Articles by Herschel Smith

So says the experts.

LONDON (Reuters) – Keeping at least one metre apart and wearing face masks and eye protection are the best ways to cut the risk of COVID-19 infection, according to the largest review to date of studies on coronavirus disease transmission.

In a review that pooled evidence from 172 studies in 16 countries, researchers found frequent handwashing and good hygiene are also critical – though even all those measures combined can not give full protection.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal on Monday, will help guide governments and health agencies, some of whom have given conflicting advice on measures, largely because of limited information about COVID-19.

“Our findings are the first to synthesise all direct information on COVID-19, SARS, and MERS, and provide the currently best available evidence on the optimum use of these common and simple interventions to help ‘flatten the curve’”, said Holger Schünemann from McMaster University in Canada, who co-led the research.

Current evidence suggests COVID-19 is most commonly spread by droplets, especially when people cough, and infects by entering through the eyes, nose and mouth, either directly or via contaminated surfaces.

For this analysis, an international research team conducted a systematic review of 172 studies assessing distance measures, face masks and eye protection to prevent transmission of three diseases caused by coronaviruses – COVID-19, SARS and MERS.

The researchers noted that the findings, while comprehensive, have some limitations for the current pandemic since most of the evidence came from studies of SARS and MERS.

Ooo … I’m askeerd, hold me Uncle Bob!

Since I’ve gone on record saying that I don’t believe them without certain studies being performed in a certain manner with certain credentialed professionals, am I now so beaten down by the academic bureaucrats that I retract my position?

Then there’s this.

They found, however, that physical distancing of at least 1 metre lowers risk of COVID-19 transmission, and that a distance of 2 metres could be more effective. Masks and protective eye coverings may also add protective benefits, though the evidence for that was less clear cut, they added.

Yea, it’s less clear cut because not a damn thing has been done to prove it.

I repeat myself.

I won’t believe any of your models or data until [at least] the following has been done.  Assemble an interdisciplinary team of experts, in fields such as industrial hygiene, air filtration engineering, physics, chemistry, and medicine.  Formulate hypotheses on the distribution of particle sizes (there isn’t one particle size, there is a distribution, and it may be a normal distribution, or it may not, it may be a right skewed distribution, or it may be a left skewed distribution); back up your hypothesis with experimental data; assemble a panel of experts to test filters of various types, from cotton, to N95, to HEPA filters, on those particle sizes; report the results; next, do the same with the [possibly] polar composition of viruses and their travelling companion water molecules or other particles, and report results; results shall at least include and consider (a) trajectory, (b) evaporation, (c) re-evolution of particles and viruses into the air stream, (d) and where the collection of particles occurs.

Determine, based on this team’s judgment, whether there is an unhealthy buildup of viruses on the masks you have tested, both for the patient and the worker (or any passerby).  Include in this analysis not only SARS-CoV-2 viruses, but other pathogens as well.  Specifically include in your analysis the buildup and concentration of Legionella bacteria, what we found to be so problematic at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel when the HVAC engineers directed intake air flow over the top of the condensate discharge from the evaporator units.  Masks collect moisture.

Considering the whole of the findings of this investigation, perform a probabilistic risk analysis for various populations wearing masks under various conditions (including people who have a low oxygen saturation level anyway).  After coming to agreement between the entirety of the committee of experts, prepare a formal report under the authority of a professional engineer’s seal and signature.  Publish all mathematical models, data and test results for peer review.  I want this seal because the researchers have nothing to lose if the contents are wrong.  A professional engineer has his reputation and livelihood to lose.

Only then are you doing science.  Only then will I believe anything you have to say.

Nothing has changed, and no one to date has done anything even remotely approaching real science on this matter.  Everything thus far has been fake.  I do science.  I know fake science when I see it.

No, not for the riots, the broken windows, the shootings, the beatings, the theft of property, the bricks that were thrown, the clogging of streets, the litter in the roadways, the unnecessary fires, the overtime we will all have to pay for government workers, and on the list goes.  I’ll send you the itemized bill.  It will be long and large.

But I do have to say that I’ve noticed what others have.  Gun sales are at record levels.

More than 1.7 million firearms were sold in the U.S. last month, up 80 percent compared to last May. That follows a 71 percent surge in April to just under 1.8 million sold, and just under two million guns were sold in March.

Some perspective: The all-time record, following the Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s address vowing to make a major push for more gun control, was two million guns sold in January 2013. This chart shows a general trend upward for years. In September 2001, gun sales were only about 750,000, and that was a month when sales surged.

So we’re looking at just a hair under record gun sales for each of the last three months, totaling about 5.5 million firearms sold in 90 days. Presumably June gun sales will also be robust.

