Amid ‘summer surge’ of new COVID variant — should we be wearing masks?

[Kamaji]

Amid ‘summer surge’ of new COVID variant — should we be wearing masks?

By Marc Lallanilla
August 18, 2023

To mask, or not to mask?

That is the question facing many doctors, public health officials and concerned citizens worldwide, as cases of COVID-19 once again tick upward.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Thursday that there’s a new, “highly mutated variant” of the coronavirus named BA.2.86 that’s spreading worldwide.

Recent data from the New York state Department of Health, released Aug. 2, showed that COVID cases spiked by 55% over the prior week, with an average of 824 reported cases per day across the state.

The rise in COVID-19 cases isn’t limited to New York: The CDC recorded 10,320 US hospital admissions for COVID-19 in the week ending August 5 — a 14.3% increase from the week prior.

However, despite alarmist headlines about a “summer surge,” many doctors are urging people not to panic.

“It is ticking up a little bit — but it’s not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over,” Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Associated Press.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/08/18/as-covid-cases-rise-who-should-be-wearing-masks/

[Kamaji]

For me?  That'd be a hard "no".

[libertybele]

Absolutely not! 

[DefiantMassRINO]

No mask mandates.  Will wear one when politely requested.

[deb]

That ain’t happening again.
And don’t even TRY to put those nasty things on my grandkids! That ship sailed.

[SZonian]

No.

Meanwhile....https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,509767.0/topicseen.html

[Idiot]

I have 2 friends that currently have COVID.  It's more like a bad cold.  Not that I want it.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Just got sick today, wonder if I should test. My wife and son both tested negative already.

[corbe]

[Kamaji]

[PeteS in CA]

However, despite alarmist headlines about a “summer surge,” many doctors are urging people not to panic.

“It is ticking up a little bit — but it’s not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over,” Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Associated Press.

Looking at the data, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ , Dowdy is correct. The "summer surge" is bureaucratic and MSM fear-mongering.

[mystery-ak]

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September
Infowars.com

https://www.infowars.com/posts/exclusive-biden-admin-preparing-to-bring-back-full-covid-restrictions-rollout-to-begin-mid-september/

[libertybele]

Do not comply!

[PeteS in CA]

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September
Infowars.com

https://www.infowars.com/posts/exclusive-biden-admin-preparing-to-bring-back-full-covid-restrictions-rollout-to-begin-mid-september/

It's Infowars. The Babylon Bee is more accurate (albeit prophetically).

[GtHawk]

No mask mandates.  Will wear one when politely requested.

My Ophthalmologist still requires that I wear a mask in the office, I am seriously considering finding a new doc as she pretty much alone in this since neither hospitals, my PCP, or my wife's doctors require this foolishness.

[GtHawk]

I have 2 friends that currently have COVID.  It's more like a bad cold.  Not that I want it.

My daughter, grandson, SIL and his family had no jabs and no Covid, meanwhile my son, DIL and granddaughters had every stinkin jab offered and every one of them had multiple Covid infections. Yes anecdotal but I refused another jab after two, despite being pressured by wife and son(to see my granddaughters) I will never allow another jab.

[Wingnut]

It's Infowars. The Babylon Bee is more accurate (albeit prophetically).

 

[The_Reader_David]

In as much as pathogens evolve toward lesser virulence and greater contagiousness, given the omicron was essentially a nasty head-cold with a mortality rate lower than many years' seasonal influenza variants, remind me why we should care whether the thing that's given us the sniffles or a cough with or without body aches is descended from the virus engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or is just one of the five other coronaviruses or twenty or so adenoviruses that cause colds or an influenza virus.

[Right_in_Virginia]

 

[Kamaji]

In as much as pathogens evolve toward lesser virulence and greater contagiousness, given the omicron was essentially a nasty head-cold with a mortality rate lower than many years' seasonal influenza variants, remind me why we should care whether the thing that's given us the sniffles or a cough with or without body aches is descended from the virus engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or is just one of the five other coronaviruses or twenty or so adenoviruses that cause colds or an influenza virus.

[Smokin Joe]

In as much as pathogens evolve toward lesser virulence and greater contagiousness, given the omicron was essentially a nasty head-cold with a mortality rate lower than many years' seasonal influenza variants, remind me why we should care whether the thing that's given us the sniffles or a cough with or without body aches is descended from the virus engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or is just one of the five other coronaviruses or twenty or so adenoviruses that cause colds or an influenza virus.

Now, there you go making sense.

Among certain subsets of the human race, making sense is not allowed. Dogmatic adherence to the well-compensated spewings of our betters (we know because they told us so) is required.

