@SyagLchochma I know I’m coming across as being motzei shem ra to a lot of Yidden in saying that their arrogance is killing people, that was not my intention. The majority of people I know who refuse to wear masks are because their city or community is very casual about COVID-19 in general and they just go with the flow. The leaders and askanim of these communities, on the other hand, I have a very hard time being dan l’kaf zechus on them. All they have to do is say “It is important to listen to what the doctors tell you about social distancing, hand washing, and face masks.” Instead, if they choose to say anything at all beyond empty platitudes of teffilah and nisyonos, it’s always “me me me me me”. “Wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable”, “I shouldn’t have to lock down if you feel in danger”. etc.

@SyagLchochma Before I answer you, can you not see how your lines of reasoning are a detriment? You are a very reasonable and intelligent person as I can see from our conversations. Which is why your comments sometimes baffle me.

There is a huge fight going on right now, between those who are worried about the health and well being of the oilom at large, and those who only care for themselves. As soon as you start questioning “Well logically I shouldn’t have to follow these rules…” you give ammo to those who don’t have Ray’us for their fellow bnei Adom and sneer and scoff with phrases like “99% survival rate”. “Just asking questions” is one of the most dangerous lines of reasoning out there and has been responsible for everything from the Reform movement to Holocaust denial.

But sadly, these questions need answers. I can talk for a while about percentages, issues of enforcement, and rates of recurrence, but I believe there’s a much simpler answer. Let me give you a moshol:

Why do thousands of race car drivers, that raced in professional circuits in extremely difficult situations, have to follow the speed limit?

The truth is that you can’t set rules for only some people. Either there is compliance or there isn’t. And as soon as there is a precedent of people who don’t have to follow the rules, you end up in very murky and very dangerous territory.

Can we look at someone without who is following science without condemning them as uncaring and not complying with science?

No. A mask is a silly, stupid, little item of clothing. It’s not difficult to wear, it doesn’t cause any sort of damage (yes, there is some psychological problems associated with mask wearing, but they are far outweighed by the benefits), they are cheap, and easy to find. So anyone who refuses to do this one silly little thing that can probably save lives is clearly either uncaring, or brainwashed by a community that is.

@theprophet You’re missing my point. If you don’t wear a mask, I am notsafe. Masks are not to protect yourself, they are to protect others from you. If you are too sensitive to wear a mask, then the only responsible thing would be for you to lock yourself down and not expose yourself to others.

I wear a mask because I care about you and don’t want to make you sick. Please wear a mask so that I don’t get sick either.

Dear @theprophet,

You are making a common error in your assumptions.

A mask won’t work to protect you if someone with COVID sneezes on you, that is right. But it protects others from your own sneezing COVID saliva by not allowing you to spread it.

Since we don’t know for sure who has COVID and who doesn’t, everyone should wear masks as a measure of Bein Adam LaChaveiro to make sure we don’t C”V accidentally make our friends ill.

In my personal, unasked for, and minority opinion: The frum community in NY could have just pretended for a few months that COVID-19 is a dangerous disease, insisted on mask wearing, socially distant shuls, Chasunas limited to less than 100 people and outside, etc.

Instead it was ignored, people died, and everyone was shocked when Cuomo and DeBlasio went nuclear.

Whatever damage a vaccine can cause is certainly less than COVID-19. Something like one out of every twenty people who get COVID have terrible, possibly permanent, damage. And out of those, one out of every 100 dies. There has never been a vaccine that has even come close to the damage that COVID-19 causes.

@etzhar

Is there fraud in this election?

Maybe. Unlikely to be more than any other election. And certainly not enough to swing the vote in any state.

Did Dominion software change the real result?

No evidence.

Why were votes withheld?

Only a small handful were caught in red tape. Still not enough to swing a state

Were some votes trashed?

No

how did so many Biden votes turn up in the middle of the night?

Not many, if any turned up at all

were the people stopped from observing?

