A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
Today is the day that muscular government action brings relief from COVID-19-related shortages. Our “free” (taxpayer-funded) at-home test kits are arriving. From USPS:
These were ordered on January 19, the first day of official availability. They’ll arrive approximately 5 weeks after the tests became generally available at retail in local pharmacies.
Related:
Full post, including commentsA friend in Maskachusetts wrote yesterday that his son’s private school had dropped its mask requirement (public schools in MA are still generally masked), overruling at least one member of its own medical board who voted to keep the kids in masks. His son reported that none of the teachers wore masks, but some students continued to do so. In other words, the teachers sent a message that they hadn’t believed that the masks were necessary or helpful by all dropping them as soon as they became optional. Adults are free to party unmasked in MA and almost everyone else. “Soon only one U.S. state will still have an indoor mask mandate” (CBS, 2/23/2022):
New York and Rhode Island this month lifted indoor mask rules for businesses, but still require them in schools. Illinois, Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C., plan to let mask requirements lapse by the end of March.
These Followers of Science are no longer Following the Science. “‘We Are Not There Yet’: As States Drop Mask Rules, the C.D.C. Stands Firm” (NYT, 2/9/2022):
The Biden administration said federal masking guidance would not change for now, but was seeking advice from public health experts on the way forward.
… Dr. Walensky said pointedly that while her agency is working on new guidance for the states, it is too soon for all Americans to take off their masks in indoor public places.
As officials examine the science and chart a careful course, they run the risk of making the Biden administration look irrelevant as governors forge ahead on their own.
Even without reference to Science, the idea of dropping vaccine paper checks and mask orders “because cases are down” is puzzling. A friend recently texted regarding “Denver to end COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city employees, teachers and workers in high-risk settings”. He wrote “Why would you end the mandate if you believed it’s what saved you in the first place?” A San Francisco friend, regarding extending the school mask orders: “every additional day might save one life.”
Let’s look at the Maskachusetts “cases”:
Checking vaccine papers began in Boston on January 15 and, as one can see from “the curve,” cases trended down smartly after that intervention. “Boston businesses bid farewell to vaccine mandate, but some still check vax cards” (2/20/2022) describes the elimination of this safety measure just as its effectiveness was proven.
The California curve similarly shows that vaccine paper checks and mask orders worked:
For comparison, the Florida curve shows how cases trend to infinity in an environment where there are no mask orders, vaccine checks, or vaccine coercion:
Science tells us that universal vaccination, achieved via coercion if necessary, stops COVID infection and that masks cut the near-zero risk of COVID infection for the vaccinated to even nearer zero. Why abandon Science at this point when Science in the Science-following states saved lives at what lockdown proponents characterize as virtually zero cost?
Full post, including commentsWith deaths from COVID-19 only about as bad as in January 2021 (when few were vaccinated), in both the U.S. as a whole and Maskachusetts alone, declarations of “Mission Accomplished” are becoming common, with associated rollbacks of orders to check vaccine papers and orders for the subjects to wear masks.
How do people who have clung to their cloth masks as security blankets react during the Twilight of the Coronagods?
“Massachusetts Mask and Vax Mandates: A (Temporarily Accurate) Guide” (Boston Magazine, 2/16/2022):
Whether you’re required to wear a face mask depends on where you are. When you see it on a map, it’s striking just how much variety there is when it comes to policies town-by-town and city-by-city. Boston still requires them for all public indoor spaces, as do neighbors Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline. Some places, like Medford, Malden, and Melrose, require masks only in municipal buildings.
As you certainly know by now, Boston opted to make vaccine checks mandatory at indoor venues like restaurants and gyms in January. Brookline did the same thing. (Interestingly, Brookline’s vax mandate applies to restaurants’ outdoor patios, while Boston’s does not). Other cities and towns considered following in Boston’s footsteps—among them Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville—but didn’t, although lots and lots of business owners have enacted their own vaccine rules.
Meanwhile, Boston is nearing the next stage of its vaccine mandate policy—per the city’s B Together plan, kids 12 and older will need to be fully vaccinated to enter those places, too, beginning February 15. Kids ages 5-11 will need to have at least one dose by March 1, and two doses by May 1.
Even though lots of states have been dropping their school mask mandates, the CDC thinks it’s too soon to take that step, and is sticking with its guidance that kids stay masked in schools.
