Let me note from the outset: no, my PhD is not from a health sciences discipline; I am not a medical doctor. I'm not a virologist or an epidemiologist.I know from the standpoint of progressive elitists, my opinion doesn't count and should be censored or disregarded. [I can be just as snarky in dealing with these types. I mentioned several weeks back getting lectured to by some purported decades-long nurse. There are a ton of medical doctors putting their credentials into their Twitter handle, Dr. XYZ or XYZ, MD. If I get one of those "bow down before my credentials" types, I'm likely to come back with "ask me how impressed I am by a diploma from the bottom of a box of Cracker Jack".] Not all doctors graduated at the top of their class. Trump touts his Wharton School degree, but the prestige involves its graduate program, which he didn't graduate from.] I don't doubt that the typical MD is well-informed on any number of topics, but he may have limited expertise on any one topic. I remember as a doctoral student reading thousands of academic articles, but it really wasn't until I started doing my own research that I really understood the limits of one's knowledge and the complexity of the world.
[I can think of at least 2-3 times my personal physicians over the years misdiagnosed something. In one case, the physician led me to believe I had advanced stage kidney disease. At the time I was unemployed and had to pay thousands out of savings for tests. The tests proved negative, and he sheepishly grinned, "Aren't you glad you don't have it?" Who planted that thought in my head? Not to mention, they don't refund the test fees when it turns out negative.]
I will say I'm a reasonably well-informed layman who did well in high school and college science, and I'm an experienced researcher, knowledgeable about research design and applied statistics. I have generally been supportive of the general heuristics of mask use, social distancing and personal hygiene. I have been a forceful advocate for early, comprehensive testing and vaccination.
The problem I have is with rigid public policy on guidelines is their subjective applicability and their presumptuous assumptions, not to mention lending a false sense of security and reliance on subjective data. Take for instance face masks. Even today's gold standard of N95 respirators aren't perfect (i.e., N100). Bioaerosols are too small to be filtered by conventional means (especially ill-fitted cloth masks) in normal air flows (in or out). The gold standard in research design, double-blind randomized studies, have shown this for viruses in general, never mind COVID-19, and I'm sure Dr. Fauci and WHO were aware of these studies from the get-go. What has made this virus particularly pernicious is the fact that asymptomatic or presymptomatic infected people have been known to be shed virus (although likely at a reduced rate); this is why in a country where the known infection rate is still under 4% of the population, we have Draconian measures imposed on the other 96%. I don't get all excited about the anecdotal events of someone refusing to wear a mask, which I don't advocate, especially if they aren't showing respiratory symptoms (e.g., coughing or sneezing). If other people are wearing masks, their risks are already mitigated (but not eliminated). If you are say in an inside facility, you can still be exposed to concentrated, recirculated bioaerosols. It might be less arbitrary if we had the equivalent of a breathalyzer for COVID-19.
Personally, I haven't run across symptomatic people in public. But consider the case of Isaias Hernandez, the United passenger who died on a flight from Florida to LA:
[T]he Los Angeles man’s wife was heard telling medical workers on the plane that he had been experiencing symptoms, including trouble breathing and loss of taste and smell...Later, officials discovered that the man had been feeling sick before traveling, but he had wrongly said he did not have covid-related symptoms on a preflight checklist.
And there have been anecdotal reports of clearly symptomatic individuals on airflights, somehow getting by security. Now exposure to virus-laden respiratory splatter should be a clear public health concern in a risk-based public policy, as well as protection of high risk populations like the elderly and people with compromised immune symptoms or other chronic health problems.
But the nannies, especially on Twitter, are annoying. The incessant nagging and preaching: "just shut up and wear your masks", the constant threads on shaming people protesting guidelines in stores or in public, the focus on alleged "super-spreader" events like Trump's Tulsa June 20 rally, infamously attended by Herman Cain, who a couple of weeks later died of COVID-19 complications.
This speculation is largely based on the fact Cain was pictured at the rally not wearing a mask with other prominent blacks for Trump. Now one thing is for sure: if the others seated near Cain had infected him, it would have been widely reported. The idea the virus picked out Cain at random is unlikely. They were breathing the same air, sitting near the same people. It doesn't "prove" he didn't catch it at the rally, e.g., his immune system may have been more vulnerable, but it calls into question the whole myth of right-wing super-spreader events.
But his associates point out that Cain had widely advocated public guidelines, of mask wearing, social distancing and hygiene practices and was more frequently seen wearing a mask, even on the night he checked into the hospital. What they say is that Cain had traveled extensively during that immediate period of time and could have been infected at any point of time. (We already know that, with several other politicians, including Rand Paul and Tom Massie (by antibody test), with heavy travel schedules getting infected.) I think I commented at the time for all we know, he got infected going to the supermarket.
I've been saying these types of things for some time now, e.g., when Dems started a panic over WI Dem primary in-person voting. Draconian fears of a mass spreader event never played out. We haven't seen grocery stores shut down. The weekend before Christmas I had to hunt for a parking spot at the local Walmart (with vast parking). And yet an event attracting a few hundred or thousand people freaks others out.
Why this rant? The usual nonsense on Twitter following Congressman-Elect Letlow's (R-LA) recent COVID-complications passing. They widely attributed his late runoff rallies (after the general election where he placed) for his infection. Yes, he died of COVID, and it's a tragedy. But as I've mentioned before, COVID doesn't come with a GPS. He could have contracted it anywhere along his travel trail. I don't know the specifics of his rallies, but most politicians speak at a social distance from the crowd. Let's stop the fear-mongering and the hypocritical stereotyping of conservatives. I've seen a lot of progressives not following safety guidelines at rallies.