Independent thinking, actual research, and common sense are to be eschewed, because those mitigate the wholesale panic that has people call for totalitarian measures to force compliance with what is right for them in their minds.

You see that here, too. Even on a Conservative site.

[GtHawk]

You know who welcome the idea of wearing masks again? Easily scared individuals like senior citizens and...criminals, criminals love the idea of not being suspected because they are covering their face.

[jmyrlefuller]

Now, there you go making sense.

Among certain subsets of the human race, making sense is not allowed. Dogmatic adherence to the well-compensated spewings of our betters (we know because they told us so) is required.

Independent thinking, actual research, and common sense are to be eschewed, because those mitigate the wholesale panic that has people call for totalitarian measures to force compliance with what is right for them in their minds.

You see that here, too. Even on a Conservative site.

No, let's instead listen to corrupt salesmen looking to hawk their latest supplement with babbling woo and pooh-pooh the vetted research done under the proper scientific method in favor of dubious claims (you mean to tell me there hasn't been a single study that included zinc? If there were any merit to your claim, someone would've tried it).

[Smokin Joe]

Just remembering back at the start of the pandemic.  Mass graves...lines of trucks carrying coffins...hospitals overflowing with ill people...even our local tv station reporting daily the number of new cases and the percent full of our local hospitals.  Fear...fear...fear...fear.... everywhere.  Seeing people walking in the middle of our local parks with no one within hundreds if not thousands of feet wearing masks.  Total insanity.  This is why 80% of my fellow citizens got the shot.  Fear of the unknown.  Just don't negate the fact that thousands of people did indeed die.  Did the shot help?  Who really knows, probably not.

The mass graves were the potters fields for NYC on Hart Island, perfectly misrepresented. Over a million indigent New Yorkers are buried there.
Yes, I recall the pulsating pimping of FEAR! (Wesa gonna DIEE!) blowing out of every media outlet.

And people  masking up out of FEAR (even though throwing a virus through a N-95 mask pore is like tossing a BB through an open doorway. (But most people just don't get that). Hand sanitizer everywhere, and lots of folks with chapped hands, which they even washed, which should have been sufficient. People driving with their windows up, alone in the vehicle, with a mask on...

Mass Formation Psychosis, great test of the mob in action, manipulated by media distortions.
Panic makes populations malleable, after all, and NEVER let a crisis go to waste (particularly if it is artificial from the get-go). 

It's themes still persist like an unwelcome earworm, still found in the serious compromise of medical truths for money or conformity just to keep employment (also money, but different from misleading the world to make billions off a product that was generally useless at best).

[Smokin Joe]

No, let's instead listen to corrupt salesmen looking to hawk their latest supplement with babbling woo and pooh-pooh the vetted research done under the proper scientific method in favor of dubious claims (you mean to tell me there hasn't been a single study that included zinc? If there were any merit to your claim, someone would've tried it).

What supplement would that be, @jmyrlefuller?
Like supplemnts that included these?

Zinc Ionophore Activity of Quercetin and Epigallocatechin-gallate: From Hepa 1-6 Cells to a Liposome Modelhttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf5014633

Those other goodies were also on the shelves at Wal-Mart in the vitamins section, Zelenko just put them together in one bottle. Quercetin and Epigallocatechin-gallate could be obtained without prescription and performed as ionophores, similarly to HCQ or IVM.

Not a boatload of money to be made on off patent prescription drugs and Zinc supplements are cheap. What he marketed was something that could be sold without a prescription, would get the job done, and eliminated the scavenger hunt for all the ingredients in time of panic buying.

Not like tens of billions for worthless (at best) shots. Get your latest booster, now. Ka Ching!

None of the studies done claiming to discredit the use of IVM or HCQ included zinc. not one. Only a couple used Azithromycin. The complete regimen was not tested.

If you think it was, then find the study done before Dec. 2021 that did. Post a link. I'd love to see it.

However...since the great panic (and a few boosters later)...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33236142/ Zinc and SARS‑CoV‑2: A molecular modeling study of Zn interactions with RNA‑dependent RNA‑polymerase and 3C‑like proteinase enzymes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8015651/
Immunopharmacological perspective on zinc in SARS-CoV-2 infection

You see, the objective of those earlier studies was not to find treatment for SARS-CoV-2, it was to keep the Emergency Use Authorization for the mRNA shots, which would have gone away with a viable treatment regimen. Tens of Billions of dollars were at stake, not to mention the incalculable value of the Liability Waiver, and here you are upset because of a guy who merely formulated a supplement that would, if used as directed, do much the same thing as the HCQ/Azithromycin/Zinc or IVM/Doxycycline/Zinc regimen would, if not quite as efficiently.