From the linked-to article:
“As small business operators we have a civic duty to take care of the health and safety of our guests and employees alike,” Tracy Chang told Eater in July 2021. Chang is the chef and owner of Pagu in Cambridge’s Central Square. “The past year has taught us just how vulnerable are the lives of essential hospitality workers, just how broken the existing hospitality industry is when it comes to wages, benefits, and welfare,” Chang continued. “We now have an opportunity to rebuild the industry to be a better, stronger one, starting one restaurant at a time. The least we can do is pay people more, check for proof of full vaccination, take temperatures at the door, and require masks indoors when not eating/drinking.” [later in the article it notes that Mx. Chang also requires government-issued photo ID, which is definitely not a racist policy]
If he/she/ze/they really wants to #StopTheSpread, why not close his/her/zir/their restaurant permanently? People eating at home won’t generate as many infections or breed as many mutations as people eating in restaurants.
Club Passim (47 Palmer St., Cambridge): All staff, performers, and customers are required to show proof of vaccination (the card or the photo) upon entering the club; ticket purchases will be refunded for those who cannot or will not show proof. Non-performers must wear masks indoors unless actively eating or drinking. Passim continues to offer livestream performances and online classes.
Again, if you’re concerned about COVID-19, why assemble COVID-19-spreading people to hear music when everyone has the capability of streaming audio and video at home?
How about those schools? February 17 email from a suburban district is presumably typical:
The Lincoln Board of Health met on Wednesday evening, February 16th to discuss the February 28, 2022 expiration of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education school mask mandate. While they agreed that our positive case numbers have dropped to low levels, concerns were raised about the possibility of an increase in cases after the February vacation week. They would like to see that our low number of cases are sustained over the next few weeks. In addition, Board of Health member Dr. Kanner shared that state level data is still at rates higher than it was in August when the BOH instituted the Town and school mask mandate.
The Board of Health voted to hold off on a decision until March 9, 2022 when they will reconvene to review the COVID data for the schools, Town and state and consider rescinding the town mask mandate.
The School Committee met this morning and received an update on the outcomes of the Lincoln Board of Health meeting. The Committee voted to re-visit the decision regarding maintaining the mask mandate or moving to less masking in the schools at it’s upcoming School Committee meeting on March 10th.
Interim Health Commissioner Patrick Maloney announces that the Town of Brookline’s mask mandate and proof of vaccination requirement continues to remain in effect though the need for these requirements will be reassessed next month. [i.e., in March 2022]
Proof of vaccination will continue to be required for patrons at all: … [restaurants, gyms, theaters, museums, etc.]
Additionally, masks continue to be required in all public indoor spaces in Brookline.
(Most of the above is actually illegal in Florida, of course, which refuses to follow Science. The legislature, for example, passed a law that forbids public schools to order children to wear masks.)
Full post, including commentsDumb question of the day… why are fake CDC vaccination cards a marketable item? “Fake Vaccine Card Sales Have Skyrocketed Since Biden Mandate” (Pew):
The price of fake COVID-19 vaccine cards and the number of vendors selling them have shot up since President Joe Biden announced his vaccine mandate plan last week, according to a global cybersecurity company.
Check Point Software Technologies found that the typical cost of phony vaccine cards bearing the logo of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was $100 on Sept. 2. The day after Biden’s Sept. 9 announcement, they jumped to $200, according to company spokesperson Ekram Ahmed.
The estimated number of sellers also rose from about 1,200 to more than 10,000 during that period, added Ahmed, whose company has been studying the black market for fake vaccine cards.
The CDC makes a PDF for a blank card available on its web site. The information on the card can be written in by hand. A person who wanted to make his/her/zir/their own card would not even need to buy card stock because he/she/ze/they would generally be able to show a photo of a card rather than the card itself, e.g., to get into a restaurant in Washington, D.C. Clinic site and lot numbers can be copied from a card image found on the Web and/or from a friend’s legit card.
Why are people paying $200 for something that can be easily created at home? What is the skill of the referenced “black market” vaccination card vendors?
(And, given the state of American electronic medical records, how would it be possible to determine that a card was fake if the bearer copied lot numbers and clinic names from a legit card? (my booster shot record just says “CVS” in the right hand column, which could be anywhere in the U.S.) Even if the injection can’t be found in a database, should we infer from that missing record that the card is fake? How do we know that the people at the CVS did all of the upstream tasks correctly?)
