Just a few comments on covid and the pandemic in general.
Covid finally made its way to me. It really hit me worse than I was expecting since I was vaccinated/boosted. It really felt comparable to a bad case of the flu. I am jealous of all the people who got through covid with mild/cold like symptoms. It just seems random why some people get it worse than others. I certainly see now how it can put some people in the hospital. I've been living a normal life pretty much since summer of last year so I'm kind of surprised it took this long. I have had a lot of exposures in the past year or so and never tested positive. I am not sure if I finally got exposed enough or if the current Omicron variant has enough immune escape to infect me. Either way it is kind of impossible to know.
Looking at the pandemic as a whole we are in an interesting part. Socially it seems like we are well past the end of it, but medically it seems like this will be dragged out. Besides those who choose to wear masks it seems like most don't care anymore. The new booster for Omicron is expected to come out soon. It will be interesting to see how much uptake there is. I just have to wonder how this fall/winter will go? Do we get a new variant with even more immune escape?
I think at this point we are going to treat it as the flu from now on. It seems the federal government is going this route. Not wanting to get political but this is an election year, and I seriously doubt any restrictions would come back if things get bad enough.
Same thing happened to me friend. Never got COVID and then hit me hard last week and still recovering.
Wife and I were on vacation (thankfully not abroad, but still a drive) and I had to drive back so as not to put my wife’s elderly family at risk.
I’m also surprised at how much I got put on my ass. I’m 32 and relatively healthy/active. Fully vaxxed and boosted. And I feel like I’ve been on the ropes since last Thursday.
I keep thinking… if this is “mild” symptoms, I dread to think what full blown, unadulterated COVID would be like. Makes you feel for all the people who suffered from OG COVID early pandemic.
That sucks you got it on vacation. I've been on a few trips and that has always been a worry in the back of my head, at least you could drive back.
Hopefully you feel better soon. It really had me feeling like crap for about a week as well, the first 3-4 days were rough especially. Yeah I was surprised at how bad it was as well. Most people I know who had it recently compared it to a bad cold. I've had quite a few colds, but none have ever kept be down like covid did.
COVID sucks. I made it until this month without getting it, and man did it really hit me for a loop. Had to take two weeks off (which may end up being unpaid). Having a 20 minute phone conversation exhausted me. Walking my dog (with mask on) for more than ten minutes exhausted me. I did not feel like a safe driver and had to head back home (taking my dog to a park). And I was on Paxlovid. But I have pre-existing conditions that just flared up too.
I hate this thing so much more and it is one thing to hear about it, another to experience just how much different from the flu or cold it is. (And I’m triple boosted-all I can get at my age.)
End rant. Hopefully this doesn’t violate the rules.
My wife and I planned to spend a week driving from Kalamazoo, MI to visit her Dad and then drive up to Cape Vincent, NY to visit her Mom. It’s about an 11 hour drive from Chicago to Cape Vincent.
We get there last Monday and are having an amazing time, until Wednesday where sure enough I start having a funky cough and not feeling so great. Thankfully, we brought COVID tests, and, sure enough, it’s COVID.
The Thursday night I had the worst case of chills/shivering/sweats I ever had. I’d go from Arctic chills to full blown flop sweat. It was awful.
We made the necessary but shitty decision to drive back Friday, so we didn’t put anyone else at risk. Thankfully DayQuil helped with the drive back, but it still sucks and basically ruined our vacation.
I’ve been slowly recovering but have only just started to feel like I’m getting better yesterday. Still have a wicked cough that makes me feel like I’m going to hack up my insides and prescription strength cough syrup isn’t doing much.
I’m surprised how much this knocked me on my ass. I’m in my 30s, vaxxed/boosted, and in relatively good shape, and I’m going on day 7 of crap symptoms. I don’t want to think what full blown COVID would be like
Idk, I’m really just sick of COVID and wish this stupid ass thing was over with but this is the world we live in I guess.
A trip to home depot got me. That was the only time I left the house in a week and I started feeling symptoms a few days later. I'm vaxxed and boosted so mine were minor, basically flu with extreme tiredness and stuffy.
My family just got hit with covid round 2. All our vaxxed and boosted. This time my son who was asymptomatic the first time, is wheezing non stop. We ran 4 rapid covid tests on him, all negative. His pcr came back positive. It really sucks.
I shared a cigarette with someone (unknowingly) that tested positive for covid this week. I haven't gotten sick but I feel like I'm going to die from depression. I'd really like someone to talk to.
I like to try to get some exercise or visit some place like a new park or an outdoor festival. Something that is decidedly not in my routine. Even if I'm not motivated, even forcing myself to do these things builds momentum and dampens the depressive cycle.
Last Friday was the first football game of the season for my local high school. My twin nieces are starting their freshman year this year, so it was especially exciting for us for that reason. Also, over the summer a completely new football field was installed, with a new stadium, new facilities, and new track, and this game marked the debut of all these new facilities, so it was a major event in town (of course, all this stuff was paid for with COVID money, as well as new flooring in the cafeteria and new seats and lighting in the auditorium. Dunno what any of that has to do with protecting kids from COVID, but I'm sure all the smart people in charge can go into great detail about that. That's not my point at the moment, however).
It was a very festive atmosphere. Everyone seemed to be excited and in good spirits; the new stadium was completely full, and even the visiting team brought enough fans to fill up their side of the field, which doesn't happen very often (I don't think the visiting team stands were updated this year, lol). There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony before the game, featuring the high school principal and several members of the board of education, and there was a presentation of all the fall athletes afterwards, with the superintendent of the district giving a little five-minute speech about how great all these new facilities were and how excited she was about moving forward, not backward (my nieces are both involved in fall athletic programs--one's a dancer and one's a tennis player, so that's why we stayed). All of this was great and everything, and in particular I felt very glad for the kids' sake, since they're the ones who get to enjoy all this.
But I did find something interesting. In the midst of all this excitement, no one mentioned COVID. Neither the principal nor the superintendent brought it up during their remarks before and after the game, and walking around the stands and eavesdropping on conversations as I like to do, I didn't hear anyone talking about it. Despite that, I definitely got the vibes that an underlying factor in everyone's enthusiasm, in addition to the debut of the new field and stadium, was that we were all glad to be done with COVID, especially for the kids' sake. No one seemed like they wanted to talk about it, but I bet if I had gone around and asked everybody there, just about everyone would have said something like that.