Even Earlier, Zinc had been known to be an effective antiviral (from 2010), provided it got into the cells.
 https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1001176 Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture
Zelenko's protocol was based on solid science.

But that never made it to the nightly news, only panic, ridicule, and buy the jabs!

[the OlLine Rebel]

You know who welcome the idea of wearing masks again? Easily scared individuals like senior citizens and...criminals, criminals love the idea of not being suspected because they are covering their face.

Yup.

I cannot believe this convenient fact was never noted by anyone in media….masks now signal you are good, and turns the common view of masking completely on its head.

I also think this gave good cover for all the rioters that immediately started soon after.  And OTOH the lockdowns probably gave the spark to them.

[mountaineer]

Eris vaccine marketing hits Germany, complete with panic about a nonexistent August "Covid wave" ripped from British and American headlines
eugyppius
Aug 20, 2023

We will not be free of the virus until we are free of the vaccinators.

The leftist taz newspaper on 17 August: New German Wave: The new Covid variant Eris has arrived in Germany. Concerns about a new wave are growing – but the country is not well prepared.

    The pandemic is over, but the virus is still dangerous: Reports of the new variant EG.5.1. seem to confirm this analysis. EG.5.1. (Eris) has been considered a “variant of interest” since 9 August. According to the WHO, the phenotype does not differ fundamentally from other Omicron lineages and does not require special public health measures ...

    With the announced end of the pandemic, virtually all mandated protective measures have been lifted in Germany. The most important instrument in the fight against Covid-19 is thus the immunisation of the population through infection or vaccination. ...

Despite all of this obnoxious verbiage, absolutely nothing of virological note is happening in Germany. Official Covid testing has been all but abolished here, forcing our journaloids to unearth statistics from RKI influenza surveillance – something they refused to do during the pandemic itself, because the flu people routinely posted data that undermined their panic narrative.  ...

[Gefn]

I am starting to see a lot more masks in the supermarket, bank, etc.

[PeteS in CA]

1. As I posted on the Get-A-Booster thread:

  I keep looking at the data, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ , and keep not seeing a reason why. It's hard to be sure, because the daily new cases lines are so close to the X-axis, but it looks like the new cases bump has started to decline, and if so, that means the daily deaths bump will start to decline 2-3 weeks later.

2. I haven't noticed an increase in masked people, but I don't frequent malls and might go to the "wrong" grocery store.

3. We aren't "rid of" the 1918 Spanish Flu virus, and will never be "rid of" the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

4, We may, eventually, be rid of MSM wolf-crying, as the MSM will eventually see it doesn't work and will move on to some new bogey-wolf.

[Smokin Joe]

1. As I posted on the Get-A-Booster thread:

  I keep looking at the data, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ , and keep not seeing a reason why. It's hard to be sure, because the daily new cases lines are so close to the X-axis, but it looks like the new cases bump has started to decline, and if so, that means the daily deaths bump will start to decline 2-3 weeks later.

2. I haven't noticed an increase in masked people, but I don't frequent malls and might go to the "wrong" grocery store.

3. We aren't "rid of" the 1918 Spanish Flu virus, and will never be "rid of" the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

4, We may, eventually, be rid of MSM wolf-crying, as the MSM will eventually see it doesn't work and will move on to some new bogey-wolf.

Nut Panic sells! (and not just newspapers, clicks online, and airtime)

Bring out the Murder Hornets!

UFOs!

Climate Catastrophe! BOILING Earth! (by AD 2,000,000,000 at the latest!)

Light up Canada and make the skies here look like China's, everyday!

(Crap! We even have to import atmospheric particulates! )

We need a new panic.

Are there any NEOs headed this way?   Where's a big comet when you need one?

 

[PeteS in CA]

...  Where's a big comet when you need one?

 

There's some meteor showers coming in October, November, and December. Maybe those are hype-able?

[mountaineer]

There's no "summer surge," and masks don't protect against the Covid virus anyway. Otherwise, sure, why not. Mask up. 

[Wingnut]

Coming this fall.  Maditory mask mandates and by winter lockdowns to slow the "Curve".

[Kamaji]

Coming this fall.  Maditory mask mandates and by winter lockdowns to slow the "Curve".

Most likely.  Lionsgate (a movie production company) has already started mandating all employees wear face diapers.

[mountaineer]

[mountaineer]

So everyone is masked in a photo the CDC Director is now posting, but a few days ago the CDC Director posted a photo with nobody masked. Do they understand that the general public just thinks they’re all batshit crazy?

https://twitter.com/TheEliKlein/status/1693993226259312907

[mountaineer]

It's just ... a mask.

https://twitter.com/TheYawnIdentity/status/1694122540128477272