Originally posted by Bashar Teg
maybe I'll build a bunker, and allow you to live in it and be my obsequious servant. I'd be a benevolent master unlike your abuser. if you did a poor job of shampooing my nutsack, Id just make you do it all over again, instead of beating you into submission like he did. I would only reserve that for when you failed a third time
Uh-huh
Must've been in the director's cut
What if we could perform an extremely extremely strict study on COVID-19 and the safety measures some experts proposed would help combat the SARS-CoV-2?
Not with regular citizens. But military where strict adherence to orders and standard operating procedures is absolutely required? This would be the best possible group to study how effective COVID-19 measures really are when you compare them to a control group of the same personnel (military base compared to a military base). The "civvies" in the wild don't necessarily obey the safety measures such as not washing their hands, not social distancing, not wearing masks properly, etc. So a military group would be the ideal group to study to see how effective these measures really are compared to an "apples to apples" control group of military personnel where these measures are not implemented and strictly enforced.
In fact, trying to pull something off like this against civilians might be unethical - you can't bark orders at them for not wearing their masks properly.
So does such research exist?
Yes. Yes it does. Finally peer reviewed and officially published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
What were the results compared to the control group? Were the safety measures effective compared to the control group?
No. And, in fact, the measures resulted in a worse outcome for the study group. The control group faired better with fewer being infected in the control group compared to the study group: 2.8% infected in the study group vs. 1.7% infected in the control group.
Wait a minute, that seems odd. Why would the safety measures be ineffective or even harmful? What methods did they actually measure? Surely this was a malformed study and didn't properly use the safety measures, right?
Nope, wrong.
To reduce the risk of introducing SARS-CoV-2 into basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, in South Carolina, the Marine Corps established a 14-day supervised quarantine period at a college campus used exclusively for this purpose. Potential recruits were instructed to quarantine at home for 2 weeks immediately before they traveled to campus. At the end of the second, supervised quarantine on campus, all recruits were required to have a negative qPCR result before they could enter Parris Island. Recruits were asked to participate in the COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines (CHARM) study, which included weekly qPCR testing and blood sampling for IgG antibody assessment.After potential recruits had completed the 14-day home quarantine, they presented to a local Military Entrance Processing Station, where a medical history was taken and a physical examination was performed. If potential recruits were deemed to be physically and mentally fit for enlistment, they were instructed to wear masks at all times and maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet during travel to the quarantine campus. Classes of 350 to 450 recruits arrived on campus nearly weekly. New classes were divided into platoons of 50 to 60 recruits, and roommates were assigned independently of participation in the CHARM study. Overlapping classes were housed in different dormitories and had different dining times and training schedules.
During the supervised quarantine, public health measures were enforced to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Table S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org). All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.
Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with preplated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before reoccupancy.
Okay, well, that's absurdly damn rigorous.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717
Results table:
There is more valuable information from this study. One theory that some epidemiologists have had since the beginning is infections come from multiple "strains" during outbreaks, not just one or the other. From the study, "Six independent monophyletic transmission clusters defined by distinct mutations relative to the sampled data from U.S. and global data sets were identified — a result consistent with local transmission during the supervised quarantine. These strains were found in 18 participants; 1 participant had two different cluster strains isolated from samples obtained on different days. Two participants who had had positive qPCR results on day 0 were each infected with different cluster strains (Tables S3 and S4)."
So multiple "strains" could be responsible for outbreaks at one location and some people are infected with multiple.
This study matches another study by the CDC. The CDC published a study which showed the group that "almost always or always" wore a mask comprised over 84% of those who tested positive and/or showed symptoms. Whereas fewer than 4% who never wore masks got infected.
"But masks are for people who spread the virus, not to stop you from getting it!"
Yes and no. The CDC says it is for both:
From the CDC:
Masks are primarily intended to reduce the emission of virus-laden droplets (“source control”), which is especially relevant for asymptomatic or presymptomatic infected wearers who feel well and may be unaware of their infectiousness to others, and who are estimated to account for more than 50% of transmissions.1,2 Masks also help reduce inhalation of these droplets by the wearer (“filtration for personal protection”). The community benefit of masking for SARS-CoV-2 control is due to the combination of these effects; individual prevention benefit increases with increasing numbers of people using masks consistently and correctly.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
Originally posted by samhain
God, not everything is about you DDM. No, yours fitted in quite nicely with minimal stretching.
uhuh
I don't like screen stretchers and didn't want to be one of the culprits. If it stretched your screen on mobile, I would have made a better effort to skinny-up the images.
uhuh
Originally posted by dadudemon
uhuhI don't like screen stretchers and didn't want to be one of the culprits. If it stretched your screen on mobile, I would have made a better effort to skinny-up the images.
uhuh
It's all good man. Jaden and Lestov have both posted massive pics in the last day or two and I've been finding myself scrolling left to right more often than I'm scrolling down. Couldn't it be set so that only the post with the massive picture gets stretched and the ones above and below are regular format? Sounds like something society should be capable of.
See I just usually find the pic I want. Use "open image in new tab" then copy n paste the link. Completely oblivious to how big the image will end up here.
Doesn't help that this place hasn't been upgraded for about a million years and must surely be one of the last remaining old style vBulletin forums left.
Someone explain, and have it make sense, why we should continue to follow guidelines while these weasels do not.
Go for it 👆
So it looks like the front line workers are getting the vaccine first.
Meaning underpaid retail employees, supermarket staff, registered nurses.
The plan looks to be using them as guinea pigs, because the employers can force them to take it.
This seems morally dubious. Having the option is one thing, but making a new medicine mandatory.. I sure wouldn't take that chance. Not until the kinks are ironed out.
I know someone has to be the first adapters, but not me.