Two days ago we nearly hit a woman on a bicycle. This would almost be funny if it were not so sad. The woman was wearing a mask while riding her bike. She swerved into the middle of our lane apparently to practice social distancing while passing another bike rider. She could have passed the guy without leaving the shoulder, but she swung at least 8 feet wide of him--and into the middle of our lane.
There is zero scientific evidence that you need to wear a mask outdoors, and your chances of catching COVID-19 while doing your regular grocery shopping in a large store are very low. I quote from an article by Heather Mac Donald titled “The Paranoid Style in COVID-19 America” published on April 27 in The Spectator:
To grasp the urgency of lifting the ubiquitous economic shutdowns, visit New York City’s Central Park, ideally in the morning. At 5:45 am, it is occupied by maybe 100 runners and cyclists, spread over 843 acres. A large portion of these early-bird exercisers wear masks. . . . The masked cyclists, who speed around the park’s inner road, apparently think that there are enough virus particles suspended in the billions of square feet of fresh air circulating across the park to enter their mucous membranes and to sicken them.
These are delusional beliefs, yet they demonstrate the degree of paranoia that has infected the population. Every day the lockdown continues, its implicit message that we are all going to die if we engage in normal life is reinforced. . . .
It is worth briefly reviewing the facts about outdoor viral transmission in order to assess the rationality of New York’s park users. The chance of getting infected across a wide open, windswept space is virtually nil, even if the imaginary carrier were not moving quickly past his potential victim. When it comes to viral infections, dose matters. Proximity to the carrier, prolonged exposure, and being in an enclosed space are the biggest risk factors.
Even the New York Times, one of the most aggressive purveyors of virus hysteria, could not avoid acknowledging this commonsensical truth about outdoor transmission. The director of Australia’s International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health told the paper: “Outdoors is safe, and there is certainly no cloud of virus-laden droplets hanging around.” Infectious droplets would be quickly diluted in outdoor air, director Lidia Morawska said, so their concentrations would quickly become insignificant. Bottom line: “It is safe to go for a walk and jog and not to worry about the virus in the air.”
Two days later, the Times, back on its crusade to terrorize the citizenry, ran a full page of infographics under the headline: "Social Distancing: Why 6 Feet?" A series of drawings showed the progression of pestilence emitted from a cougher across the six feet separating him from his unsuspecting victim. Eventually that victim is almost invisible under the cloud of death that has descended upon him. You had to read the fine print to learn that this simulation was being run in a hypothetical room of 600 square feet.
The Times was not satisfied with its ominous portrayal of the indoor cough miasma, however. The bottom of the infographics page contained a reminder that “It’s Not Just Coughing.” Another cloud of disease was shown issuing from a flu carrier who is merely talking. What makes such conversation infectious? You had to consult the fine print again: The carrier needs to talk for five minutes in a crowded, poorly ventilated space.
Scientific analyses of how viruses travel usually assume indoor settings. A recent study from China confirmed that the risk of coronavirus infection occurs overwhelmingly indoors. The researchers identified only one outdoor outbreak of infection among over a thousand cases studied. Most transmissions occurred at home.
Japan, with an elderly and highly urban population of 126.5 million, eschewed a nationwide economic lockdown and emphasized instead the need to avoid the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places, and close contact. It has had only 360 deaths as of April 26.
The Central Park paranoiacs, however, see threat everywhere. A burly middle-aged man occasionally sits on a bench overlooking ball fields in the northern end of the park. Upset that an unmasked jogger had run behind him, the man constructed a beaver dam of branches, torn from the surrounding trees, that extended behind the bench, so that no one could get within 10 feet of his back. . . .
The suburban counterpart to these urban neurotics is the unaccompanied driver wearing his mask in his car.
The public health establishment is fighting desperately to maintain this degree of hysteria in the populace, in order to prolong its newfound power over almost every aspect of American life. Death will erupt if the lockdowns are lifted, the experts warn every few minutes on the cable news networks, to the angry approbation of the anchors. “It’s going to backfire,” Dr Anthony Fauci warned on April 20. Even as evidence keeps mounting that the virus is magnitudes less deadly than was advertised, the public health professionals are hardening their economy-killing prescriptions, rather than loosening them. . . .