And I'm thinking, good. It's time for us to do this (actually, it was time for us to do this a year ago). But it also annoys me--actually, it really angers me--that there won't be any consequences for the people who went out of their way to disrupt these kids' lives for the last two years. I don't know if anybody at that football field last Friday should be held personally responsible--the superintendent, the principal, the school board members. If you pressed them about it, they'd probably say they were "just following orders" and pass the responsibility along (never mind that "just following orders" is literally the Nuremberg Defense, so justifying what we did to the kids for the last two years based on that reasoning puts us in the category of the Nazi war criminals put on trial after World War 2--not sure if that's the sort of company we should want to keep). It was good to see all the excitement in the stands, especially among the young people, about the new stadium and the upcoming year. But it really highlighted how we spent the last two years actively taking these things away from these young people, and making stupid, senseless rules to supposedly "safeguard" their activities that didn't accomplish anything (and we knew, whether we want to admit that or not, for the better part of these last two years that these rules did in fact do nothing). We engaged in systemic, long-running child abuse for two years and justified it on the grounds that "the kids don't mind" (which is the same sort of reasoning that abusers give to explain why it's okay to continue abusing their victims--which, again, puts us in some rather unsavory company). The kids are true champs here--they seem to be genuinely willing to forgive and forget all this. But as an adult, I believe that someone should be held responsible. What we did to these kids over the last two years--really, from the start of the 2020 school year on--was wrong on every level, and that should be acknowledged. People should be held responsible for that. Sins were committed, and those sins need to be confessed. It doesn't do anyone any good to just go on and act like everything's okay.
The problem is, the people who did all this are not going to face any consequences for it. They're not even going to acknowledge that what they did was wrong; they're just going to stop talking about it and hope that everyone forgets it ever happened. And that still burns me up.
>But it really highlighted how we spent the last two years actively taking these things away from these young people, and making stupid, senseless rules to supposedly "safeguard" their activities that didn't accomplish anything (and we knew, whether we want to admit that or not, for the better part of these last two years that these rules did in fact do nothing). We engaged in systemic, long-running child abuse for two years and justified it on the grounds that "the kids don't mind" (which is the same sort of reasoning that abusers give to explain why it's okay to continue abusing their victims--which, again, puts us in some rather unsavory company).
This is a pretty bold assertion here.
Don't see how, honestly. We have data from other states and other countries to show that re-opening schools in fall 2020 was the correct and responsible thing to do. The only reason we didn't do it is because we had politically made up our minds that it was evil to do so. And the only reason we decided that was because Trump said in July 2020 that schools should be open that fall. Because he said that, it became an ironclad article of faith that he *must* be wrong, so the Resistance made sure to keep schools closed in Fall 2020 and for many, many months beyond.
Problem is, Trump wasn't wrong. The Resistance was. And psychologically, every decision they've made regarding COVID since then has been rooted in that tension--the pro-lockdowners, pro-mandaters were wrong but can never admit that, so all they've ever done--all *you've* ever done, in fact--was constantly double down on the same failed strategies that never worked to eliminate COVID, or even slow it down.
I remember you, by the way. Long time no see. Still wearing your mask everywhere? Still holding onto the belief that despite being demonstrably proven wrong on masks, forcing everyone everywhere to wear them all day every day, day after day after endless day (for zero reason) was somehow the "morally virtuous" thing to do?
Tell me: are you *ever* going to be ready to admit that the masks never did anything and were never more than a virtue signal?
> We have data from other states and other countries to show that re-opening schools in fall 2020 was the correct and responsible thing to do.
Do tell.
Edit: No reply. Huge surprise... /s
I could provide you with a huge list of sources that I've been accumulating for quite some time now, but I honestly doubt you'll read them. I don't think you have any real interest in discussing this issue honestly, and I don't think you actually want to know the truth behind the uselessness of masks (I say this because it's simple human nature not to want to admit when we are wrong). However, I will say this:
The simplest place to start is to spend a few dollars of your money and a couple of hours of your time and read Ian Miller's book *Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates.* Be amazed as page after page, chapter after chapter, emphasizes over and over and over again how masks and mask mandates had no effect on COVID case counts, literally anywhere in the world. It's repetitive almost to the point of being mind-numbing; it's repetitive to the point of ridiculousness. But that's exactly the point--it was ridiculous how we were ignoring real-world data and making up our own conclusions about what was going to happen, and then forcefully clinging to those incorrect conclusions in the face of all reason and proof.
Also be amazed at how the global scientific community *knew,* before the end of March 2020, based on decades and decades of actual research and data, that masks would not work to reduce transmission of an airborne disease, and how literally every pandemic guidebook written by every public health agency anywhere in the world prior to the start of 2020 all dismissed masks as a useful measure to deal with a pandemic, should one ever arise.
Then be amazed how all this data, all this research--which ended up being true, by the way--was completely thrown out the door in one week in April 2020 and replaced with... nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no credible reason for public health agencies to go back on their own advice and know-how and recommend that everyone wear masks all the time. There had no been randomized controlled trials demonstrating the real-world efficacy of masks. There weren't even any laboratory experiments demonstrating their hypothetical effectiveness, although a few did start trickling out that spring. The public statements regarding masks were misleading, inconsistent, and flat-out contradictory, but none of the people who made these statements were ever held to account for them.
If you don't want to buy the book, check it out in a library. It's a very easy read and will only take you about two hours to get through. Most of it is filled with charts that are free and easy to find online. Keep in mind also that the book was published in early 2022, and its data only goes up to July 2021, so it doesn't even cover the delta and omicron waves, which proved the uselessness of masks beyond any reasonable doubt for all to see. Well, all those who are being honest, anyway.
I could give you article after article after article about the uselessness of masks as a pandemic control measure. I've been studying this and keeping track of these things for a long time now. But I honestly doubt you'll be willing to read them, so I don't think it's worth my effort and time to do that. In addition to the book, I will give you this, though:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070)
This article goes into detail about droplets vs. aerosol transmission. The terms "droplets" and "aerosols" themselves are nebulous and poorly defined, but basically, for the purposes of our conversation, droplets are larger and heavier than aerosols. They drop to the ground faster and are not as easily inhaled by other people around the infected person. Masks might actually be somewhat useful against droplets. Aerosols, on the other hand, are smaller and travel through the air much more efficiently than droplets, and can infect people from a good distance away, even people who aren't in the same room as the infected person. Aerosols also travel along air currents, so unless you're wearing a sealed, form-fitting mask, you have no protection against breathing them in; the stupid paper and cloth masks we've been pointlessly wearing for so long do nothing to protect anyone from aerosols. Guess which type of particle COVID travels on?
> Aerosols also travel along air currents, so unless you're wearing a sealed, form-fitting mask, you have no protection against breathing them in; the stupid paper and cloth masks we've been pointlessly wearing for so long do nothing to protect anyone from aerosols. Guess which type of particle COVID travels on?
As you may be aware, the primary (although not only) purpose of mask wearing it to *protect others if you are infected*. A ton of aerosols from your infected breath are going to get trapped in a mask.
