The CDC’s recent flip flop over the use of masks for those already immunized for Covid-19 tells you how so many in politics and elsewhere have used the Religion of Science to hood wink, manipulate and cast fear into people’s lives. This happens in religious fundamentalism too.
What do both have in common, religion without reason. Science without reason is dangerous!
So much of what politicians (usually progressives since that is the case) have touted as science when it comes to Covid-19 has been theory and not even scientific theory like the theory of evolution.
They promulgate this theory as defined, dogmatic science and progressives bow to it in worship. I hate to say this, but democrats who tout themselves as progressive and enlightened are most susceptible because they are gullible.
You have to hand it to President Trump, with all his other disorders, he did not bow to science as religion or scientific theory as dogmatic and infallible. President Biden certainly has until yesterday when it was not politically expedient for him to do so as it concerns wearing masks no matter how ineffective.
I received this comment on the post about opened churches and anxiety disorders and people with them running the asylum:
Anonymous said...As for the "anxiety disorders" jab, what do you expect when you post a notice at door disowning liability for illness/death traceable to attending Mass, tell people they really ought to wear an ineffective mask because it is so dangerous, enforce distance between people, yank fonts, hymnals, baskets, forbid physical contact, forbid even singing, etc etc etc.? Beat a dog and it will develop a flinch.
Yes, bishops freaked out too and developed serious anxiety disorders but also lawyer disorders in our litigious society. They did not want to get sued, thus mandated wearing signs placed on our churches warning people of the toxicity of those attending that might kill you; ordering you to wear masks that no science has said is effective on Covid-19 (a placebo); removing hymnals, Holy Water, collection baskets and six feet spacing, not five, or four or ten but exactly six feet spacing! No physical contact, no singing, no anything and based on what? science! HELL NO! It was based on flimsy theory and rank anxiety disorders and fear of lawyers and Catholic laity who don’t mind suing their parishioner who have contributed to the Church’s coffers.
As for me and my household? We are following Jesus as Catholics and faith and reason combined.
We are not following Science as a religion or lawyers who sue your pants off and wear diamond studded jeans. Real diamonds too!
39 comments:
The CDC has not flip-flopped on masks. Data changes over time, therefore recommendations on mask use change.
Imagine that NOAA tells you that the hurricance off the coast is expected to remain a category one. You plan accordingly.
Two days later, the NOAA says that new information indicates it will be a category three storm. You plan differently.
36 hours before expected landfall, NOAA warms of a Cat 5 storm - the worst. You get the hell outta town.
Now, did NOAA flip-flop? No. They changed their recommendations due to the changes in data. That's what CDC did and does, because it bases its recommendations on science.
Father K, OSHA and the FDA have shown cloth masks do not work and forbids their use, which was only rescinded as an emergency measure because there were no truly effective masks available.
In short, we had no masks but pretend masks.
You believe so much they help, then your next surgery you insist the OR team wear cloth masks. I will have mine wear N95.
Father K, one thing is very clear in that you obviously know next to zero regarding PPE and biohazards, and you ignore the fact that folk such as Fauci are admin hacks who might have a science background from the time of Galileo as most recent experience.
We have decades and decades of research on PPE, established norms, industry testing standards, acceptable limits of exposure, REAL science which was pitched right out the window to give the American public a huggy blanket so that they would not panic and would go back to work supplying your energy and food and utilities and shopping and dining experience.
Having read many of the rushed recent studies, they read as something from Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour and follow no set standard and were thrown together by anyone with a lab. Nor were they peer reviewed. You know, REAL science?
As already said another way, as for how much protection these pitiful fake masks offer, you just watch how quickly they go away as supplies of REAL masks become available. They will be illegal, again, soon enough. They were unapproved in the past for good reason, and will be again, and SOON.
"Hacks" "Galileo" "Huggy blanket" "Ted Mack"
Now, there's some REAL science based reaction and commentary. You ought to publish that in some journal, most likely the Journal of Excessive Reactionary Baloney.
Back to my post - when NOAA changes its recommendations based on changing data, is it flip- flopping, or doing what good science rightly does in such cases?
Knowing biowar and civil service intimately, you using NOAA as an example is just sad.
The CDC rightly followed decades of science in its first recommendations, fake masks causing far more transmission than they stopped, with improper wear and face touching such as at BLM protests while chugging beers.
But, under tremendous political pressure they did indeed flip-flop on guidance to keep the wheels on society.
Locally, my town comprises 1/3 of total county population, the town had a mask mandate, the county did not. The town infection numbers accounted for 3/4s of all total county numbers. Everyone in the county shops in the city. You figure it out.
Back to your NOAA false analogy, NOAA has made political moves as well, due to evacuations shutting down vast swaths of territory, and storms then going elsewhere, where admin types have felt the heat which they then have transferred down to forecasters. If you think this has no effect on recommendations.....
