TCU 360: TCU’s mask mandate to remain in place

[Froglaw]

Clearly. They'd rather engage in continued hysterics than calmly and rationally examine the physical evidence. I remember a time when there was a thing called the "Scientific Method." A means by which one could examine facts, and, using the observations of those facts, formulate a theory of process by which these facts came to be observed. More experiments and observations were needed to gather more facts, to prove or disprove the theory earlier posited. The more facts gathered and observed, the greater the certainty that the theory was correct.

Now, of course, in this enlightened age, we have "Science!" It is a rhetorical device devoid of what we used to call science, consisting mainly of nebulous pronouncements which rely on some facts, but exclude others, thus rendering the theories posited strange and unwieldy...

Wrong on this one brewing:

"When used in conjunction with widespread testing, contact tracing, quarantining of anyone that may be infected, hand washing, and physical distancing, face masks are a valuable tool to reduce community transmission. All of these measures, through their effect on Re" role="presentation" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">Re, have the potential to reduce the number of infections. As governments exit lockdowns, keeping transmissions low enough to preserve health care capacity will be critical until a vaccine can be developed."

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118#sec-22

I agree that this has gotten political. Never should have become a red v. Blue issue.

I look at it like sear belts. Not always comfortable, but what if it works the one time I need it.

 

[HFrog1999]

Wrong on this one brewing:

"When used in conjunction with widespread testing, contact tracing, quarantining of anyone that may be infected, hand washing, and physical distancing, face masks are a valuable tool to reduce community transmission. All of these measures, through their effect on Re" role="presentation" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">Re, have the potential to reduce the number of infections. As governments exit lockdowns, keeping transmissions low enough to preserve health care capacity will be critical until a vaccine can be developed."

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118#sec-22

I agree that this has gotten political. Never should have become a red v. Blue issue.

I look at it like sear belts. Not always comfortable, but what if it works the one time I need it.

Can the Governor create a seatbelt mandate to force everyone to wear one, or does the legislature have to create a law?

Could the Governor create a mandate that every eligible person carry a gun to reduce crime?

Could the Governor create a mandate banning the wearing jorts and cargo shorts to improve Texas fashion?

 

[The Frog to be Named Later]

Full on seizure.

I was killing time before heading out to dinner at a restaurant when typing it. I am actually truly surprised I survived the night in a public place. Did not think I would be here to respond.

Honestly, The anti-mask people are just as bad as those that yell at you for not wearing a mask. Two peas in a pod.

I could give a [ Finebaum ] if you want to wear a box of masks and a pantyhose on your head. Knock yourself out. ts a free country, or used to be. The difference is you want to force me to comply by wearing a useless virtue signal on my face. Not the same at all.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Wrong on this one brewing:

"When used in conjunction with widespread testing, contact tracing, quarantining of anyone that may be infected, hand washing, and physical distancing, face masks are a valuable tool to reduce community transmission. All of these measures, through their effect on Re" role="presentation" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">Re, have the potential to reduce the number of infections. As governments exit lockdowns, keeping transmissions low enough to preserve health care capacity will be critical until a vaccine can be developed."

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118#sec-22

I agree that this has gotten political. Never should have become a red v. Blue issue.

I look at it like sear belts. Not always comfortable, but what if it works the one time I need it.

Good to know that the deployment of a buffet of things has the potential to reduce the number of infections. If you take away anyone of those things from the buffet does this amazing basic research indicate that the potential goes up in any statistical meaningful way?

 

[The Frog to be Named Later]

Can the Governor create a seatbelt mandate to force everyone to wear one, or does the legislature have to create a law?

Could the Governor create a mandate that every eligible person carry a gun to reduce crime?

Could the Governor create a mandate banning the wearing jorts and cargo shorts to improve Texas fashion?

I was right there with you until jorts

 

[HFrog1999]

I was right there with you until jorts

 

[PurplFrawg]

I look at it like sear belts.

You wear those when you are on the hot seat?

 

[Bruce Berry]

For everyone saying mask don't work & we need everything back to normal. Next time you or a loved one is in surgery, I fully expect you to give the doctors written orders not to wear a mask in surgery since they don't work.



A mask mandate does not prevent the spread of anything - wearing the mask will reduce spread. So when referencing Florida - it needs to show no one in the state wears a mask for that argument to be effective. We should not need a mandate from the government to do what is right by our neighbors (I would rather the govt stay out), but too many are only about themselves.

Public service announcement - mask to not protect the wearer, but help reduce spread to others if the wearer is carrying the virus (reduce being important, since it does not cure the virus or 100% eliminate it.)

Also, never have that surgery in Waco. The doctors there are not good.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Also, never have that surgery in Waco. The doctors there are not good.

Not taking that bait....

 

[HFrog1999]

Also, never have that surgery in Waco. The doctors there are not good.

 

[FrogsMcGee]

I’ll just start by saying that I lost my Dad to COVID way too early (69 years old) in January, so that gives me some perspective on this.

I also live in California where our communities are ridiculously locked down.

I’m all for opening the economy up and letting people make decisions to stay home if not comfortable.

