Ah, my sweet summer child. There is never 'just stating facts'. There is ALWAYS a bias. In this case you're taking a topic you don't fully understand and trying to dumb it down for people who also do not fully understand it. You post numbers but little context to understand it what those numbers mean. Any number of conclusions can be drawn from such data and not always the correct one.

It's like listening to that dumb speech Trump gave last night where he told the world about the travel ban but failed to explain that Americans abroad are the exception to the rule and that they'll still be able to travel home. As a result, Americans in Europe panicked and frantically purchased tickets home at exorbitant prices. Trump also stated the facts but he did so in a way that made it easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.

....and your meaning to say that you know the true facts? I can atleast make a connection between the words "total deaths" behind a number, I'm not completely ignorant. If you have your own opinion on this matter your free to share it, and I may even agree to some of your points and take them into consideration ( as I have with many of the other people who have taken the time to leave concerns and arguments to me, the benefits of being a "child" I guess, my opinions can be easily swayed).

If you think maybe you can provide better information to people who are seeking it, you can make a post I'll link in my first post, this thread is free for anyone to use. I definitely probably have not explained most of this clearly to everyone (or maybe I just lack the sufficient sugarcoating skills) but like almost everyone else in the world...I have a ton of ****** to do. I do this in my freetime, and won't be able to to update as much as other-- more reputable sources can, but I do this because I think it can help some people.

Maybe you'll say that my "helping" is just hurting people... but in that case I'll just keep hurting people, because until something changes my mind, I'm biased and this is what I'm doing and this is what I'm saying. I'm taking the time-- the limited amount of it I still have while I'm young, to write these, and to respond to you. The same goes for you, and its out of respect that I respond to your time with my own. I may be a child, but that only makes me more eager to learn before I'm not. So, feel free to call me whatever you like, a fearmonger, a child who can't understand ******, or a panicked American. I'll take all of these into consideration and prehaps improve myself upon them.


And I hope this doesn't change anything between us Sakina, because you seem like a very cool and reasonable person, but you've just struck something personal and I hope you can understand how awful that feels when you try your best to wear a mask online.

(On a lighter note, although I believe it was intended as an insult, its flattering you compare me to Trump...who has atleast managed to get elected as President...so I guess he has that going for him.)

Oh wow. I er... didn't mean it however you took it. My apologies for that. I'm just going to chalk this up to Poe's Law and attempt to explain better. I was trying to be kinda jokey like I usually am. 'Sweet summer child' is a Game of Thrones reference. Because Game of Thrones is awesome. It is known. And the rest was meant to be rather sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek. It didn't come across like that upon my rereading it and I'm sorry for that.

Frankly, I think you did a good thing posting information about how to keep yourself safe. What I specifically objected to was you saying that you were "just stating facts". I was attempting to refer to a how, when reading any sort of scientific study or data set, you should always look for the bias in the reporting or the study itself.

A scientific bias is something that skews the data in a way to portray a certain outcome. Ideally a scientific study or experiment has no bias but this is an almost impossible goal. Everything has a bias. You can have bias in the way your study is set up or you can have bias in the way you interpret data.

Also, it was his speech I was calling dumb. It was lazily put together and did more harm than good IMO.
Frankly I'd suggest he fire whoever wrote it.

Ah. I was...never aloud to watch Game of Thrones...for obvious reasons >.>''


Its fine I guess, it just kind of... treaded on a trigger I didn't really realize I had until I was about a paragraph and a-half into that. I can see what your saying about well...I guess journalism in general probably? I guess I should change to that to....well I don't actually know,, got any alternative words to 'facts'? xD

Oof sorry to butt in but the show ended badly so it was off to the books for me ahh. One of my fav series still.

Anyway, can I be removed from the ping-list? Thanks :)

I hate that everyone is overreacting. Next week I get off from school and so does my dad, but there hasnt been a case at my school or his building. Its so annoying.

Oh, I'd also like to address something.

"So, you know why they say "Don't buy masks, they don't work, and we need them for our healthcare workers" ? They say that because masks work and they need them for our healthcare workers"

It depends on the type of mask we are talking about here. Surgical or face masks aren't recommended for healthy members of the public 'cause they don't really do much. Air quality is the same and they don't seal off all entrances so respiratory droplets still can get in. And they might even be harmful as most people don't clean or wash them oftenmaking the mask with all the moisture retention heaven for pathogens.

People who are showing symptoms of COVID-19 however are recommended to wear them as it can help stop spreading the droplets when they do cough or sneeze. Everyone buying masks only takes away supplies from those who actually do need to wear them and therefore don't really help the situation. There is no evidence that wearing a face or surgical mask would help and I'd like to repeat that leaving people who actually need those supplies without any would be counter-productive

If one wants to use a mask a solid recommendation be the N95 respirators. They were recommended to us with air quality problems with smoke during the wildfires and now for the coronavirus. Don't go to Amazon yet though, because they're only recommended for healthcare workers treating those afflicted. They're considered very uncomfortable to wear and odds are that someone from the general public would wear it incorrectly since it needs to be in a tight seal. Healthcare workers have to receive training annually on how to properly wear the mask and it causes difficulty in breathing. Intending to wear one for one entire school/work day with no formal training and minimal breaks would be insane.

So it does depend on the type of mask, and they do technically work, but without proper training, they don't. If you're planning to spend a business day in one, they don't. The quote mentioned above gives a very misleading feel to what's up with masks.

That's all.

All wonderful points I'm...pretty sure I mentioned atleast a little >.>

I would also like to add though, that according to multiple studies (and ill just link this one, I'm using Influenza studies because they have a similar way of spreading) N95 masks and regular surgical masks might actually have very similar filtration capabilities. Of course assuming you know how to put a mask on. It doesn't even have to be an actual mask,, if you have any kind of tight-weave cloth that you can wear thats good.

Now N95 masks and surgical masks can both help prevent the spread on an just about equal level. But only N95 masks can prevent you from getting it? How is that supposed to work? It quite frankly makes no sense to me. Assuming that regular, and N95 masks both work fairly well in filtering *some* of the air and *maybe* preventing the likeliness of catching Covid-19. If you have a confirmed case in your area, chances are you might not be going out too much if your school has shutdown and/or your working from home, so you'd really only need to wear a mask when you go out. If there isnt any confirmed cases in your area I don't see a need to wear a mask to things like school, just you know-- wash your hands and stuff. Places I would recommend wearing a mask in public, for example would be Washington or California where they've been seeing a cluster in King and Santa Clara counties respectively.

You don't even have to *buy* a mask if you just want to be "better safe than sorry", tight weave cloth would work fine (although thats assuming the worst).

In my opinion, if your in a high risk area its a 'better safe than sorry' precaution. Any type of tight cloth will do *some* kind of filtration, its not totally useless.

Proactivity my dear, Proactivity not Reactivity.