Full post, including commentsAn estate owner in a woodsy New England vacation enclave for the rich writes to his neighbors, who rely on a limited collection of colorful locals for every job that requires physical strength and practical skill.
I am no longer employing the [Heretics] due to their refusal to be vaccinated. I am clearly in the camp that embraces the proven science that the vaccines are safe and necessary to help our civilization resist this terrible disease. One that should never have created such havoc throughout the world and our country whose leaders did not take the virus serious until much too late. There will be well over 1 million of our fellow citizens dead shortly and I have no tolerance for anyone who believes their “bodily autonomy” is more important than the health of our communities. [Heretic 1] did some incredible work for us and our property has his fingerprints all over it and I will be forever grateful but refusing to get the jab is too much for me to tolerate. Since about 30% of our country refuses to follow the strong advise and instructions from the world’s most brilliant epidemiologists and medical scientists and our ultra-conservative activist Supreme Court justices are allowing this idiocy to continue, it is likely that some of you don’t agree with me and that is your choice but I am resolved in my conviction. I have fired my tax accountant and stopped doing business with any entity refusing vaccines and masks. [A nearby Deplorable service business] will forever be off my list.
What was Heretic 1’s job? Forester. In other words, the unvaccinated individual would be out in the forest and never anywhere near the owner’s Covid-safe bunker. The email, sent to about 15 neighbors, closes with a signature:
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”
ETTY HILLESUM
(We can never have peace until all of the people with whom we do business agree with us politically.)
The neighbors respond supportively. Example:
Hi [Righteous Democrat], thanks for the latest news and especially for confirming about the [Heretics] and [Another Deplorable]. I too have been very concerned about their refusing to get vaccinated.
A former Californian weighs in on the above issue:
(“Trying to follow the science of the protected needing protection from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that doesn’t protected the protected.”)
Full post, including commentsFrom Wikipedia’s entry on Id, ego and super-ego:
The super-ego (German: Über-Ich) reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence. Freud developed his concept of the super-ego from an earlier combination of the ego ideal and the “special psychical agency which performs the task of seeing that narcissistic satisfaction from the ego ideal is ensured…what we call our ‘conscience’.” For him “the installation of the super-ego can be described as a successful instance of identification with the parental agency,” while as development proceeds “the super-ego also takes on the influence of those who have stepped into the place of parents — educators, teachers, people chosen as ideal models”. [Fauci!]
The super-ego aims for perfection. It forms the organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual’s ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called “conscience”) that criticizes and prohibits their drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions.
“UNR students walk out to protest end of campus mask mandate” (NBC, 2/14/2022):
UNR students and some faculty walked out Monday to protest the end of the Nevada mask mandate.
About 50 students marched from the north end of campus down to the quad, calling on President Brian Sandoval to reinstate the mask requirement on campus.
The video shows that quite a few of the Science-following students have chosen to protect themselves from deadly aerosol SARS-CoV-2 by wearing cloth masks.
Only very loosely related… a photo from the Blue Angels performing at the Reno Air Races 2016:
and three World War II fighters racing…
(Flying 70-year-old planes close to the ground at 500 mph was safe, but being outdoors in the desert in the fall of 2020 was unsafe and therefore the 2020 races were canceled.)
The tastefully understated downtown….
An interesting article by a gymnastics champion-turned-Levi-Strauss executive:
My tenure at Levi’s began as an assistant marketing manager in 1999, a few months after my thirtieth birthday. As the years passed, I saw the company through every trend. I was the marketing director for the U.S. by the time skinny jeans had become the rage. I was the chief marketing officer when high-waists came into vogue. I eventually became the global brand president in 2020—the first woman to hold this post. (And somehow low-rise is back.)
Over my two decades at Levi’s, I got married. I had two kids. I got divorced. I had two more kids. I got married again.
We’re told that it is impossible to have children and work at the same time (but ladling out more taxpayer cash will help, especially if extracted from the childless) and yet Jennifer Sey had four children while climbing the Levi’s corporate ladder! (She also had time, presumably, to be a litigant in the California Family Court.)
