a mask that's comfortable. I think this is what's missing from a lot of responses. A lot of people are deeply suspicious of the mandates and they have good reason to think that the people in charge hate them and some of the mandates really are unfair. It's sort of like how the answer to a homeless person sleeping on a park bench is to give them a ride to the nearest shelter and a good meal, rather than to arrest them. It's weird because this sort of thing has been known to be a bad idea for at least two millennia.
It‘s not about comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
People do not refuse wearing a mask because those are not comfortable.
Refusing masks is a visible sign to belong to a specific tribe. It‘s presented as loudly as possible to show it to other members of the tribe.
Refusing masks is the same as loudly praying in public.
This is beyond questions of comfort or science.
Re:It‘s not about comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
None of what you said makes any sense.
-- The masks we're talking about don't obscure who someone is.
-- Representatives sit behind desks with their names on them
-- The Speaker announces the person's name before they speak
-- Pelosi's order specifically says "members may remove their masks temporarily when recognized" meaning, they're not wearing masks when they speak
This isn't about masking identity, it's about preventing the spread of disease. It's really that simple.
Re:It's not about comfort (Score:2)
Re:Woe be unto you lawyers... (Score:5, Interesting)
it's to help that person get a mask that's comfortable.
It's a comfort of their mind, not a comfort of the fabric on their face. These people will never be "comfortable" regardless of what rules are applied to them, the discomfort stems for the selfishfuckwit class being told to do something in the first place.
It's no different than those people who get pulled over for speeding and pretending the police don't have a right to ask them for their drivers license. Or those people who think the 1st amendment should prevent them from being kicked out of the supermarket when they are verbally abusing the staff.
Re:Woe be unto you lawyers... (Score:4, Funny)
it's to help that person get a mask that's comfortable.
It's a comfort of their mind, not a comfort of the fabric on their face. These people will never be "comfortable" regardless of what rules are applied to them, the discomfort stems for the selfishfuckwit class being told to do something in the first place.
It's no different than those people who get pulled over for speeding and pretending the police don't have a right to ask them for their drivers license. Or those people who think the 1st amendment should prevent them from being kicked out of the supermarket when they are verbally abusing the staff.
I think OP made an excellent point for exactly the reasons you give. In my experience the lion's share of people will if reasoned with eye to eye in a respectful manner do the right thing.
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> but we are kind of out of time.
If you don't have time to do it right, how will you have time to do it twice?
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Re: Good (Score:2)
Loose Seal!
Little late (Score:3)
quite a few Congresscritters who didn't want to wear masks are enjoying a nice Covid vacation already.
Hermain Cain isn't a Congress Critter (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't know him, he's a big Trump supporter and an anti-masker who went to Trump's 1st rally after the virus hit (before Trump cancelled them due to low turnout).
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We have over 80 infected at one summer camp in Georgia, then another over 80 infected at another summer camp in missouri. We have 40 infected at a church in Alabama. An each one of these evangelical germ crusaders go out and infec
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Re:Hermain Cain isn't a Congress Critter (Score:5, Informative)
Herman Cain has passed away.
Re: Hermain Cain isn't a Congress Critter (Score:2)
Yes, it has. As you would know if you took the time to find out.
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There are at least severe medium-term problems and less obvious symptoms (occasional strokes, fun stuff like that). Long-term, we will have to wait a few years, won't we? The best guess is that many people will recover only partially. Probably more than will actually die.
Re: Little late (Score:2)
Re: Little late (Score:2)
Were she speaking to people at less than 2m? If not, the mask was not very useful.
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The story is specifically about not excluding themselves. In addition, it was previously accepted that while speaking you could take off your mask to more effectively communicate. When you watched the hearings, which side did you see predominantly wearing masks while not speaking? Surely you aren't this obtuse? Rhetorical question.
Re:Little late (Score:5, Insightful)
A mask is for when you're sitting next to others, not speaking from the dais 20 feet from anyone else, dumbass.
But hey, Rep. Gohmert [businessinsider.com] had to learn that lesson, so let's willfully misinterpret the rule and claim that the person that we don't like is a hypocrite.
From TFA:
Jesus Christ... this site used to be populated with smart nerds, not idiotic political trolls.
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That is bullshit.