That said, I don’t understand why so much angst exists about wearing masks. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. I lean toward they help more than not, so I wear one everywhere and prefer to be around others that do the same. They really aren’t that much of an inconvenience?

I would be all for more of peoples energy being focused on opening up more of the economy, masks or not. If a mask mandate would enable me to eat inside a restaurant right now, I’d gladly follow.

 

[BrewingFrog]

Wrong on this one brewing:

"When used in conjunction with widespread testing, contact tracing, quarantining of anyone that may be infected, hand washing, and physical distancing, face masks are a valuable tool to reduce community transmission. All of these measures, through their effect on Re" role="presentation" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">Re, have the potential to reduce the number of infections. As governments exit lockdowns, keeping transmissions low enough to preserve health care capacity will be critical until a vaccine can be developed."

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118#sec-22

I agree that this has gotten political. Never should have become a red v. Blue issue.

I look at it like sear belts. Not always comfortable, but what if it works the one time I need it.

"Along with juice, toast, eggs, and milk, it's part of a complete breakfast!" So went the commercials for innumerable breakfast cereals with little contribution to one's needed daily dietary intake. The juice, toast, eggs, and milk did the job. The cereal was entirely superfluous.

Such is the case with the face diaper. As has been pointed out countless times, unless you are wearing a specific type of mask (N95), in a very specific manner (properly fitted with no air leakage), and frequently changing out this mask through the day, it isn't making a whit of difference. In fact, the most effective task in the outlined precautions listed in your quote is the simplest: Wash your hands. A lot. This is Public Health 101.

At this point, there is no benefit to testing, or contact tracing. The disease has been extant for over a year. Contact tracing is only effective in the extremely early stages of an outbreak. After a disease has moved out into the general population, there is no way to trace the spread, as the points of contact between multiple people exceed what can be accounted for.

Additionally, after a year of this disease being out in the wild, most people have been exposed at least once or twice. They have either contracted the disease and beaten it (over 99%) or contracted it and never knew they had it, or were functionally immune due to infection and subsequent immunity from a close viral cousin. The much-hoped-for herd immunity is finally arriving. Coupled with vaccines for truly at-risk people, that pretty much wraps things up.

The truly shameful aspect of this drama has been the willingness of the Public Health apparatus to politically Briles itself out. In doing so, they have squandered much of the public trust by gleefully following along with lockdowns and all sorts of other ineffective and counter-productive actions, many of which go directly against longstanding public health practices. This fragile public trust has been shattered. Pronouncements from egotistical twats like Fauci will be immediately dismissed by people who consider him little more than a lying weasel who will say anything to ingratiate himself further with the powerful. Promoting the loon from Penn. that thinks he's a woman is just rubbing people's faces in it. Finger-shaking wokescolds like the ghastly Lina Hidalgo in Houston, lecturing the public that dropping the mask mandate will lead to thousands of deaths, while her compatriots in Brownsville are releasing hundreds of infected illegals out into the wild lead to further dismissals of the Voices of Authority when they say one thing and yet do another. Repeatedly.

 

[HFrog1999]

I’ll just start by saying that I lost my Dad to COVID way too early (69 years old) in January, so that gives me some perspective on this.

I also live in California where our communities are ridiculously locked down.

I’m all for opening the economy up and letting people make decisions to stay home if not comfortable.

That said, I don’t understand why so much angst exists about wearing masks. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. I lean toward they help more than not, so I wear one everywhere and prefer to be around others that do the same. They really aren’t that much of an inconvenience?

I would be all for more of peoples energy being focused on opening up more of the economy, masks or not. If a mask mandate would enable me to eat inside a restaurant right now, I’d gladly follow.

Sorry about your Dad. I lost my Mom and my Father in Law at 68. It is way too young.

 

[Gehörnter Frosch]

Full on seizure.

Honestly, The anti-mask people are just as bad as those that yell at you for not wearing a mask. Two peas in a pod.

Then there's the rest of us--the sane, rational people who don't need the government to restrict our movements and order us to cover our faces in public (Sharia law, much?). Instead, we voluntarily wash our hands and wear a mask because we personally believe and/or feel that it is the logical and/or considerate thing to do. We balance emotions with intelligence, and have a general distrust of government overreach and the proverbial slippery slope.

If this whole ordeal is about saving lives, then we should make the speed limit 25 on the highways, and 5 on all other roads. We should require masks during flu season. We should ban all trans-fat, and limit caloric intake for everyone. The list goes on and on, but you get the point. Anyone with intellectual honesty must recognize that the government intervention into COVID-19 mandates has been arbitrary and capricious. And that is what rubs people like us the wrong way.

 

[Frog-in-law1995]

"Along with juice, toast, eggs, and milk, it's part of a complete breakfast!" So went the commercials for innumerable breakfast cereals with little contribution to one's needed daily dietary intake. The juice, toast, eggs, and milk did the job. The cereal was entirely superfluous.

Such is the case with the face diaper. As has been pointed out countless times, unless you are wearing a specific type of mask (N95), in a very specific manner (properly fitted with no air leakage), and frequently changing out this mask through the day, it isn't making a whit of difference. In fact, the most effective task in the outlined precautions listed in your quote is the simplest: Wash your hands. A lot. This is Public Health 101.

