Coronavirus

[G. Keenan]

Is a KN95 considered equivalent to an N95?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Just found out the CDC guidelines for quarantine/isololation treats people that received the full dose of the vaccine, but not the boosters, the same as people that are completely unvaccinated. Makes sense.

[Arthur Dent]

I haven't found the source on this data (ACGIH - American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists apparently) but re: our earlier mask discussion. Interesting note at the bottom on the even longer times for tightly sealed N95s, which means this estimates 25 hours for 2 people wearing them with a more typical fit.

I can tell you the data source: it’s made up.

Best I can tell, they started with the CDC’s 15 minutes guideline and then just multiply by some factors based on lab estimates of filtration efficiency. There’s no real world data about time to infection to support these claims, and what data we do have contradicts it.

Hilariously, if you follow the links on the ACGIH page on it to the “additional resources” where we’re supposed to find the evidence, the first link is to a 2020 scientific commentary titled, “Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data” accurately summarizing the pre-pandemic state of knowledge, which was that there wasn’t good evidence for it and good reason to be skeptical of a significant impact. An editor’s note is appended because people responded to this accurate summary by demanding it be retracted.

It’s amazing we just go ahead and print graphics like this in major publications and call it following the science.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Mrs. AW's hospital is detailing people from their regular jobs back to covid duty. They have a 'full time' covid wing complete with staff and beds and all that. But, apparently that's only there for the baseline amount of covid hospitalizations and not surges. Seems like a bad strategy kind of like a hospital that had a flu wing set up to deal with summer cases and then acted shocked when it wasn't enough to handle the winter cases.

It's been two years since covid became a thing; how they're so unprepared is quite shocking. But, I reckon they're not alone taking a glimpse at headlines...though no telling how accurate those are.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Not to get too far off track for the theme here -- but are we still believing that pollsters like Silver know what they are doing? I'm pretty sure at this point that Nate Silver is snorting his own product a bit too much. How many cycles do we need to observe these pollsters getting it quite badly wrong before we ask if the whole industry's model is broken? And I'm not just talking about elections, but also issue polling. I'm convinced that issue polling is even less accurate than elections polling.

Nate Silver is especially true of this. His PECOTA model projected Matt Wieters to amass 8 WAR in his rookie season, which would be the best season of any catcher ever. Whenever someone would bring it up (because his projection system would do the same thing for a lot of career minor leaguers),instead of just admitting he had something [expletive] up in his methodology, he’d double and triple down.

[Smith Corks One]

I haven't found the source on this data (ACGIH - American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists apparently) but re: our earlier mask discussion. Interesting note at the bottom on the even longer times for tightly sealed N95s, which means this estimates 25 hours for 2 people wearing them with a more typical fit.

I can tell you the data source: it’s made up.

Best I can tell, they started with the CDC’s 15 minutes guideline and then just multiply by some factors based on lab estimates of filtration efficiency. There’s no real world data about time to infection to support these claims, and what data we do have contradicts it.

Hilariously, if you follow the links on the ACGIH page on it to the “additional resources” where we’re supposed to find the evidence, the first link is to a 2020 scientific commentary titled, “Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data” accurately summarizing the pre-pandemic state of knowledge, which was that there wasn’t good evidence for it and good reason to be skeptical of a significant impact. An editor’s note is appended because people responded to this accurate summary by demanding it be retracted.

It’s amazing we just go ahead and print graphics like this in major publications and call it following the science.

And if I remember correctly, the 15 minute transmission between unmasked people was only for OG Covid (or whatever the first variant that took hold was). They (don’t specifically remember who “they” was) said that for Delta, it was 1 second. And Omicron is much more transmissible than Delta, right? I read that it can be spread between people in different hotel rooms.

Now, is all of that true? I have no idea. Seems kind of extreme to me. But those are definitely things that were reported. Either way, I highly doubt the 15 minute thing is still accurate for Omicron.

[ghostrunner]

Yeah if that’s the basis I’d say definitely not accurate for omicron.

[MrCrowesGarden]

I can’t pretend to be able to understand all the data, and a lot of times I feel really stupid reading this thread and trying to do so.

That said, my workplace has reinstituted a mask policy. Based upon what I’ve gleaned from here, it’s probably worthless? I don’t think anyone has an N95 mask (and I can’t blame anyone for it, they’re expensive), and even if they did, most are fully vaxxed/boosted.

[Arthur Dent]

I can’t pretend to be able to understand all the data, and a lot of times I feel really stupid reading this thread and trying to do so.

That said, my workplace has reinstituted a mask policy. Based upon what I’ve gleaned from here, it’s probably worthless? I don’t think anyone has an N95 mask (and I can’t blame anyone for it, they’re expensive), and even if they did, most are fully vaxxed/boosted.

The best guess would be that it’s not totally worthless but will have a marginal impact at best. Maybe something like 10% less cases on average over some time period if surgical masks are used. Probably no detectable impact for cloth masks. And, to be clear, that’s not even 10% less ultimate sickness. It just delays your date with the virus a bit. With Omricon’s incredible speed, probably not even that much.

The vaccines will help enormously though, and if you’re an organization (outside vulnerable settings like hospitals, nursing homes, etc) thinking about making COVID rules for individuals, this is really the only thing it makes sense to get pushy about at this point.

[G. Keenan]

I can’t pretend to be able to understand all the data, and a lot of times I feel really stupid reading this thread and trying to do so.

That said, my workplace has reinstituted a mask policy. Based upon what I’ve gleaned from here, it’s probably worthless? I don’t think anyone has an N95 mask (and I can’t blame anyone for it, they’re expensive), and even if they did, most are fully vaxxed/boosted.

KN95 masks seem to be easier to find a less expensive. That's why I asked if they were the same thing. I think that they are. Maybe the KN95 is a Korean rating system or something? Like in Europe they call these masks FFP2 instead of N95.