US sends surge team to southwest Missouri after Delta variant fuels rise in cases and hospitalizations

[Chalkie]

2 hours ago, DanZemke said:

I see nothing wrong with the KN-95 masks that Kirk linked to.  I'm suggesting an alternative KN-95 because I've had lots of satisfied experience with them.

https://bonafidemasks.com/face-masks/kn95-respirator-face-masks/

I am glad you are satisfied with them Dan but my objection to them would be the same as in Kirk's original mask link. They are made in CHINA. I hope my reply is polite enough since they last time I was spanked for rudeness. 

[DanZemke]

Chalkie,

I respect your opinion and see nothing wrong with honest responses, like your's.  But I'm not a moderator 🙂

With my economist's hat on (yes I have a BA in economics), most economists, believe that world-trade is a win/win situation for consumers.  For example, about two thirds of the world's semiconductors are currently produced in Taiwan.  Not because they cheated.  They invested more, and with some luck, created superior manufacturing capabilities.  How do we in the US benefit from this?  We consumers get better, and less expensive devices, like cellular phones, than we would have without without the Taiwan' manufacturing capabilities.

Which companies, and their employees lost?  An obvious example is Intel.  But after I graduated, the only company I worked for, was IBM.   IBM lost too, as well as many others.  They all bet wrong.

To be clear, I'm not, pro-China.  I am - pro US-consumer.

 -------------------

This link provided a small bar graph when I first accessed it.  But it now results in a request for payment from me.  Hopefully it will work for you.  In any, the key point is Taiwan, 66%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037531/taiwan-global-semiconductor-market-share-by-operation/

Edited July 25, 2021 by DanZemke

[Chalkie]

15 hours ago, DanZemke said:

To be clear, I'm not, pro-China.  I am - pro US-consumer.

I think statement sums up my feelings for the most part. There are some things, however, that given a choice I will opt to buy made in the USA (even at a higher price), medical items comes under that category as I am simply not comfortable with the quality control. 

[Kirk W]

8 hours ago, Chalkie said:

There are some things, however, that given a choice I will opt to buy made in the USA (even at a higher price),

Buy American programs have been around a long time with very little impact because the majority will buy based mostly on price. A good example of this is the chorus of folks who attack Walmart for running local stores out of business, while they shop there because the prices are lower. We could keep local businesses open if we were only willing to pay the prices that result from US wages, compared to those in third world countries. 

I will never forget driving past the parking lot for a large GM plant in Arlington, TX and seeing the many imported cars of the union workers there. 

[DanZemke]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:30 AM, Chalkie said:

There are some things, however, that given a choice I will opt to buy made in the USA (even at a higher price), medical items comes under that category as I am simply not comfortable with the quality control. 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  We appear to agree.  I will often opt to buy made in the USA (even at a higher price) too.

Two nuances.  The masks I recommended did get FDA approval, which I verified last Spring when I first purchased them.  I've actually used them, and found them preferable to several others I tried. Shouldn't that make them the gold star standard? 🙂

Edited July 27, 2021 by DanZemke
clarity

[RV_]

I bought KN 95 and the flimsy folded blue ones. I returned a few boxes of the flimsy folded blue ones but got stuck with some. We wear KN95s from China with four or five layers anywhere indoors where there are other people. We never stopped because everyone saw this coming months ago.

I would have been thrown out of the OR and not allowed to assist in surgery back in the day if I hung my nose out of my mask.

The virus is transmitted, put simply, by exhaling large loads of virus by infected people with the Delta variant. Makes no difference mouth or nose. Those passing along the Delta variant are exhaling exponentially larger virus loads with each breath than the original COVID strain produced in infected people. That is why it is more infectious.

We get infected by inhaling those exhaled virus loads. This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated insofar as healthy people are concerned, and the vaccinated are not the ones dying when a variant does infect them. Hanging their nose out of their masks also allows them to inhale the large viral loads the Delta variant produces in infected people.

As a retired person who was a Medical Lab Technologist, not just a phlebotomist, I can assure you that pathogens be they bacteria, rickettsia, prions, one celled organisms like Girardia Lamblia, or multicelled like trichina worms, do not have political affiliations and do not choose to infect one over the other.

We are all at risk. I am holding off on any non emergent medical appointments or procedures again.

And because so many are playing Russian Roulette with their own lives and mine by not protecting themselves. If I need a hospital they will be filling them up worldwide again!

Take care folks. The medical community has  been talking Delta variant for months since it was first seen and became epidemic again in those countries without vaccines and now here in the unvaccinated.

A cheap mask is still better than none. But I do prefer the KN 95s. Looks like I will need to order more. I am out of my black ones anyway. But I have plenty of white KN95s. The folded blue masks I have not used once we saw how serious this was last year.

I SMH when folks tell me they have medical conditions that precludes them wearing masks. If a mask gives you breathing problems you are so screwed if you get the virus. Those are exactly the kinds of underlying conditions that makes mask wearing mandatory for any sane person.

Vaccinated like us, and especially for those still five weeks minimum away from having some immunity if they took their first shot today, need to evaluate masking again for themselves. 

Safe Travels!

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by RV_