Most of the mask mandates have many specific exemptions (such as not having to wear a mask while smoking). Many people simply make use of those exemptions. Wanting to breathe freely is a medical reason to not wear a mask. Struggling with feelings of claustrophobia is a medical reason to opt out. Being convinced that it is your own decision and not up to the church or state is a religious reason to opt out. Also, many who disobey do so with the intent of suing the State if arrested, and thus challenging an unconstitutional law (especially since in most states these are all gubernatorial edits NOT actual laws made by elected bodies-- and there is currently no court in session whose job it is to challenge such unconstitutional abuse of the executive branch). The departments of justice of several states has already affirmed that they would side with citizens against the state due to the irrationality of the measures in their states-- masks, closures, distancing… (ETA: DOJ Would Support Legal Action If Governors' Restrictions Go 'Too Far,' Barr Says : Coronavirus Updates : NPR)
Which nobody is arguing about.
Show me where either quarantine or mask laws have been ruled unconstitutional in the past. Both have been challenged before. We’ve given evidence. We actually read and studied the laws and applicable rulings and even cited them. If you want to argue further, please cite evidence. Don’t just rail against your hosts in this community.
Please provide a citation for this claim from the CDC or WHO. It is, as far as I am aware, false.
Edited to add: Perhaps you simply made a typo? I seem to recall another friend saying the CDC estimate is 99.6%—a huge difference, but only one digit off.
Sure, I’ll be glad to help w data.
First up, when you visit the CDC “dispelling myths” page (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/share-facts.html), this is their #2 myth buster: “For most people, the immediate risk of becoming seriously ill from the virus that causes COVID-19 is thought to be low.”
Second, it is pretty darn hard to get an answer about fatality rates from covid. (When you go to the CDC covid death pages, it only gives death numbers, not percentages -https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm.… and when we read the coding descriptions for covid deaths it’s crazy. Other pages group all deaths from influenza, pneumonia and covid (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html). I have calculated covid fatality rates myself using the daily-updated data for my area (Greenville, SC)-- for ex as of today, we have had 123 deaths and 7856 confirmed cases (=1.56% fatality). Of course we’ll see whether death rates increase over time. My state’s rates are similar: 1075 deaths out of 65939 confirmed cases (=1.63% fatality). You can see rates by nation here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality --the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center… you can see there that the fatality rates can vary quite widely even among the 20 nations most affected by covid, from 1.4% fatality in South Africa to 15.4% in the UK. Many nations are between the 2-4% fatality rate, including the US at the moment. (3.9% as of today’s latest data). The WHO keeps a worldwide count here: https://covid19.who.int, and that shows a 4.3% average worldwide, taking into account even crazy outlier countries like the UK. SO… even tho 4% is fairly low, how does it jive with the CDC’s overview that “most people won’t be seriously ill?”
THIS IS CRUCIAL remember that covid is known to disproportionately affect certain age groups-- specifically those with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic lung disease – then you have to re-evaluate that 4% worldwide to actually look at the risk of dying of covid for MOST PEOPLE. Ok… so… on one of the many CDC covid-case surveillance pages, the topic is the effect of pre-existing conditions on the covid fatality rate, and there is this VERY IMPORTANT SUMMARY: “As of May 30, 2020, among COVID-19 cases, the most common underlying health conditions were cardiovascular disease (32%), diabetes (30%), and chronic lung disease (18%). Hospitalizations were six times higher and deaths 12 times higher among those with reported underlying conditions compared with those with none reported.” Those without underlying conditions, according to the CDC, have a fatality rate of 1.6%. And that’s IF they contract the disease and IF they are tested. (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6924e2.htm). So most people, if we contract covid as a healthy adult without pre-existing condition… we have a 98.4% chance of recovery according to the CDC. But even that is not the whole story-- again, this number is calculated purely based on the number of confirmed results and the number of covid deaths (and both numbers have a lot of questions at this point).
