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Our Chief Medical Adviser in Wales believes the use of face masks offers very little benefit and can actually lead to more cases as people take more risks when wearing them.
Back in April we had 391 new cases in a day. Yesterday we had 13 new cases and the day before 12. Yesterday there were 6 cases in Swansea and 4 in Wrexham out of the 13. 5 of the 6 in Swansea were discovered by a mobile testing unit suggesting it was targeted possibly in a factory or farm setting. We do not have compulsory face mask wearing in shops.
In England and places like France the numbers have hugely increased despite people wearing face masks. UK has had over 1000 new cases yesterday and Sunday. Both were the highest figure since June.
Has Frank Atherton been proven right. Figures have been dropping in Wales without masks while increasing elsewhere wher masks are being used,
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Wearing of Facemasks on 12:34 - Aug 12 with 3464 views
When I shop once a week at the Coop there is never more than 20% with masks. Look at any photos of people out and about in England or Wales, hardly any masks. Masks are not even being worn on public transport as required. Take a look at the data for Chzechia where they wore home made masks, but like most places that have relaxed their controls they are experiencing a second wave. I will repost the South Korean Professor's video for those that didn't see it.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 12:42 - Aug 12 with 3455 views
Surely the problem is that every single day without exception different advice and medical opinion is handed out in a bewildering mass of self appointed expert important announcements.
Every newspaper, TV Channel, radio station, government announcement is hitting us all daily with contradictory advice and opinions so none of us have a clue what might be good or bad advice or guidance on how to proceed.
Chuck into the mix that seemingly every single reporter and contributor to message boards ( including this one) were apparently eminent virusologists just latently lurking for years on Planet Swans and in the media just waiting for the opportunity to pile in and give us the benefit of their expertise in such fields if such a crisis occurred
And is there any wonder that those of us who rely on sensible accurate hopefully fact based advice have no clue who to listen to or what to believe.?
[Post edited 12 Aug 2020 12:46]
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Wearing of Facemasks on 12:51 - Aug 12 with 3438 views
Wearing of Facemasks on 12:45 - Aug 12 by BarrySwan
Surely the problem is that every single day without exception different advice and medical opinion is handed out in a bewildering mass of self appointed expert important announcements.
Every newspaper, TV Channel, radio station, government announcement is hitting us all daily with contradictory advice and opinions so none of us have a clue what might be good or bad advice or guidance on how to proceed.
Chuck into the mix that seemingly every single reporter and contributor to message boards ( including this one) were apparently eminent virusologists just latently lurking for years on Planet Swans and in the media just waiting for the opportunity to pile in and give us the benefit of their expertise in such fields if such a crisis occurred
And is there any wonder that those of us who rely on sensible accurate hopefully fact based advice have no clue who to listen to or what to believe.?
[Post edited 12 Aug 2020 12:46]
Which is the reason that I posted that video. That Professor has led the South Korean Pandemic team through 3 Pandemics now, so he does know what he is talking about based on education, training and experience.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 13:22 - Aug 12 with 3418 views
Wearing of Facemasks on 12:45 - Aug 12 by BarrySwan
Surely the problem is that every single day without exception different advice and medical opinion is handed out in a bewildering mass of self appointed expert important announcements.
Every newspaper, TV Channel, radio station, government announcement is hitting us all daily with contradictory advice and opinions so none of us have a clue what might be good or bad advice or guidance on how to proceed.
Chuck into the mix that seemingly every single reporter and contributor to message boards ( including this one) were apparently eminent virusologists just latently lurking for years on Planet Swans and in the media just waiting for the opportunity to pile in and give us the benefit of their expertise in such fields if such a crisis occurred
And is there any wonder that those of us who rely on sensible accurate hopefully fact based advice have no clue who to listen to or what to believe.?
[Post edited 12 Aug 2020 12:46]
I dont think the advice is much different. It is more that some politicians dont follow the advice whilst others do. The chief medical and scientific offers in England as well as others had concerns that things were opening too soon yet the UK government went ahead and the figures have doubled recently.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 14:21 - Aug 12 with 3387 views
Is the wearing of facemasks the only variable between Wales and the other countries?
The most pertinent question, which of course largely renders the OP meaningless in terms of presenting those stats, intimating that mask wearing / not wearing was their main and direct causal event.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 14:21 - Aug 12 with 3386 views
Is the wearing of facemasks the only variable between Wales and the other countries?
