THE CONSPIRACY THEORY PEOPLE & THE ANTI-VAXXERS: A CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT (IMHO)

Conspiracy
Free pic by Markus Winkler (source: unsplash)

 

Keywords: conspiracy, conspiracy theory, anti-vaxxer, anti-vaxxers, COVID-19, pandemic, no-mask, SARS-CoV2, SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, vaccine, vaccines, fake news

Hello pal, welcome back to the place where donuts are the round voluptuous deities of cosmic pleasure, and quantum physics the clumsy magician hired for a flat universal birthday party (the galactic clown being busy looking for its missing nose among all the red giants of the Milky Way)!

What follows, dear reader, is not something taken from science (or any) literature (hence the lack of references), and, of course, I'm neither a psychiatrist, nor a qualified expert on human mind and nature. Heck, I'm a dumb blog for Gnagnamantus Krosfazt's sake, as you know very well!

No, mate, what follows is just my opinion, developed through the years, about the issue in question.

So, again, no science or anything resulting from research and study here, just thoughts (that are quite a milestone for a brainless entity like myself), and personal considerations.

Ok, let's go.

The Conspiracy Theory People (aka CTP), to me, can be divided (but, sadly, not conquered by reason) into five groups which are not mutually exclusive, and with the fourth (subgroup "a") and fifth being pretty contiguous to each other.

 

Q
Free pic by Wesley Tingey (source: unsplash)

1) There are the CTP who are not necessarily genuine CTP, but just individuals who tend to their agenda. Examples: "Evolution isn't a fact, it's just a theory the Atheists want to feed to your children's minds and that will corrupt them and destroy morality, while Religion has the real explanation, we, the Religion's advocates, guarantee you that" | "Smoking is not dangerous as said by those who are interested in destroying us and our chain of supply, we, the tobacco industry's advocates, can prove it" | "Nah, climate change is not a fact/is not human driven, the coal and oil industry are not a problem, we, who advocate for them, guarantee you that it's just them crooked so-called scientists who are in the pockets of the so-called Green Economy ring etc. etc. who are making things up".

 

Sloth in a Ball
Pic by Eric Kilby; license: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) (source: flickr)

2) Then, there are the CTP who are just

OF MASKS AND PANDEMIC: SHOOTERS

Nose and mouth and biohazard in time of pandemics

[The biohazard symbol by OpenClipart is a Public Domain pic (source: freesvg); adapted by @sciencemug]

 

 

Imagine this.
 
There are people with a loaded machine gun.
 
These people know that, in most cases, their machine gun is loaded with blanks, but they're also fully aware that, sometimes, their weapon is loaded with actual bullets.
 
The only thing these people don't know for sure is whether their machine gun will shoot blanks or actual rounds.

Now imagine that these people, by choice, go around, among other folks, constantly pulling the trigger of such machine gun of theirs (*).

Well, to me, these people are exactly like the ones who, in these days, having the possibility of doing it, by choice don't wear a mask.

(*) Moreover, these people also refuses to wear bulletproof vests even though many projectiles are flying around – some possibly even shot by people quite like ‘em - and they risk from suffering a flesh-wound, to ending up hospitalized (occuping a bed that, because of this, by the way, is no more available for a poor unlucky vest-wearing lad who’s been hit anyway) to being killed.

Related Papers (Updated on 01-Sept-2020)

- Esposito, S., Principi, N., Leung, C.C., and Migliori, G.B. (2020). Universal use of face masks for success against COVID-19: evidence and implications for prevention policies. European Respiratory Journal 55.
- Fears, A.C., Klimstra, W.B., Duprex, P., Hartman, A., Weaver, S.C., Plante, K.S., Mirchandani, D., Plante, J.A., Aguilar, P.V., Fernández, D., et al. Persistence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Aerosol Suspensions - Volume 26, Number 9—September 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC.

- Furukawa, N.W., Brooks, J.T., and Sobel, J. Evidence Supporting Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 While Presymptomatic or Asymptomatic - Volume 26, Number 7—July 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC.

- Gao, Z., Xu, Y., Sun, C., Wang, X., Guo, Y., Qiu, S., and Ma, K. (2020). A systematic review of asymptomatic infections with COVID-19. J Microbiol Immunol Infect.
- Jones, N.R., Qureshi, Z.U., Temple, R.J., Larwood, J.P.J., Greenhalgh, T., and Bourouiba, L. (2020). Two metres or one: what is the evidence for physical distancing in covid-19? BMJ 370.

