I am not hellbent in discrediting them, I am not cackling at my computer as I type, I'm not even particularly interested in them as people. But I do look at sources. Are these the best sources? Are these the most qualified people to be redirecting a nation's response? I am not convinced about what they are "putting on the line" and the type of risk/reward they are currently experiencing. And, are you saying that the efforts of worldwide scientists running hundreds of different studies on hundreds of different approaches is...group think? I am not actually interested in hearing these doctors' perspectives or opinions anymore. I am, however, interested in their data. Again, where is the data? If it's real, give the data. If it's not, it's snake oil. You seem to be holding the rest of the world to a higher standard than these 10 doctors. I just don't see why this has become the hill of scientific thought that people want to defend. Out of everything, what has escalated these doctors, this press conference, this non-data-driven "science" into public news? What is the force behind this? What are you seeing that I am not? What makes this group "worthy of hope", that the doctors and researchers who are spending full time jobs, long and grueling workweeks dealing with it in and out, treating and researching Covid-19 are instantly less believable than these doctors who, by your definition may be front line, but are certainly are not the most experienced in the war. What is it? I may agree that fear is hurting people too. Hope is the best medicine against fear. But I am not going to sell this snake oil and call it hope.

This. This is why we can't have nice things. 😞

I love learning something true, even at the temporary expense of my pride. I think a lot of the board is similar, which is why this is the only place I'll get into these discussions. Or maybe I'm just so used to being wrong, and crow is an acquired taste 😉

This may have to do with location. A few weeks ago the guy in line in front of me, unmasked, looked back at me, laughed at me and said to the cashier (but for my benefit), "People are really duped about this whole thing. What a bunch of sheep." (Actually can't remember the exact words anymore, which is progress since I replayed it a lot in the days afterward.) I'm consistently seeing people in my local area not saying they *can't* wear masks, or it's *difficult to wear* masks, but that they *won't* wear a mask or that *it's inconvenient* to wear a mask. So, because this informs my perception of the objections, I tend to address these objections more and have less patience now than I did last month. But, I do know and understand there are people with genuine medical concerns, and I try not to invalidate that since I don't have the knowledge on the topic, and instead just say "face shield?" if I think it's helpful. But even in these cases, we need to find ways that address their problems and preserve the safety of the population at large. It doesn't just flip the switch to meaning certain people are exempt from how they can be affecting the health of others.

One, it was obviously a typo. (eta, yes I know you know) Second, the doctors and researchers are constantly searching for me, too. But not for my credentials.........

My immediate thought was Dorry, "Yes, I'm a natural blue!"

So this is something I was thinking about separately based off of a few responses in the thread re: if the board is being harsh on this, but then you said this so perfectly I felt like I wanted to use it as a deck to jump from. Because I think this is a thing, that we are confusing our opinions and feelings on this topic. PeterPan, this isn't actually directed towards you, I'm just taking a thought and doing a think out loud from it (eta: I think you're actively doing your best with your situation and actively looking to make it better, so yeah, my below is totally not about you). The "you" is a "general you" for the rest of this post. First, feelings are always valid because they are emotions, you cannot change them and each person has them. Even if someone can make the argument that a feeling may not be "justified" [because breaking a pencil tip does not actually "justify" a crying fit that lasts for hours] does not negate that the actual emotion being felt by the person is valid. Anyone who tried to "take away" or downplay your feelings is in the wrong. But, opinions are not feelings. An opinion is a thought. And not all thoughts are created equal. Specifically, when an thought/opinion deals with a scientific area, and that opinion is in direct contradiction to the observed facts and truths of the scenario it is reasonable to have others disagree with you and show you that your opinion is not actually a valid one. I cannot state that my opinion is Pluto was robbed of its planethood ('that's messed up, right?') to a room of astronomers and then expect them to "respect my beliefs" on the subject. So, when people are continually putting forth opinions/arguments that we shouldn't as a society be promoting masks, people are coming out to disagree with them based on the mounting evidence that masks can help us fight Covid-19. I think some of us are getting a bit less discussion-over-tea because it has a) been going on so long b) we have addressed most of these objections multiple times now and c) it doesn't feel like the other side is actually listening: they just want us to hear their opinions, be acknowledged as "valid", not have any actual discussion around it or admit that their opinion is ONLY an opinion and can be wrong. Yes, there are *concerns* around wearing masks, and those are something as a society we are trying to grapple with. I think the majority of this thread has actually been pretty constructive in trying to think about how to make masks more acceptable and less anxiety-inducing for those that are having a negative reaction. And I get the thing about everyone having different medical/physical tolerances and actual medical contra-indicators, and we need to find, again, ways to accommodate this while still keeping society at large safe (face shields for example. I've been a big promoter of that around here with all my links, lol, because I acknowledge there is a place for it for some situations/people and I want it to be normalized for them). That does not make an opinion about society in general not wearing masks any more valid when compared to the evidence. Having one good point does not mean your overall position is tenable. If the topic was phrased more as "I'm having serious anxiety about using masks and seeing masks in society. Kids are probably going to have serious anxiety about this, too," you would see a much different response. But the thread was started more as, "There are health concerns about wearing masks, look at these anecdotes. Are we doing the right thing by making our children wear them?" with an insinuation that we are not. So of course people are doing to point out the facts about mask wearing and the benefits. Once you bring in 1 anecdote about how masks could be a bad thing in general, you have to be prepared for 1+ anecdotes to the contrary as well as a mountain of data to fall on you. In scientifically-based situations, if you are willing to air an opinion, you have to be prepared to accept your opinion is wrong. Or you can, I suppose, just say you don't care if it's wrong and keep it. (Hi, Mom!)