Well the difference is huge and getting bigger. Today there are just 8 new cases in Wales. 1 each in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire and 5 in North Wales including 2 in Wrexham. All 5 deaths were in North Wales and will soon drop. 16 authorities with no cases at all. 5 health boards with no deaths plus Powys if you include that. Somebody or some authority is responsible for that. The lowest figures of all whilst somebody or some authority must be responsible for the increases in other countries. It isnt all down to big cities or ethnic minorities. Cardiff has over 20% etnics.
Yes there are differences in England. They came out of lockdown earlier than Wales and brought in masks before Wales and have an increasing rate of new cases whilst Wales is dropping.
Try giving some credit to the people who have engineered this. Frank Atherton, Mark Drakeford, his government and the staff at Public Health Wales and Senydd.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 14:49 - Aug 12 with 3362 views
Well the difference is huge and getting bigger. Today there are just 8 new cases in Wales. 1 each in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire and 5 in North Wales including 2 in Wrexham. All 5 deaths were in North Wales and will soon drop. 16 authorities with no cases at all. 5 health boards with no deaths plus Powys if you include that. Somebody or some authority is responsible for that. The lowest figures of all whilst somebody or some authority must be responsible for the increases in other countries. It isnt all down to big cities or ethnic minorities. Cardiff has over 20% etnics.
Yes there are differences in England. They came out of lockdown earlier than Wales and brought in masks before Wales and have an increasing rate of new cases whilst Wales is dropping.
Try giving some credit to the people who have engineered this. Frank Atherton, Mark Drakeford, his government and the staff at Public Health Wales and Senydd.
Regarding your last sentence. You have to remember that Westminster have to also consider the financial implications of the pandemic. They have to work out how we are going to pay for all this, it is a fine line between keeping people safe and generating the economy. The WAG only have think of the safety of the Welsh population. Would they have dealt with it differently if they were responsible for footing the bill?
Well the difference is huge and getting bigger. Today there are just 8 new cases in Wales. 1 each in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire and 5 in North Wales including 2 in Wrexham. All 5 deaths were in North Wales and will soon drop. 16 authorities with no cases at all. 5 health boards with no deaths plus Powys if you include that. Somebody or some authority is responsible for that. The lowest figures of all whilst somebody or some authority must be responsible for the increases in other countries. It isnt all down to big cities or ethnic minorities. Cardiff has over 20% etnics.
Yes there are differences in England. They came out of lockdown earlier than Wales and brought in masks before Wales and have an increasing rate of new cases whilst Wales is dropping.
Try giving some credit to the people who have engineered this. Frank Atherton, Mark Drakeford, his government and the staff at Public Health Wales and Senydd.
So to stick to the original subject of the thread and Chad's comment. There are huge other differences between the countires so this question is pointless.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 15:16 - Aug 12 with 3328 views
Well the difference is huge and getting bigger. Today there are just 8 new cases in Wales. 1 each in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire and 5 in North Wales including 2 in Wrexham. All 5 deaths were in North Wales and will soon drop. 16 authorities with no cases at all. 5 health boards with no deaths plus Powys if you include that. Somebody or some authority is responsible for that. The lowest figures of all whilst somebody or some authority must be responsible for the increases in other countries. It isnt all down to big cities or ethnic minorities. Cardiff has over 20% etnics.
Yes there are differences in England. They came out of lockdown earlier than Wales and brought in masks before Wales and have an increasing rate of new cases whilst Wales is dropping.
Try giving some credit to the people who have engineered this. Frank Atherton, Mark Drakeford, his government and the staff at Public Health Wales and Senydd.
They WAG didn’t cover themselves in glory at the beginning and the testing was a shambles, but they have improved as things have progressed.
A couple of issues for me, what’s happening with the antibody testing? It needs to be rolled out ASAP if the talk of antibodies disappearing after 70 days is true as we need to know what proportion of the population have had Covid.
Whiterock makes a good point about the cost of the pandemic and Westminster picking up the tab, but Boris hasn’t exactly performed brilliantly either. There needs to be a common sense, balanced approach. We have seen a 20% cut in GDP followed by a bounce in a June, but we need more of the bounce and hopefully with more people having staycations we will see more money spend in the UK. WFH will mean less people travelling in to City centres which will suffer, sandwich shops, cafes, restaurants and shops will all see takings diminish, but the suburbs and commuter belts should see more money spent in those areas on leisure etc as people have more time, for example they will no longer have long commutes, don’t have the expense of train fare, buses and parking. We need to start investing in high tech industries, designing and actually manufacturing things here. Companies with a digital footprint here who channel their profits through tax havens to avoid paying tax on profits accumulated here need to start paying tax in the UK.