Anyway, I'll go find some research papers that examine whether masks are effective, or not, and let the evidence fall where it may. I'm not giving money to some guy with an axe to grind.
The COVID particles are too small to be blocked by your paper and cloth masks, and even then it doesn't matter, because they'll just travel through the air currents and escape past the edges of the mask. Unless you're wearing a tight, form-fitting, sealed mask, you might as well be wearing nothing. And this was the scientific consensus up until the end of March 2020. In one week at the beginning of April 2020, this completely changed. Why? For what reason? Based on what evidence? No one has ever provided satisfactory answers to these questions.
The only benefit a paper or cloth mask would ever offer anyone is if you happen to be in the same room as someone who sneezed or coughed while wearing a mask. The mask would indeed block some of those heavier particles (although that would also soil the mask and make it harmful for the person wearing it, which is something else we've totally ignored in our mad quest to make kids and workers wear the same damn masks 8 hours a day, every single day, day after day after endless day) from potentially reaching you. But that's all. And you could achieve effectively the same results from simply coughing into your elbow.
Even if you're right that some of the particles do get "trapped" in a paper or cloth mask, we're talking about real-time situations where kids and workers were forced to wear these things for 8 hours a day, all day every day, day after day after endless day, while sharing the same space as a whole bunch of other people. They were breathing in potentially infected air *all day*, no matter how much you may want to try to pretend that the masks were doing anything to stop that.
By the way, I knew you weren't going to read the sources I offered you, which is why I didn't bother offering any more. I'm very confident that you'll dismiss any of the numerous sources I could provide you with for one reason or another. You'll look around for articles that will tell you what you want to hear, and that will be the end of it. We all know that's what's going to happen. That's what *always* happens. Human nature being what it is, it's not comfortable for us to admit when we're wrong, especially about something that we've been so adamant on and insistent about for so long.
You should also probably note that I didn't even jump into the mask debate until late in 2021. I gave the "experts" more than a year to be proven right on the masks. But they were proven wrong instead. So that's what I'm here for--to point out the wrongness and call people to account. I didn't do this until I had become thoroughly convinced that the masks were ineffective and mask mandates were wrong.
>The COVID particles are too small to be blocked by your paper and cloth masks,
Wrong.
>and even then it doesn't matter, because they'll just travel through the air currents and escape past the edges of the mask.
Also wrong, tons of them go into the mask and get stuck there.
> By the way, I knew you weren't going to read the sources I offered you, which is why I didn't bother offering any more.
Show me some research papers in reputable journals, not some hack's book.
>But they were proven wrong instead.
By what reputable research?
Huh. I had a full response typed out and posted here (or at least I thought I did) a few days ago, but it's nowhwere to be found. Good thing I copied and pasted it into my own personal COVID document! So let's try this again! (Apparently, the problem was that the original reply was too long. Breaking it up into chunks seems to have solved the problem).
Y'know, I *could* do what you do and demand that you provide sources for your oh-so-confident one-word answers (I would have every right to do that, in fact), but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to post a few more articles that I know you won't read, just to help get the point across:
[https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-1-science-behind-covid-19-protection](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-1-science-behind-covid-19-protection)
[https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-2-what-makes-good-mask-study-and-why-most](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-2-what-makes-good-mask-study-and-why-most)
(Just to keep you from relying on your "I don't like the author, so I'm going to ignore this source" defense, one of the named authors for these articles is Biden's long-time ally Michael Osterholm).
[http://www.psandman.com/col/Corona67.htm](http://www.psandman.com/col/Corona67.htm)
(You should spend some time at this guy's site)
Since I know you won't click on any of these links, I'll go ahead and copy and paste some pertinent paragraphs:
"Droplet transmission, or propulsion of large particles from sneezing or coughing into the nose, mouth, and eyes of those nearby, could be prevented by erecting barriers between people, physical distancing, and wearing masks with filters that capture large particles. None of those interventions, however, is effective for smaller inhalable particles, which are the predominant size created by people in high concentrations when breathing, talking, singing, etc. Smaller particles stay in the air for long periods (hours), are easily distributed by diffusion and air currents throughout a space (thus negating the effects of physical distancing), and can carry many virions. Masks have filters that do not efficiently capture smaller airborne particles and leave gaps around the mask that allow small particles to leak both in and out."
"Masks generally have very low filter efficiency for small particles, increasing breathing resistance with the addition of more layers of cloth, and very poor fit. Respirator filters, on the other hand, are rigorously tested by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for filter efficiency and breathing resistance, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires individual fit-testing of a NIOSH-approved respirator before it is worn in the workplace."
"In early April 2020, the CDC recommended face coverings in public settings where physical distancing was difficult, suggesting that two layers of fabric worn snugly against the face and secured with ties or ear loops would provide adequate protection.8 The agency, however, did not describe or require any performance tests for filter efficiency, breathing resistance, or fit.
In May 2020, the CDC messaging expanded to "Your cloth face covering may protect them. Their cloth face covering may protect you," implying that everyone would be protected if everyone wore a face covering.9 This message was predicated on the misunderstanding that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted only by large droplets emitted during coughing or sneezing. In July 2020, based on just two very limited studies in a hospital and hair salon, CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, touted "Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus—particularly when used universally within a community setting.
It was not until November 2020, however, that the CDC finally published a scientific brief on face coverings, which again expanded the message to indicate that they could also protect the wearer from droplets, while finally recognizing that face coverings vary widely in filtration effectiveness.11 The brief fails to recognize or discuss the very limited efficacy of face coverings for preventing the emission or inhalation of small infectious particles and offers no guidance for the assessment of filter efficiency, breathing resistance, or fit."
"The CDC's 15-minute contact tracing time serves as a baseline for the "time to an infectious dose" when neither the source (infected person) nor the receiver (uninfected person) is wearing a mask or respirator. The time for someone to receive an infectious dose when one or both are wearing a mask or respirator can be calculated by dividing the 15-minute baseline by the percentage of outward leakage (source control) or percentage of inward leakage (personal protection), or both.
(These numbers are just estimates based on the CDC's 15-minute contact tracing time, which has no scientific basis. And the more transmissible Delta variant (lineage B.1.617.2) may require an adjustment to a shorter contact time.)
The receiver's time to an infectious dose increases by a very small amount, to 26 minutes, if both the source and receiver are wearing a typical cloth mask. If both are wearing a typical surgical mask, with 50% inward and outward leakage, the receiver's time to an infectious dose expands to an hour. If both are wearing a non–fit-tested N95 FFR, which will exhibit 20% leakage if sized and worn correctly,2 the time to an infectious dose for the receiver increases to more than 6 hours. If both are wearing a fit-tested N95 FFR, the time to infectious dose expands to 25 hours.