Yes Covidism and Scientism are religions, but what also needs to be brought out is that there are a lot of stupid people around, including politicians, their "experts," and even chief medical officers. I had not been comfortable using that label until I recently read the Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla who formulated the laws concerning stupid people. Here is a TEDx talk given by the fairly well known Swedish psychiatrist, David Eberhard, who describes this phenomenon of stupid people among other things:
Shortened version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKHEXzOFnR8
Full version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43J7hD9I0jY&t=1s
As for Dr Fauci, more a celebrity than a research scientist, here is what the late Kary Mullis, who got a Nobel prize for inventing the RT-PCR test which is now being misused by "stupid people" to show that healthy people are really sick, had to say about him:
“Guys like Fauci get up there and start talking, you know, he doesn’t know anything really about anything and I’d say that to his face. Nothing. The man thinks you can take a blood sample and stick it in an electron microscope and if it’s got a virus in there you’ll know it. He doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine and he should not be in a position like he’s in. Most of those guys up there on the top are just total administrative people and they don’t know anything about what’s going on in the body.
You know, those guys have got an agenda, which is not what we would like them to have being that we pay for them to take care of our health in some way. They’ve got a personal kind of agenda. They make up their own rules as they go. They change them when they want to. And they smugly, like Tony Fauci does not mind going on television in front of the people who pay his salary and lie directly into the camera.”
Here is an interview with Mullis on this, made a few years before he died:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8KsH34IGgqBw/
Mullis was not the only one pointing out the incompetence of Dr Fauci. The highly cited Prof Sucharit Bahkdi has also recently said so, that Dr Fauci does not even know epidemiology 101:
https://freenorth.news/2020/12/04/fauci-challenged-vaccine-dangerous-unnecessary-zero-science-for-lockdowns-masks-says-microbiologist/
I always thought that Mr Trump's biggest failure as President was not getting Dr Fauci fired at the start of this Covid-19 nonsense. So many people needlessly died because of this.
There is data that strongly indicates that people in the USA who have been vaccinated are still quite fearful and, specifically, more fearful of getting out and about than those people who have not been vaccinated.
There is also data that indicates that younger people are more fearful of COVID-19 than older people, who, statistically, have a lot more reason to fear COVID-19.
What could these findings mean?
People neglect Jesus sage advise: BE NOT AFRAID! Religion of Fear like science don’t teach that but foment fear in the young who have anxiety disorders galore, are generally gullible and really, really naive.
With the skyrocketing murder rate up here in Georgia's largest city, "be not afraid" is getting to be a hard sell!
There was science and public health expertise in the covid response, but there was also the politics. The science explained how the virus would likely effect the populations, and true public health policies tried to formulate the best responses. The politicization of covid distorted both to suit each politicians or political parties agenda. Public Health policy is strongly influenced by politicians. I think it was that distortion of both science and public health policy that created the anxiety. With that distortion people couldn't trust anything they were told. To add to the stress was "the media" which dramatized this event for ratings and dollars. I suspect once the anxiety subsides, cynicism and skepticism will take its place.
Anon 8:36 & 8:44 - I do not share your cynical view of government and the people who work in and/or for government.
The NOAA analogy is far from false. In your cynical view, the reports of changes over time in the wind speeds and direction of hurricanes that lead the NOAA to change it's forecasts and warnings to coastal populations MUST be politically motivated for some malevolent purpose by some unnamed éminence grise bent of manipulating the people. I reject this as conspiracy theory nuttiness.
As for your county, isn't it possible, no, isn't it likely that population density in the city had a very significant impact on the transmissions rates in that city? Of course it is. Every study I am aware of - unless you dismiss those, too, as politically motivated and produced by "hacks" - recognizes the fact that population density had a major impact on disease transmission.
As for "BE NOT AFRAID," tell it to your kids when they head out into the woods where they might encounter rattlesnakes or ticks carrying Lyme diease. You'd better remember also the words of the Lord, "Be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
Jesus tells us that we can handle snakes. BE NOT AFRAID.
A@8:18--Cycnicism is already occurring and is quite high as a result of the CDC's flip flop which showed so much of their stuff isn't science but politics. Faucci is a good example of a so-called "expert" inebriated by the left's adulation of him. He has no credibility and was even made fun of on Saturday Night Live in satire.
Last night at our vigil Mass and this morning at our 8 AM Mass I could count on one hand those wearing masks. During the pandemic I could count on two hands the number.
Even our altar servers took them off this weekend!
Is it any wonder that 2 20th century converts wrote the following:
Evelyn Waugh: the modern era is "sterile, deceptive and barbarous".
Graham Greene: to live in our times without a sense of sin, without a need of God's grace makes one's life "drab, futile and horrifying."
