dialamah

This is exactly why they've been mandated, of course. I assume you've seen those guys talking from their hospital beds, explaining how they figured they were young, healthy and safe, the virus scare was overblown, no need to wear a mask or social distance - now begging people to take precautions, wash their hands, social distance, wear a mask. Herman Caine thought masks were stupid, too; then he caught Covid-19 and now he's dead. Yes, being asked to take some minor action to protect others is certainly a hallmark of a lack of freedom. Speed limits, drunk driving prohibitions, rules about driving on roads and not just the fuck wherever you want, how we are oppressed! And now a mask! Will the oppression ever end? /s The only ignorance on display here are the anti-maskers who think wearing a mask is some infringement on their freedom. Its really hard not to wish we'd see more of them in hospital beds, admitting their stupidity and begging others not to be so stupid. But that would only put our health care people at more risk, never mind the people these anti-mask morons may have infected before even knowing they were sick. So I'm glad our rates are low, and that your stupidity probably won't land you or anyone you love in the hospital or morgue.

Would it be ok if Trudeau decided that he should stay in power longer because there is a pandemic?

No argument there. I'll try to do better.

This is such a weird conspiracy, requiring that virtually every government official in the world, scientist, medical professional, all media and many others are united in hoaxing "the rest of us" in order to shut down the economy thus destroying it, (even though a strong economy is key to politicians re-election hopes), pay us stay home, and wear masks when in stores. The "logic" here makes my head hurt.

I agree ... rioters are essentially going to be from all ideologies, including simply opportunistic. But with Trump and his minions attempting to put the blame entirely on "the left", I think its important to notice that it's not so simple.

Police are charging an individual who helped incite the riots in Minneapolis. Police are saying he's a White Supremacist, intent on starting a race war. "According to police, the suspect was seen in viral videos breaking glass of the Auto Zone in south Minneapolis on the late afternoon of Wednesday, May 27. Looting and arson incidents started not long after. Until then, the protests were relatively quiet, according to police. “The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension … this individual’s sole aim was to incite violence,” Minneapolis police said."

Fox News counted 12 instances of graffiti under its list of "violence on Portland". They also included a fireworks, or a small fire as "firebombing". Graffitti and firecrackers = end of the world in the Fox universe. Trump is blaming "the left" for all of this; at a time when he should be trying to bring people together, he's intent on blaming and sowing dissension. And now they have unmarked vans and officials "disappearing" people. Pretty sad.

No doubt I can find pics showing maskless people on top of each other. Still, a bunch of masked people bunched up is safer than unmasked people bunched up. Where I shop, the stores are pretty good about keeping people in cashier line-ups six feet apart. Not that it means much, but my personal experience has been that maskless people are less careful about keeping distance (can't say about hand washing of course), and about 80% of people in my area do not wear masks. I understand why Henry and most stores do not make masks mandatory, but they may eventually have to in order to avoid another shut down. Its weird to me that 84% of people support mandatory masking, yet so few will voluntarily wear them. Its a shame the right made a publuc health measure political.

Researchers find that mask wearing does not reduce other mitigating behavior. The study essentially shows that people who wear masks do not feel a "false sense of security" and stop doing other things, like physical distancing. "The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests when a person has two or more contradictory beliefs or values, it can cause psychological distress. Furness said that means if people are doing one thing that they deem to be important — like wearing a mask or practicing physical distancing — they will likely do other “congruent” things. “If you’re washing your hands, because you’ve got the right attitude and you’re wearing a mask because you’ve just got the right attitude, then those other behaviours will be concordant,” Furness explained." This also implies that people not wearing masks will do other congruent things, such as wash their hands less and let themselves get physically closer to other people.

In BC, about half of the surgeries cancelled due to Covid have already been done. Not bad progress in only a month and a half. "Dix and former Fraser Health CEO Michael Marchbank gave their first major update on the surgery backlog July 21, reporting that more than half of the people who have been offered procedures cancelled during May and June have had their surgeries completed. People are spending more time on waiting lists than last year, but accelerated schedules and training additional operating room staff are making a difference, Dix said. Priority is being given to people who have waited for more than twice the target wait time for their procedure."

It seems I missed or forgot a rule about cartoons in threads, so CA slapped my wrists (figuratively speaking). I apologize to all for "littering" and have removed the cartoon to its proper place.

Despite the conviction of some people that mask wearing is pointless, one BC doc is so convinced by the value of masks that she's gone to court in an effort to force the government to make masking mandatory in public places.