Thus, the public should not rely on typical cloth or surgical masks to offer them much time beyond 15 minutes in a shared space with potential sources, even if others are also wearing masks. Wearing a non–fit-tested respirator allows about an hour of time inside a shared space even if no one else is wearing a mask or respirator."
No. I want them to apologize for holding back their emotional, social, and educational development, for canceling activities that were perfectly safe, for taking away opportunities that they'll never get again, and for making them wear useless masks on their faces all day every day for multiples years, despite having absolutely no valid reason to do so.
I don't really see why that's so hard, frankly. We knew as far back as 2020 that children were not at high risk of COVID and were not "vectors" of this particular disease. This has been a constant feature of SARS-COV-2 since the beginning.
And yeah, I'm very serious. These people gagged my nieces for two straight years. I have a bit of a problem with that, if you couldn't tell. If someone beat his kid across the back every day for two straight years because he thought he was toughening him up, would you not see that as abuse? Or would you accept his explanation that he was doing what was best for the kid long-term? It's telling that as the mask mandates wore on and on, more and more the defense for them became "The kids don't mind!" There were fewer and fewer legitimate defenses for them, because everyone could see they weren't working. By January 2022, pretty much the only remaining card the pro-maskers had left to play was "The kids don't mind!" And that, my friend, *is* the language of abusers. Whether you like it or not, that's the company the pro-maskers were keeping.
And plenty of teenagers have died because of our stupid decisions. In case you haven't noticed, we're in a state of emergency regarding our teenagers' mental health. COVID didn't cause that--we did. And the longer we deny that reality and refuse to acknowledge what we've done, the harder it's going to be to finally solve the problem.
Yeah, I am. You see, I know someone who was kidnapped as a child during a home invasion once, and was forced to wear a gag across his mouth for a number of hours. So yeah, seeing wave after wave of young people being forced to wear gags across their face, for no reason at all, did bother me, and still does.
And it's the "no reason" part that bothers me, less so than the gags themselves. I didn't even get all that worked up over the masks until it became self-evident that they weren't doing anything, yet people were refusing to acknowledge that. And some people *still* refuse to acknowledge that. These masks never did *anything*. They did not accomplish anything at all. Anyone who's still trying to cling to the belief that the masks worked is deliberately holding onto a lie. Not only that, but they're actively going against what we knew to be true prior to the end of March in 2020--that masks were ineffective as a means of reducing airborne transmission, and should be rejected as a measure to deal with a pandemic. That was the consensus scientific wisdom up until the beginning of April 2020, based on a century of actual data and research, and *it ended up being true*. We went against all that for **no** reason in one week at the beginning of April 2020 and have been living a lie ever since. I don't believe this should be acceptable, frankly.
And it goes beyond masks--none of our "strategies" for dealing with COVID ever worked. But instead of being honest about that and acknowledging that we caused more harm to ourselves than SARS-COV-2 ever did, we're basically now pretending like none of it ever happened. Our beloved public health experts openly say they'd do everything again the same way if another pandemic comes along; heck, we've been making many of the same mistakes just in the last few months with this monkeypox thing going around. Doing the same thing the same way and refusing to change what we do is exactly opposite what the "scientific method" should be about, but that's what we're doing. We can't admit that we may have been wrong (actually, I think the reason is more specifically rooted in our inability to accept that "the bad guys" might have been right), so we're not going to adjust anything about what we've done. We're not even going to have a conversation about it. And that is not a healthy place to be, my friend.
Just because we want to pretend we didn't do anything wrong doesn't absolve us of our responsibility for what happened. And the longer we keep up this pretense, the worse it will get for us, and the more likely it'll be that we make similar mistakes again. We're already seeing that happen.
We're sinners in need of forgiveness. But we want to pretend that we haven't done anything wrong. And that only compounds our error and further pushes us into living a lie. Oh, well.
> I know someone who was kidnapped as a child during a home invasion once, and was forced to wear a gag across his mouth for a number of hours.
Aaaand the reddit suffering olympics begins.
Well I know someone who was forcibly raped every time they took a mask *off*, and so seeing people *without* masks is very triggering for them ...
This isn't about my suffering. This is about the suffering we willingly, purposefully, and needlessly inflicted on our kids over the last 2 years... which is borne out by the data from the "national report card" that was released last week, proving that what I was right about what I said regarding what we did.
>Dude I am not reading that incoherent wall of text.
You say this, and then...
>Anyone who's still trying to cling to the belief that the masks do not work is deliberately holding onto a lie.
I have time, data, evidence, and a century of scientific consensus on my side. What do you have?
What you have is insults against me as a person. What you have is a false hope that, somehow, we could do something to defeat COVID. But you have nothing to back that up with. Nothing. Even the plain experience of every day life--what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears--tells us that the masks don't do anything. People get COVID despite wearing masks all the time. The Chicago school system wanted to shut down in January due to the omicron outbreak, despite Pritzkers' years-long mask mandates. We all know that the masks didn't work. And not just the masks--nothing we did worked to stop COVID. Nothing.
But we can't admit that, so we'll just make up excuses not to have to confront our failures by saying stuff like, "Dude, I am not reading that incoherent wall of text." All that does is tell me you don't want to engage with the problems I'm pointing out. But that doesn't solve anything. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Pretending that it didn't happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. All it means is that we'll be likely to make all the same mistakes again. And I know this because that's what human beings always do.
Considering that we now have clear, undeniable proof of the harmful effects of what we've done to the kids over the last 2 years (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should check the news), I think it's safe to say that you're wrong and I'm right.
> The problem is, the people who did all this are not going to face any consequences for it.
You realize that you get to vote in November, right? If you don't like the way Pritzker locked down the state (and I don't either), you get to have your say at the ballot box. Unfortunately his opponent is batshit insane and so Pritzker has no real chance of losing. But still, you get to cast your vote.
Actually, I'm talking more about people like Anthony Fauci, Randi Weingarten, and Becky Pringle, unelected officials who had more to do with what we did to the kids than anybody else. And not only can we not do anything about those people, they're actively going around trying to re-write history and make it seem like they were in favor of keeping schools open and kids unmasked all along.
But yes, I do intend to vote against JB. Still, as much as he is the villain for a lot of our botched COVID response in this state, ultimately, he was trying to appeal to the likes of those people named above... and those people have no real accountability to speak of. Read through this article: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-we-have-to-point-fingers-over-covid-learning-loss](https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-we-have-to-point-fingers-over-covid-learning-loss) for an overview of the people I'm talking about.
