All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tami]

Rescue dogs shot dead by NSW council due to COVID-19 restrictions - Sydney, AU

Several impounded dogs due to be rescued by a shelter have instead been shot dead by a rural council in NSW under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions, alarming animal activists and prompting a government probe.

Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.

“OLG has been informed that the council decided to take this course of action to protect its employees and community, including vulnerable Aboriginal populations, from the risk of COVID-19 transmission,” a spokesman from the government agency said.

The spokesman said the agency was examining the circumstances of the incident to find out whether companion animal and cruelty prevention laws had been broken.

The Herald attempted to contact the council administration multiple times, but received no response, and a member of Rural Outback Respite/Rescue – the shelter that was supposed to receive the dogs – declined to comment.

A source who is familiar with the arrangement said the shelter volunteers are distressed and had COVID-safe measures in place to handle the dogs, one of which was a new mother.

Talk about unnecessary and cruel overreactions.

[Tendrin]

[QUOTE=Tami;5694859][URL=
Talk about unnecessary and cruel overreactions.[/QUOTE]

Very much so.

[Kirby101]

Fake scholarship in the service of extreme political agendas.

This says it all.

[Mister Mets]

Because the caregiver told me exactly what happened and how they got sick, and how she got it, and it's relevant to the larger issue of reopening schools, which will be an even bigger petri dish than how my caregiver's children caught it. And if something that small can do that to my parents, I'd like you to take a moment and consider that more broadly, as well as the recent halting and closure of schools and classes all across the country as a result of the delta variant, versus what some guy on substack who's not even a doctor says.



I believe we should follow the science. Science is evolving. Science and uncertainty demand we protect our children from the unknowable long term consequences of covid infection, and protect those who are around them, especially given we know how transmissable Delta is (which your substack article never even mentions once). I'm not shocked, of course, that you're rushing to once again to decry a 'liberal overreaction', though. It's basically your entire political philosophy.

Mask refusal isn't really about science, no matter how pretty a spreadsheet you can paint of it.

This is a mistake you made twice. You seem to think it's so important that I linked to someone from Substack that you mentioned it twice.

I posted two links. One is the guy from Substack. It doesn't matter that he's a doctor, as long as he can analyze data.

The other was a writer for New York magazine who analyzed a CDC study, spoke with an associate professor in University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, an epidemiologist and the senior author of a separate CDC study on COVID-19, CDC spokesmen, more epidemiologists, infectious-disease specialists, an immunologist, pediatricians, and a physician publicly active in matters relating to COVID.

If anyone knows of any information on why masks in schools are important, I'd be eager to see it. It seems to be a question where there just isn't sufficient evidence.

I'm still a bit unclear about whether your parents' caregiver said that her children got Covid in schools because they weren't masked.

There are some unknowns about disease transmission, but we also have to consider the effects on children of having to wear masks in schools (facial cues are important for communication, physical activity is harder, etc.)

According to the New York magazine article, the experts don't think Delta changes much on the question. It also raises the question of whether the usual masks are going to be helpful as they provide about half an hour of protection, and kids spend more time in schools than that.

All it takes is looking at the maps. The mask resistant states, which are all red states, have the worst rates of infection. In the state of Indiana where I live it plays out again by counties. The northern section of Indiana is generally goes Democratic voting. Those counties are in the yellow. The rest of the state is mostly GOP and they have a higher rate of infection.

That doesn't really get into which specific measures are effective.

There is an argument that we should go with whatever is done in the districts where there's less Covid spread. We can accept that some of those steps might be ineffective, but that we do get better results if we go with the whole package.

The CDC's Georgia study was able to look at the different rates of infection between kids in places with roughly similar policies, where the main difference was mask mandates in schools, and they found no discernible difference.

There always been, always will be cases where an individuals freedom has to be limited, to preserve a reasonable balance between individual freedom and the overall good of society.

I would suggest that no sane person would champion an individuals freedom to gun down other people, for example.

Ultimately much of politics is about looking pragmatically at different situations and asking “in situations like this where should we strike the balance between individual freedom and society’s good?”

One mans freedom not to get the Covid vaccination or not to wear a mask might lead to other people getting infected, and potentially become seriously ill, even die.

Anti-maskers/ anti- vaxxers ought at least (in an ideal world) honestly ask themselves if this particular individual freedom is worth risking harm to other people.

We can still determine whether individual policies are effective.

If something doesn't work, it doesn't do anything for society's good. It can make things worse by giving skeptics more reasons to distrust the experts.

The state of Texas is not anecdotal evidence.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/a...ecord-numbers/

The question that matters is how much of that is due to children not wearing masks.

Because kids can get Covid outside of the school. Increased testing will also find more people with Covid (this is why some idiots were against increased testing.)

If Europe is doing fine-what are they doing that we are not?

As for N-95-let the schools provide them. If having to wear them for a long time is the issue-have kids attend school from say August to November-the week of Thanksgiving.