I think the inability of our health care systems to keep up with the numbers of covid cases and the deaths of those infected caused FAR more anxiety than any "distortion" of the facts by politicians.
Deaths here skyrocketed from mid-January 2021 to early March, 203 deaths on February 2 alone. Why? Boneheads went unmasked, undistanced to Christmas gatherings, singing,
"I ain't gonna wear no dumb mask, fa la la la la, la la la la.
Fauci's wrong, not up to the task, fa la la la la la, la la la la.
He's a hack, some pharma's puppet, fa la la la la, la la la la.
Just a shill, he so far up it, Fa la la la la, la la la la."
Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions again...
Fa la la @ 10:09, I wish you had the same concern for souls who die in mortal sin a much worse fate than those who died of covid and a far, far, far higher number than anything the theortical scientists of the pandemic suggest as the number of those who have died worldwide of Covid.
A lack of faith that no one can chant fa la la, la but only Dies Irae.
fa la la, numbers skyrocketed WITH masks, and did so at the same or higher rate than maskless areas. The ONLY thing which mitigated spread was shutdowns and keeping everyone home.
Which does not STOP the spread but only SLOWS it, and given enough time will still infect the same numbers, barring a vaccine.
The simple fact is herd immunity was reached by most of the country via infection spread before the vaccine distribution began, the most of the country who made sure you had power, gas, and groceries to buy while you hid in your mother's basement supported by government funding the rest of the country lacked, and made fun of those making sure you had what you needed to live, including tax dollars.
Father K, you do a great job ignoring the arguments and redirecting to the subject of NOAA, which is a sad example to use in your misdirect as the organization has been well covered in news as to blown forecasts and political heat, which WILL skew recommendations.
Especially it will skew them at the admin level where those types get to where they are by taking credit for successes and deflecting blame for failure onto others. Which fairly describes Fauci, who has FIFTY years of civil service, as if someone else could not do his job, and maybe better, and him likely THE highest paid GS in the entire country at over $350,000 per year, and at 2% of that per year of service Xs that 50, will collect 100% of that salary PLUS his investments of the 3 million or so made in the last 10yrs, IF he ever retires, which he does not seem inclined to do even though long past time, as he lives for his power.
Father McD, you have a better grasp of govt admin types than does Father K by a country mile, BUT, you also know very little as to civil service. Not even the President can fire a GS employee. He can lean on others to attempt to do so from within civil service, but there are very few above Fauci in his power, and they would need show serious cause to go after him, and have a paper trail to present as evidence. Fauci has been making or breaking careers for decades and is surrounded by an army beholden to him, and you say what happened to Birx when she made her own power play.
Father McD, you have a better grasp of govt admin types than does Father K by a country mile, BUT, you also know very little as to civil service. Not even the President can fire a GS employee. He can lean on others to attempt to do so from within civil service, but there are very few above Fauci in his power, and they would need show serious cause to go after him, and have a paper trail to present as evidence. Fauci has been making or breaking careers for decades and is surrounded by an army beholden to him, and you saw what happened to Birx when she made her own power play.
Sorry, Father McD, got a comment above mixed up with your blog post and thought it was you suggesting firing Fauci...it was Victor.
Anon 12:17 said "Which does not STOP the spread but only SLOWS it..." No kidding. We knew this. No one said masks were going to stop the spread dead in its tracks, did they? No.
And, "The simple fact is herd immunity was reached by most of the country via infection spread before the vaccine distribution began..." Oh, where's the data to support this "simple fact"?
Anon 12:38 - What scientific or semi-scientific agency, governmental or non-governmental, doesn't miss forecasts, sometimes by the provebial country mile? How is it that, all of a sudden, missing a forecast is proof positive that a group is lead by a politically motivated hack?
If anyone says that rag masks prevent the spread of Sar-CoVid-2 respiratory virus, let them show me the research data published in quality peer reviewed journals. And I do not mean meta analyses that bias out "undesired" previous research data.
MIT published a research article about this virus spread about 3 weeks ago and pointed out that it makes no difference inside a closed space with poor ventilation: 6 feet or 60 feet, with or without masks, the viral load spread will be high in any poorly ventilated room, a disaster for the vulnerable in crowded and poorly ventilated old-folks homes. That is why respiratory virus epidemics are seasonal, that is, windows are closed in the north in the fall and if there is any central ventilation system it rarely has ultraviolet pathogen killer lights inside, so the virus just gets circulated everywhere:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/mit-researchers-say-youre-no-safer-from-covid-indoors-at-6-feet-or-60-feet-in-new-study.html
Anon325....are you really too lazy to look at state by state graphs to see a peak in Nov/Dec and crashing by mid Jan in every state but lockdown states, plus FL heavily visited by those lockdown state residents fleeing, and all before any possibility of vaccine effect? Do you just think the virus got tired and wanted to take a breather? Has there been a resurgence in those areas? Any other explanation come to your mind past the obvious? The only thing obvious is you just refuse to even open your eyes and look. Most of the country is now back to nearly normal, if you bother to look, and has been since late Jan/Feb.