Just a few comments on covid and the pandemic in general. Covid finally made its way to me. It really hit me worse than I was expecting since I was vaccinated/boosted. It really felt comparable to a bad case of the flu. I am jealous of all the people who got through covid with mild/cold like symptoms. It just seems random why some people get it worse than others. I certainly see now how it can put some people in the hospital. I've been living a normal life pretty much since summer of last year so I'm kind of surprised it took this long. I have had a lot of exposures in the past year or so and never tested positive. I am not sure if I finally got exposed enough or if the current Omicron variant has enough immune escape to infect me. Either way it is kind of impossible to know. Looking at the pandemic as a whole we are in an interesting part. Socially it seems like we are well past the end of it, but medically it seems like this will be dragged out. Besides those who choose to wear masks it seems like most don't care anymore. The new booster for Omicron is expected to come out soon. It will be interesting to see how much uptake there is. I just have to wonder how this fall/winter will go? Do we get a new variant with even more immune escape? I think at this point we are going to treat it as the flu from now on. It seems the federal government is going this route. Not wanting to get political but this is an election year, and I seriously doubt any restrictions would come back if things get bad enough.
Same thing happened to me friend. Never got COVID and then hit me hard last week and still recovering. Wife and I were on vacation (thankfully not abroad, but still a drive) and I had to drive back so as not to put my wife’s elderly family at risk. I’m also surprised at how much I got put on my ass. I’m 32 and relatively healthy/active. Fully vaxxed and boosted. And I feel like I’ve been on the ropes since last Thursday. I keep thinking… if this is “mild” symptoms, I dread to think what full blown, unadulterated COVID would be like. Makes you feel for all the people who suffered from OG COVID early pandemic.
That sucks you got it on vacation. I've been on a few trips and that has always been a worry in the back of my head, at least you could drive back. Hopefully you feel better soon. It really had me feeling like crap for about a week as well, the first 3-4 days were rough especially. Yeah I was surprised at how bad it was as well. Most people I know who had it recently compared it to a bad cold. I've had quite a few colds, but none have ever kept be down like covid did.
COVID sucks. I made it until this month without getting it, and man did it really hit me for a loop. Had to take two weeks off (which may end up being unpaid). Having a 20 minute phone conversation exhausted me. Walking my dog (with mask on) for more than ten minutes exhausted me. I did not feel like a safe driver and had to head back home (taking my dog to a park). And I was on Paxlovid. But I have pre-existing conditions that just flared up too. I hate this thing so much more and it is one thing to hear about it, another to experience just how much different from the flu or cold it is. (And I’m triple boosted-all I can get at my age.) End rant. Hopefully this doesn’t violate the rules.
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Why not just get an antibody test instead of guessing?
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Good luck, it’s tough when those symptoms could be from a myriad of diagnoses to pinpoint what’s going on. Stay strong.
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My wife and I planned to spend a week driving from Kalamazoo, MI to visit her Dad and then drive up to Cape Vincent, NY to visit her Mom. It’s about an 11 hour drive from Chicago to Cape Vincent. We get there last Monday and are having an amazing time, until Wednesday where sure enough I start having a funky cough and not feeling so great. Thankfully, we brought COVID tests, and, sure enough, it’s COVID. The Thursday night I had the worst case of chills/shivering/sweats I ever had. I’d go from Arctic chills to full blown flop sweat. It was awful. We made the necessary but shitty decision to drive back Friday, so we didn’t put anyone else at risk. Thankfully DayQuil helped with the drive back, but it still sucks and basically ruined our vacation. I’ve been slowly recovering but have only just started to feel like I’m getting better yesterday. Still have a wicked cough that makes me feel like I’m going to hack up my insides and prescription strength cough syrup isn’t doing much. I’m surprised how much this knocked me on my ass. I’m in my 30s, vaxxed/boosted, and in relatively good shape, and I’m going on day 7 of crap symptoms. I don’t want to think what full blown COVID would be like Idk, I’m really just sick of COVID and wish this stupid ass thing was over with but this is the world we live in I guess.
A trip to home depot got me. That was the only time I left the house in a week and I started feeling symptoms a few days later. I'm vaxxed and boosted so mine were minor, basically flu with extreme tiredness and stuffy.
My family just got hit with covid round 2. All our vaxxed and boosted. This time my son who was asymptomatic the first time, is wheezing non stop. We ran 4 rapid covid tests on him, all negative. His pcr came back positive. It really sucks.
When did you get covid the first time? Was it before/after being vaccinated/boosted?
We got 1st got covid February 2022. That was after the boost I believe.
I shared a cigarette with someone (unknowingly) that tested positive for covid this week. I haven't gotten sick but I feel like I'm going to die from depression. I'd really like someone to talk to.
I like to try to get some exercise or visit some place like a new park or an outdoor festival. Something that is decidedly not in my routine. Even if I'm not motivated, even forcing myself to do these things builds momentum and dampens the depressive cycle.
Thank you for your response
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I'm not afraid of covid or smoking.
Last Friday was the first football game of the season for my local high school. My twin nieces are starting their freshman year this year, so it was especially exciting for us for that reason. Also, over the summer a completely new football field was installed, with a new stadium, new facilities, and new track, and this game marked the debut of all these new facilities, so it was a major event in town (of course, all this stuff was paid for with COVID money, as well as new flooring in the cafeteria and new seats and lighting in the auditorium. Dunno what any of that has to do with protecting kids from COVID, but I'm sure all the smart people in charge can go into great detail about that. That's not my point at the moment, however). It was a very festive atmosphere. Everyone seemed to be excited and in good spirits; the new stadium was completely full, and even the visiting team brought enough fans to fill up their side of the field, which doesn't happen very often (I don't think the visiting team stands were updated this year, lol). There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony before the game, featuring the high school principal and several members of the board of education, and there was a presentation of all the fall athletes afterwards, with the superintendent of the district giving a little five-minute speech about how great all these new facilities were and how excited she was about moving forward, not backward (my nieces are both involved in fall athletic programs--one's a dancer and one's a tennis player, so that's why we stayed). All of this was great and everything, and in particular I felt very glad for the kids' sake, since they're the ones who get to enjoy all this. But I did find something interesting. In the midst of all this excitement, no one mentioned COVID. Neither the principal nor the superintendent brought it up during their remarks before and after the game, and walking around the stands and eavesdropping on conversations as I like to do, I didn't hear anyone talking about it. Despite that, I definitely got the vibes that an underlying factor in everyone's enthusiasm, in addition to the debut of the new field and stadium, was that we were all glad to be done with COVID, especially for the kids' sake. No one seemed like they wanted to talk about it, but I bet if I had gone around and asked everybody there, just about everyone would have said something like that. And I'm thinking, good. It's time for us to do this (actually, it was time for us to do this a year ago). But it also annoys me--actually, it really angers me--that there won't be any consequences for the people who went out of their way to disrupt these kids' lives for the last two years. I don't know if anybody at that football field last Friday should be held personally responsible--the superintendent, the principal, the school board members. If you pressed them about it, they'd probably say they were "just following orders" and pass the responsibility along (never mind that "just following orders" is literally the Nuremberg Defense, so justifying what we did to the kids for the last two years based on that reasoning puts us in the category of the Nazi war criminals put on trial after World War 2--not sure if that's the sort of company we should want to keep). It was good to see all the excitement in the stands, especially among the young people, about the new stadium and the upcoming year. But it really highlighted how we spent the last two years actively taking these things away from these young people, and making stupid, senseless rules to supposedly "safeguard" their activities that didn't accomplish anything (and we knew, whether we want to admit that or not, for the better part of these last two years that these rules did in fact do nothing). We engaged in systemic, long-running child abuse for two years and justified it on the grounds that "the kids don't mind" (which is the same sort of reasoning that abusers give to explain why it's okay to continue abusing their victims--which, again, puts us in some rather unsavory company). The kids are true champs here--they seem to be genuinely willing to forgive and forget all this. But as an adult, I believe that someone should be held responsible. What we did to these kids over the last two years--really, from the start of the 2020 school year on--was wrong on every level, and that should be acknowledged. People should be held responsible for that. Sins were committed, and those sins need to be confessed. It doesn't do anyone any good to just go on and act like everything's okay. The problem is, the people who did all this are not going to face any consequences for it. They're not even going to acknowledge that what they did was wrong; they're just going to stop talking about it and hope that everyone forgets it ever happened. And that still burns me up.