[Post edited 12 Aug 2020 15:21]
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Wearing of Facemasks on 15:20 - Aug 12 with 3317 views
So to stick to the original subject of the thread and Chad's comment. There are huge other differences between the countires so this question is pointless.
So the fact that the daily figure has come down from 391 to 8 in a day is meaningless. Nothing to do with the right policy being adopted. All to do with not having large cities and ethnic minorities. So we can assume the 1100+ who caught covid yesterday were nearly all in big cities of asian background. Cardiff is a large city 350,000 and an ethnicity rate of 20% which didnt have a single new case today. Very odd. Time to live in the real world.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 15:27 - Aug 12 with 3302 views
So the fact that the daily figure has come down from 391 to 8 in a day is meaningless. Nothing to do with the right policy being adopted. All to do with not having large cities and ethnic minorities. So we can assume the 1100+ who caught covid yesterday were nearly all in big cities of asian background. Cardiff is a large city 350,000 and an ethnicity rate of 20% which didnt have a single new case today. Very odd. Time to live in the real world.
The WAG and Westminster have both made serious mistakes. 29 of the last 30 deaths in Wales have been in the north, Betsi Cadwaladr health board are a disaster and WAG have done nothing about it. IMO Anglesey should have been put into lock down and possibly some of those deaths could have been saved.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 15:28 - Aug 12 with 3301 views
So the fact that the daily figure has come down from 391 to 8 in a day is meaningless. Nothing to do with the right policy being adopted. All to do with not having large cities and ethnic minorities. So we can assume the 1100+ who caught covid yesterday were nearly all in big cities of asian background. Cardiff is a large city 350,000 and an ethnicity rate of 20% which didnt have a single new case today. Very odd. Time to live in the real world.
This thread is about the wearing of face masks.
Post in the other thread and I'll comment later.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 17:27 - Aug 12 with 3235 views
I dont think the advice is much different. It is more that some politicians dont follow the advice whilst others do. The chief medical and scientific offers in England as well as others had concerns that things were opening too soon yet the UK government went ahead and the figures have doubled recently.
So it’s nothing to to with, increased, targeted testing then?
Number 1 team in Wales
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Wearing of Facemasks on 18:11 - Aug 12 with 3214 views
Wearing of Facemasks on 17:27 - Aug 12 by Andy1300
So it’s nothing to to with, increased, targeted testing then?
No there has been increased targeted testing in Wales. Look at the food plants in Angelsey, Wrexham, Merthyr Tydfil and Ebbw Vale. If there are no cases you can test all you like you wont find cases. There were 6146 tests today and they found 8. If you double that testing it might double but then if there are only 8 cases that is all you will get .If you did 300000 tests you still wouldnt get a 1000 cases under 400 and that is assuming they are out there. T
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Wearing of Facemasks on 18:29 - Aug 12 with 3205 views
No there has been increased targeted testing in Wales. Look at the food plants in Angelsey, Wrexham, Merthyr Tydfil and Ebbw Vale. If there are no cases you can test all you like you wont find cases. There were 6146 tests today and they found 8. If you double that testing it might double but then if there are only 8 cases that is all you will get .If you did 300000 tests you still wouldnt get a 1000 cases under 400 and that is assuming they are out there. T
Todays test of 6146 are the equivalent to a UK amount of 127529 over 3/4 of the uk figure of 164061 so the figure of testing isnt that much different. We would have has 11 instead of 8 cases had we tested an equivalent amount.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 18:32 - Aug 12 with 3202 views
I dont think the advice is much different. It is more that some politicians dont follow the advice whilst others do. The chief medical and scientific offers in England as well as others had concerns that things were opening too soon yet the UK government went ahead and the figures have doubled recently.
Meanwhile in NZ mask wearing is now recommended, in a similar way to England (situations where difficult to keep 2m distance like shops). This applies to the whole country (which is larger than the UK but has less than 7.5% of its population).
Whilst the residents of Auckland, (where the small community outbreak has occurred, but a large percentage of the population of NZ live) are advised to wear a mask if they go out at all.
Interesting.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 18:38 - Aug 12 with 3192 views
It's the ones out out on the piss, spitting as they talk, pissed. Oh, and the ones breathing down your neck in supermarket queues, oh and the idiots on the beach right next to the other fools. They are the problem. Not people wearing face masks.
