Category Archives: Healthcare

Unmasking Statist Illogic About Face Masks

Argument, Critique, Healthcare, Propaganda, Regulation, The State

Some clear thinking to counter incessant, statist propaganda against respirators is needed.

The State and its agents, in our highly centralized healthcare system, categorically doesn’t want the citizen to purchase “face masks,” the surgeon general’s term, not mine.

Hence the incessant, neurotic, total discrediting of N95 filtering facepiece respirators, which, by the CDC’s own account, can be protective.

Logic says the respirator is better than nothing and may indeed be protective. Here’s why:

While the virus is indeed minuscule, COVID-19 is delivered in a larger medium of bodily fluids or spray. In other words, some barrier to the medium in which the Corona Virus is delivered is better than none.

The CDC asks and answers the following question:

What makes N95 respirators different from facemasks (sometimes called a surgical mask)?

Understanding the difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators:
N95 respirators reduce the wearer’s exposure to airborne particles, from small particle aerosols to large droplets. N95 respirators are tight-fitting respirators that filter out at least 95% of particles in the air, including large and small particles. … These respirators filter out at least 95% of very small (0.3 micron) particles. N95 filtering facepiece respirators are capable of filtering out all types of particles, including bacteria and viruses.

In the service of honesty, state apparatchiks (CDC, included) might make an honest appeal to consumers on the grounds of dire shortages.

But on the grounds that no protection is better than some protection? You gotta be stupid to fail to dissect that bit of disinformation, repeated ad nauseam by the healthcare automatons.

* Image of a N95 Respirator courtesy CDC

Of interest:
“Surgical Masks vs. Respirators”

The Economist: “Diagnosis: opaque: Donald Trump wants hospitals to be more upfront about prices“

UPDATE II (3/4/020): Corona Virus: No Restrictions On Arrivals From Italy, Japan & Other Outbreak Countries

Egalitarianism, Globalism, Healthcare, IMMIGRATION, Nationhood, Pseudoscience

UPDATE I (2/29/020): Of course the state doesn’t want the citizens to purchase face masks, hence the incessant, neurotic, total discrediting of N95 face masks. I made the logical point to my husband the other day to the effect that, while the virus is minuscule, COVID-19 is delivered in a larger medium of bodily fluids or spray. Some barrier to the medium in which it is delivered is better than none. Likewise, Dr. John Campbell, a somewhat befuddled British physician, is not prepared to dishonestly declare face-masks useless. Listen.

UPDATE II (3/4/020): It’s probably too late for us here in the US. But, but, can we at least dream of a government that looks after its nationals like Israel, imposing tough new travel restrictions on 5 European nations due to fears of corona virus? Details: “Israel severely restricts entry from Europe due to virus.”

Original Feb 29 Post:

The US has no restrictions on arrivals from some hot spots of the Corona Virus outbreak. Passenger screening from those source countries—Italy, for instance—is lackluster to put it mildly.

How do we know this? Not from Fox News, but from Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City.

The progressive mayor recommended that “travel restrictions … be extended to include more countries.”

“Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand. Anyone needs to be screened and if they have symptoms they need to be quarantined,” de Blasio said.

Who would have expected one of the most progressive officials in the country to voice such a sensibly conservative sentiment!

On the other hand, Fox News is cheering indiscriminately and unproductively for everything President Trump does, or doesn’t do, on the COVID-19 front. By so doing, the faithful at Fox are inadvertently harming Americans.

So, we arrive at a paradoxical position where a progressive like de Blasio is first to say what needs to be said!

Most liberal media are lamenting a reduction of travel from China and energetically conjuring counter-intuitive reasons as to why all travel restrictions somehow exacerbate epidemics.

The CDC and NIH officials have generally been mum on travel restrictions into the US, issuing only “travel advisories.”

That conservatives (other than Tucker Carlson) are not covering matters touching on insufficient screening at airports is shameful and counterproductive. It feeds into the distrust of Republican media.

Now, that’s the mindset of a pathologically liberal nation! The free flow of anything into the US must not be disrupted even when such promiscuous liberalism might be lethal.

Note how liberals use the same arguments to advocate against borders and against erecting barriers to disease transmission.

* Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

UPDATED (2/26): Corona Virus: When In Doubt Just How Remiss YOUR Government Is, See What Israel Is Doing

China, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government, Healthcare, Israel, Nationhood

“Israel is among the countries that responded most dramatically to the Corona Virus outbreak; many others—the USA, for example—found mainly travel warnings to be sufficient.

When in doubt about just how remiss YOUR government is, see what Israel is doing—despite China being Israel’s second-largest trading partner, and despite its liberal “think tanks” advising otherwise.

Jerusalem Post:

… In recent weeks, Israel has closed its doors to more and more of eastern Asia, starting with China, continuing to Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Thailand, and as of Sunday, South Korea and Japan, in response to the coronavirus’s spread through the continent and beyond. … “These countries have to understand our motivations. At this time, we have to take steps to defend Israel against the coronavirus, because public health is most important.”

Israeli non-thinking thank tank:

Jerusalem Institute for Security Studies researcher Alex Pevzner explained that “the government and people of China are very sensitive to their image and standing in the world. If Chinese citizens read that Israel closed off its borders to the Chinese, it reflects negatively on the [Israeli] government.” …

* Image courtesy Al Jazeera. “Corona Virus outbreak: Israel blocks arrivals from Seoul.”

UPDATE (2/26):

Israel has done the smartest thing re Corona: total ban on incoming travelers … “and blocked foreign travelers from ALL affected regions from entering. Here in the U.S., #CDC officials dodged questions on expanding travel restrictions and screening.” Israel is also ” … conducting boot camps to train hospital personnel in more rigorous infection control.”

#Israel has done the smartest thing re #Corona: total ban on incoming travelers … and blocked foreign travelers from ALL affected regions from entering. Here in the U.S., #CDC officials dodged questions on expanding #Travel restrictions and screening. https://t.co/CfhWSg5z7G

— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) February 27, 2020

Finally, A Fox News Guest Stands Up To Laura Loud Mouth, Asserts His Expertise, Rejects Her Agenda

China, Conservatism, Healthcare, Neoconservatism, Science

“No, it’s not correct. It’s not correct to say that.”—Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., to Laura Ingraham

Finally, a Fox News guest stands up to Laura Loud Mouth Ingraham—who always ends up drowning out her guests.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whose credentials are impeccable and apolitical-–I’ve followed him since he and his team tracked down “patient zero” in the HIV/AIDS epidemic—asserts his expertise, and rejects Ingraham’s agenda.

Chinese scientists are not to be equated with Chinese officials, Fauci explains to the ego in the anchor’s chair.

AND:

“No, you are NOT correct,” Fauci tells Laura Loud Mouth. “A World Health Organization group of respected scientists whom I know, and personally interact with, is in in China. The Chinese scientists and health officials I interact with and know personally are to be trusted. Their information is good.”

As to Laura and her rah-rah America shtick: A pundit who uses the words “regime” constantly is a hop, skip, and a jump away from her neocon roots of regime change …

It’s fine to present your guest with your theory, succinctly. Tucker Carlson does that.

But learn from Tucker. Let the expert speak. People like me are not interested in Laura’s hackneyed views. But when she has an extremely knowledgeable guest on, we’d like him to get a word in edgeways.