No

Were votes included that arrived too late and were mainly for Biden?

Not in any statistically significant increase over the other mail in ballots.

If you dont get these questions answered, the election means nothing.

Well then there you go. I guess the election means something now.

@jewishcommonsense The lockdowns in March and April worked, but in NY they came too late. Cuomo and many frum communities deliberated a good week after Purim before shutting down, which is where most of the infections came from. Another issue was that huge swaths of frum people out and out ignored the lockdown, with “secret minyanim” and “underground weddings”. Compare New York to places that initially took it seriously, like Chicago or LA.

Yes

There was a line in “Binah” magazine last week that I’ve been saying for years. “If there’s a Shidduch crisis, it’s not causes by bachurim who don’t know a size 6 from 2, it’s caused by their mothers.”

Mizrahis love to gripe about Ashkenaz cooking. Lemme let you in on a little secret: Dumping a container full of cumin into everything does not make it better.

@syag-lchochma Ah I see now my mistake. I take it back. When I refer to “Corona Kofrim” I refer to people who actively deny that COVID-19 is an actual issue. Those people who claim it’s “just a flu” or something similar and refuse to do anything to mitigate any risk or damages that they may cause, no matter how small.

It actually is pretty close to 95%. There are other methods of transmission, sure, like by touch. But the overwhelming vast majority of people who got COVID got it from someone who they were in close proximity with inside and wasn’t wearing a mask. I made it a habit to ask people how they got it. “I talked to a guy outside of shul and we took our masks off. He came back from a Chasuna where no one was wearing a mask” “I got it from my son who got it from a friend” “I was in a Yeshiva dorm” “A shiva” etc.

How did the exceptions that you know about catch it?

@Effi I wish I wish! The problem is, like I’ve said before, that you’re viewing this as a machlokes where there are two legitimate sides. This is as much of a machlokes as the frum/Reform “machlokes”. There are some people who are making massive and grave errors and it is a responsibility of klal Yisroel to educate them.

@syag-lchochma When did I ever say “people who don’t think like me are killing people”?! I want line and verse and I will retract it immediately!

But I will say this and stand by it: People that have derided social distancing and masking, making big simchas, underground minyanim, and ignored the advice and pleas of our Rabbonim have killed people and are still doing so today. That’s not “my thinking”. That’s basic derech eretz and common sense.

Do people get sick even when wearing masks or keeping socially distant? Of course they do, I never denied that! But the masks and social distancing have been proven by a multitude of studies to drastically reduce the rate of infection. You keep harping on those miniscule number of cases where masks didn’t work as if that proves something. You’re acting as if something that is 95% effective isn’t effective at all because of that 5%.

@chan56 You cannot ignore the scientific articles I posted then claim “there’s a dearth of science”. They science is there. You’re just choosing to not look at it. You’re no different than a flat-earther in that sense. Sorry if I’m being harsh right now, but I have little regard for people who throw out Nazi comparisons to everything that makes them a little uncomfortable. Did Dr. Fauci line up Yidden and execute them? Did Joe Biden encourage “No Dogs Or Jews Allowed” signs?

@torahvaluesoverparty @Gadolhatorah

I mentioned this in another thread, but HCQ+Zinc has been tried in numerous studies on numerous types of patients. Unfortunately, the results only show a moderate improvement. I think the best result was that there was 1/20 less patients hospitalized. Many doctors and hospitals, notably the Henry Ford Institute in Detroit, have been using HCQ+Zinc as part of a regimen of drugs to treat COVID.

All this goes to show is that the best response to COVID is teffila and bein adam l’chaveiro. There’s no cure, there’s only prevention and Hashem. The best prevention is to assume that you have the virus and try not to go near people without protection on yourself,, and the best cure is to daven to bring Moshiach.