Final note is the Stanford study, which even further lowers the fatality rate from covid among the general population. This study was one of the first done, in one of the earliest-hit areas of the nation: Santa Clara County, CA. The study did large numbers of antibody tests on the general population and found that far more people in the region had had covid (and recovered) than had ever been estimated, which then meant that the fatality rate was far far lower than originally estimated. “Infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 1.63% and corrected values ranged from 0.00% to 1.31%. Across 32 different locations, the median infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.24%). Most studies were done in pandemic epicenters with high death tolls. …Estimates of infection fatality rates inferred from seroprevalence studies tend to be much lower than original speculations made in the early days of the pandemic.” This raises the question of whether even the low 1.6% our CDC cites as the fatality rate for the general population is even far too high, because we are almost certainly underestimating the number of people who have recovered from covid without ever being tested. The Stanford study places the recovery rate at 99.75%… and that’s even in areas with high death tolls and many elderly. (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v3.full.pdf+html)
For children the survival rate is even higher… they don’t tend to get covid in the first place, making up about 2% of covid cases in the US so far, and that seems to hold steady worldwide, even in impoverished areas such as regions of India. At publication of this update, in the US there had been 3 covid-associated deaths, and of those all the children had other/pre-existing conditions and as of yet had not even been ruled true covid-caused deaths, just “covid-associated” (and under investigation) (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e4.htm). The total pediatric cases at the time of the briefing was 2,572. That’s a fatality rate of 0.11% for kids (99.89% recovery)… and so far 100% recovery rate in kids without pre-existing conditions.
In other words, you were in error in your claim concerning the CDC estimate. Nobody estimates a .04% infection fatality rate. Even for children it is three times higher than that, and for the overall population it is wrong by roughly an order of magnitude with current estimates.
Edit: Thank you for correcting your earlier claim.
The state heavily regulates your diet and your medicine through such mechanisms as the FDA. The US Federal Government even keeps a list of chemical compounds that are not approved for any medical use whatsoever, called “Schedule 1 drugs”. I personally knew a man who was disciplined out of my church for using one.
Public health has always been a government function, including here in America. We can argue about good and bad ways of exercising that function, or I suppose that we could argue about whether it should or should not be a government function. But there it is.
If all you take from this response is getting hung up on a number instead of everything else I said… that is concerning. Especially because both 99.75 and 99.96 are really really high survival rates and neither indicate a true pandemic. Remember that ALL of this restriction hinges on there being an emergency that threatens national health. Those of us who are acting in line with reality -who are seeking to be good stewards of our health and our national freedoms- are not being rebellious or stiff-necked as @Krlamb1put it.
I said what I did about using the exemptions for religious & medical reasons to not wear a mask in response to the assertion that many are just “complaining and defying”-- no, lots of people are making use of every legal means to circumvent what they believe to be an unjust governmental overreach as @mrsaville mentioned.
Also, @FaithAlone the state most certainly does NOT regulate my diet nor my medicine. I always have the freedom to not take a drug, and I certainly can eat anything I want. No church nor state can dictate a paleo diet or a keto diet or a Vegan one… but a parent can. Sphere of the family vs. the church vs. the state. (And masks are symbolic for many, which is why many are willing to resist them-it’s not about “you can’t tell me what to do!” about things in general, it’s about keeping our spheres of authority straight.)
It would not be a good stewardship of my time or health to keep engaging in this discussion, though. I hope those who read the data I’ve presented will be edified and maybe even reconsider their perception of this illness… and their response to it, which could include voting for those who are against further lockdowns and mandates, even if a person chooses to submit to a mandate short-term. I hope the pastors who wrote this blog will reconsider their own admonitions.
If anyone wants to read another take on Christians submitting to their earthly leaders: Seven Biblical Principles for Reformational Civil Disobedience
Really? You are offended by a statement that a random stranger makes, that’s not even directed at you, but about people who refuse to accept epidemiological data, and first hand witness testimony about the seriousness of COVID-19. Are you serious? If you are actually offended by that then maybe you are the kind of person I was talking about. In which case I suggest you stop reading now.
