Tracking cases is sooner in the pipeline. It’s like a smoke detector alerting someone to a potential fire so it can be assessed and dealt with while it’s still manageable. Paying attention to only hospitalizations is like the fire department showing up to a fully engulfed structure at which point it’s a much bigger problem with much worse outcomes.
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How will that work if the new variant plays out here like it has so far in other places: Very contagious, detectable by the same test, and very mild symptoms. Is that worth even worrying about ? It’ll show up on cases, but not hospitalizations.
Your smoke alarm analogy is seeing a lot of cooking smoke and is set a bit too sensitive in the first place.
Back to the numbers. 10 per 100K seems absurdly low. So low it appears to be an excuse to continue to me. I’d like to hear some justification for that number, preferably rooted in science. What does that metric represent ?
That’s not the relevant level the CDC has set if we’re going by CDC guidelines. More info about the levels is on the CDC website.
How they determined those numbers is a rabbit hole. Neither of us is an epidemiologist so it’s pointless to argue about. The WHO has similar levels (CT1, CT2, CT3, CT4) which is another rabbit hole to go down.
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Thank you. That’s one half of the criteria. Although the point at which the CDC guidance I see marks the difference between “everyone should mask” and “unvaccinated should mask” appears to be at 50 new cases, not 10.
Now how about the
I see mention of percent positivity of tests, but not transmission rate. Transmission rate ( Rt ) would be harder to manipulate, but it’s also difficult to determine. And difficult to find on the CDC web page.
The current percent positivity is 5.73% ( screenshot attached ), which is also in the “Moderate” range, in which the CDC recommends non-vaccinated wear masks in public indoor spaces.
No mention of Rt. So was “transmission rate” incorrectly cited or was something else intended ?
Screen shot from COVID-19 County Check Tool | CDC
Personally, as a responsible vaccinated person, I’ll be wearing my mask for quite a while.
Why? Being vaccinated doesn’t prevent me from catching or spreading COVID. Discussion about masks showed that masks do the most good on the face of the infected person. I got the vaccine to boost my immune system to the point that I’m not likely to get seriously ill. I’m perfectly content wearing a mask in most venues to help the silly and the immune-compromised from catching the illness.
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And I would never tell you or anyone else to NOT wear a mask if they so choose.
However, forcing everyone to do so is not acceptable to me.
The immune-compromised should not be at DMS or most other places right now without full bio-isolation gear.
As for silly, I figure those of you wearing a piece of cotton across your faces ( sometimes to include beards ) and expecting it to stop aerosol sized particulates fit that description far more than I.
The discussion was more about the criterion to remove the mandate though.
UTSW publishes the transmission rate. When looking thats were I found one.
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/thread. we’re done here
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Why can I walk into Kroger, Starbucks or any other place in DFW without a mask? There are signs posted that it is highly encouraged. DMS is the only place that I visit that wearing a mask is required.
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because the DMS is not open to the public and we can set our own rules for entry.
trust me, I dislike wearing masks as well, but I dont bitch about it. grow up and wear a mask or find another space to be crotchety at.
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Those places (or at least Kroger) require a mask for the unvaccinated but don’t enforce it because of the difficulty in doing so and because anti-maskers have been violent in their trespassing in the past.
DMS doesn’t have the same PR image to uphold and thus will enforce masking/trespassing as it sees fit.
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Note that another membership club, Costco, has managed to maintain nearly 100% mask compliance. It was rather refreshing when I walked into one for the first time in quite a while a couple of weeks ago.
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I mean, the simple answer is if you don’t like the policies of a place you shouldn’t go there. You can suspend your membership until the policies align with your personal preferences. Whether it’s DMS or the local taco place in my neighborhood that doesn’t take masking (or hairnets, yuck) seriously.
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I’d rather wear a mask to accommodate the safety of those that are immunocompromised than lift restrictions to accommodate the feelings of those that are empathy-compromised.