I wrote op-eds, appeared on local news shows, attended meetings with the mayor’s office, organized rallies and pleaded on social media to get the schools open. I was condemned for speaking out. This time, I was called a racist—a strange accusation given that I have two black sons—a eugenicist, and a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
Example hate speech and Science-denial from the op-ed (February 2021):
I find myself stunned and enraged every day since March 13 that my kids, San Francisco public school students, and approximately 50% of students across the country have no in person instruction at all for what amounts to almost a full year. They are going without classroom education, socialization, and, for kids with few resources, necessary social services. Denying kids educational opportunity amounts to denying them a future and it is nothing short of child abuse.
The lack of effort to open schools by leaders, with few notable exceptions – Governor Ron DeSantis [!!!], Governor Gina Raimondo – is a tacit endorsement that closed schools are not only acceptable but preferred, despite the fact that study after study proves that schools can be safe.
Kids went to school in the Warsaw ghetto. Kids went to school in London during the Blitz. Kids went to school during the Spanish flu pandemic. Amidst chaos and destruction, the world signaled to kids how much they mattered, that our very future depended on them. We are doing the exact opposite now. They won’t forgive us.
Looking at the highlighted text above, I think we can begin to see the problem.
The paragraph below contains a date that may be useful to historians.
In the summer of 2020, I finally got the call. “You know when you speak, you speak on behalf of the company,” our head of corporate communications told me, urging me to pipe down. I responded: “My title is not in my Twitter bio. I’m speaking as a public school mom of four kids.”
But the calls kept coming. From legal. From HR. From a board member. And finally, from my boss, the CEO of the company. I explained why I felt so strongly about the issue, citing data on the safety of schools and the harms caused by virtual learning. While they didn’t try to muzzle me outright, I was told repeatedly to “think about what I was saying.”
Meantime, colleagues posted nonstop about the need to oust Trump in the November election. I also shared my support for Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary and my great sadness about the racially instigated murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. No one at the company objected to any of that.
Let’s see what the divorce plaintiff-turned-senator had to say about lockdowns: “Warren: ‘We should be imposing mask mandates’ and vaccine requirements” (state-sponsored WGBH, December 23, 2021. The story includes a photo of the Native American icon protecting herself and others from Omicron with a cloth mask:
The top executives aren’t stupid:
Then, in October 2020, when it was clear public schools were not going to open that fall, I proposed to the company leadership that we weigh in on the topic of school closures in our city, San Francisco. We often take a stand on political issues that impact our employees; we’ve spoken out on gay rights, voting rights, gun safety, and more.
The response this time was different. “We don’t weigh in on hyper-local issues like this,” I was told. “There’s also a lot of potential negatives if we speak up strongly, starting with the numerous execs who have kids in private schools in the city.”
I’m not sure that the Levi’s official position on “gun safety” is consistent with the way that the term is used by some of the gun enthusiasts who comment here… Also note that, as in Boston, the best way for white elites to show support for Black Lives Matter was to advocate for the closure of schools for Black children while the private schools attended by their own kids were open.
I met with the mayor’s office, and eventually uprooted my entire life in California—I’d lived there for over 30 years—and moved my family to Denver so that my kindergartner could finally experience real school
Jennifer Sey was ahead of Relocation to Florida for a family with school-age children (April 6, 2021)!
National media picked up on our story, and I was asked to go on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News. That appearance was the last straw. The comments from Levi’s employees picked up—about me being anti-science; about me being anti-fat (I’d retweeted a study showing a correlation between obesity and poor health outcomes); about me being anti-trans (I’d tweeted that we shouldn’t ditch Mother’s Day for Birthing People’s Day because it left out adoptive and step moms); and about me being racist, because San Francisco’s public school system was filled with black and brown kids, and, apparently, I didn’t care if they died. They also castigated me for my husband’s Covid views—as if I, as his wife, were responsible for the things he said on social media.
Levi’s agrees with Pol Pot that even the worst offenders can be reformed through re-education and confession:
Meantime, the Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the company asked that I do an “apology tour.” I was told that the main complaint against me was that “I was not a friend of the Black community at Levi’s.” I was told to say that “I am an imperfect ally.” (I refused.)
The DEI executive seems to have been correct:
Anonymous trolls on Twitter, some with nearly half a million followers, said people should boycott Levi’s until I’d been fired. So did some of my old gymnastics fans. They called the company ethics hotline and sent emails.