Why is it so hard to understand that we measure death rate by a given number per 100,000 population, because we place a high value on human life. Rather than saying “hey only 0.19% of Americans died from heart disease, we say 198.8 Americans died per 100,000 population .“
The US COVID-19 death rate is currently at 42 :100,000 ; but each state has their own rate.
Here are a few:
New Jersey. 175 New York. 167 Connecticut. 123 Massachusetts. 121 Rhode Island. 93 District of Columbia. 80 Louisiana. 74 Michigan. 63 Illinois. 59 Maryland. 55 Pennsylvania. 54 Delaware. 53 Mississippi. 43 Indiana 41
But compared to other causes of death, let’s look at just a few, in every state listed COVID-19 ranks in the top ten.
#2 Cancerous tumors 183.9
#3 Accidental deaths. 52.2
#4 Pulmonary disease 49.2
#5 Strokes and embolisms 44.9
#7 Diabetes. 25.7
#8 Influenza and pneumonia 17.1
So what’s so amazing is that every one of these causes of death is in the top ten. But twelve states have a COVID-19 death rates in the top 5. The COVID-19 rate nationally is gaining on strokes and embolisms, the fifth leading cause of death, and we’ve been at this for only 1/3 of the year. Remember how everyone was saying it’s no different than the flu. Well it’s 230% worse than the flu on average.
Now I know you might say life has its risks, you could go outside and get hit by a car while crossing the road. But living in New Jersey in the last four months and your chances of dying from COVID-19 were 336% greater than the national rate for all accidental deaths for an entire year.
So please let’s just stop with the ‘it’s not that dangerous and overblown’ nonsense. There is no cause of death in America that kills more the 0.19% of Americans and you don’t hear anybody say, “Come on! You have a 99.91% chance of surviving a heart disease this year! We need to tell everybody to go on our all ice cream diet!”
No we are not Romans, ‘eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.’ But if we are Christian we take even the 17 deaths of influenza per 100,000 very seriously and seek to do better at not causing that illness in others, particularly those who are high risk. And for COVID-19 Christians don’t wine about masks when more people are dying from their neighbors sputum than are dying from diabetes. You can’t generally cause some to become diabetic, but you can cause someone to get infected with COVID-19.
Yes it does, and examples were given, but you didn’t even acknowledge them. The government restricts your ability to eat all sorts of things, as well as a variety of medicines. That is called regulation. They are prohibitions, not requirements, but your diet is most certainly regulated. If you deny that fact, you are claiming to be above the law. Even what you eat in private is regulated by the civil magistrate for the protection of life and peace and society. Please acknowledge that the government regulates what you eat or stop commenting.
When laws are requirements as opposed to prohibitions, they are generally about protecting the public, as in this instance.
So, for example, if you want to work at a fast food restaurant, you must wash your hands after using the restroom to prevent the spread of various diseases. Thousands of Christians submit every day to that requirement. I would have thought this was a non-controversial requirement, since I’ve literally never heard of somebody complaining about it except for children. But you, with your superior epidemiological knowledge, assure us hand-washing is useless. The only thing I can assume is that you think the government and employers have no right to require workers to wash their hands. That these are unjust laws and overstepping sphere boundaries. That what you do with your body is entirely up to you, even when engaging with the public.
Yet you presumably maintain your right to tell your children to wash their hands, even if they see no reason to do so and don’t want to.
In the real world such things are regulated on a daily basis, you benefit from them at the expense and inconvenience of others, and you don’t complain about it.
Doctors have been required to wear masks for years, cooks to wear hair nets, officers to wear cameras, all for the protection of the public. But you’ve suddenly come to the conclusion that nobody can be required by anybody else to wear anything or it’s an overstepping off sphere boundaries.
Sorry. It doesn’t jibe with reality. No shoes, no shirt, no service.