Oh, I assure you they will be.  Sales are big somewhere near enough to me, and when I go down to my local Academy Sports somewhere in Gaston County, while there are the various shoppers buying odds and ends – coolers, chairs, and so forth – the main clientele are folks like me headed to the guns and ammo section because we know when the trucks come in.  We know.  Online sales are only so good.  We must supplement.

Whites and blacks are there together, and no one is fighting.  I’ve had many a discussion with black folk wanting protection from the thugs.  The thugs.  You know who they are.  The brown shirts.  Or in this case, the black shirts.  They are white, they are black.  But they are all communists.

Sure enough, it may not come to that and it may only involve fists and such.  But if it does, suburban and rural America is more than ready.

My own chairman of the board of county commissioners recently wrote an article in a local paper and said “You can take my guns out of my cold, dead hands.”  That was right before we became a 2A sanctuary county.

I’ve tried, my colleague gun bloggers have tried, and Lord knows, we’ve tried so hard.  But we haven’t really been as successful as we’d like.

Enter, Antifa.  You created memes.  You made a hero out of folks who disarm you.  You outed your sponsors, you showed what it takes to stop you, and you showed just how bad you are.

I’ve known it all along, me and my readers, the fact that the police aren’t there to protect us.  We knew it from Warren v. D.C. and Castle Rock v. Gonzalez.

But now America knows it viscerally, existentially.  They know it for real, in terms of home, hearth and family.

Congratulations!  You did what I could never have achieved.

For that, I thank you.

News from Alaska.

Well, I don’t think he did everything right.  I’d be carrying a large bore handgun.

I have written the AP reporter who authored this report and asked her what weapon was used and what caliber.

She wrote back immediately and stated that she didn’t know, but gave me the contact information of the plant.  I have contacted them with these same questions.

If I get a response I’ll let you know.  Both I and Dean Weingarten would be very interested in that information.

Link.

Baseball bats.

Not so sure that’s really a good idea.  I’d want a gun.

I don’t want to hear another word about social distancing.

Lot’s of stuff, David Petraeus, “continuity of government,” MANVI, immigrant recruit program, and so on.

From Gab.

POST #1 WRSA REBOOT CYCLE
1955E 2JUN2020

That Would Be Called An “Indicator”

One of the early goals of all Red revolutions is the seizure or destruction of all information distribution outlets.

There is only one truth to the Communist: that day’s party line.

Woe unto those who do not adhere.

The second iteration of the Western Rifle Shooters Association (WRSA) blog, hosted by WordPress, was nuked today.

While it is a loss, it was a deliberate sacrifice of a player to increase situational awareness.

The Reds are on the move.

The prize is the former United States of America.

The Red cares not about race, except to the extent it can and is used to befog the naive about the Party’s real goals.

WRSA was, first and always, a freedom advocacy site.

It was shot out of the saddle today by an arm of the Communist enemy propaganda machine.

Their attack did not kill WRSA.

Nor did it kill a single one of its followers.

The totalitarian bastards really can’t stop the signal.

Take heart, not just in this tiny skirmish but in the overall struggle to save the West, from WRSA’s final masthead:

“This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

― Winston Churchill

Forward.

CA asked me to post this information, but I have no idea and have gotten no information from CA on whether Gab will be the final stop or if there are other plans in the works.

I have a Gab account but haven’t been active on it in a long time.  I might need to start.

WordPress can legally do this, as can Blogspot.  They see themselves as owning an author’s content, and can ban him at any time for reasons they don’t have to explain.

I have WordPress functionality, but I’m not hosted by WordPress.  I’ve done this before, but once again, I plead with all liberty-minded folks who blog on WordPress or Blogspot to get off, now.  Back up your content, move it to a new site, and start up on an independent server where ‘they’ can’t get to you.  Don’t even tell Blogspot or WordPress what you’re doing.  Just do it.

Please.

First, there is this news from Military.com.

Guard members are carrying rifles, sidearms and ammunition in response to a “credible threat” aimed directly against them as reported by the FBI, Army Maj. Gen. Jon Jensen, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard, said in a phone briefing with reporters.

So regular readers know I’m a wonk for such things.  This means that there were arming orders.  There had to be, or else they would have had no ammunition or weapons.

Next up, via David Codrea, this interesting news.

Townhall’s Julio Rosas is on the ground in Minneapolis this week, reporting on the protests and riots. Tonight he’s reporting that the riot police and the National Guard have abandoned a perimeter they had set up earlier in the day, chased away by the rioters.

[ … ]

Minutes ago Rosas, who’s a tough Marine, by the way, tweeted video of the protesters/rioters cheering as police and the National Guard abandoned their post near the third precinct, which rioters torched on Thursday night.

So much for arming orders.  So much for weapons and ammunition.  So much for ROE.  I guess it’s better to let looters destroy businesses, throw bricks, smash windows and hit people over the head with boards.