There are more than enough studies that shows not wearing a mask even 20 feet away is still dangerous.
You need to keep your germs to yourself and stop being a ho.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/... [cbsnews.com]
"Jesus Christ... this site used to be populated with smart nerds, not idiotic political trolls."
Nope... nerd or not... we are all populated with idiot political trolls.
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I think it depends upon your definition of small percentage. The death rates seem to be at least 0.1%, even accounting for asymptomatic cases. Do you want to risk a 1 in a 1000 chance of dying? To me, that is actually a large risk to take. Even if you don't die (probably a much larger percentage), there are many very nasty effects that you may get.
There is a reason that hospitals are overflowing in places where the virus is rampant. It is much more dangerous than a normal flu (there are some flus that are m
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A bit more numbers...
Currently, according to this site : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, in the US it has killed 465 / 1million of the entire population of the country (not just the population infected). This gives 0.046%. Estimates (via antibody testing) in New York City in May had the infection rate at about 20%. Assuming the rest of the US has caught up (hint: it hasn't yet), we multiply 0.046% by 5 to get the rate of death from infection, or about 0.2%, giving a chance of death of 1 in 500 (
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So yes, I expect everyone in any indoor setting should be wearing a mask. Even if that person is talking. If they can't be understood wearing a mask, then its doubtful they would be understood without one.
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The vast majority of UV lights in HVAC are installed in the cooling coil section to prevent growth of mold and bacteria on wet surfaces. Depending on strength of the UV and speed of the airstream, they won't significantly sterilize the a
nice (Score:2, Insightful)
But why is this crap on Slashdot?
I come to read tech stories. 3 more months of this shit?
Re:nice (Score:4, Insightful)
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the majority of people favoring anything doesn't make jack shit about effectiveness. the majority can be wrong.
You make assertion without a shred of proof that random cloth mask wearing will help anything. The very "studies" trying to prove a mask makes a difference talk about transmission rates varying in the "noise" level. And others uses droplet machines...no controlled experiments have been done.
I'll agree distancing works, but a mask is a like trying to catch gnats with a fish net.
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I gave up fighting it and bought a red bandanna. It's fun going into stores wearing a red bandanna. I can pretend I'm going to do a stickup. I don't feel meek at all, which I did with a little cloth patch held on with ear loops.
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eh, I wear a mask around others, it's the law.
But just "any ol' mask will do", I'm not buying that. I happen to own some great respirators for various work, if they were saying everyone had to wear N95 or N100 or equivalent I wouldn't be calling B.S.
Effectiveness (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the figures for New York after they instigated masks. Came crashing down.
If a simple mask is only 50% effective that still makes a huge difference.
I wonder if Covid-19 will have a long term political impact in the USA by killing off mainly republicans. A million Americans are likely to die as a result of this, and votes are often closer than that.
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Wrong. NY Mandate was April 15 and yet centered April 26 there was another high spike. Masks aren't 50% effective, no one is claiming that, the oft touted study is claiming a fraction of a percent to 1.4 percent reduction....noise level!
But thanks for showing that people manufacture a narrative between their ears to justify what sheep herders tell them.
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You make assertion without a shred of proof that random cloth mask wearing will help anything.
He doesn't need to give proof, that has already been provided by the references from the WHO who commissioned the study on effectiveness of non-medical facemasks after initially being unable to make any recommendations for them, and then proceeded based on the outcome of the study to recommend the wearing of non-medical masks and medical masks.
https://www.who.int/ [who.int]
There's been a publication about this on the above link at least once a week for the past 4 months. Educate yourself. Being anti-intellectual does
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How this was modded to +5 I'll never know. The masks stop particulates from leaving your mouth or nose. Not virus itself. Are you that dim? https://www.vox.com/future-per... [vox.com]
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Even more apt:
The mask is like taking your belt off at the airport and thinking it stops terrorists. The majority of people agree it makes them feel safer though. So it MUST work. Right?
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The old Slashdot motto was "News for nerds, stuff that matters." While this isn't in the first category, it certainly is in the second/
Well... politics and public heath crisis situations affects nerds too.