To directly answer your actual question: I think the general effect we are hypothesizing is that they are kept healthier and free from coronavirus as much as possible. A reminder, we do not know the long term effects of coronoavirus on our children, either.

I do wonder if a lot of the rhetoric around masks is close to a/as negative effect more than as well as the mask itself. Since we are talking about anecdotes: I've basically sheltered my kids from all of this -- not exactly intentionally, they just aren't going anywhere, we don't watch TV, and it's not our dinner discussion, etc. -- and on the 1 occasion they had to leave the house and wear a mask, they spent half the time pretending they were super heroes. After a bit they did want to take them off, completely understandable, but did not *need* to. I'm sure someone, somewhere, is somehow negatively affected by using a mask. In fact, a lot of people. But I don't think that should form the mask policy for the entire population, especially with the benefits we see with their use. "The needs of the many.." But how can we minimize the issues? For children specifically: better fitting masks, making the idea itself friendly, education on them -- both why they are useful and how to use them -- and making it socially acceptable will go a long ways towards easing a lot of the assumed negatives. There will still be issues, but those are the very people we are trying hardest to protect by having the rest of us use masks. edit because my point is a not comparison judgement as much as "and also"

I can see this to a point. But, this is not her saying "Demons are the reasons for your endometriosis. Here is [valid medical treatment] that will help you and also let's pray together." It is tone deaf not to understand other cultures, but it is irresponsible to give credence to medical harm done by a doctor because they are originally from somewhere else. Also, this is making a huge possible jump in assumption of the reason for her beliefs, which may be both insulting (to her and to her original culture) and stretching for the sake of argument, "grasping at straws" to try and scrap together some form of validation. I would like to see actual proof of the origin of her beliefs instead of this type of speculation. (eta as well, also believing in demons has zero to do with asserting that HCQ can cure coronavirus in 24 hours. All her medical beliefs can't be similarly explained away as culture or a misunderstanding between worlds. Not what you're doing, but over-generalization seems to be a thing on this thread.) edit because I had a sentence fragment and to clarify how much slack this would even get her if true.

My kids have been doing the Spartan exercises in the linked post above. It's just a one page printout where they do the exercises daily. We add bike for DD11 since she has been making noises about doing a kid triathalon, and once we can find an open pool (probably next year) she wants to be ready.

I see you, Quill. (chose this photo in particular for his "how do you like me now" eyes, lol)

The mouse-over says "Canada's travel restrictions on the US are 99% about keeping out COVID and 1% about keeping out people who say "pod."

Oh, yes! Okay, that's for sure true, I'm sorry Kareni if that's what you are asking and I glazed over it. Still haven't found my receipt (you should see me at tax time...) but I do know it was definitely an actual shipping charge without a crazy markup. 🙂 I've been watching an unrelated package dance across the US. Its past 24 hour progress has actually gone farther away from me, and it's now enjoying the sights in Knoxville. (I know hubs and all that, it's just been funny that my package has done more traveling this year than I have, lol)

HI Kareni, I can't remember the shipping fee, it's been a couple months. I'll look for my receipt but may not find it until tomorrow if that's ok. I remember it not being that much, though, the package was fairly compact and light. I got the 3-in-1 option, I don't think the others were available when I ordered. It looks like the 3-in-1 is the one that can be worn, well, all 3 ways, and I tend to switch between the 3 so I do find that feature useful. Let me know if you have more questions! And if you do get it, please let me know what you think 🙂

Okay, this is an actual serious question: is there a flavor to kombucha other than death? I mean, is there actually a brand/flavor of kombucha that tastes good, not ...like kombucha? Maybe it's just me, in which case no offense to those of you with evolved palettes. I'm trying to acquire a taste for it, but....yeah.