Being excellent to one another sometimes means putting greater needs before one’s own. Implying that the immunocompromised individuals have lost the right to enter public spaces with a reasonable expectation of safety is downright silly. Traditionally, it’s the individuals putting others at risk that get sequestered, no? It’s my understanding that anyone that doesn’t want to participate in slowing the spread is welcome to hang out in spaces that don’t prioritize safety over personal ‘liberties’.
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you make words far better than I do
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Just got back from a week in NYC. The entire city has mandated vaccinations if you want to do any ‘sit-down’ business indoors. Restaurants, bars, etc. You walk up to the host/hostess stand, and they ask to see your original vaccine card. No card, no in-house service. And about 70% of the people outdoors are wearing masks when walking around downtown. Probably a >90% mask compliance rate indoors (in any type of building).
Nobody was bitching. The process works very well. And people were considerate of one another.
DMS will very likely continue to make prudent, thoughtful decisions around mask mandates for the entire Makerspace membership, personal liberty drum-beaters be damned.
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I think this is my new favorite saying.
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The problem is that I do not believe this is the case. My baseline assumption is that the sorts of masks most people wear around DMS are useless against aerosol sized particles. This has been a concern since Delta became the predominant strain, whether due to the strain itself, or simply the advance of research. The source of contagion is further down in the lungs, which leads to smaller particles in exhalation and speaking. Aerosol sized particulates can linger in the air for considerably more time than the larger droplets that cloth masks worked against.
So if you REALLY want to make DMS a safe place for those at risk, anyone worried about it needs to be wearing a fitted respirator with good(*) filters, and sealed goggles. * - I don’t have a spec for what constitutes “good”. Not relevant at the this time. Those respirators BTW do not filter outgoing air. That would only work for the person who has concerns, not anyone else.
What we’ve proclaimed to be good enough is little more than cosplay.
So thank you for deciding my character is at fault. Even though I think we’ve never met.
I do not wish harm upon anyone, and in my opinion what we are doing now places any immunocompromised person who enters the space at risk. Nothing we’re doing diminishes that in any meaningful way.
But thanks again for the ad hominem.
Again, if we’re operating by CDC recommendations, why do our criterion not match the CDC’s.
There is a flaw in your logic.
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Almost 2 years on into an airborne pandemic and we’re still debating masks…
Virus rides in water droplets, a large percentage of which can be intercepted with even those trrbl cloth masks. Of course some comes out in smaller droplets which T-shirt like material won’t be very effective against - but a nominal reduction is better than no reduction.
If you’ve ever played video games with RPG-like elements, you’d give a lot for +10% advantage.
I’ll agree that the norm of cloth masks (seemingly almost none of which have media in a filter pocket) and surgical masks are pretty dang ineffectual given the spectrum of options out there now and that everyone should know better by now. If nothing else blue shop towel inside a cloth mask’s filter pocket will bump the gross filtration efficacy up to near N95 levels.
FFP2 / KN95 / KF94 / N95 masks are readily available from a wide variety of reputable suppliers now; last I checked, local Home Despots and Lowes had N95s in stock. Superior KN100 and N100 can also be had if you’re determined.
If you’re sufficiently concerned about exposure that you opt for a P100 respirator, crudely filtering the exhale port is trivially simple:
As an added bonus it encourages randos to keep their distance.
I get that no one likes wearing masks, the ones we have aren’t up to snuff relative to the pros, that most of us struggle with protocol when wearing them, and that the individual levels of protection are disappointing. Indeed it’s a bit disappointing that the general point of masks is to protect the overall machine of society rather than us individual cogs.
The immunocompromised that enter DMS - or any other enclosed space populated by a large, varying number of people - should be wearing better than average PPE and doing their best to adhere to protocols (tight fit, keep the thing on, don’t touch the PPE or one’s face, dispose of filter media and clean durable structural elements after prolonged use, etc) regardless of policy wherever they go.
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