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The problem isn't the mask. The problem is in all of the mandates this one should have been first except it was last and no matter how smart it could be to wear one it was the straw that broke the camels back. You have governors who suspended rights guaranteed by the U.S constitution but they did it out of the desire to protect the citizens. The US government also stopped evictions, which is a good thing but those landlords have bills to pay and they are deprived of their property and that's a violation t
Re: nice (Score:3)
The right way to fight evictions is a 3 month rent holiday. But when the president's wealth is in real estate, the right way isn't part of reality.
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But why is this crap on Slashdot?
I come to read tech stories. 3 more months of this shit?
Way more than 3 months, sorry to say.
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Because people comment on it. Which is evidence to advertisers of "highly engaged eyeballs" or some such shit.
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tech stories
Then go to a tech site, not a nerd site. Nerds come in all flavours including political nerds, and medical nerds.
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She's also come out and said (Score:5, Insightful)
I wasn't expecting her to stand up to McConnell on that, but I'm glad to see she did. I'm employed, but that $600/wk is about half a trillion dollars in spending and if that went *poof* overnight I fully expected my company to lay me (and pretty much everybody) off.
Seriously, it's not just about the 30 million who are going to be homeless and starving it's about the knock on effects of that spending going bye-bye. It'd make the Great Depression look like the
Re:She's also come out and said (Score:4, Insightful)
my problem is that all off this spending is going to enrich the wealthy more than it does for the citizens.
I did not like the first bailout for this reason and I was proven right, yet again... that the bill would only enrich the rich more than the poor. This one will do the same thing as well.
We are selling our children's future and everyone that got their stimulus checks and cheered about it are cheaply bought.
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It will be annoying that my salary is worth less, but every silver lining has a cloud.
It won't cause inflation (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting money in peoples hands to buy food and pay rent isn't going to cause runaway inflation because we've got plenty of food and shelter.
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We can argue about how much capacity the economy has, and I don't know. I do know capacity has a limit, and if you pass that, then it turns into inflation. And right now we have a group of politicians who are determined to find out what that limit is by experiment. There is no one trying to hold back spending. The government is going to spend until it hurts, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
So I'm preparing.
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Re: It won't cause inflation (Score:2)
Re:It won't cause inflation (Score:4, Informative)
No, inflation is the result when you put more money into the economy than the economic activity the economy is producing. Imagine if we doubled everyone's income and bank accounts tomorrow. What would happen? Prices would immediately double, because production hasn't changed. So all doubling the amount of money does is re-index the dollar at 1/2 its original value. i.e. You experience an instantaneous spike of 100% inflation.
You can't get something for nothing. Productivity is conserved - everything that's consumed must first be produced. If you try to give away money without increasing economic activity (production) by the same amount, the money in the economy exceeds the amount of goods and services available to consume (i.e. people could buy everything that was produced, and there would still be money left over to spend). The economy compensates for this by adjusting the value of your currency (prices go up, aka inflation) to make those two equal again.
That's the entire reason countries switched to fiat currencies. When they were on the gold standard, there was no guarantee that the amount of gold mined each year would match up with the amount of economic expansion that same year. Sometimes more gold was mined, resulting in inflation. Sometimes less gold was mined, resulting in deflation. Deflation is particularly bad because it makes it better for people to stuff their money under a mattress, rather than spend it (generating more economic activity), causing further decrease in economic activity, causing more deflation, etc. leading to recession. So countries dropped the gold standard and switched to fiat currencies, so they could inject roughly the same amount of money into the economy as the economy grew each year. Erring slightly on the inflation side to avoid dangerous deflation (thus eliminating deflation-induced recessions).
Right now, we're pumping a ton of new money into the economy, while production has actually decreased. The net result of all this is going to be a lot of inflation in the near future.
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You aren't the only person on the planet. Does empathy have any place in your world-view? How about the reality that you live in a society, and if other members of that society are doing well your life will be more pleasant being around them. You should hope for their success even if only out of your own self-interest.
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Re: She's also come out and said (Score:4, Interesting)
We will never be rid of the national debt. The only way we get rid of it is to:
1) eliminate deficit spending,
2) we need to start paying down the debt we accumulated over the previous almost 2 centuries.
Step 1 will never happen. Prior to the pandemic we spent about a trillion more than the government took in annually, about $1.5-2 Trillion in income taxes. We'd have to DOUBLE the tax rate (collections) just to cover our annual spending, then some MORE to start actually paying down the debt.