- Lee, S., Meyler, P., Mozel, M., Tauh, T., and Merchant, R. (2020). Asymptomatic carriage and transmission of SARS-CoV-2: What do we know? Can J Anesth/J Can Anesth.
- Leung, N.H.L., Chu, D.K.W., Shiu, E.Y.C., Chan, K.-H., McDevitt, J.J., Hau, B.J.P., Yen, H.-L., Li, Y., Ip, D.K.M., Peiris, J.S.M., et al. (2020). Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks. Nature Medicine 26, 676–680.

- McFee, R.B. (2020). SARS 2 human coronavirus (COVID -19, SARS CoV2). Disease-a-Month 101063.

- Morawska, L., and Cao, J. (2020). Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality. Environment International 139, 105730.

- Rothe, C., Schunk, M., Sothmann, P., Bretzel, G., Froeschl, G., Wallrauch, C., Zimmer, T., Thiel, V., Janke, C., Guggemos, W., et al. (2020). Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany. N Engl J Med 382, 970–971.

-Zhang, R., Li, Y., Zhang, A.L., Wang, Y., and Molina, M.J. (2020). Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19. PNAS 117, 14857–14863.

OF MASKS AND PANDEMIC: THE WTTIHITMOMFIFB SYNDROME

In these troublesome times (1) a new syndrome is spreading as fast as the pandemic, and its insurgence started just a short while after that of the new coronavirus. 

I am talking about the: "What?! The Thing I Have In The Middle Of My Face Is For Breathing?" (WTTIHITMOMFIFB) Syndrome. 

It affects many, many people, who, poor things, risk a severe shock whenever reminded that the mask, when worn, must cover BOTH their mouth & nose, 'cause, yup, they breathe also (well, mainly) through their nose - these folks almost always faint when they're told that, oh yeah, the nose is made basically for this, breathing, rather than to be a playground for picky fingers or worst - and therefore, since breathing means inhaling AND exhaling, well, what comes out of such nose of theirs can be as a

PiPs with mask (by @sciencemug)

source of infection for who's around 'em as what's coming out of their mouths (2)(3)(4) (letting alone the fact that their unprotected nose is an anatomical device that, by default, takes in the 100% of anything the air carries, included, among other things, viruses shed by other people… (5))

So, basically, those affected by the WTTIHITMOMFIFB Syndrome, put for sure themselves in danger, along with the ones in range of their nose-made potentially virus-lulling aerosol (6).

Bibliography (Updated on 1-Sept-2020)

1- McFee, R.B. (2020). SARS 2 human coronavirus (COVID -19, SARS CoV2). Disease-a-Month 101063.

2- Leung, N.H.L., Chu, D.K.W., Shiu, E.Y.C., Chan, K.-H., McDevitt, J.J., Hau, B.J.P., Yen, H.-L., Li, Y., Ip, D.K.M., Peiris, J.S.M., et al. (2020). Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks. Nature Medicine 26, 676–680.

3- Morawska, L., and Cao, J. (2020). Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality. Environment International 139, 105730.

4-Zhang, R., Li, Y., Zhang, A.L., Wang, Y., and Molina, M.J. (2020). Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19. PNAS 117, 14857–14863.

5- Esposito, S., Principi, N., Leung, C.C., and Migliori, G.B. (2020). Universal use of face masks for success against COVID-19: evidence and implications for prevention policies. European Respiratory Journal 55.
6-Fears, A.C., Klimstra, W.B., Duprex, P., Hartman, A., Weaver, S.C., Plante, K.S., Mirchandani, D., Plante, J.A., Aguilar, P.V., Fernández, D., et al. Persistence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Aerosol Suspensions - Volume 26, Number 9—September 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC.

ITALY vs CORONAVIRUS SARS-CoV-2

Italy's comment about the epidemic of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2:

"I've already kicked out a crown* once, I'll do it again!"
- Italy -

 *Crown, in Italian, means "corona".

[Italy pic by Milenioscuro is under Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 3.0 Unported; Italy's flag pic is a public domain one; Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pic by CDC is a public domain one; all pics adapted by @sciencemug]

The situation