Generally speaking, the communicator is responsible for ensuring their audience understands their message, so your lack of clarity is your problem and not ours. Your point seems to be that masks are not helpful enough to be in widespread use, and/or that that widespread use will cause more harm than good. If that's not your contention, then please explain what your point is. Despite the technical issues you believe exist, most studies demonstrate that masks are helpful in reducing the spread of disease, along with social distancing and handwashing. You choose to believe otherwise, fine, you do you. Masks are not mandatory most places in Canada, so its pretty likely you don't have to wear one, unless local businesses you frequent are enforcing mask use.

So? I'm not your student and bound to accept what you say. What question? Chose not to reply; my posting is not dictated by what you think is due to you. Dr Evans is one person; why would I take the word of one expert over what several equally or even more qualified experts are saying? That path leads to the idiocy of an anti-vaxxer. The benefit of masks has been known for quite some time: this study is from 2008, and aggregates a bunch of studies with the conclusion that easy and cheap interventions - hand washing, mask wearing, physical distancing - all slowed the transmission of respiratory illnesses. The study also separated the efficacy of N95 masks from other types of masks. Your argument against masks is pretty weak.

Hopeful news. An effective vaccine may have been developed; early human trials show good immune results with few side effects. Next step is administering the vaccine to 10,000 people in the UK, and 30,000 in the US. Researchers hope to have results by the end of the year.

And its been explained to you, multiple times by multiple people, including cites by experts, that masks help reduce the spread of Covid. As poor as they may be, they help. Here's a story about that: two symptomatic hairdressers continued working while they waited for test results. Together, they served 139 customers, everybody wearing masks, and no secondary infections were reported. Nobody is claiming masking is a perfect solution, but it helps and objecting to because its not a perfect solution is a weak argument. Bottom line is that we'd all be less likely to catch and spread this virus if most of us used masks when in closed public spaces.

An interesting side-effect of the pandemic - a noticeable drop in premature births. A widespread phenomenon as yet unexplained, significantly fewer babies were born early during the first few months of lockdowns in several countries. Speculation that pregnant women able to remain home and rest more, less exposure to all diseses, lower pollution levels and fewer inductions may have contributed to this reduction. More study is needed.

I'm sorry you are unemployed, and hope you can become re-employed soon. In the meantime, as an employed person, I'm happy that my tax dollars can help you at a time that its needed. I don't care if you use that money to buy smokes, pay for your cell phone, your internet, your pet's food, your data plan, your car loan - any and all the 'luxuries' so many people think poor, non-working people shouldn't have.

I'm guessing these are the wrong experts.

In my experience its the people who wear a mask who are more conscious of keeping distance. Its those not wearing a mask who seem to have a false sense of security that they won't catch or spread the disese; they seem oblivious of how close they are to other unmasked people. The appearance of a mask-wearer in their midst seems to remind them to keep their distance. Around where I live, there are very few mask wearers, so I've had plenty of opportunity to examine the behavior of the unmasked. How far apart were you? I did, as a matter of fact. A person's lack of awareness doesn't equal media incompetence.

Only if Trump loses...

Because ...

From the guidelines: The 'guidelines' are broken on a regular basis on this forum, and the instruction from moderators has been to "report and ignore". If you are going to invite help in maintaining "intelligent, honest and responsible discussion", you can't then object to such reports because some kind of response is expected. I'd like the guidelines changed to reflect what is actually permitted on this forum. "It's ok to insult others, if someone happens to respond to your post"; "we'll give you points, but they don't matter"; "say whatever you want, we moderate based on personal feelings about the topic, the poster or the reporter". Whatever it is that actually happens in terms of moderation should be accurately described - that way at least we'll know what to expect. All righty then, if this is to be the response - please drop the request to "report and ignore" when someone breaks the guidelines. And for the record, the post calling someone a 'racist piece of garbage' did not hurt my feelings. I was merely interested in trying to raise the quality of discourse on this forum to what I previously believed the moderators wanted. There are a lot of such posts to choose from, if I was very zealous about this, but this one seemed particularly egregious so I reported it. Then perhaps you can sum them up with "Just be yourselves, Canadians. Discuss seriously, insult others, joke around, flame to your heart's content, post your favorite conspiracy theory, we don't care." I know moderating is a tough job, and for all the time I've been here I've more or less supported the moderation; I don't expect you to be able to catch and address every contravention of the guidelines, have never objected when my own posts have been sanctioned, even when I felt it unfair and have taken seriously the advice to "report and ignore" - until now. In any case, thank you for clarifying the latitude that is allowed for posting for some people/topics or whatever. I'll be sure to ignore the "report and ignore" advice from here on. I'm happy to respond directly to posts that fail any of the guidelines, as is now suggested.