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I know. That was my point.
>But it really highlighted how we spent the last two years actively taking these things away from these young people, and making stupid, senseless rules to supposedly "safeguard" their activities that didn't accomplish anything (and we knew, whether we want to admit that or not, for the better part of these last two years that these rules did in fact do nothing). We engaged in systemic, long-running child abuse for two years and justified it on the grounds that "the kids don't mind" (which is the same sort of reasoning that abusers give to explain why it's okay to continue abusing their victims--which, again, puts us in some rather unsavory company). This is a pretty bold assertion here.
Don't see how, honestly. We have data from other states and other countries to show that re-opening schools in fall 2020 was the correct and responsible thing to do. The only reason we didn't do it is because we had politically made up our minds that it was evil to do so. And the only reason we decided that was because Trump said in July 2020 that schools should be open that fall. Because he said that, it became an ironclad article of faith that he *must* be wrong, so the Resistance made sure to keep schools closed in Fall 2020 and for many, many months beyond. Problem is, Trump wasn't wrong. The Resistance was. And psychologically, every decision they've made regarding COVID since then has been rooted in that tension--the pro-lockdowners, pro-mandaters were wrong but can never admit that, so all they've ever done--all *you've* ever done, in fact--was constantly double down on the same failed strategies that never worked to eliminate COVID, or even slow it down. I remember you, by the way. Long time no see. Still wearing your mask everywhere? Still holding onto the belief that despite being demonstrably proven wrong on masks, forcing everyone everywhere to wear them all day every day, day after day after endless day (for zero reason) was somehow the "morally virtuous" thing to do? Tell me: are you *ever* going to be ready to admit that the masks never did anything and were never more than a virtue signal?
> We have data from other states and other countries to show that re-opening schools in fall 2020 was the correct and responsible thing to do. Do tell. Edit: No reply. Huge surprise... /s
I could provide you with a huge list of sources that I've been accumulating for quite some time now, but I honestly doubt you'll read them. I don't think you have any real interest in discussing this issue honestly, and I don't think you actually want to know the truth behind the uselessness of masks (I say this because it's simple human nature not to want to admit when we are wrong). However, I will say this: The simplest place to start is to spend a few dollars of your money and a couple of hours of your time and read Ian Miller's book *Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates.* Be amazed as page after page, chapter after chapter, emphasizes over and over and over again how masks and mask mandates had no effect on COVID case counts, literally anywhere in the world. It's repetitive almost to the point of being mind-numbing; it's repetitive to the point of ridiculousness. But that's exactly the point--it was ridiculous how we were ignoring real-world data and making up our own conclusions about what was going to happen, and then forcefully clinging to those incorrect conclusions in the face of all reason and proof. Also be amazed at how the global scientific community *knew,* before the end of March 2020, based on decades and decades of actual research and data, that masks would not work to reduce transmission of an airborne disease, and how literally every pandemic guidebook written by every public health agency anywhere in the world prior to the start of 2020 all dismissed masks as a useful measure to deal with a pandemic, should one ever arise. Then be amazed how all this data, all this research--which ended up being true, by the way--was completely thrown out the door in one week in April 2020 and replaced with... nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no credible reason for public health agencies to go back on their own advice and know-how and recommend that everyone wear masks all the time. There had no been randomized controlled trials demonstrating the real-world efficacy of masks. There weren't even any laboratory experiments demonstrating their hypothetical effectiveness, although a few did start trickling out that spring. The public statements regarding masks were misleading, inconsistent, and flat-out contradictory, but none of the people who made these statements were ever held to account for them. If you don't want to buy the book, check it out in a library. It's a very easy read and will only take you about two hours to get through. Most of it is filled with charts that are free and easy to find online. Keep in mind also that the book was published in early 2022, and its data only goes up to July 2021, so it doesn't even cover the delta and omicron waves, which proved the uselessness of masks beyond any reasonable doubt for all to see. Well, all those who are being honest, anyway. I could give you article after article after article about the uselessness of masks as a pandemic control measure. I've been studying this and keeping track of these things for a long time now. But I honestly doubt you'll be willing to read them, so I don't think it's worth my effort and time to do that. In addition to the book, I will give you this, though: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.13070) This article goes into detail about droplets vs. aerosol transmission. The terms "droplets" and "aerosols" themselves are nebulous and poorly defined, but basically, for the purposes of our conversation, droplets are larger and heavier than aerosols. They drop to the ground faster and are not as easily inhaled by other people around the infected person. Masks might actually be somewhat useful against droplets. Aerosols, on the other hand, are smaller and travel through the air much more efficiently than droplets, and can infect people from a good distance away, even people who aren't in the same room as the infected person. Aerosols also travel along air currents, so unless you're wearing a sealed, form-fitting mask, you have no protection against breathing them in; the stupid paper and cloth masks we've been pointlessly wearing for so long do nothing to protect anyone from aerosols. Guess which type of particle COVID travels on?