From that wee till President's Day-kids stay HOME and online learn. Teachers can teach from school online. Staff who don't need to be there all day can spilt days when they go.

President's Day to Spring Break in school. Spring Break to Good Friday at home. Good Friday till the end at school (mainly due to state testing).

Unless we say no masks for kids.

My School district has been fully open a week. We got 505 infections-mainly STAFF at Elementary schools.

Going by zip codes-it's mainly neighborhoods of white, Hispanic and people from overseas (mainly Africa & Middle East). Despite Dan Patrick black areas are not that bad as of now.

Irving ISD has only 54.

Garland ISD has 800 (only now in week 3)

Grand Prairie ISD (with NO Mask mandate) 181

My point about people not tolerating N-95 masks for long wasn't that it's fine to wear them for the entire day as long as it's just for a few months.

The CDC director was saying that she doesn't recommend it because it's uncomfortable and hard to breathe in, and there would be pushback if we insisted on people wearing them all day long. And that is for adults.
https://6abc.com/n95-mask-cdc-recomm...best/10092451/

There are also major learning losses with distance learning systems so it should be avoided to the extent possible.

[Mister Mets]

Two stories about my elected executives making poor decisions.

Cuomo has used Hurricance Henri to have one last hurrah as Governor, having a storm briefing without the person who is going to be taking over as Governor in two days.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...oum-story.html

Cuomo was dismissive that Hochul should have any role in the preparations, even if she will deal with the aftermath of Henri in her first few days.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/hochul...eps-for-henri/

Three days before he steps down amid a sexual abuse scandal, Cuomo defensively dismissed a question about Hochul’s role in preparing for the first hurricane to target Long Island since 1985 during an afternoon press conference on the storm in which he announced a state of emergency declaration.

“I am the governor today and I am in charge,” Cuomo said.

As for my local executive, there was a big outdoor concert in Central Park to announce New York's return Post-Covid. It was cancelled in the middle of a Barry Manilow song due to concerns about rain and lightning (which was unambiguously the right call.)

While there was an official announcement for the tens of thousands of people there to leave immediately and safely, Mayor DeBlasio recommended that people stick around the area for when they're able to continue the concert later.

https://twitter.com/JCColtin/status/1429242489836392450

They were not able to continue the concert, and if the weather had been better, the plan was for the performers to play to an empty audience, rather than to encourage people who were told to evacuate to wait around.

[Tami]

New Jersey stands ready to provide safe harbor, support, stability, and peace to Afghan refugees.

Today I sent a letter to @POTUS
making it clear that we welcome these brave individuals and their families to the Garden State.

Twitter Link

[Tami]

I was on Twitter yesterday when I saw something that I wanted my husband's legal opinion on. He called it "Word Salad".

I decided to post a tweet reply to the original Tweet and began by mentioning what my husband said.

As of right now I have over 655 likes and retweets.

My husband, who doesn't do social media, is going to rub it in my face (nicely) that his comment broke my previous records on Twitter.

I'll tell him, but seriously, it wasn't that great post and I really wish people would stop liking it.

[Tendrin]

It's not a 'mistake' I made twice. You linked a substack article. That you also linked another is nice and all, but the substack article is dreadful, and proper prevention is worth the inconvenience of mask-wearing. It's ludicrous to sit here and try to argue otherwise, when the CDC and the American Association of pediatrics are both asking for mask wearing in schools, and schools are literally shutting down due to covid outbreaks locally to them within a week of restarting -- but hey, who do we believe? Mets and his anti-mask links that speculate about whether or not masks are 'really necessary' or what's actually happening in front of us as we see large increases in the number of sick and critically ill children?

As for the caregiver, I didn't say they caught it in school, just that the scenario that played out for me will play out for others whose children will bring covid into their homes from schools. Other vulnerable people will be exposed, because that's how community spread works. Without masks, you are increasing community spread unnecessarily.

https://today.duke.edu/2021/06/research -finds-masks-can-prevent-covid-19-transmission-schools

Erase the space to make the link work :P

[Tami]

It's not a 'mistake' I made twice. You linked a substack article. That you also linked another is nice and all, but the substack article is dreadful.

Is that what it was? I didn't realize. What happens if I delete my tweet? Or should I just let it run it's course and forget about it?

[Tendrin]

Is that what it was? I didn't realize. What happens if I delete my tweet?

Oh, no.

I was responding to mets and hit reply instead of quote reply. xD

[Tami]

Oh, no.

I was responding to mets and hit reply instead of quote reply. xD

Oh, then nevermind.

[Mister Mets]

It's not a 'mistake' I made twice. You linked a substack article. That you also linked another is nice and all, but the substack article is dreadful, and proper prevention is worth the inconvenience of mask-wearing. It's ludicrous to sit here and try to argue otherwise, when the CDC and the American Association of pediatrics are both asking for mask wearing in schools, and schools are literally shutting down due to covid outbreaks locally to them within a week of restarting -- but hey, who do we believe? Mets and his anti-mask links that speculate about whether or not masks are 'really necessary' or what's actually happening in front of us as we see large increases in the number of sick and critically ill children?