Re: taking things down, free speech, and censorship of opinions, and all opinions matter. Not quoting anyone in particular because the point is more general than a particular quote. I can get this on topics where lives are not at stake. Even on those topics, though, there isn't some magical power that makes our words not affect others. We always have a personal responsibility for the type of content we put out into our conversations. But there are real consequences to spreading and giving credence to unscientific approaches to medicine. So, what is our personal responsibility in all this? Real lives are at stake. "I'm just saying it's interesting" does not absolve you from critical thinking and the consequences of spreading misinformation that has negative effects on patients. This is leading others astray, willingly, because you were unwilling to either do the research yourself or because you wanted something to be true so you ignored all evidence otherwise and didn't ask for evidence supporting it. "But they should do their own critical thinking anyway!" So can you. God (or natural ability) has given you the ability to do this, and you should be using this gift to the benefit of both you and those around you, instead of assuming God (or natural ability) has given them the same capacity, since we all have different gifts. If you can recognize you are *not* using critical thinking by relying on others to do so instead, are you willing to take on the personal responsibility of thoughtlessly spreading medical opinions that can be damaging? Real lives are at stake. "I was just furthering the conversation, not saying it was true!" You aren't furthering a conversation, you are redirecting it, without qualifications or data to support your redirection, away from what the people with the current medical knowledge and daily pulse on the data think it should be going. Or, in the case of the numerous studies of the HCQ currently being conducted, you are misleading others into thinking that this is not being done and fueling their distrust of the very people who are working to save them. "But why are these ideas being silenced?" Other doctors/institutions are actively looking into HCQ in ways that can be measurably applied to further action, so the idea itself isn't being silenced. It's just that opinions without data are being held to the level of importance they should be, and perhaps even too much more than that. Your voices are being heard, too, as is evidenced by this thread and news reports and the facts that now this Dr. Immanuel is one of the few national doctors I know, maybe 1 out of 3. So don't make this about not being heard, because you are. (Being heard does not equal people agreeing with you.) Discussion is a part of the scientific process, but so is data. What is our personal responsibility to our society as a whole about giving unsupported opinions the same weight of thousands of hours of research and study? This isn't an armchair debate about the best way to train dogs or how often you should get a general checkup. Real lives are at stake.

My "pick me up" drink is usually administered in the afternoon, but in the summers I make either: - a smoothie, I've done both milk/yogurt based and coconut water based, with various fruits and maybe some veg - iced mint tea with a little bit of sugar/honey/agave/sweetner of choice if the need is bad - chocolate milk! These aren't really natural caffeine based, it's the sugar doing the trick, but they get me through that rough period on a hot afternoon where the only true wish is to take a nap.

I don't know what exactly you are imagining here. This would not look like a debate where someone is pummeling their fist on the podium, sweat beading on their brow, with one other person standing on the other side of the stage, perhaps cooly sipping their water or shuffling their papers to look disinterested and unaffected. That's good TV. That's not good science. I'm assuming that you sincerely want these ideas to be given true consideration, right? True consideration wouldn't be done in an hour with commercial breaks, it would be days of deliberate and well-thought questions; no pithy zingers, no gotcha moments, no audience gasps as the damning piece of data on Table 3-42b is highlighted. "Scientific debate", ie "Science", is literally is what these scientists are doing all day, every day. They aren't going to just pencil in "2-4pm Thursday afternoon, HCQ final decision". The point of science is to LEARN, to get closer to the truth, logically test and fine tune theories and hypotheses, not to win. Also: "host debates all the time over lesser issues." I do not see what the importance of an issue has in relation to its debatability. Subjectiveness is a more key element than importance, and the more scientific you go the less subjectivity you are allowed.