Who is going to argue for freezing spending and doubling taxes for the next 30-40 years?
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Who is going to argue for freezing spending and doubling taxes for the next 30-40 years?
They will not be voted into office.
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City builder gamers know the answer (Score:3)
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We don't need to get rid of it. There's no real problem with having a national debt. Like, what's the issue?
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Ask Greece.
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Greece borrowed money in euros mainly from foreigners. The US borrows money in dollars main from citizens.
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Because you have to pay it back, with *interest*. At this point, a considerable percentage of the government's revenue goes simply to paying off the interest on the debt. Exactly what do you think will happen if this continues in perpetuity? Eventually, the wheels will come off that little Ponzi scheme.
But hey, that probably won't happen in OUR lifetimes, so what's the problem?
Re: She's also come out and said (Score:3)
The risk of stagflation leading to economic gridlock. National debt is mitigated by inflation. Borrow $1 today at 1% interest, but by the time you pay back $1.01, it's only worth a dollar. Inflation is becoming harder and harder to manage, so it's become an outsized risk.
Re: She's also come out and said (Score:2)
If you conquer the country to which you owe money, and replace its financial system with your own... or exterminate them, that actually removes that debt.
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Didn't work too well when Phillip exterminated the Templars.
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I will point out that giving everyone $1200 (or unemployed people $600) is the opposite of only enriching the wealthy. Don't be mad about that part. Be mad about the other parts of the bailout.
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Yes, borrowing money costs interest (historically low interest that doesn't even keep up with inflation.) And it avoids total system collapse. It's well worth it.
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The feds will just print some more money.
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that $600/wk is about half a trillion dollars in spending and if that went *poof* overnight I fully expected my company to lay me (and pretty much everybody) off.
I am confused, why would that impact whether or not your company fires you?
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> the next stimulus bill won't pass without the $600/wk unemployment benefit. The astute out there will realize that's about $17.50/hr (adding in the state benefits you're likely to get). I wasn't expecting her to stand up to McConnell on that
I wasn't expecting her to stand up to McDonald's on that.
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Seriously, it's not just about the 30 million who are going to be homeless and starving it's about the knock on effects of that spending going bye-bye.
Oh please, half a trillion goes poof in the USA constantly without mass unemployment. Complaining about it now is asinine, especially considering that number isn't final. When you spend on stimulus you don't set money on fire, you stimulate. That money is keeping people in housing, keeping people able to make purchases, thus having a knock on effect on business that may not lay *someone else* off, all the while contributing to maintaining GDP.
Economics isn't the study of adding up the money governments spen
Re: She's also come out and said (Score:3)
We can create as much money as we want. As long as we don't give that money to businesses and wealthy Americans, then it generally works fine. The dollar inflates, extracting x% from everyone holding cash. If you then turn around and give poor people x+1% in benefit, it's a net boon to the economy (ignoring externalities, which are mostly just partisan bickers).
I live near Pelosi's district (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC Her district is San Francisco. I live close by, but the entire area is a shithole. Last time I saw anything this bad was about 33 years ago when I went to Ensenada Mexico at 14 (and drank myself silly) Trash is EVERYWHERE now along the freeways. People dumping crap on the sidewalks, homeless everywhere. I used to only see these folk that looked like this at Grateful Dead shows, but that was all pretend and fake stench from petrooli oil (I don't know how to spell it, sorry)
I think the house needs to temporarily do what the rest of the country is doing. Telework. Also, Pelosi needs to fix issues in her backyard. Between her and her nephew Gavin Newsome, California is in a dire state. I understand economically the rest of the country is hurting too, but we have a fairly transient population with the booms and busts. Right now is a bust, people are moving out, tax revenues are dropping. Time to fix things before there's nothing left to fix them with.
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I live close by, but the entire area is a shithole.
Yep. I was just there staying at a hotel next to AT&T Park. Looking down from my window all I saw was cardboard and trash on the sidewalks. My wife and daughter couldn't even make it from the parking garage next door without being accosted by a homeless man. California is being run by soft-heads who can't say 'no' to all these homeless people ruining every town they infest.