@chan56 I understand that you and others are having a lot of difficulty with masks. It really is hard wearing fabric over your mouth and nose for hours on end. But please please understand the importance of it. It’s not some “Democrat conspiracy”, there really is value in wearing a mask. Even if you can save one life, isn’t that worth the hours of discomfort? And if the discomfort is too much, maybe don’t go out.

The number one misconception about masks is probably that it’s meant to keep you safe. No. It helps, but the reason wearing a mask is important is that it keeps other people safe. A person with COVID-19 is much less likely to infect others if the sick person has a mask on.

I don’t think we read the same article. Please look for the article titled “Masks Work. Really. We’ll Show You How”. It makes a very clear point that I’ll explain. COVID-19 travels in droplets that come mostly from people’s mouth and nose. Studies have shown that almost all COVID-19 infections were caused from breathing in droplets. If someone wears a mask, they expel something like 95% less droplets and they don’t travel as far. You are right. It’s not 100% effective, but it’s 95% effective. Meaning, if there’s a sick person in a crowded room without a mask, it’s almost certain that multiple people will be infected. But if they were wearing a mask, they will infect 95% less people.

There was little data in March and April but since then we’ve Baruch Hashem come a long way. Nature.com has an article titled “Face masks: what the data say” which collects a lot of the various studies that show the effectiveness of masks in prevented COVID-19 from spreading.

Without any precautions, the virus has what’s called an infection rate of 3. Which means that everyone infects on average three people. (by comparison, a flu has an infection rate of 1.7). Those three people infect three more and so on and so forth. After a week there is a possibility of thousands of infections. We saw that in April where one man at a Bas Mitzvah managed to cause a massive outbreak in New York City.

But with precautions, such as masks and social distancing, we can bring that down to an infection rate of 1 or less. Meaning that if someone has COVID, they will infect an average of one person. After a week, instead of thousands there will be only seven new cases. So it’s not 100% effective, but it’s effective enough.

People not wearing masks make me anxious in the same way that people walking around with loaded guns and their fingers on the trigger make me anxious. It’s easier to ask people to wear masks than to ask people who care about COVID-19 to avoid the Corona Kofrim who don’t care about people getting sick and dying.

@chan56 The NY Times article @Effi references is titled “Masks Work. Really. We’ll Show You How” Google that phrase and the interactive article is the first hit.

I don’t know about operating rooms, but dentists, ObGyns and many other doctors in non-surgical settings wear masks for hours on end without special training or oxygenation.

Can you point to some research that shows the damages that wearing masks does? People on here keep referencing it, but I have a hard time finding anything other than shadey YouTube videos. I am very interested in this topic and what the results of the studies are. My shul enforced mask wearing the entire Yom Kippur and there were people from ages 12 to 75 who davened (while fasting!) Shacharis through Mussaf for close to four hours straight wearing a mask the entire time. I wonder what health issues they encountered while doing that and whether I should tell them to go see a doctor to check for low oxygenated blood.

@syag-lchochma I don’t want to name the Yeshiva, but it really and truly happened and it was absolutely terrifying. They took precautions to try and keep everyone from leaving and guests from coming in with the understanding that they could not make all the boys social distance and wear masks all the time (dining room, dorms, etc.). But unfortunately there were a few “leaks”. One of those leaks was a guy who went home on Friday afternoon before Rosh Hashono, then one of his parents felt sick over Shabbos and a few days later so did he. They sent him home immediately but almost right away his roomates and chavrusas tested positive. After a few days there were people falling ill in the Yeshiva, by Yom Kippur they were forced into full lockdown and had a special run for tests which was 75% positive. By the time Succos rolled around, people were already saying tehillim for one Rebbi, and at least two other Rebbeim were hospitalized with less severe symptoms. Even as late as yesterday, there was a tehillim call for the Mashkiach’s wife who has been in serious condition for weeks.

@torahvaluesoverparty The main study I was referencing is available on PubMed through the website of the NIH. Google the author’s names and nothing else and you should find it. A very similar study is also available on the Henry Ford Institute’s website.

how do you explain the media’s inability to point out obvious flaws in the studies discrediting HQC?