Every day, a dossier of my tweets and all of my online interactions were sent to the CEO by the head of corporate communications. At one meeting of the executive leadership team, the CEO made an off-hand remark that I was “acting like Donald Trump.”
In the last month, the CEO told me that it was “untenable” for me to stay. I was offered a $1 million severance package, but I knew I’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement about why I’d been pushed out.
Readers of Real World Divorce will be pleased to see that Jennifer Sey celebrates gold diggers:
I never set out to be a contrarian. I don’t like to fight. I love Levi’s and its place in the American heritage as a purveyor of sturdy pants for hardworking, daring people who moved West and dreamed of gold buried in the dirt.
Everyone at Levi’s supports Elizabeth Warren and AOC but they can’t agree on how best to follow these two saints?
But the corporation doesn’t believe in that now. It’s trapped trying to please the mob—and silencing any dissent within the organization. In this it is like so many other American companies: held hostage by intolerant ideologues who do not believe in genuine inclusion or diversity.
Being a Progressive is not a religion, yet people can argue over who has the pure and genuine inclusion and diversity?
At least most of the Progressives at Levi’s seem to be intelligent:
Not one [fellow Levi Strauss employee] publicly said they agreed with me, or even that they didn’t agree with me, but supported my right to say what I believe anyway.
A reader comment on Jennifer Sey’s piece:
As for Levi’s – that company doesn’t even manufacture ONE STITCH of clothing in the US anymore and hasn’t for years. Look for sweatshops in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Indonesia for mfg.
What about the husband whose hateful views on Covid also got the righteous Elizabeth Warren-supporter in trouble? It seems to be Daniel Kotzin, whose Twitter bio says “Stay-at-home dad. Human rights advocate. My freedom protects you; your freedom protects me.” Example hate:
And he’s a vaccine denier!
(For the record, I disagree with Mx. Kotzin regarding “vaccine remorse.” Although I recognize that a Marek’s disease-style vaccine-driven evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is possible, and nobody without a letter from God can say for sure what will be the effect of vaccinating 5-year-olds against a killer of 80-year-olds, I think it is more likely that the COVID-19 vaccines will end up with a similar status as the flu shot. Nobody regrets getting a flu shot, though plenty of people who get a flu shot subsequently get the flu…)
Here’s one where we learn that the family should have moved to Florida instead of Colorado:
(I think there is a lot to love about Colorado, but if you’re passionate about children being free to live without masks, Florida is the only state that I know where it is actually illegal for public schools to order kids to wear masks. (“illegal” meaning against a law passed by the Legislature))
In addition to being a good lesson in the range of speech that can be tolerated in a Progressive company, Jennifer Sey’s story is interesting because of the feeling of betrayal by politicians. She and her husband were presumably both aligned in their passion for Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren and they were repaid with the (abhorrent to them) imposition of school closures and mask orders for children.
Unlike the hate-suffused Trump-tainted “schools should be open” idea, a political cause that is sufficiently uncontroversial for Levi’s to support:
Related:
As noted in California Karen hosts a 200,000-person mass gathering (Super Bowl in Los Angeles), the vaccinated will soon be huddled together in California, land of the closed public school and open marijuana store. They’re be wearing their cloth masks, unless they’re eating or drinking (which will be the entire game?) or holding their breath like Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. From an evolutionary point of view, will this be the perfect place to breed a vaccine-immune mask-immune variant of SARS-CoV-2?
If so, what do we call the variant? “Ramgals”?
Separately, what are readers’ predictions about the final score at this superspreader event? Combining the home field advantage (a whole stadium full of Science-following Californians cheering discreetly through their Science-verified cloth masks) with my total ignorance of football, I expect the Rams to win and predict 28-25 Rams-Bengals.
Related:
The 6-year-old and I found COVID-19 tests on sale today at CVS in Jupiter, Florida:
I placed my order for taxpayer-funded tests (“free”) on January 19, the advertised first day in “The Biden Administration to Begin Distributing At-Home, Rapid COVID-19 Tests to Americans for Free“ (whitehouse.gov) and haven’t gotten anything yet except an email from USPS promising an update “once your package ships.”
In other words, relief from the central planners will arrive some weeks after CVS was forced to mark COVID-19 tests down due to oversupply.
