I am increasingly getting a sense that this clown has exhausted his credibility and rather than returning to some shred of rationality he will continue to thrash about attempting to grasp at relevance by crying wolf incessantly and repeatedly. I think its a matter of days until he escalates his bullshit to some level that even Fox is forced to dismiss him.
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If it’s the kind of ‘pineapple’ I’m thinking of, pull the pin, peg the swine, run sideways.
Geez, Tucker. You’re gonna hate Hallowe’en.
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Wait. Tucker Carlson doesn’t advocate for parents’ right to beat children at Walmart?
That seems like just the sort of thing that the portion of his audience that pretty much runs on weaponized nostalgia and a deep sense that they’ve lost control they deserve would be totally fine with.
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Call the police! There’s a whole building with this kind of “child abuse” going on every day!
I’ve heard they even serve pizza from time to time.
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Sure, no problem! Let’s start with these:
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/945978/S0921_Factors_contributing_to_risk_of_SARS_18122020.pdf
- On the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in outdoor air and the interaction with pre-existing atmospheric particles - PubMed
- https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/4/550/6009483
- https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/2/214/5841129
The basic underlying principle shouldn’t be too surprising, since getting infected requires exposure to some threshold (different for each of us based on many variables) of virus particles, indoor air mixes fairly quickly such that either you’re catching it from specific individuals you spend a long time with, or from a high overall concentration in the air (see A method to assess Covid-19 transmission risks in indoor settings | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology). And outdoors, there is vastly more air than even the best ventilated indoor space, and wind, and UV light in the daytime.
I would also like to point out that even indoors, taking the 6 foot rule as best practice, the studies that led to the rule were determined based on proximity to a single individual. If an individual is shedding virus at a constant rate and air isn’t just mixing well (if it is, then again, the rule is irrelevant except for very close interactions because you’re breathing the average density throughout a room), then virus particle concentrations should follow an inverse square law (large droplets fall off rapidly after about 3 ft based on guidance from previous SARS and MERS epidemics, so any rule specifying distances farther than that is presumably not based on large droplets). That means that if you’re in a public space, standing in a large 2D array of people all standing apart, then your exposure ends up being somewhere around 10x what you get from being 6 ft from a single individual. And yet, while we have capacity restrictions in place to enable 6 ft social distancing, I have yet to see anyone comment on this distinction or use it in policy setting guidance or public statements. The 6 foot rule became gospel back when agencies assumed transmission was through droplets no aerosols, and was never updated when we realized aerosols were important.
I’d strongly recommend this MIT MOOC on covid transmission: https://www.edx.org/course/physics-of-covid-19-transmission. It’s free, with more info, estimation tools, and references than I could possibly list here. They summarize a lot of it in an FAQ, one part of which says, “While it is not impossible, there is no evidence that COVID-19 has been transmitted when people walk past each other outdoors. We recommend masks in shared indoor spaces at all times, and outdoors in crowded areas.”
Note, also, that homemade masks reduce rate of indoor transmission by about 2x, surgical masks by about 4x to 5x. For something like N95 masks or respirators, additiional efficacy is almost entirely determined by quality of fit, which for anyone other than a professional is likely to be poor and only somewhat better than a surgical mask. Since the rule of thumb for most policy guidance has been that 15 minutes at 6 ft is sufficient for transmission, then if you’re around someone for more than an hour while both wearing homemade masks, or more than 4-6 hours while both wearing surgical masks, the masks aren’t helping much for that particular transmission path.
One thing that confused me even last May is that I have not seen one single public health policy advocating opening windows and upgrading HVAC systems, or providing funding to do that. No guidance suggesting facing downwards when talking to people. No updating of policies as we learn that, for example, there is very little fomite-based transmission. No suggestions that we take low-risk preventive interventions that initial evidence suggests reduce the risk of severe covid cases (losing weight, taking vitamin d, quitting smoking). Vitriol at the people early on discussing the importance of viral load to case severity, even though that’s been a big deal in past epidemics (this suggests, for example, that if you live with someone, and you get covid, they very probably will too, and since you spend a lot of time at home, their initial viral load will be much higher than yours was if you got covid at, say, the grocery store). I’ve had to learn to not expect even the slightest attempt at consistency with the available studies and data in any public health policy on covid transmission.
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Turnabout is fair play.
If you see someone not wearing a mask, or has kids without masks, call the police. Especially if they look like Tucker Carlson.
Edit: Joking - do not do this. Well, maybe if it IS Tucker Carlson.
No. It’s not. Don’t do that.
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The solution to Karens is never more Karens. Because adding more of the thing that is the problem is never a good idea for a solution. Ever. This is bad thinking.
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If somebody does call the cops on a kid wearing a mask and the kid gets shot because of it, will any of Tucker’s worshippers care?
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They would consider that an ideal outcome. They love seeing “those people” get killed. And want more of it.
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Yes, it was a rhetorical question. Obviously, Tucker Carlson fans are incapable of hooman emotions.
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They should add a footnote: “Not that we’ve been looking for it, and in general, contact tracing has been so shitty that we’d never pick up on a case of it happening, and probably blame it on miasma.”
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It was intended as a joke. But you are correct, it isn’t a good idea.
I’d suggest not leaving your current profession for stand up…
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similar to (see also):
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Excellent, thank you.
Tucker Carlson’s still an asshole for publicly saying what he said, though.
Whatever happened to people minding their own damn business?
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As an open white supremacist, he’s one of only two shows on Fox that the MAGA crowd still reliably watch. (Fox sometimes acknowledging reality drove them away otherwise.) His numbers aren’t enormous, but he’s still got the core demographic that Fox is trying to hold onto (and get back by occasionally going full “Q”). The left aren’t rage-watching him - we let other people, e.g. the Daily Show, do that and watch the digested clips to know what he’s saying.
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