You know what, you’re somewhat right. There is a bit of suppression going on. I believe that it’s all part of the massive effort media companies are doing to try and stop misinformation. There is a ton of HCQ+Zinc misinformation out there with people calling it a miracle drug and stuff, so the media is suppressing it and only focusing on studies that show its ineffectiveness.

You know what? I agree with them. To extend your plane moshul, if someone picked up a loudspeaker and started talking about how it’s OK to take a hammer to the plane’s innards because there are enough parachutes for everyone, no one would argue against taking the megaphone away.

I can’t speak for the cancer medicines you mentioned, but for HCQ+Zinc there’s really only anecdotal evidence that it’s more than moderately effective. There were a few doctors back in March and April that treated a lot of people with this regimen, but they were working without hard data as to who had the virus and who didn’t and they didn’t publish the breakdown on exactly how many people were ill. These things are absolutely necessary to prove the effectiveness of a drug. You can’t just say “Well it may work, so let’s just give it to everyone”.

Trump did much better this time around. Biden did much worse. It was far more balanced than the previous debate which means that no one is really changing their minds.

@torahvaluesoverparty That’s interesting that the WHO says lockdowns don’t work. I can’t seem to find anything about it online first hand, can you write a bit more about it? Does the CDC agree?

I’m not sure what you mean by “hardly science to that”. I’ve seen numerous reports that COVID-19 positive people who wear masks are far less likely to spread the disease. And more studies that show how communities where most people are masked and socially distant have almost no internal disease transmission.

Again, I’m not a doctor but I’ll try and explain as best as I can. The first study I mentioned is the clearest. Two doctors read about how HCQ+Zinc was being used to treat mild symptoms in outpatient settings in NY, France, and China so they decided to test the hypothesis. They gave the drug cocktail to a group of people who were showing mild COVID-19 symptoms and a placebo to another group with similar symptoms. The results were that of those who took the HCQ+Zinc slightly less ended up dead or in the hospital.

This is important in two ways. One is that HCQ+Zinc can be added to the list of potential drugs, like Remedisvir and Regeneron, that help with COVID-19. Another is that it illustrates that it’s still not a miracle drug. It only helps with COVID, and certainly doesn’t cure it outright.

As far as I can tell, the idea that it’s being “repressed” in the media is anti-Semitic fake. All double blind peer review published studies are out there and being discussed. Unfortunately, the studies aren’t as optimistic as the original experiments.

@torahvaluesoverparty I was referring to outpatient. The only studies with HCQ on asymptomatic people show a small decrease in hospitalization and death. A small decrease. In other words, it’s not enough to call it a wonder drug and certainly not enough to justify ignoring COVID social distancing and mask regulations.

There have been some informal and anecdotal thingies, but those are certainly not reliable. A doctor who claims to have treated 1000 people and only one hospitalization is probably because only 10% of those people actually had COVID-19.

HCQ + Zinc may work or it may not, there is too much information and I don’t have the head to sift through it right now. The strange thing is, that’s not important. The studies and information I have read show that it only marginally increases the possibility of a COVID-19 patient surviving. Surviving! Is that what we should be striving for? Why can’t we try and keep people out of hospitals to begin with instead of making sure that one out of twenty who would have otherwise died, instead merely suffers from potential lifelong breathing problems?

Yes. They don’t care what your health record is, since it’s too easy to fake and reinfection is a thing.

Even if you can skirt the regulations by traveling via Canada or something, you shouldn’t. The bidud guidelines are there for a reason and that reason is to protect people from getting a dangerous virus from people who aren’t being careful and spreading it around.

It is unlikely that the mitzva of pidyun shvuyim applies to a person who was imprisoned for knowingly violating multiple laws solely for their own gain and possibly giving dangerous information to enemies.