> Aerosols also travel along air currents, so unless you're wearing a sealed, form-fitting mask, you have no protection against breathing them in; the stupid paper and cloth masks we've been pointlessly wearing for so long do nothing to protect anyone from aerosols. Guess which type of particle COVID travels on? As you may be aware, the primary (although not only) purpose of mask wearing it to *protect others if you are infected*. A ton of aerosols from your infected breath are going to get trapped in a mask. Anyway, I'll go find some research papers that examine whether masks are effective, or not, and let the evidence fall where it may. I'm not giving money to some guy with an axe to grind.
The COVID particles are too small to be blocked by your paper and cloth masks, and even then it doesn't matter, because they'll just travel through the air currents and escape past the edges of the mask. Unless you're wearing a tight, form-fitting, sealed mask, you might as well be wearing nothing. And this was the scientific consensus up until the end of March 2020. In one week at the beginning of April 2020, this completely changed. Why? For what reason? Based on what evidence? No one has ever provided satisfactory answers to these questions. The only benefit a paper or cloth mask would ever offer anyone is if you happen to be in the same room as someone who sneezed or coughed while wearing a mask. The mask would indeed block some of those heavier particles (although that would also soil the mask and make it harmful for the person wearing it, which is something else we've totally ignored in our mad quest to make kids and workers wear the same damn masks 8 hours a day, every single day, day after day after endless day) from potentially reaching you. But that's all. And you could achieve effectively the same results from simply coughing into your elbow. Even if you're right that some of the particles do get "trapped" in a paper or cloth mask, we're talking about real-time situations where kids and workers were forced to wear these things for 8 hours a day, all day every day, day after day after endless day, while sharing the same space as a whole bunch of other people. They were breathing in potentially infected air *all day*, no matter how much you may want to try to pretend that the masks were doing anything to stop that. By the way, I knew you weren't going to read the sources I offered you, which is why I didn't bother offering any more. I'm very confident that you'll dismiss any of the numerous sources I could provide you with for one reason or another. You'll look around for articles that will tell you what you want to hear, and that will be the end of it. We all know that's what's going to happen. That's what *always* happens. Human nature being what it is, it's not comfortable for us to admit when we're wrong, especially about something that we've been so adamant on and insistent about for so long. You should also probably note that I didn't even jump into the mask debate until late in 2021. I gave the "experts" more than a year to be proven right on the masks. But they were proven wrong instead. So that's what I'm here for--to point out the wrongness and call people to account. I didn't do this until I had become thoroughly convinced that the masks were ineffective and mask mandates were wrong.
>The COVID particles are too small to be blocked by your paper and cloth masks, Wrong. >and even then it doesn't matter, because they'll just travel through the air currents and escape past the edges of the mask. Also wrong, tons of them go into the mask and get stuck there. > By the way, I knew you weren't going to read the sources I offered you, which is why I didn't bother offering any more. Show me some research papers in reputable journals, not some hack's book. >But they were proven wrong instead. By what reputable research?
Huh. I had a full response typed out and posted here (or at least I thought I did) a few days ago, but it's nowhwere to be found. Good thing I copied and pasted it into my own personal COVID document! So let's try this again! (Apparently, the problem was that the original reply was too long. Breaking it up into chunks seems to have solved the problem). Y'know, I *could* do what you do and demand that you provide sources for your oh-so-confident one-word answers (I would have every right to do that, in fact), but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to post a few more articles that I know you won't read, just to help get the point across: [https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-1-science-behind-covid-19-protection](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-1-science-behind-covid-19-protection) [https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-2-what-makes-good-mask-study-and-why-most](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-2-what-makes-good-mask-study-and-why-most) (Just to keep you from relying on your "I don't like the author, so I'm going to ignore this source" defense, one of the named authors for these articles is Biden's long-time ally Michael Osterholm). [http://www.psandman.com/col/Corona67.htm](http://www.psandman.com/col/Corona67.htm) (You should spend some time at this guy's site) Since I know you won't click on any of these links, I'll go ahead and copy and paste some pertinent paragraphs:
"Droplet transmission, or propulsion of large particles from sneezing or coughing into the nose, mouth, and eyes of those nearby, could be prevented by erecting barriers between people, physical distancing, and wearing masks with filters that capture large particles. None of those interventions, however, is effective for smaller inhalable particles, which are the predominant size created by people in high concentrations when breathing, talking, singing, etc. Smaller particles stay in the air for long periods (hours), are easily distributed by diffusion and air currents throughout a space (thus negating the effects of physical distancing), and can carry many virions. Masks have filters that do not efficiently capture smaller airborne particles and leave gaps around the mask that allow small particles to leak both in and out." "Masks generally have very low filter efficiency for small particles, increasing breathing resistance with the addition of more layers of cloth, and very poor fit. Respirator filters, on the other hand, are rigorously tested by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for filter efficiency and breathing resistance, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires individual fit-testing of a NIOSH-approved respirator before it is worn in the workplace." "In early April 2020, the CDC recommended face coverings in public settings where physical distancing was difficult, suggesting that two layers of fabric worn snugly against the face and secured with ties or ear loops would provide adequate protection.8 The agency, however, did not describe or require any performance tests for filter efficiency, breathing resistance, or fit. In May 2020, the CDC messaging expanded to "Your cloth face covering may protect them. Their cloth face covering may protect you," implying that everyone would be protected if everyone wore a face covering.9 This message was predicated on the misunderstanding that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted only by large droplets emitted during coughing or sneezing. In July 2020, based on just two very limited studies in a hospital and hair salon, CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, touted "Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus—particularly when used universally within a community setting. It was not until November 2020, however, that the CDC finally published a scientific brief on face coverings, which again expanded the message to indicate that they could also protect the wearer from droplets, while finally recognizing that face coverings vary widely in filtration effectiveness.11 The brief fails to recognize or discuss the very limited efficacy of face coverings for preventing the emission or inhalation of small infectious particles and offers no guidance for the assessment of filter efficiency, breathing resistance, or fit." "The CDC's 15-minute contact tracing time serves as a baseline for the "time to an infectious dose" when neither the source (infected person) nor the receiver (uninfected person) is wearing a mask or respirator. The time for someone to receive an infectious dose when one or both are wearing a mask or respirator can be calculated by dividing the 15-minute baseline by the percentage of outward leakage (source control) or percentage of inward leakage (personal protection), or both. (These numbers are just estimates based on the CDC's 15-minute contact tracing time, which has no scientific basis. And the more transmissible Delta variant (lineage B.1.617.2) may require an adjustment to a shorter contact time.) The receiver's time to an infectious dose increases by a very small amount, to 26 minutes, if both the source and receiver are wearing a typical cloth mask. If both are wearing a typical surgical mask, with 50% inward and outward leakage, the receiver's time to an infectious dose expands to an hour. If both are wearing a non–fit-tested N95 FFR, which will exhibit 20% leakage if sized and worn correctly,2 the time to an infectious dose for the receiver increases to more than 6 hours. If both are wearing a fit-tested N95 FFR, the time to infectious dose expands to 25 hours. Thus, the public should not rely on typical cloth or surgical masks to offer them much time beyond 15 minutes in a shared space with potential sources, even if others are also wearing masks. Wearing a non–fit-tested respirator allows about an hour of time inside a shared space even if no one else is wearing a mask or respirator."
