Never say never: Maskachusetts back in masks

by philg

Back in April, when we told friends and neighbors in Massachusetts about the decision to follow the reverse underground railroad to freedom (see Relocation to Florida for a family with school-age children), they scoffed at the idea that Florida was a more reliable source of Freedom of Assembly, freedom for children to exercise without masks, in-person education, etc. COVID-19 was finished, vanquished by wise leadership and vaccines. They confidently predicated that, after the 15-month state of emergency officially ended on June 15, 2021, the residents of Massachusetts would never again be ordered to wear masks, to refrain from gathering, to keep children at home, etc.

From our former town:

Effective on 12:01 a.m. August 20, 2021, face coverings are required for all individuals aged two years
and above in all indoor public spaces, or private spaces open to the public…

(the schools, of course, decided months ago that children would be ordered to wear masks, even those children whose parents elect to experiment on them with an emergency authorized vaccine dosage calibrated for adults; this may be moot for urban schools, which closed down for nearly a year during the 2020-2021 coronapanic)

It is currently illegal to be indoors in Provincetown without a mask: “Provincetown Approves Indoor Mask Mandate To Stem Spread” (a bandana is okay when meeting new friends from Grindr!). The situation is similar out across the water: “Three Martha’s Vineyard towns issue mask mandate” (Boston Herald, August 17). How about staying home in the suburbs? Belmont went back into masks on August 9.

Keep in mind that the typical peak period for respiratory viruses in New England is still 3-6 months in the future. The above are the restrictions for the ordinarily flu/cold-free summer (and last summer was more or less COVID-free as well).

The “curve,” according to The Google:

The Leaderboard of the #Science-following Righteous:

(Florida, of course, has a much uglier curve right now, in what seems to be a pattern going forward of high COVID during the peak summer months. But the fact that the government hasn’t caved in to Karens’ demands for muscular orders and restrictions is confidence-inspiring. Unlike most other states, Florida does not pretend that governors’ orders and bandanas are a magic solution for preventing viruses from killing humans. The current COVID-19 wave in Florida is a good stress test for the residents’ and government’s commitment to children, education, freedom, and the Constitution.)

For lockdown state children, from Disney+, Goofy in How to Stay At Home, Episode 1 of which is “How to Wear a Mask”:

Related:

29 thoughts on “Never say never: Maskachusetts back in masks”

  1. Are you masking your kids in their Florida school? This is the latest test to earn your red-hat cred. Well, you also need to scream, “Freedom! Constitution!” at random times — you just passed that test in this post.

    • Mike: I think you’re a little behind the times. The standard religious purity Inquisition starter question that I’ve heard recently, from Biden voters in various states, is “are you going to have your [6-year-old and 7-year-old] children vaccinated”. This is said in a challenging tone. I think it is worth a separate blog post. A (vaccinated) med school professor friend says that the COVID-19 vaccines for children are a violation of the Nuremberg Code (see https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199711133372006 ) and that they’re not scientifically sound (the dose of vaccine that stimulates a 40-year-old’s immune system is way too much for a 12-year-old, much less a 6-year-old; more mature vaccines, such as the flu shot, come in different strengths for different ages).

    • Mike you are an insufferable asshole. I agree with the other commenter who told you to go to your safe space and get lost.

    • “The standard religious purity Inquisition starter question that I’ve heard recently, from Biden voters in various states, is “are you going to have your [6-year-old and 7-year-old] children vaccinated”. This is said in a challenging tone. ”

      As someone who, with some anxiety, vaccinated myself and my teenage kids, I acknowledge that the experimental and rushed nature of the vaccine rollout, the lack of formal approval–only emergency authorization, dosing concerns for different ages, body masses, etc, lack of clarity on two dose regimens, boosters, etc, downright creeps me out. But the relentless politicization of these questions seems a very very slippery slope on which to build a debate argument . Trump’s administration came up with Operation Warp Speed, the very name of which implies a mad rush, and it was he who announced what at the time seemed like totally unrealistic timelines for trials, approvals, rollout. Snce he lost the election to Biden, he has made bold statements paraphrased to the the effect of: “I hope you all remember you have only me to thank for the beautiful vaccines you are all receiving, and which are keeping you safe”

    • J: Trump’s vaccines are keeping more than 99% of us safe, statistically speaking. We are informed by the media that the death rate from COVID-19 would be roughly 100% without the vaccine. If we are not dead, therefore, we have our lockdown governors, our paper masks, and our vaccines to thank.

      Everyone else: I don’t think Mike should be attacked for his righteous point of view. If Mike went away, how would we know about the level of faith that more than half of Americans still have in masks and other measures that, until February 2020, all of the world’s public health experts said would be useless against a flu-style virus? (A faith not shaken by comparing unmasked unlocked Florida to masked locked-down California or unmasked never-locked Sweden to masked-and-locked Spain.)

