Or, really, just about any version of the Chinese coronavirus
Cloth masks may not protect against omicron, report says
Single-layer cloth masks may not provide adequate protection against the very infectious omicron variant of COVID-19, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
Many infectious disease experts noted people prefer cloth masks because they are more comfortable and fashionable to wear, but these masks can only block larger droplets of COVID-19, not smaller aerosols or particles that can also carry the virus.
The Mayo Clinic is now requiring all patients and visitors to wear surgical masks, N95 or KN95 masks, so if anyone wears a single-layer, homemade cloth mask or bandanna, they will be given a medical-grade one to wear over it, the report said.
Surgical masks block the COVID-19 virus through its polypropylene electrostatic charge characteristics, while N95 masks have a tighter mesh of fibers than surgical or cloth masks with also electrostatic charge characteristics, which allows the mask to be most efficient at blocking inhaled and exhaled particles.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, still recommends N95 masks only for health care workers, advising people instead to wear instead cloth masks that have two (or more) layers of fabric that completely cover the face and mouth, fit ‘snugly’ against the sides of the face (without any gaps) that also has a nose wire to prevent air leaking from the top of the mask.
And, almost no one wears two layers, even the mask fetishists. Let’s also not forget that the CDC didn’t update their mask guidance till the end of May 2020, and, based on the infection numbers, really hasn’t made a difference since
But Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said, “If everyone is just wearing a cloth mask or just a surgical mask, it won’t make any difference” against the omicron variant.
“If you really want no exposure, you have to wear the right type of mask.”
But, few will do this. They are expensive, they are supposed to be worn once, and then disposed of. Or, just ignored, if you’re a Democrat escaping from the cold northeast city you represent with all those restrictions for a nice, warm, restrictionless Red state
For those of you with zero sense of humor: the whole point of this post is to expose hypocrisy. We don’t actually care she’s maskless. We care she fear mongers about Florida but then has the audacity to vacation here.
— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) January 2, 2022
Meanwhile, Commie Squad member Ayanna Pressley tested positive for COVID, as did Sec of SortaDefense Lloyd Austin. Both are boosted, both wear masks, and the latter is forcing all military members to get vaccinated.
Read: Who Would Have Guessed That Cloth Masks May Not Provide Protection Against Omicron? »
Consider Boston, Massachusetts, the unofficial capital of New England (for our international readers, New England consists of six states in the US Northeast, namely Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont). Given its northern latitude, the citizens of Boston experience cold and sometimes brutal winters, but more reasonable summers. Globally, far more people die from exposure to cold than to heat, and this makes winter energy policy especially consequential. In the chart below, we’ve plotted the daily average high and low temperatures for the city and overlaid the thermal comfort zone for easy reference. Not surprisingly, the coldest months of the year are December, January, and February. During these months, an enormous amount of energy is consumed as the population seeks to achieve thermal comfort, and the amount of energy needed to do this is bounded by the laws of physics – it scales with the delta from the thermal comfort zone – and, as a practical matter, the tactics deployed at the extremes are highly inefficient.
At the moment, the two major parties in the U.S. are polarized on the role of the federal government. Democrats, as has generally been the case since the civil rights era, favor federal activism to establish certain rights and living conditions nationally. Republicans have more and more uniformly adopted the states rights posture the GOP was initially founded to oppose in the mid-19th century.
Mask mandates. Remote classes. Outdoor dining.
Conservationists and tribal leaders are suing the U.S. government to try to block construction of two geothermal plants in northern Nevada’s high desert that they say will destroy a sacred hot springs and could push a rare toad to the brink of extinction.
While the Biden administration has once again extended the pause on student loan repayments, some progressives have said that unless more is done, it could cost Democrats in the midterms in 2022.
We’re about to wrap up 2021, another year of climate extremes across the U.S. It’s tempting to look back at the big stories: record cold in Texas, record heat in the Northwest, record rains from Hurricane Ida and December’s heat and deadly weather. But thinking about my climate work over the last year, I was struck by how much of it is about trends. I see six trends that can impact virtually all of us next year.