If you want to read the whole article, here is the link to it:
There is zero scientific evidence that you need to wear a mask outdoors, and your chances of catching COVID-19 while doing your regular grocery shopping in a large store are very low. I quote from an article by Heather Mac Donald titled “The Paranoid Style in COVID-19 America” published on April 27 in The Spectator:
To grasp the urgency of lifting the ubiquitous economic shutdowns, visit New York City’s Central Park, ideally in the morning. At 5:45 am, it is occupied by maybe 100 runners and cyclists, spread over 843 acres. A large portion of these early-bird exercisers wear masks. . . . The masked cyclists, who speed around the park’s inner road, apparently think that there are enough virus particles suspended in the billions of square feet of fresh air circulating across the park to enter their mucous membranes and to sicken them.
These are delusional beliefs, yet they demonstrate the degree of paranoia that has infected the population. Every day the lockdown continues, its implicit message that we are all going to die if we engage in normal life is reinforced. . . .
It is worth briefly reviewing the facts about outdoor viral transmission in order to assess the rationality of New York’s park users. The chance of getting infected across a wide open, windswept space is virtually nil, even if the imaginary carrier were not moving quickly past his potential victim. When it comes to viral infections, dose matters. Proximity to the carrier, prolonged exposure, and being in an enclosed space are the biggest risk factors.
Even the New York Times, one of the most aggressive purveyors of virus hysteria, could not avoid acknowledging this commonsensical truth about outdoor transmission. The director of Australia’s International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health told the paper: “Outdoors is safe, and there is certainly no cloud of virus-laden droplets hanging around.” Infectious droplets would be quickly diluted in outdoor air, director Lidia Morawska said, so their concentrations would quickly become insignificant. Bottom line: “It is safe to go for a walk and jog and not to worry about the virus in the air.”
Two days later, the Times, back on its crusade to terrorize the citizenry, ran a full page of infographics under the headline: "Social Distancing: Why 6 Feet?" A series of drawings showed the progression of pestilence emitted from a cougher across the six feet separating him from his unsuspecting victim. Eventually that victim is almost invisible under the cloud of death that has descended upon him. You had to read the fine print to learn that this simulation was being run in a hypothetical room of 600 square feet.
The Times was not satisfied with its ominous portrayal of the indoor cough miasma, however. The bottom of the infographics page contained a reminder that “It’s Not Just Coughing.” Another cloud of disease was shown issuing from a flu carrier who is merely talking. What makes such conversation infectious? You had to consult the fine print again: The carrier needs to talk for five minutes in a crowded, poorly ventilated space.
Scientific analyses of how viruses travel usually assume indoor settings. A recent study from China confirmed that the risk of coronavirus infection occurs overwhelmingly indoors. The researchers identified only one outdoor outbreak of infection among over a thousand cases studied. Most transmissions occurred at home.
Japan, with an elderly and highly urban population of 126.5 million, eschewed a nationwide economic lockdown and emphasized instead the need to avoid the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places, and close contact. It has had only 360 deaths as of April 26.
The Central Park paranoiacs, however, see threat everywhere. A burly middle-aged man occasionally sits on a bench overlooking ball fields in the northern end of the park. Upset that an unmasked jogger had run behind him, the man constructed a beaver dam of branches, torn from the surrounding trees, that extended behind the bench, so that no one could get within 10 feet of his back. . . .
The suburban counterpart to these urban neurotics is the unaccompanied driver wearing his mask in his car.
The public health establishment is fighting desperately to maintain this degree of hysteria in the populace, in order to prolong its newfound power over almost every aspect of American life. Death will erupt if the lockdowns are lifted, the experts warn every few minutes on the cable news networks, to the angry approbation of the anchors. “It’s going to backfire,” Dr Anthony Fauci warned on April 20. Even as evidence keeps mounting that the virus is magnitudes less deadly than was advertised, the public health professionals are hardening their economy-killing prescriptions, rather than loosening them. . . .
If you want to read the whole article, here is the link to it:
The paranoid style in COVID-19 America
We are in a race between the ideology of safetyism and the facts. The future depends on which side prevails. The data is clear
spectator.us