The premise of this post is that the CDC has flip-flopped on fully vaccinated people wearing masks. I would like to question the premise. Can someone please explain exactly how the CDC has flip flopped?
Anonymous at 3:36 p.m.:
Did you read to the end of the article?
"'Our study demonstrates how this time limit depends on the relevant factors, including room ventilation and filtration and face-mask use,' they said, noting that 'face masks can be an extremely effective indoor safety measure.'"
Here is a link to the actual study, which (if I understand correctly) questioned the effectiveness of social distancing, not face masks. Enjoy (the equations are completely beyond me):
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118
Anon 325, you obviously have never worked civil service. Those of us who have know our "leaders" and how they will generally cheerfully throw anyone in front of a train to advance their own careers, and throw each other there, too, for same reason.
Best public display of that recently was Birx trying for a power grab from Fauci, and look at what happened to her, all of a sudden a really large amount of bad hearsay was released to media, and all of a sudden she is gone from the limelight.
GS Admin types have one overriding mantra when making any decision, that being, "How can this bite my career rise in the ☆☆☆?", and if there is any chance it can boomerang on their rise, which all it takes is one bad decision public enough to cause earstwhile allies to turn on them (see Birx, again), then it is NOT gonna happen.
Anon 4:37 - Georgia's peak, with minimal lockdown, this year came on Feb 16 with 240 deaths. Florida, with minimal lockdown, was on Jan 22 with 272. Lockdown states: Iowa Jan 31 with 250. Arkansas January 31 with 65. North Dakota's seventh highest death day was Jan 15 with 23. The non-lockdown states were not spared a post-Christmas holiday spike in deaths.
Note that the non-lockdown states are also among the least densely populated.
Father K, my reply to you regarding population density was not posted, so will try again.
There is nothing magical about population density except as a predictor of interaction. There is a huge difference between infection rates between cities using mainly apartments and mass transit, and cities primarily with houses and own transportation.
This town is among the latter class, almost entirely single family houses with fenced yards and no mass transit.
How infections are spread here is by exposure, primarily in the workplace and to those who spend much time in those places, whether workers or patrons of stores, restaurants and offices.
The city had a mask mandate and they did nothing to slow the spread in those environments and it ran like wildfire until there was hardly anyone left to infect of those groups, last week we had two whole cases in town, and a total of three in the county, including city numbers.
These are facts. Period.
Deaths follow infections by weeks, and you need to quote infections and not deaths when talking infection rates. Deaths are posted as certified which takes time to classify and report. Infections started crashing in January and population density has nothing to do with the virus running out of victims. Stop trying to dodge infection charts/graphs. Or bring up NOAA again.
Nobody said anything as to non-lockdown states dodging anything.
They took it on the chin and suffered horribly to supply the lockdown states. They simply peaked in infections and got to herd immunity and kept right on going. God bless them.
Anon2, you mean past saying no don't wear masks, then wear masks, and then don't wear masks? Or, maybe you mean footwear? I can honestly say I never saw anyone in a press conference in flip-flops.
"Jesus tells us we can handle snakes."
Huh?
Eh?
I trust you will not be going into the woods of your area collecting dangerous rattlesnakes and water moccasins? Or on Hilton Head, where a woman got bitten several times by a copperhead? And snake-handling is not going to part of your Masses?!?!?
"Anon 4:37 - Georgia's peak, with minimal lockdown, this year came on Feb 16 with 240 deaths. Florida, with minimal lockdown, was on Jan 22 with 272. Lockdown states: Iowa Jan 31 with 250. Arkansas January 31 with 65. North Dakota's seventh highest death day was Jan 15 with 23. The non-lockdown states were not spared a post-Christmas holiday spike in deaths."
It would be more correct to look at the stats by population. Georgia and Florida are a lot more populous than Iowa and Arkansas etc. Smaller population states can have lower numbers and have a worse infection and death rate. Florida has over 20 million residents, Iowa less than 4 million.
Anon at 7:43 p.m.:
That seems to be a very superficial take. The CDC should have done a better job of the messaging because not doing a better job just fuels unwarranted glee in the Covid-skeptic camp and further recklessness by Rand Paul and his ilk. But as far as the science is concerned, context is important:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rand-paul-right-about-masks/
So is nuance:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/16/health/vaccinated-masks-needed-wellness/index.html
Can you say, "Tempest in a tea cup?"
From the title of your post. Contrast Jesus saying “Follow me” or “ I am the way, the truth, and the life” with Biden saying “Listen to the Science” or “Follow the Scientists” There has been a long battle between Science and Religion, and State versus Church.
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