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Astronomy says we will find a coded signal from outer space. Then we'll KNOW that life exists there, for coded signals aren't by chance.

Biology says there are coded genetic signals in every cell, but we KNOW that no intelligence created life.

I'm the original owner of a white ' 84 2M4 purchased Dec 10, 1983 from Pontiac. Always garaged, no rust, 4-wheel drifts are fun!

Let's kick this off (very logically) with the Original Post or "Message #0" as I sometimes like to call it--a "nod" to the forum software's message sequencing number system.

"Top Pathologist Claims COVID-19 Is "The Greatest Hoax Ever Perpetrated On An Unsuspecting Public"

quote Top pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson told government officials in Alberta during a zoom conference call that the current coronavirus crisis is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News and reproduced at ZeroHedge; November 19, 2020.
https://www.zerohedge.com/m...-unsuspecting-public


I am willing to stake my several years of reputation as a reliably voluble Pennock's Totally Off Topic forum member (imagine that) . . .



. . . on my assertion, which I am about to assert, that this "Top" pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson is standing on some questionable and shaky ground, at the very least, if not literally spewing out a large dump truck-sized load of crap.

From the (brief) ZeroHedge report:

quote Hodkinson said that the risk of death in the province of Alberta for people under the age of 65 was “one in three hundred thousand,"

What about the risks of becoming seriously ill, even to the point of being hospitalized? And what about the risk of being discharged from hospital but continuing to suffer from the effects of "Long Covid", which are known to persist for many months and in some cases, look to be irreversible? I think those risks are not being as accurately tabulated as the risk of outright mortality from Covid, but it's something that seems to elude the grasp of Hodkinson's reasoning in that statement, like a sharply-struck ground ball that leaks past the outstretched fielder's glove of a shortstop and bounds into left field for an RBI single.

But let me cut him some slack on that estimation. Maybe when he referenced the "risk of death" he also had in mind all of the other severely negative outcomes that I just described. Maybe all of that is already "baked" into his risk assessment of "one in three hundred thousand" for people under the age of 65 in the province of Alberta. I'm eager to move ahead to his remarks about social distancing and masks.

quote Hodkinson remarked that “social distancing is useless because COVID is spread by aerosols which travel 30 meters or so before landing,”

Social distancing is "useless"..? I don't think a person has to be a practicing or fully credentialed scientist of any kind to see the improbability of that remark. It's commonly reported that a person's risk of becoming infected by the Covid virus is proportional to the amount of virus (literally, the number of Covid viruses) that they are being exposed to. It's not a binary or On-Off kind of situation, where the risk from being exposed to (in the limit) just a single virus is the same as or even remotely comparable to the risk from being exposed to a considerably larger number of virus particles.

Does Dr Hodkinson say otherwise to that? It's hard to imagine that he would. I think that would make him an enormous outlier from the world population of infectious disease experts.

Consider social distancing. It's best to avoid inhaling or any kind of exposure (on the eyes, in particular) to the viruses that would be shed by an infected person. It's mostly about not "swapping air" with another person, especially within an indoors context. Not breathing in the same air that the other person has just breathed out, and not becoming a target for any virus-laden droplets that the other person is projecting from their mouth as they speak. The farther away you are from that other person, the more that these virus transmission routes are reduced, as the other person's exhaled breath mixes with all the other air that is present (reducing the concentration of the virus) and the other person's droplets settle to the ground or onto some other nearby surface.

Six feet of social distancing is clearly preferable to being face to face and very close to that other person. Nine feet, even better. How would Dr Hodkinson estimate the risk (numerically) of being infected with the virus by aerosol, from as far away as "30 meters" from where the viruses were first put into the air by the exhalations or speech droplets of an infected person, and would it in any way compare (under most conditions) with the risk of being "up close and personal" with such an infected person?

I can't get my head around it, that he is using that example, of virus-laden aerosol at a distance of 30 meters from the origination point, to "shoot down" the effectiveness of social distancing. It's like he's saying that somewhere in the solar system, there's a big asteroid with Earth's "name" on it, so why bother to buckle into your seat belt and shoulder harness when you are about to drive your Fiero. Does that make much sense? Not hardly. Not to me.

If too many people aren't using proper face masks, or too many are not wearing the masks in an effective way, it's not because masks are part of a "hoax." It's because they haven't received or haven't incorporated the wisdom of the world renowned Vin'ster himself--Dr Vin Gupta--who advises the public on face masks in the most exemplary kind of way; to wit:



The better kinds of cloth masks. The widely used surgical-style single use masks or "robin egg blues." N95 masks. And eye protection and even full face shields. He tells it all.

What evidence is there for the efficacy of lower face covering masks in terms of interfering with person-to-person transmission of the virus? Interfering. Not completely stopping virus transmission under all circumstances, but reducing the transmission of the virus. Attenuating the transmission of the virus. That's the name of the game. It's like American-style football. The defense isn't expected to decide that it's all useless and call it a day, just because the opposing team's running back gained seven rush yards before he was tackled. What's the evidence? I see it here:

"Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech"
Fischer et al; Science Advances; September 2, 2020.
https://advances.sciencemag...ontent/6/36/eabd3083

"Aerosol Filtration Efficiency of Common Fabrics Used in Respiratory Cloth Masks"
Konda et al; American Chemical Society "Nano"; April 24, 2020.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/ab...1021/acsnano.0c03252

And a research paper that I posted on this forum a few days ago:

"Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech"
Emma P. Fischer et al; Science Advances 02 Sep 2020.
https://advances.sciencemag...ontent/6/36/eabd3083

The game can only be won by keeping the virus from scoring and using up clock time, until the Vaccine(s) are ready. Social distancing, face masks, self-restraint in the way of personal freedoms, formal restrictions on restaurants, bars, hotel occupancy, indoor gatherings (etc.)--it's all part of the game.

I don't see enough in that ZeroHedge report, or the brief YouTube video that's behind it, to induce me to credit this Dr Roger Hodkinson with any positive yardage on this play. I think he went from "first and ten" to "second and eighteen." The line of gain is that much farther away, when Hodkinson has the ball.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 11-20-2020).]

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 11-20-2020).]

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