    • philg: Thanks for the reply, however it misses by a very wide margin the point of my comment. I acknowledged clearly personal ambiguity about vaccines in general and with kids in particular, all the questions which are a standard refrain of commenters here. And given your response, I’ll further acknowledge that its very easy to obfuscate statistical effectiveness when only 1% (or whatever small fraction) of the pre-vaccine population is killed by the virus.

      My point, to restate, is that it seems most unlikely you would have clear and unambiguous information of the presidential voting histories of those who have accosted you “in various states” with inquisition-stye questions. Further that the history of vaccine advocacy is by no means partisan, given what Trump has done and said, calibrated against utterances of Biden. And if you read the inquisitors as challenging, it doesn’t seem that should phase you, given this blog and the comment discourse is pretty much pegged on the challenging side of the tone meter.

    • J: the folks who have demanded to know our intentions regarding the hypothetical world in which vaccines are available to 6-year-olds are friends or long-time acquaintances. I infer that they voted for Biden based on their often-expressed hatred for Donald Trump.

    • philg: Ok, so you know they voted for Biden. My guess is you also know that it’s not valid or fair to ascribe religious purity inquisition questions solely to Biden supporters. And also that Trump and his supporters are prone to boast about how his vaccines have save Americans of all ages. Your intent is to be challenging, not have a productive discussion.

    • J: I can’t tell you what Trump and his supporters do because I don’t follow Donald Trump (isn’t he still banned here in the Land of Free Speech (TM)?) and almost none of the people I know voted for Trump.

  2. It’s all about cases… cases, cases, cases… no one visibly sick in sight.

    I’d say it’s the pandemic of crappy tests.

    • Averros: I do wonder where people are getting these tests. In Maskachusetts it was almost impossible to arrange during cold season, the school year, etc. Despite $trillions in funding there aren’t convenient tests at the typical shopping mall. Nor is there a mobile service that will come to your house. Unless someone loves procedure and web browsing, I don’t know how he/she/ze/they is getting a COVID-19 test.

    • @philg, situation with coronavirus tests is even worse. Why analyzing whether I needed to get a vaccine and what vaccine I decided to take antibodies tests at one of the major medical testing labs municipal facility. Despite signing in and selecting test online I was questioned in person for 5 to 10 minutes what test I needed (apparently it is very rare for people at my municipality to test for anti-bodies) and if what I really needed was coronavirus test they could not help me, it was not available there, even though in principle I could sign up for it online, it was available online.

    • I did quite a bunch of tests last and this year (in CA where I used to live every visit to a dentist or a medical office was predicated on negative test for a few months… and then I travel a lot, both domestically and internationally). In SF Bay Area it was possible to find medical offices doing them without week-long wait lists (though a video “consultation” with a doctor was needed, with an associated charge). Here in TX tests are very easy to do – you schedule one online, go to Walgreens drive-through, pick your nose with a q-tip, and an hour later you get a link to results in e-mail, all paid by taxpayers.

      What bugs me about these tests is that FP rate is not published and probably not even determined with any degree of certanity (I dug out the test validation requirements by FDA and found that they consist of 32 specimens on which the test has to return all correct results… giving an FP rate (p<0.05) of anywhere from 0% to 11%.) Given C19 test positivity rates in single-digit % anyone not totally statistically illiterate has to conclude that there is NO TEST-BASED EVIDENCE whatsoever that the pandemic even exists! I.e. peoply may be dying from conpletely unrelated illness (most C19 clinical cases present no differently from a flu) – and the tests produce enough noise to make it look like a SARS2 pandemic.

    • Here’s an incredible statement, on many levels, from FDA:

      “At this time, researchers do not know whether the presence of antibodies means that you are immune to COVID-19; or if you are immune, how long it will last.

      In people who have received a COVID-19 vaccination, antibody testing is not recommended to determine whether you are immune or protected from COVID-19.”
      https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/antibody-serology-testing-covid-19-information-patients-and-consumers#:~:text=Antibody%20and%20diagnostic%20tests%20are,department%20for%20more%20information.

      I could not find any reliable quantitative analysis regarding the antibody level vs. provided protection (not immunity !) vs gender vs age group anywhere including Israeli sources. It appears we are flying blind through this storm, without any instrumental support. The adopted modus operandi seems to be: let’s throw some more vaccine/booster at the populace and see if it helps. Sort of medieval “science” approach.

      Having said that, you can probably get a Labcorp test for about $50. I personally did not try, but my acquaintance in TX got several to see the level of antibodies waning over 6 mo. Not sure what he’s going to do with that information.

