No. No, we really don’t. Better masks are better, no masks are worse. Sigh. Please, let’s just not.
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A columnist in the Oregonian dedicated their whole column to the topic:
Did Betty White die from complications associated with her COVID vaccine booster?
NO. Stop it.
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I think this info was already posted on the previous thread:
WHO Downplays Threat of Covid-19 Variant Found in France
The WHO monitors multiple variants, and when it finds one may pose a significant risk, it declares it a “variant of concern.” This one is only under investigation.
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Mmm… maybe take the vaccine?
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There’s politics involved there as well (he says, waking up to the news).
Someone told Djokovic that he would get in. Someone in the Tennis association told him he would be able to play. So he came.
It turns out that the folk in Border Control and Customs aren’t quite so willing to play stupid games.
But the Federal Government most certainly do.
Since it was announced he had “gotten an exemption”, the general response from Australians has been along the lines of
And we have not been reticent about our displeasure.
And this is an election year. So Smirko, the Prime Minister, can’t be seen to be giving Djokovic a free entry card, even though he quite wants to. (Nothing distracts anger like bread and circuses big sportsing events.) So he wants to, but he can’t be seen to be doing it himself. And if the word came from one of the Ministers, that would be (correctly) seen as from him.
So they’re doing the next best thing: the Ministry has been putting out press notes that they’ve asked the Victorian state government to vouch for him. That way, if everything goes well, the Feds take credit for agitating, if when it goes wrong, the Victorians would get the blame. Only, the Victorian government said “one: border control is a Federal Responsibility. You let Covid rip through the Victorian aged-care centers that you control. You have screwed up the vaccine response. You have been denying all responsibility for the testing system and the hospital systems. If you don’t do this, then what, exactly, do you do? And two: not just ‘no’, but ‘fuck no’. We do not support his entry.”
So basically now, the Federal government is going to try to blame the Victorian government if he’s allowed in, and they’re going to blame the Victorian government if he’s turned around, and they’re going to blame the Victorian government when it goes wrong either way. (They’ll probably steal the GQP’s projection skills, and accuse everyone else of politicising both health and sports.)
And I hope it gets them the results they deserve in the federal election they haven’t called yet but everyone knows they are legally required to do this year.
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The Commonwealth playbook for action hasn’t changed since March last year.
- Instigate clusterfuck
- Blame Victoria and gaslight that they always were against clusterfuck
- Repeat.
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Seems in 
we finally have a whole planeload of people we’re happy to pillory in the media for violating COVID rules.
BTW, they are stuck, two charter three airlines have now refused to ship the lot home…
Edit: Air Canada has said “No way, eh” and now ~30 of them tested positive for COVID 
I suppose I should be grateful they are just run of the mill idiots. ← PM Justin Trudeau’s word…
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Play stupid games, record and post all the video evidence, win stupid prizes!
That poor flight crew
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And not just US.
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good.
no, make that very good.
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I think we now know where his narcissism came from
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He’s Rosa Parks and Spartacus at the same time!
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I hate to keep doing this every day, but COVID-19 is not letting up. It’s only 11:30 am and Okinawa Prefecture is already reporting around 980 new cases today, a big increase from yesterday’s 623 and a huge increase from two days ago (225). This is also the most cases that the prefecture has ever reported in a single day throughout the entire pandemic. The government is already moving to implement 蔓延防止 (spread prevention) measures in the prefecture, which means restrictions on hours of operation for bars, restaurants and other such establishments.
I am hearing that a lot of people are blaming the US military on Okinawa (there are a lot of US bases there), and it does appear that a lot of these cases are coming from people working in and around military bases.
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Yes, we really do.
A holding a handkerchief over your head can help you stay dry for a brief time in a very light rain, but does nothing for you standing 8 hours in a torrential downpour. For that you need real rain gear. Cloth masks were a temporary stop gap measure and it’s long past time to move on from them now that respirator grade masks are available.
2 people wearing 50% efficient cloth masks protect each from the other by a combined factor of 2 x 2, for a total reduction from one another by a factor of 4. If one would infect the other in 1 minute without a mask, it will take a whopping 4 minutes if they both wear masks.
With 95% efficient N95 masks, it’s 20 x 20 = a factor of 400. If one would infect the other in 1 minute without masks, it will take 400 minutes.
Concentration x time = infectious dose. So for someone in a saturated environment for even a short time, or in a lightly infected environment for a long time, cloth masks are total crap.
Switching to respirator grade masks is extremely important now that the government has essentially given up on controlling the spread of Covid. We all need to protect ourselves by staying the hell away from other people as much as possible and by wearing real respiratory protection when we can’t. Cloth masks are not respiratory protection.
It doesn’t help that the CDC director recently dissed N95s and KN95s as uncomfortable and said it was more important to be masked with a comfortable mask, such as two layers of cotton, than to wear respirator grade masks.
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What commission rate are you getting? If you settled for less than 2%, you’re getting robbed.
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What scientific basis do you a have for opposing the use of respirator grade masks?
Note that while N95s were created with the intent of being used for no more than a single work shift, the N95 standard requires them to be able to still filter the required >95% filtration efficiency even after a 200mg loading. So you can use an N95 for many days - you may wish to rotate them on a weekly schedule to allow SarsCov 2 to inactivate.
It’s a trivial amount of extra effort to wear an effective respirator grade mask for a non-trivial amount of extra protection.
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