PS: Mr. Anon, on your noontime comment, I also don't know anyone who has died from the COVID-19. Additionally, of a hundred or more people I've worked with/talked to at work during this time, I've heard of a few people THEY KNOW.getting sick from(?) it, but no deaths.

Thanks for your comments, Mr. Anon. I see you on unz (I guess iSteve, for the most part) all the time. Mr. Hail, who used to comment a lot has been absent - if you are reading, Mr. Hail, iI assume that this is due to your great efforts writing posts on your blog. Mr. Sailer has quit cold turkey on the Kung Flu panic and gone whole-hog describing the stupidity of the on-going Cultural Revolution. He's doing a great job at it too, I should add!

(It can be a real time-suck, though, writing/reading comments there, not in a bad way, but still...)

PS: Mr. Anon, on your 11:54 comment, I meant that also there have got to be other health drawbacks to wearing the masks for people who have other respiratory problems of one sort or the other (asthma?). Can it be healthy for even initially healthy people to wear these for weeks or months on end?

As you say, and I've been thinking, when will this end, anyway? Will this be an every other yearly thing? "Hey, we've got another virus incoming. Just expect a short, maybe 6-week LOCKDOWN and a 4-month mask-wearing phase. No biggie this time. We'll keep you posted."

As to your last sentence (on that comment), per Mr. Hail, this is not even as big a flu year as some of those in this century. Will we really get to see the published stats a year from now to show this? We'll probably have to dig pretty hard for it by then, as the narrative is different. Or, you'll get called some new bad names for even mentioning it, you "hoaxers", you!

PS "Going backwards, the numbers for NYC New Jersey (1 in 500 and 1 in 700 or so) mean almost everyone would have heard of someone he knows, not necessarily very well dying from this or a slight chance of having an acquaintance who did (this is all under the assumption that these people died FROM the Kung Flu.

The others, 1 in 2,000, or 1 in 5,000 (forget Japan!) mean that lots of people know nobody that died from it, or was marked down as having died from it."

In support of that: the state I live in has not been hit very hard, and neither I nor my wife personally know anybody who got the WuFlu. However a relation of ours, who lives in a state that was more affected, personally knows one person who got it (and recovered).

I have known far more people who have died of cancer or heart disease than have died of COVID.

PS "Mr. Anon, I think there are other ways the masks could be bad for one's health too. Nobody seems to be spending much time investigating this, or at least talking about it. Dr. Fauci, what say you?"

I tried to find medical studies on the efficacy of masks, especially looking for studies conducted prior to this year, as they would presumably be less politically motivated. It's a mixed bag: some studies say that masks help prevent the spread of viral respiratory infections, some seem to say they don't. There is even some dispute as to whether masks worn by surgeons in operating rooms do any good. The CDC's own website archives some papers that claim that masks are not especially beneficial.

I can certainly see where masks would help - especially if somebody is symptomatic and coughing/sneezing out big gobs of spit and snot-rockets. But if somebody isn't super sick, and is just breathing out a fine aerosol laden with virus particles, it's less clear that masks would have any effect. We've all seen those people driving down the street alone in their cars, windows rolled up, and with masks on. I don't think their masks are helping them any.

All this begs the question: Anything you say about COVID-19 is true about run-of-the-mill cold and flu too. If you are wearing a mask to avoid (maybe) spreading Corona-virus (assuming you even have it) in the high-summer days of June, just to avoid killing some grandma somewhere whom you've never even met,...........will you wear a mask in December five years from now (when COVID is a dim memory) - because you are also likely then to spread a cold or flu virus that could kill some elderly person two weeks later (and if you doubt that, just look at the EURO-MOMO data going back a few years).

The matter gets down to this - is this viral pandemic so unusual? I say it is not. I say it is no worse than the Asian Flu of 1957/58 or the Hong Kong Flu of 1968/69.

PS: The George Wallace of COVID - funny.

About the masks again: Mr. Blanc, the engineering facility a friend works at requires goggle in the labs etc, per usual times, while at the same time requiring masks (unless you are sitting at a desk). What a way to work for 8 or more hours a day!