  3. I never, ever though that when I read Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing back in 1999 that I’d be going to Phil’s weblog to get a bit of sanity in the chaos that is the Covid State and its righteous followers of ‘science’. All my neighbors and colleagues in the great liberal beacon that is Seattle wonder why I won’t vaccinate my children. It’s actually because of science and my acute distaste of gambling with my kids lives. As made famous by Amazon’s approach to decision-making, some decisions are one way doors (if you don’t like what you see beyond the door you choose, tough luck – you can’t undo your decision.) Vaccinating my children with an experimental vaccine calibrated to adults is the definition of a one way door.

    • This is indeed deplorable! Your unvaccinated children may be spreading coronavirus after becoming infected. If you had them vaccinated, by contrast, studies show that your children would become infected and then spread coronavirus.

  4. Any parent knows that getting kids — especially those under 5 — to follow directions and stick to directions for hours is an impossible task.

    A 2 y/o will not know how to keep a mask on or keep it on correctly for hours and hours. Teachers will have hard time monitoring kids and reminding them to keep mask on or adjusting it for them.

    Because of this, requiring masks at school to stop the spread will simply not work. If the experts are so worried about COVID being spread by kids, they need to come out clear and require that schools be closed and students go back to distance learning.

  5. Lagging Calif* by 1 month. Now they need to ban pork on animal cruelty grounds, but really more on social status grounds.

  6. Man, these masks have become a real obsession with you. Don’t tell me you moved to Florida just because of masks.

    • Jim: I think your comment is interesting mostly for its demonstration that there is no limit to what educated Americans will believe. Our county (Palm Beach) is home to some of the world’s richest people. One would imagine that there would be plenty of physicians happy to serve the residents of the $5-50 million beach houses. But a journalist tells you that Florida ranks poorly in terms of “access” for Medicaid beneficiaries (i.e., the extent to which a family that has never worked or paid taxes, perhaps for four or five generations, can consume $10 million in exotic medical procedures). From this you infer that someone who has Blue Cross or Aetna cannot get decent health care.

      (If you look at rankings of hospitals by outcomes and care quality, e.g., https://www.ibm.com/products/100-top-hospitals , you’ll see that plenty are in Florida. If you want a big brand name, check out https://my.clevelandclinic.org/florida and https://www.mayoclinic.org/patient-visitor-guide/florida )

    • Jim: This is really the reason why I comment to Phil all the time about his right-wing extremist views. He doesn’t realize he’s been infected. I used to really enjoy all of his posts with interesting views about a lot of different topics (been a reader for 10+ years). Sadly it seems 80% of posts in the past year have been about masks. Even posts of travel to interesting places are now mostly just mask sign photos — isn’t that a great indicator of obsession?

      I was happy to see the CD-ROM archive post — interesting statistics about failure rates, specs about photos, and not a single mention of masks.

      It’s a loss to society to have a brilliant mind get truly addicted, obsessed, and become single-minded re anti-maskism.

    • Lol, inference that rich people have good medicine is “right wing news” and a stale click-bate url link is a high arbiter of truth.
      By the way, Florida Governor DeSantis (R) made regeneron treatment that was preciously available only to US President and super-rich patients available in mobile clinics for everyone.
      Florida also big on having doctors (real MDs) visiting patients at home, something blue state wards of high temples of Medicare/Medicaid only can dream about. And so coronavirus – infected new englanders going to the office to share their germs.

  7. Phil…”Jim: I think your comment is interesting mostly for its demonstration that there is no limit to what educated Americans will believe…”

    You can turn that comment right around and pin it on yourself. The “world’s richest people” will always have medical care. It’s the rest of the folks that you seem to be so out of touch with.

    Why are my news links any less valid than the ones you point to? Just because you believe some journalist in Sweden you infer it’s good for the rest of the world.

    It works both ways.

    • Jim: You wrote “Hope YOU don’t need medical care down there”. Unless you thought that our family was below the Medicaid income threshold, that’s a statement about a person with private health insurance being unable to get high quality medical care in Palm Beach-FLL-Miami. If you had written “I hope that some of the recent migrants from Afghanistan don’t need $2 million medical procedures down there in Florida,” the article that you sent would support your concern (though I think ultimately the migrant and any of his/her/zir/their 7 children would ultimately be able to get any procedure that is available, even here in Florida). Although we don’t live in a $50 million beach house and drive Ferraris, I think we will be using more or less the same health care system that is available to the folks who do live in $50 million beach houses and drive Ferraris. (We have the Ferrari of minivans!)

    • “… that’s a statement about a person with private health insurance being unable to get high quality medical care in Palm Beach-FLL-Miami…” That’s your statement, not mine. I never said that or inferred it. All I did was post a link for readers to ponder.

      I’m quite sure quality heath care is available…even to those without any means.

  8. Not sure if your kids are in Palm Beach public schools, but it looks like they are defying DeSantis and monkeying up the mask decision.

    Is South Dakota looking more appealing?

Comments are closed.