Swansea Indepenent Poster Of The Year 2021. Dr P / Mart66 / Roathie / Parlay / E20/ Duffle was 2nd, but he is deluded and thinks in his little twisted brain that he won. Poor sod. We let him win this year, as he has cried for a whole year. His 14 usernames, bless his cotton socks.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 18:56 - Aug 12 with 3180 views
Seems a strange one. The medical consensus is that they work (the wonderfully named Larry Brilliant, a worlfd leading American epidemiologist, reckons they provide about 5x the protection of not wearing them, off the back of a consideration of the availbale evidence).
From the little I've heard, we've taken the decision on behavioral grounds. The argument seeming to be that wearing them lulls people into a false sense of security and they then don't take as much care with social distancing, etc. If the consensus on masks and my understanding of our response are right, that's a poor show. If behaviour is an issue, surely it's better to communicate to change the behaviour?
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Wearing of Facemasks on 19:03 - Aug 12 with 3175 views
Wearing of Facemasks on 18:56 - Aug 12 by LeonWasGod
Seems a strange one. The medical consensus is that they work (the wonderfully named Larry Brilliant, a worlfd leading American epidemiologist, reckons they provide about 5x the protection of not wearing them, off the back of a consideration of the availbale evidence).
From the little I've heard, we've taken the decision on behavioral grounds. The argument seeming to be that wearing them lulls people into a false sense of security and they then don't take as much care with social distancing, etc. If the consensus on masks and my understanding of our response are right, that's a poor show. If behaviour is an issue, surely it's better to communicate to change the behaviour?
From what I have heard Frank Atherton say it is that there maybe a marginal benefit to wearing a mask but that the evidence is very weak and not backed up by WHO. This was also said by Chris Whitty and others in England but Johnson decided to go ahead. Yes behavioural issue is a concern. There is a belief that people earing masks arent as likely to follow social distancing thinking the mask covers them but it doesnt.
Clearly the evidence shows Atherton's advice is working.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 19:08 - Aug 12 with 3169 views
From what I have heard Frank Atherton say it is that there maybe a marginal benefit to wearing a mask but that the evidence is very weak and not backed up by WHO. This was also said by Chris Whitty and others in England but Johnson decided to go ahead. Yes behavioural issue is a concern. There is a belief that people earing masks arent as likely to follow social distancing thinking the mask covers them but it doesnt.
Clearly the evidence shows Atherton's advice is working.
The WHO are very much for masks, they just make clear that they're not a magic bullet on their own.
The real aswer seems to be effective, rapid track and trace and then strict local lockdowns to contain and stop the spread. The east Asian countries seem to have it sussed.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 19:17 - Aug 12 with 3164 views
All in all I think I'll carry on wearing my mask AND observing social distancing. I'm not responsible for other people's behaviour but I can control my own.
Wearing of Facemasks on 19:17 - Aug 12 by Catullus
All in all I think I'll carry on wearing my mask AND observing social distancing. I'm not responsible for other people's behaviour but I can control my own.
It is fine it is your personal choice. It is when people are compelled and it doesnt seem necessary. The figures show that not wearing facemasks in shops hasnt led to cases One of the more interesting issues is that trace and protect ask for people you have been close to for 15 minutes. It would be very unusual for someone to be within 2 metres of anybody for 15 minutes in the shop. A bus or train yes. In a cinema, a pub restaurant etc yes and those are the places where the virus is likely to spread.
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Wearing of Facemasks on 21:42 - Aug 12 with 3105 views
It is fine it is your personal choice. It is when people are compelled and it doesnt seem necessary. The figures show that not wearing facemasks in shops hasnt led to cases One of the more interesting issues is that trace and protect ask for people you have been close to for 15 minutes. It would be very unusual for someone to be within 2 metres of anybody for 15 minutes in the shop. A bus or train yes. In a cinema, a pub restaurant etc yes and those are the places where the virus is likely to spread.
I have seen evidence from different Universities in several countres that wearing masks can help prevent the spread. There is so much conflicting evidence but generally speaking, as long as people are distancing then wearing a mask might help and that's good enough for me. It doesn't take 15 minute to catch this virus if distancing is ignored, one cough or sneeze, a few droplets is enough so being in shops could be an issue. In Vietnam they had an outbreak and they were clueless about how is started so I'm not sure how figures can show that there are no cases of transmission in shops, they can't be certain and figures/stats can be made to say many things. The experts are still making lots of guesses, until every expert is certain, how can anybody be certain?
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