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Saturday, March 28. 2020Friday night's Scott Adams
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God bless America.
God bless our President. https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/28/21197944/coronavirus-test-fast-doctors-office-abbott-fda Is There a High Blood Pressure and Coronavirus Link?
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=229079&ecd=mnl_week_032720 God bless America and great guys like Vin Scully.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/03/27/vin-scully-opening-day-message Stay safe & sane y’all. cheerio chuck How often will one want to get tested? If you were negative yesterday doesn't mean you are today. And again tomorrow. Realistically, forever. Because, It's Out There.
Look A new industry! With the prosecution of the Ice Cream Licker, the Produce Cougher, and we're all trained to use drive up windows, could we see the end of open self selection stores? Call, text, or email your order and they have it ready for you.
Pretty soon, shelf placement no longer carries the premium for more brands. Ala Repo Man: Beer, Bread, Milk, Cola etc. All generic. WHO is right that masks are best left to professionals.
Healthy people don't benefit from surgical masks, and need special training to use N95/FFP class masks which they don't have. And with supplies strained, save a doctor, donate a mask! If your hospitals aren't over capacity yet, count yourself lucky. You're just days (weeks at most) away from what's happening in Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands where hospitals are turning away the old and chronically ill to suffer or die at home as may be because they're incapable of freeing beds for them. This mask issue is confusing many.
By definition, an N95/HEPA mask is personal protective gear against very small particles including dusts, asbestos, etc. The virus is in this category too. "N95" comes from the OSHA standard for workers being protected against these particulate hazards. Training and fit testing is needed to use an N95 level mask properly to stop the required 99.9% of particulates. Most of us are not N95 "workers" with respect to COVID. OSHA's N95 standard doesn't apply to us, although you can get these masks at hardware stores and they are very good filters for personal use. Our concern is not spreading it by coughing on others. A simple surgical style mask like one sees on those in Asia who have a cold or flu is designed to reduce the spread of our germs. In a hospital or other setting the goal is to not get others sick, which is not an N95 type function. A surgical mask is NOT 99.9% effective at filtering particles (doctors in clean rooms use higher efficiency versions) simply because catching most of what comes out of our mouth and nose at the source is good enough. An N95 helps reduce your individual risk. A clean surgical mask or simple cloth equivalent reduces risks for all of us. Hope that helps somebody. You are correct. The discussion of this over at Slate Star Codex (linked before under "More than you wanted to know about masks") is excellent. Masks are more to protect you from infecting others - and you might be carrying and not know it. However, masks do provide some protection for the user, and even a simple mask is better than no mask.
I guess we probably all suspect that the reason the WHO, CDC, and TPTB are telling us we don't need masks is really because they don't want 330 million people clamoring for masks and gaming the system to hijack them away, one way or another, from the front line. You'd think they would consider us as being adult enough to understand & accept that, but there you go.
N95's are the condoms of small particle protection. Are Condoms 100%? No, they should be 98% effective but people mess up so 85% in reality but they have a certain proven efficacy and also failure modes. If I am working with some powders I'll use a hardware store disposable N95. If I work with other powders I'll use a fit test size half face respirator with cartridges. For other things I'll use a Vog washable. I don't leave my masks on the work bench to collect dust and people shouldn't walk around with a mask dangling from their neck. Common sense.
Side point: I hate finding an interesting link, only to realize I'm dumped into yet another video.
I wish that Scott and so many others would actually write out their comments (with the setup and editing time, it would be easier than doing a video) Mr. Adams could easily pump his podcasts through any number of Speech-to-Text programs.
Speech-to-Text ability has been included as part of the Windows OS since Win7. https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/how-do-i-dictate-a-document-with-the-windows-7-speech-recognition-feature/ I really like what Scott has to say. But listening to him, ugh.... He doesn't have a good podcast voice, he's too repetitive, his communal sip of coffee thing creeps me out a bit, and his podcasts are such an inefficient use of my time, that I only catch maybe one of these each week. I really wish that he'd go back to writing them.
Scott Adams is not a good source of statistics. 99% of hospitals... REALLY. When we die 99% of our body may be functioning normally. Even a numerically challenged person knows it is an irrelevant statistics. Start reading Nassim Taleb. Scott Adams once said that if Nassim Taleb ever disagreed with him Taleb was right. He needs to put it into practice.
As Dr. Price said in his video; one of the best reasons to wear a mask is to remind yourself not to touch your face.
By a bottle of pickled Peperoncinis. Dump the peppers into a bowl and with your bare hands remove the stems and seeds. This makes the peppers easier to use for sandwiches or Hors d'oeuvre platters. I do this every time I buy pickled peppers. But as a unintended side effect you will touch your eyes, lips, nose just one more time for at least the next three days. Works like a charm.
Define overweight? I love how Scott says overweight.
I am 6 ft, 190. Very little fat, mostly muscle. I run and bike, plus keep toned by physical work not lifting. But by definition I am overweight, I think 184 pounds is considered normal. Over 74% of the US male population is overweight, so saying 80% or virus deaths are overweight is only a 6% deviation from average US citizen, so not very helpful stat. If only 70% were overweight, then it would mean normal weight people were affected more. Not helpful stat. |