I've done so good just lurking this thread, but a quick escapade. So, you say "I think silencing doctors is not the right move". Intimating they are being silenced. Frances disagrees with you, "They are hardly being silenced." And you respond, "Bingo!" I don't know if you've played Bingo before, because I do not think it means what you think it means. On a more on-topic note: a scientific debate (and I'm using the term loosely here) would require both sides to bring all data to the table with plenty of time before hand so that the debaters (ie scientists) could study the data and conclusions drawn from it. One side is already presenting their data for review in the form of journals. The logical step, if you are sincere in wanting this debate, would be for this doctor's data to be presented completely for review, either in a journal if one would be willing to print, or, I'm sure, there are other ways. So really, it's not that we are even at the point of rejecting a debate (which could be a valid decision in itself), but rather this doctor is not prepared for one. This is not the other side's fault. They cannot debate or question (or validate!!) what they cannot see, ie her data. I have seen people in this thread ASK to see the data, which seems to be in more good faith than they are being given in return. An opinion/assertion is not enough to bring to the table in a scientific setting. Otherwise I would opine/assert that cookies do not make me gain weight, and no, you cannot see my data. Or my clothes size. Checkmate, primary care physician.

I feel like something got conflated there and I'm afraid that if the conversation keeps rolling on w/o it being addressed, it's going to further confuse what people have actually been advocating. You are right that there is a difference, but no one above your post, that I can discern, has called these two things the same nor called for both to happen. People (or at least me) have been advocating for the first part of your sentence, which I underlined above: full time work that allows them to support themselves Not necessarily the second part, which I italicized above (well, technically, I obliqued it): every available job having a wage such that a person is able to support themselves fully These are two separate ideas, so you are right there is a difference, but I'm not sure why we are even talking about the second scenario since I don't see this being brought up before. Namely, the word fulltime is key to most of our arguments here. I fully acknowledge that a part time job should not necessarily make enough money to support someone. "every available" as you put it, would include people working from 1-300 hours, which is too broad for the scope. I don't know if it was a misunderstanding or a misspeak. If you change it to every available full time job having a wage such that a person is able to support themselves fully we could probably get some people to advocate for it, albeit a lot of disagreement on what that "fully" looks like. Also, the phrase "every adult having access to" (bolded in quote) is another red herring here, or at least a misstatement of the previous arguments, since no one was advocating that everyone should have the right to a job. I don't know anyone's stance on that particular idea in this thread, because this is the first time I am seeing it brought up. So I am going to throw that out as well, if you don't mind. Which brings us back to the phrase "full time work that allows them to support themselves" as being the sticking point. I'm not trying to be pendantic, I just didn't want the underlined and the obliqued to get conflated as the same thing. Which it felt like you might have thought *we* thought (or i shouldn't speak for a group, so *I* thought), since you started with "I think there is a difference."

Okay, i do see what you are saying. Yeah, I am not saying flipping burgers should be $45k/yr (more from an inflation standpoint, it would be a temporary solution anyway), as much as I am saying that one should be able to afford their basic necessities on whatever they are making if they are working full time. IE if the job pays $26k/yr, you should be able to live on it. I can see how this sounds inconsistent, but there's a thought here that I'm still trying to get at and I'm not able to articulate yet. I was brought up being told that only teenagers should be working flipping burgers. And that adults got "real jobs." Now that I am an adult, though, the majority of people I see working these jobs are adults also. And there aren't other jobs available, at least in my area. Is this a change? Has our society changed and have our job views reflected that? Should we still consider some jobs "kids only"? Do we need to shift away from this expectation? Or, if we as a society decide this is still true, are we willing to have government support for those adults who do not age out of these jobs? If not, what are we willing to allow in terms of our fellow man's situation? So maybe what we are discussing is underemployment and the problems that come from that. And, I do have some weird preconceptions around the idea of "productive member of society." That I don't think are exactly true. Where our worth as a person and what we deserve (ie, being able to survive) is tied to our job. Which is the reality of things in a way, but I don't think acknowledges the full picture. Still not articulating it. And my kids just informed me that they are starting an ice cream business?? And need to use my ice cream machine?? And a loan?? So I need to see what has happened in this house since I've been on the board all morning, lol. So can't really finish the thought right now, hopefully later, assuming that the ice cream business goes smoothly.

And here we have our differing starting principle: if we cannot agree that working full time should allow you to support yourself, at least yourself, then I think we have an impasse. OOC, would changing the word back to "survive" make any difference? (And I would mean survive without government assistance or charity. Frugality and no steak is okay. We could perhaps discuss minimal government assistance, but I see that as then the government subsidizing the employer, not just the person. edit, let's not overcomplicate things yet, lol)