At this point, there is no benefit to testing, or contact tracing. The disease has been extant for over a year. Contact tracing is only effective in the extremely early stages of an outbreak. After a disease has moved out into the general population, there is no way to trace the spread, as the points of contact between multiple people exceed what can be accounted for.

Additionally, after a year of this disease being out in the wild, most people have been exposed at least once or twice. They have either contracted the disease and beaten it (over 99%) or contracted it and never knew they had it, or were functionally immune due to infection and subsequent immunity from a close viral cousin. The much-hoped-for herd immunity is finally arriving. Coupled with vaccines for truly at-risk people, that pretty much wraps things up.

The truly shameful aspect of this drama has been the willingness of the Public Health apparatus to politically Briles itself out. In doing so, they have squandered much of the public trust by gleefully following along with lockdowns and all sorts of other ineffective and counter-productive actions, many of which go directly against longstanding public health practices. This fragile public trust has been shattered. Pronouncements from egotistical twats like Fauci will be immediately dismissed by people who consider him little more than a lying weasel who will say anything to ingratiate himself further with the powerful. Promoting the loon from Penn. that thinks he's a woman is just rubbing people's faces in it. Finger-shaking wokescolds like the ghastly Lina Hidalgo in Houston, lecturing the public that dropping the mask mandate will lead to thousands of deaths, while her compatriots in Brownsville are releasing hundreds of infected illegals out into the wild lead to further dismissals of the Voices of Authority when they say one thing and yet do another. Repeatedly.

Kinda like the story of stone soup.

 

[LVH]

I’ll just start by saying that I lost my Dad to COVID way too early (69 years old) in January, so that gives me some perspective on this.

I also live in California where our communities are ridiculously locked down.

I’m all for opening the economy up and letting people make decisions to stay home if not comfortable.

That said, I don’t understand why so much angst exists about wearing masks. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. I lean toward they help more than not, so I wear one everywhere and prefer to be around others that do the same. They really aren’t that much of an inconvenience?

I would be all for more of peoples energy being focused on opening up more of the economy, masks or not. If a mask mandate would enable me to eat inside a restaurant right now, I’d gladly follow.

Because masks make no difference at all. Florida and South Dakota have done a good job proving masks are meaningless.

 

[Hoosierfrog]

I’ll just start by saying that I lost my Dad to COVID way too early (69 years old) in January, so that gives me some perspective on this.

I also live in California where our communities are ridiculously locked down.

I’m all for opening the economy up and letting people make decisions to stay home if not comfortable.

That said, I don’t understand why so much angst exists about wearing masks. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. I lean toward they help more than not, so I wear one everywhere and prefer to be around others that do the same. They really aren’t that much of an inconvenience?

I would be all for more of peoples energy being focused on opening up more of the economy, masks or not. If a mask mandate would enable me to eat inside a restaurant right now, I’d gladly follow.

Really. You’d think wearing a mask is akin to having your nads clamped in a vice or something. I don’t know if or to what extent masks do any good, but it is a only minor inconvenience to me for the short time I wear one.
Dealing with Covid now and fortunate to have a minor strain (so far). Worst thing is the no taste or smell thing.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Really. You’d think wearing a mask is akin to having your nads clamped in a vice or something. I don’t know if or to what extent masks do any good, but it is a only minor inconvenience to me for the short time I wear one.
Dealing with Covid now and fortunate to have a minor strain (so far). Worst thing is the no taste or smell thing.

Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery. And, there is no such thing as a “minor inconvenience” when it comes to loss of liberty and allowances for circumvention of the separation of powers or expansion of government regulation by fiat.

 

[Hoosierfrog]

Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery. And, there is no such thing as a “minor inconvenience” when it comes to loss of liberty and allowances for circumvention of the separation of powers or expansion of government regulation by fiat.

Yeah, I hardly see this as a Nathan Hale situation. Whatever.

 

[HFrog1999]

Really. You’d think wearing a mask is akin to having your nads clamped in a vice or something. I don’t know if or to what extent masks do any good, but it is a only minor inconvenience to me for the short time I wear one.
Dealing with Covid now and fortunate to have a minor strain (so far). Worst thing is the no taste or smell thing.

Glad to hear your symptoms are mild.


I had a severe case of double pneumonia. I was spitting up blood and had very low oxygen levels when I was admitted to the hospital. My doctor said it was the worst case of pneumonia he’d seen in 2 years.

My doctor had to call in a favor to get me in the hospital because they had so many sick people. I literally got the last available bed.

They put me on oxygen and started giving me breathing treatments. Thankfully I was able to keep my o2 levels high enough so I didn’t have to go on a ventilator. I eventually also developed a cdiff infection thanks to the IV antibiotics I was on.

I ended up spending a week in the hospital. I lost 20 lbs and had to regain the strength to walk around the nurse’s station before they would discharge me. It took me months to recover my lung function and I don’t think I’ll ever recover 100%. My two sons also had pneumonia while I was in the hospital.