Nope. Not doing this again. The whole damn thing can be had upthread (or in part 3 now.)
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Quite a few of us in Melbourne weāre almost looking forward to him arriving, just to see the warm welcome he would have got at the tennis.
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I just searched that 5,000 post thread for āN95ā and only got 15 hits. Roughly the same for ārespiratorā, none of which were by me. So, this is something relevant for the pandemic right now. Iād like to talk about it and doesnāt actually seem to have been done to death in the last thread.
At length, Iām guessing.
Iāll get supplies.
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Hey, Iām not the one who made this topic a 15,600 post thread 
I have very few posts in the thread, so I think your snark is misplaced.
Itās in the reference library. In the have you stopped beating your wife section.
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Can we create a new thread to debate the relative merits of different types of masks? This is getting ridiculous.
ETA: @DukeTrout , do your thing.
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I donāt. Which you should know from the last time. Iām in support of selective use of respirator-grade masks for high-risk environments. Just like the CDC.
What is your scientific basis for disagreeing with the hundreds of scientists and medical doctors, with collectively thousands of years of experience in their field, at the CDC?
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Yeah, no. Itās not a loaded question. Itās a straight up, bog standard ask for evidence for supporting a position.
Thanks, but this shouldnāt take long.
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I had to look that discussion up. It was in the Missouri hid own Covid study after it found mask mandates saved lives thread and not one of the āContinuing coronavirus happeningsā threads. I didnāt remember it because your claims were frequently counterfactual and didnāt leave much of an impression. You made many false claims, including falsely suggesting that N95s loose their efficacy and filter at cloth mask levels after 12 hours.
Do you just ask questions, or do you also answer them? Quid pro quo, Clarice.
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The massive spike in Omicron shows that everywhere indoors around other people is now a potential āhigh-riskā environment, the exact environment you say you support the use of respirators in.
But itās not just me, itās experts in the field, such as Stanford infectious-diseases doctor Abraar Karan, interviewed in nymag:
Q: How has Omicron, which is clearly the most transmissible variant yet, changed your personal approach to managing your COVID risk, including when you decide to mask up outside of the hospital?**
The transmissibility issue is a huge one, and masks are completely tied to that. The chances of catching COVID in transient or fleeting interactions, like being in the grocery store for a few minutes or being face-to-face with somebody for a conversation ā I think itās far more likely that I could get transmission now with this variant than with any others in the past. It changes my risk calculus.
Q: Why should people start using high-filtration masks like N95s and KN95s as their go-to, everyday masks rather than cloth ones?
A: The key reason is that transmission of the coronavirus is primarily through aerosols, which float around in the air ā you inhale them ā and are not filtered well by cloth masks. You really need melt-blown polypropylene, which you find in surgical masks and N95s, to stop these small particles.
Ok, now you. Do you have a current citation that says that 50% filtration (or less for cloth masks) is sufficient respiratory protection indoors to keep you or your loved ones from catching Omicron?
The idea that some Boingers are actively dissing the general use of effective, readily available 95% filtration masks in favor of 50% or less filtration cloth masks is stunning when itās an almost trivial amount of extra effort to use the N95s. Especially when we are at an all time record for Covid transmission and the tranmissability of Omicron is 7.0 or possibly higher, up from around 2.79 with the original strain.
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Single-layer cloth masks have been out of favor for, what? A year+?
Multi-layer, multi-material masks are what people who wear masks for regular, day-to-day wear have much better than 50% filtration. Better yet, they can be thrown in the washer and dryer and worn the next day.
Why not wear N95 masks all day, every day?
- Most people canāt afford it
- Most people canāt tolerate it.
ETA: Dr. Karan has a whopping 5 years of experience. 995+ to goā¦
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Yeah, not so much.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02786826.2021.1933377
Granted, thatās a pre-print and not peer reviewed, but you arenāt posting any citations, just making claims that the general public should not be using respirator grade masks, even after 1 out of every 330 Americans newly tested positive for Covid in a day, and that doesnāt include positive home tests.
Cloth masks have unrated performance, even ones with 2 or more layers. Unless you have a quantitative mask fit particle counter you donāt know the filtration efficiency of your mask. Maybe youāll get lucky with any particular cloth mask but chances are you wonāt. Which is why we invented NIOSH standards, to insure that masks meet a consistent, reliable standard of efficacy. Using unrated cloth masks when rated respirator grade masks are available is a 100 year step backward in respiratory protection.
Why not wear N95 masks all day, every day?
Most people canāt afford it Most people canāt tolerate it.
N95s can cost under a dollar, and can be used for many days, and can be rotated.
But, yes, not everyone has even a few dollars to spare, which is why I support the government issuing N95s as a greater priority than sending out a half billion single use Covid test kits. But you objected to that, too. So itās not the cost you are objecting to. You are just dead set against the adoption of a covid mitigation measure that is likely the most important after āstay the hell homeā and āget vaccinatedā.
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You have misrepresented what Iāve said for the last time. How can anything you write be trusted when itās so obvious youāre not dealing in good faith.
Weāre done here.
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I really havenāt. I cite your own words before responding to them, and I provide links and citations to support my arguments.
Hereās what you wrote:
You claim not to oppose the use of respirator grade masks, but you instead say they should be used in āhigh-riskā environments, ignoring that anywhere indoors around other people is a potential high-risk environment.
And you claim that āmost peopleā canāt tolerate respirator grade masks, without a citation.
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If I may, this is an argument that has played out many times already on this series of threads. It is entirely possible that Omicron has changed the equation and means that we need to start using higher grades of masks, but there is not really much appetite for dredging up that whole debate again here. I have gone ahead and made a thread to discuss this exact thing, so why donāt you go ahead and use it?
As for your argument with DukeTrout in particular, when somebody says that they are done, let it be done, even if you are not satisfied that the argument has played out fully. (This is a lesson that I myself learned in the exact same way.)
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Up to you, but I actually researched the previous block 5000 posts, number 3, as I noted earlier so it didnāt happen. I think the perception may not match the reality. I canāt speak to the other two blocks of posts as I didnāt search them, but I donāt recall posting much on those threads. I canāt help but feel Iām being singled out over a legit and currently topical covid topic.
ETA: I searched the other two 5,000 post blocks, and not a single post by me.
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I donāt know. Maybe it was Number 2 or even Number 1. Itās all a blur. Itās possible that flags have resulted in the removal of those discussions from the record, but a lot of people have memories of engaging in just such a debate.
As for feeling singled out, I know how you feel, but I think that the negative reaction that you have received is a clear sign that people just donāt feel like discussing that topic or even watching a discussion of that topic play out. Please, by all means, use the thread that I created. I am sure that there are people who will be interested in engaging in the conversation there.
ETA: In response to your post below (sorry, I know I shouldnāt do that, but we have taken up enough space here): nobody is saying that you specifically clogged up previous threads with this topic. We are saying that previous threads have been clogged up with this topic, and so the negative reaction is to the topic of which masks to wear, rather than you yourself. I genuinely do not remember who clogged up previous posts with this topic, but it has come up multiple times.
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