As for the caregiver, I didn't say they caught it in school, just that the scenario that played out for me will play out for others whose children will bring covid into their homes from schools. Other vulnerable people will be exposed, because that's how community spread works. Without masks, you are increasing community spread unnecessarily.

https://today.duke.edu/2021/06/research -finds-masks-can-prevent-covid-19-transmission-schools

Erase the space to make the link work :P

The way you commented on it suggested that my only evidence was the Substack article, when that wasn't the case. You wrote "versus what some guy on substack who's not even a doctor says." Schools don't need masks because some guy on Substack has CHARTS." and "which your substack article never even mentions once" while completely neglecting the source that you found to be more credible.

Your anecdotal evidence wasn't even about someone catching Covid because of their kid's school's mask policy.

The problem with the Duke study is that it doesn't look at the effectiveness of masks in schools in isolation, which is the general way to demonstrate that a policy is effective.

It was covered in both of the links. In the New York magazine article, they wrote...

. Over and over, studies and reports on children in schools with low transmission rates claim in their summaries that masking students helped keep transmission down. But looking at the underlying data in these studies, masks were always required or widely worn, and implemented in concert with a variety of other interventions, such as increased ventilation. Without a comparison group that didn’t require student masking, it’s difficult or impossible to isolate the effect of masks. (This is the error made by Duke University researchers who wrote a report about North Carolina schools, later summarized in a New York Times opinion piece.) I reviewed 17 different studies cited by the CDC in its K-12 guidance as evidence that masks on students are effective, and not one study looked at student mask use in isolation from other mitigation measures, or against a control. Some even demonstrated that no student masking correlated with low transmission.

When David Zweig, writer of the New York piece, asked some questions about their evidence on masks, which was obviously relevant for his article, they stopped responding to him.

I corresponded with the authors of the Duke study behind this opinion piece weeks ago...

A topline finding of the Duke/ABC Science Collaborative report, and what they claim here, is that masks in schools help lower transmission. Except all their schools were under a mask mandate. I asked the authors how they could make a claim on masks when there was no control ...

In order to claim an effect you must compare one group with an intervention to a different group *without* the intervention, which they didn't do. Instead, the authors replied with the Israeli study, saying that showed masks in schools work. Except...

1)You cannot use another study as evidence for a claimed finding in your study
2)The Israel study was of grades 7-12; windows were closed; and all schools were exempt from masks. If anything, the fact that there was only one outbreak suggests the lack of effectiveness of masks

The authors do the same thing in this Opinion piece, citing some districts that had mask mandates and low transmission as evidence of their effectiveness, and cherry picking some places that didn't to suggest the opposite...

Yet schools in Florida, and more so throughout many parts of Europe did not and do not have mask mandates for kids, with varying age cutoffs, and there is no correlated explosion of cases originated in those schools

Sadly, they buried the lede from their report, which is that distancing of more than 3 feet or less than 3 feet made no difference in transmission rates

When I raised the points about the Israeli study the authors stopped responding to me

[WestPhillyPunisher]

After months of prodding by his political advisors, last night at a MAGA/hate rally in Alabama, Trump told a crowd he was vaccinated, and encouraged them to get the Covid-19 vaccine as well.

THEY BOOED HIM WHEN HE SAID IT.

This will probably be the last time he says something like that, sadly, as a result.

But while watching him have his own followers turn on him over something so simple, it is a bit terrifying to see that at this point, no one may need to drive this death cult Trump's built off a cliff, they're hell bent on putting the pedal to the floor and driving off themselves with or without Orange Foolius.

Oh, that’s hilarious! I’m betting it was suggested that Trump tell his lemmings to get vaccinated since his base were literally dying off, still, I’m sure Trump never envisioned getting booed. But yeah, just like Dr. Frankenstein, it looks like he can no longer control the monster he himself created.

[Malvolio]

Oh, that’s hilarious! I’m betting it was suggested that Trump tell his lemmings to get vaccinated since his base were literally dying off, still, I’m sure Trump never envisioned getting booed. But yeah, just like Dr. Frankenstein, it looks like he can no longer control the monster he himself created.

So now Trump knows how other Republicans feel about him.

[Tami]

I'm no expert on this, and I haven't done any research on it yet, but I was thinking that, if possible, it might be a good thing to give the Native Americans a status that allows each recognize tribe living on their own land, a right to hold their own elections.

I mean, instead of being bound to vote based on whatever State rules they are surrounded by, they can be truly independent as far as running their elections.

i remember reading about how difficult some states were making it for Native Americans to vote. So, why not simply allow the Native Americans to run their own elections, much like Puerto Rico does only more so.