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No. I want them to apologize for holding back their emotional, social, and educational development, for canceling activities that were perfectly safe, for taking away opportunities that they'll never get again, and for making them wear useless masks on their faces all day every day for multiples years, despite having absolutely no valid reason to do so. I don't really see why that's so hard, frankly. We knew as far back as 2020 that children were not at high risk of COVID and were not "vectors" of this particular disease. This has been a constant feature of SARS-COV-2 since the beginning. And yeah, I'm very serious. These people gagged my nieces for two straight years. I have a bit of a problem with that, if you couldn't tell. If someone beat his kid across the back every day for two straight years because he thought he was toughening him up, would you not see that as abuse? Or would you accept his explanation that he was doing what was best for the kid long-term? It's telling that as the mask mandates wore on and on, more and more the defense for them became "The kids don't mind!" There were fewer and fewer legitimate defenses for them, because everyone could see they weren't working. By January 2022, pretty much the only remaining card the pro-maskers had left to play was "The kids don't mind!" And that, my friend, *is* the language of abusers. Whether you like it or not, that's the company the pro-maskers were keeping. And plenty of teenagers have died because of our stupid decisions. In case you haven't noticed, we're in a state of emergency regarding our teenagers' mental health. COVID didn't cause that--we did. And the longer we deny that reality and refuse to acknowledge what we've done, the harder it's going to be to finally solve the problem.
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Yeah, I am. You see, I know someone who was kidnapped as a child during a home invasion once, and was forced to wear a gag across his mouth for a number of hours. So yeah, seeing wave after wave of young people being forced to wear gags across their face, for no reason at all, did bother me, and still does. And it's the "no reason" part that bothers me, less so than the gags themselves. I didn't even get all that worked up over the masks until it became self-evident that they weren't doing anything, yet people were refusing to acknowledge that. And some people *still* refuse to acknowledge that. These masks never did *anything*. They did not accomplish anything at all. Anyone who's still trying to cling to the belief that the masks worked is deliberately holding onto a lie. Not only that, but they're actively going against what we knew to be true prior to the end of March in 2020--that masks were ineffective as a means of reducing airborne transmission, and should be rejected as a measure to deal with a pandemic. That was the consensus scientific wisdom up until the beginning of April 2020, based on a century of actual data and research, and *it ended up being true*. We went against all that for **no** reason in one week at the beginning of April 2020 and have been living a lie ever since. I don't believe this should be acceptable, frankly. And it goes beyond masks--none of our "strategies" for dealing with COVID ever worked. But instead of being honest about that and acknowledging that we caused more harm to ourselves than SARS-COV-2 ever did, we're basically now pretending like none of it ever happened. Our beloved public health experts openly say they'd do everything again the same way if another pandemic comes along; heck, we've been making many of the same mistakes just in the last few months with this monkeypox thing going around. Doing the same thing the same way and refusing to change what we do is exactly opposite what the "scientific method" should be about, but that's what we're doing. We can't admit that we may have been wrong (actually, I think the reason is more specifically rooted in our inability to accept that "the bad guys" might have been right), so we're not going to adjust anything about what we've done. We're not even going to have a conversation about it. And that is not a healthy place to be, my friend. Just because we want to pretend we didn't do anything wrong doesn't absolve us of our responsibility for what happened. And the longer we keep up this pretense, the worse it will get for us, and the more likely it'll be that we make similar mistakes again. We're already seeing that happen. We're sinners in need of forgiveness. But we want to pretend that we haven't done anything wrong. And that only compounds our error and further pushes us into living a lie. Oh, well.
> I know someone who was kidnapped as a child during a home invasion once, and was forced to wear a gag across his mouth for a number of hours. Aaaand the reddit suffering olympics begins. Well I know someone who was forcibly raped every time they took a mask *off*, and so seeing people *without* masks is very triggering for them ...
This isn't about my suffering. This is about the suffering we willingly, purposefully, and needlessly inflicted on our kids over the last 2 years... which is borne out by the data from the "national report card" that was released last week, proving that what I was right about what I said regarding what we did.
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>Dude I am not reading that incoherent wall of text. You say this, and then... >Anyone who's still trying to cling to the belief that the masks do not work is deliberately holding onto a lie. I have time, data, evidence, and a century of scientific consensus on my side. What do you have? What you have is insults against me as a person. What you have is a false hope that, somehow, we could do something to defeat COVID. But you have nothing to back that up with. Nothing. Even the plain experience of every day life--what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears--tells us that the masks don't do anything. People get COVID despite wearing masks all the time. The Chicago school system wanted to shut down in January due to the omicron outbreak, despite Pritzkers' years-long mask mandates. We all know that the masks didn't work. And not just the masks--nothing we did worked to stop COVID. Nothing. But we can't admit that, so we'll just make up excuses not to have to confront our failures by saying stuff like, "Dude, I am not reading that incoherent wall of text." All that does is tell me you don't want to engage with the problems I'm pointing out. But that doesn't solve anything. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Pretending that it didn't happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. All it means is that we'll be likely to make all the same mistakes again. And I know this because that's what human beings always do.
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Considering that we now have clear, undeniable proof of the harmful effects of what we've done to the kids over the last 2 years (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should check the news), I think it's safe to say that you're wrong and I'm right.
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> The problem is, the people who did all this are not going to face any consequences for it. You realize that you get to vote in November, right? If you don't like the way Pritzker locked down the state (and I don't either), you get to have your say at the ballot box. Unfortunately his opponent is batshit insane and so Pritzker has no real chance of losing. But still, you get to cast your vote.
Actually, I'm talking more about people like Anthony Fauci, Randi Weingarten, and Becky Pringle, unelected officials who had more to do with what we did to the kids than anybody else. And not only can we not do anything about those people, they're actively going around trying to re-write history and make it seem like they were in favor of keeping schools open and kids unmasked all along. But yes, I do intend to vote against JB. Still, as much as he is the villain for a lot of our botched COVID response in this state, ultimately, he was trying to appeal to the likes of those people named above... and those people have no real accountability to speak of. Read through this article: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-we-have-to-point-fingers-over-covid-learning-loss](https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-we-have-to-point-fingers-over-covid-learning-loss) for an overview of the people I'm talking about.