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billroperI have a long compile running, so I'm going to say several things about COVID.
1) Yes, you should wear a mask. It won't make things worse and will probably make things better.
2) The government should have told us to wear masks from the beginning. Not doing so to try to preserve masks for healthcare workers was a mistake and cost them credibility. Credibility is a valuable asset and shouldn't be squandered for no good reason.
3) Re: credibility. See also Lori Lightfoot summoning a hairdresser to get a haircut immediately after explaining to everyone that all of the hairdressers were closed for our own good (correctly so!) and that we should just live with it.
4) There is *so* much that we still don't know about this disease that it isn't funny.
5) I am convinced that there are many things that influence the course of the disease that we don't understand yet. I am also convinced that this is why different trials of the same treatment regimens are getting different results. We don't know what we need to control for in these studies, so the signal-to-noise ratio goes to crap.
6) See, for example, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, azithromycin, Vitamin D, steroids, remdesivir, and a whole host of things that we've thrown at treating and/or preventing this disease. My *suspicion* (I am not a doctor) is that this is similar to AIDS in that the eventual best treatment regimen will be a combination of multiple drugs, carefully administered depending on the condition of the patient.
7) Large gatherings are a bad idea. This is true regardless of the politics of those who are gathering. See above about "credibility".
8) I am damned well sick and tired of people who are more interested in politics than getting to a cure.
End of rant. (I think the compile is done by now.)
1) Yes, you should wear a mask. It won't make things worse and will probably make things better.
2) The government should have told us to wear masks from the beginning. Not doing so to try to preserve masks for healthcare workers was a mistake and cost them credibility. Credibility is a valuable asset and shouldn't be squandered for no good reason.
3) Re: credibility. See also Lori Lightfoot summoning a hairdresser to get a haircut immediately after explaining to everyone that all of the hairdressers were closed for our own good (correctly so!) and that we should just live with it.
4) There is *so* much that we still don't know about this disease that it isn't funny.
5) I am convinced that there are many things that influence the course of the disease that we don't understand yet. I am also convinced that this is why different trials of the same treatment regimens are getting different results. We don't know what we need to control for in these studies, so the signal-to-noise ratio goes to crap.
6) See, for example, hydroxychloroquine, zinc, azithromycin, Vitamin D, steroids, remdesivir, and a whole host of things that we've thrown at treating and/or preventing this disease. My *suspicion* (I am not a doctor) is that this is similar to AIDS in that the eventual best treatment regimen will be a combination of multiple drugs, carefully administered depending on the condition of the patient.
7) Large gatherings are a bad idea. This is true regardless of the politics of those who are gathering. See above about "credibility".
8) I am damned well sick and tired of people who are more interested in politics than getting to a cure.
End of rant. (I think the compile is done by now.)