I remarked on the low price and ample quantity available, saying “Those would have been very valuable a month ago.” The 6-year-old immediately responded, “let’s buy some now and keep them at home and then sell them for $20.99 during the next wave.”
I’m not going to leave him alone with any Dr. Seuss books (re-sold for up to $1,700 on Amazon before being banned there)!
Readers: Did your tests from the central planners arrive? If so, when? It was supposed to be “seven to 12 days” from January 19.
Speaking of COVID-19, let me take this opportunity to give a shout-out to selfless front-line workers, such as the physician (see the license plate) who parked this Ferrari on the street near the above-mentioned CVS:
Who knows Ferraris well enough to say what model this is and estimate the value? My guess is a Portofino retractable hard top (worth about 250,000 in 2022 mini-dollars).
Related:
Science, August 2021 edition: Getting COVID-19 (e.g., in Florida) is due to stupidity, irresponsibility, failure to get injected with an emergency use-authorized vaccine, Science-denial, and support for Donald Trump. It’s mostly old people dying, which is why we need to redouble our restrictions on the young.
Science, December/January 2022: Getting COVID-19 (e.g., in New York or Boston) is a sign of intelligence, virtue, rule-following, and being guided by Science. As the double- and triple-vaccinated get infected through their masks, we should enhance our mask protocols to include N95 and remember the immunocompromised and also that every infection potentially leads to a dangerous mutation. It’s mostly old people dying, which is what makes COVID-19 worse than World War II, and which is why we need to order 5-year-olds to get experimental use authorized injections.
Science, February 2022: Despite a near-record death rate, Governors should drop the mask orders and other restrictions that they had imposed starting in March 2020. The immunocompromised can fend for themselves. If SARS-CoV-2 wants to have a mutation party in an unmasked school, that’s okay too. It’s mostly old people dying and there are thousands of such deaths per day, but we don’t need to do anything special to try to prevent these deaths.
[See “Masks Come Off in More States, but Not Everyone Is Grinning” (NYT, 2/9):
Some Americans cheered the moves, mostly by Democratic governors, but others questioned the timing, with more than 200,000 new virus infections being reported each day.
New York’s governor said on Wednesday that she was ending the state’s indoor masking rules. The governor of Massachusetts announced that face coverings would soon become optional in schools. And by day’s end, the governors of Illinois, Rhode Island and Washington said that they, too, would loosen coronavirus rules.
… others asked whether states were moving too fast at a time when more than 200,000 new infections were being announced each day and when the country was reporting more than 17,000 deaths a week, more than at any other point in the pandemic except last winter.
Note that it is “Democratic governors” who are delivering freedom to the people and who are being cheered.]
What’s the situation in Washington State, for example, where the governor is loosening the rules dictated by Science? Deaths tagged to COVID-19 are at an all-time high:
The above progression seems inconsistent with “normal science”. A paradigm shift (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Wikipedia) has occurred, apparently, and that requires “extraordinary research” according to Thomas Kuhn. But who did the extraordinary research?
My vote is Dr. James Kraus, MD, PhD. His/her/zir/their discovery was “Everybody takes a beating sometimes.” (I apologize for the source, but this is one video moment that the New York Times and CNN don’t seem to have covered.) Dr. Kraus, MD, PhD tells us that, as occupiers of the biosphere, humans are fated to be attacked periodically by viruses and we shouldn’t try to defend ourselves.
Dr. Kraus, MD, PhD’s results and conclusions were rejected by peer reviewers (the jurors in the Kyle Rittenhouse case), just as Thomas Kuhn predicted. But, also as Kuhn predicted, when data inconsistent with the old paradigm (saliva-soaked bandanas are effective PPE against an aerosol; shutting down schools while keeping marijuana stores open will make a respiratory virus go away) became too glaring to ignore, Dr. Kraus, MD, PhD’s new paradigm was accepted.
February 9, email from the “person of color” who is the principal of a high school in Maskachusetts:
Last night I announced that Lincoln Sudbury would shift from mask required in school to mask optional effective Monday, March 7. … The notion of stepping away from the mask requirement will evoke a range of response and emotion from members of our community. … Mask wearing absolutely remains an option for everyone. I expect we will respect each person’s personal choice.
Reaction from a heretical bandana-denier friend who received the email:
I wish you had respected our personal choices over the last two years.
Related: