@Pat It’s as if COVID in 2022 is dramatically different from COVID in 2020….
Yeah, that was the wild strain and Alpha, with a R0 of about 3. It has since become more virolent and much more contagious. The reasons why fewer deaths are being reported per cases is because they changed the criteria for reporting deaths, and they've developed better theraputics. The virus is worse now than it was then.
@Pat No thats not correct.. Early on there was in fact a great deal of debate and lack of solid evidence on the effectiveness of resperators. Even the WHO themselves withdrew the mask requirement at multiple points citing a lack of clinical evidence to support it. We have studies that likewise show it as effective and others that show it as having no or minimal positive effect.
The truth is the CDC and others who reduced the mask mandate did so responsibly and based off the advice of experts int he field, and there were many... maybe they were wrong, sure, but it is very clear the science wasnt clear cut.
@freemo
>"...as even the science was extremely unclear at the time..."
They knew at the very begining that respirators would stop the virus. That's why they wore them in hospitals. The Royal Society published a study very early on that said that N95 respirators would have stopped the pandemic in its tracks.
But you don't have to go back to 2020. This year, two weeks after the N95 masks were finally released from the national stockpile, the CDC told everybody to take their masks off. The N95s were already having an effect and they halted it.
Even today, take a poll. How many people even know what the most effective method is to prevent infection and spread of the virus. Most people don't know because the CDC and others in government have deliberately blocked attempts to inform the public.
And what happens when the virus mutates into a new form with a 30-50% legality rate. Then what? We just spend $12T and we're completely unprepared.
They need to be held accountable.