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What do you propose be done? Bundle them up and send them to Nevada? There have been homeless in the US forever, and no one has found a solution. San Francisco has tried many options, some nice, some brutal, and nothing seems to stick. And homeless are all over, every state, every country. Some places are just better at hiding them from tourists (I found a huge camp in Japan by accident). I'm glad you're smarter than everyone else and have great ideas to share about it.
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And homeless are all over, every state
Kinda. Many red states just put them on a bus to California then act smug about how California has a homeless problem.
Re:I live near Pelosi's district (Score:5, Interesting)
California is being run by soft-heads who can't say 'no' to all these homeless people ruining every town they infest.
They should be softer and follow hard-headed, thoroughly-Republican Utah's lead. Though it's not perfect (nothing is), Utah has found that for a few tens of millions of dollars per year, less than the cost of the crime and damage homeless populations can do, they can build apartment complexes for homeless people, with on-site support staff to give them counseling and mental health treatment. Only long-term homeless (3+ years on the street) can use the services, and it's not rent-free, but rent is capped at 30% of the resident's income. Of course, 30% of zero is zero, and that's fine, but the vast majority of residents get back on their feet, start earning an income and move to a regular apartment within 18 months. About 10% have serious mental illnesses that make it effectively impossible for them ever to be self-sufficient, and become permanent residents, so the state has to continue expanding the support. But it's still cheaper than the alternative, and it means the cities are clean and relatively free of panhandlers.
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Federal government representatives have little to do with local land use ordinances or policing of vagrancy laws or litter pickup.
Finally! (Score:3)
After attacking Trump for months for not acting quicker, Nancy Pelosi is finally requiring masks in public settings (the house floor).
I can't wait for her to mandate testing -the only reason Rep. Gohmert knw he had Covid-19 was because he got tested before boarding Air Force 1. He had no symptoms.
How many other Congress critters are running around with the virus? When will Nancy mandate testing?
A mask isn't enough (Score:5, Funny)
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For a politician? A paper bag isn't enough. They should wear plastic bags without holes.
And yet masks only slow the virus (Score:2)
Re: And yet masks only slow the virus (Score:2)
Slowing the spread is a *good thing*. It means fewer people will have had the disease by the time vaccinations start. Treatments improve over time, so the longer it takes before someone gets the disease, the better the outcomes are likely to be.
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I know just the kind of mask... (Score:2)
I know just the kind of mask that most of Congress and the POTUS should wear: a brown paper bag with eye-holes.
Why is this a bipartisan issue? (Score:2)
I'm not from the U.S. so I wonder. I thought conservatives generally love to control everyone's lives, why not this time?
Re: Why is this a bipartisan issue? (Score:3)
Most issues are bipartisan. The rich and powerful have set up the system they want. They want to preserve it.
In order to do this, they find a bunch of issues the rich and powerful don't care about (like guns and abortion), then they divvy up the issues among their supporters, then they pretend those issues divide the parties.
The result is they can present an image of a two-party system, when in fact it's largely a single-party system. There are a few outliers and extremists, but the vast meaty body of Ameri
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Percentage of a building that burns before the firefighters get there: 10% percentage that burns after tehy are on scene 60%. Are firefighters effective.
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Yes, because we already KNOW what will happen if we continue with no firefighters at a fire: 100% destruction. That's not a theory, that's fact.
But I know what you are trying to imply, that things would be EVEN WORSE OMG if we didn't start using masks. You have no way of knowing that.
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You have no way of knowing that.
We do, man, it's called science. I would link you to some studies, but it's so obvious now that masks work. If I gave you links, you wouldn't look at them, that's the kind of person you are.
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But I know what you are trying to imply, that things would be EVEN WORSE OMG if we didn't start using masks. You have no way of knowing that.
Interesting. So your believe what physicists tell you but not what epidemiologists tell you? Normally people are pro or anti experts, your may be the first person who selectively chooses someone's expertise based on the field its in.
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My county pre-mask requirement: around 5-7 cases/day. My county post-mask requirement: around 40-60 cases/day.
So COVID is caused by masks then?
Re: Are they really effective? (Score:2)
"If I leave out the reason FOR the mask requirement I can make it sound like masks cause transmission!"
Thanks for the brilliant demonstration of how FaceBook memes are made. :)
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But I thought you Americans suddenly had so many more cases because you were testing more?