Mr. Anon, I think there are other ways the masks could be bad for one's health too. Nobody seems to be spending much time investigating this, or at least talking about it. Dr. Fauci, what say you?

PS: Mr. Anon, first, I agree with almost all comments of your under iSteve. Thanks fo those and these comments here at PS. Going backwards, the numbers for NYC New Jersey (1 in 500 and 1 in 700 or so) mean almost everyone would have heard of someone he knows, not necessarily very well dying from this or a slight chance of having an acquaintance who did (this is all under the assumption that these people died FROM the Kung Flu.

The others, 1 in 2,000, or 1 in 5,000 (forget Japan!) mean that lots of people know nobody that died from it, or was marked down as having died from it.

PS When talking to people about Corona, I like to quote the gross death rates in various polities: number of people killed by COVID (officially) divided by the total population of the jurisdiction in question. I've been tracking these for the last several weeks, and the relative rankings have not changed much. Here they are (based on the latest numbers available from the Google COVID dashboard) for Sweden and Japan, two countries with minimal to no "lockdowns", and for comparison several U.S. States which had notoriously strict lockdown regimes:

Sweden: 0.05%

Japan: 0.0008%

Pennsylvania: 0.05%

Michigan: 0.06%

Massachusetts: 0.11%

New Jersey: 0.14%

New York City: 0.21%

New York (exclusive of NYC): 0.065%

Virginia: 0.02%

New Hampshire: 0.02%

California: 0.01%

Clearly, something other than lockdowns explain these numbers.

PS I saw on Hail's website, where he likened this first Corona War to the "forever" war on terror. I too remember - way way back in March (it seems so long ago) - when we told we needed to "flatten the curve". Well we did - we curbstomped it - or rather the normal course of infectious disease transmission did. But there seems to have been some mission creep. Now the goal is - I don't know - Lockdown Today, Lockdown Tomorrow, Lockdown Forever, as if Anthony Fauci is the George Wallace of COVID.

PS I see a lot of people wearing masks that are pulled down so it only covers their mouth, not their nose. Okay, I suppose that is better than nothing (assuming masks do much of anything). Still I get the impression that, for a lot of people, the mask is just a magic talisman that they imagine will ward off evil-spirits. The mechanism by which it functions seems to escape them.

When this is behind us (assuming it ever is) it would be interesting to see a breakdown of who got infected and whether or not they routinely wore a mask. I can imagine that in some circumstances, the mask might make you more likely to catch the 'Rona. Given that a mask acts like a trap for virus-laden aerosol droplets (the really fine ones I mean, like a flushed toilet emits), you could end up walking around with your own personal virus feed-bag strapped right to your face.

PS It’s hot and humid in the Chicago area now, after a chilly, wet spring (spring here is simply late winter). I was at the supermarket this morning, wearing my mask like a well-behaved lad. The mask directs the moisture from my breath up under my glasses, and when combined with the moisture in the air, my glasses fog up so badly that I can’t see. After forty years of editorial work, the specs are necessary to keep the world from being blurry. So I’m forced to choose between a foggy world and a blurry world. It’s time for this to be over.

PS: For the ones who really believe they need to do this stuff, yes, those are rituals, and it is "corona as a cult" or the Branch Covidians. For those who don't believe this BS, but do everything because they have no rebellion left in them, it's a charade. Then there's the rest of us. How many are we? I think it's a pretty good number, and growing.

BTW, Mr. Ganderson, I wish I had made that up, but I read of "Branch Covidians" on unz (probably Mr. iSteve) at least a month ago. Pretty good, even though with any other writing I don't disrespect the Branch Dravidians, only because it just gives more credence to US Gov't power, that power having burned, shot and gassed 70-odd men, women, and children to death in Waco, TX long ago. (Sorry, I'm not trying to be a scold here, just sayin...)

PS Howie Carr just referred to “ Branch Covidians”.

PS Mr. Hail, I’m more and convinced by your “corona as cult “ idea.

PS,

Charade
Religious ritual

If backed by the force of the state or state-like entity, or peer pressure, a charade and a religious ritual become hard to distinguish.