I agree with this too. In addition, I am having a hard time squaring the various government actions with the results. I know everyone has been arguing about whether masks works, whether the unvaxed are causing a continuation of the pandemic, whether lockdowns work, etc. etc., but it would be great to see an overview of what the latest thinking is.

For example, I have been to the Hollywood Bowl to see concerts this summer (an outdoor amphitheater that seats about 17,000 people. The have huge screens that show video of the performers as well as ads before the show begins. Even at the end of the summer they were advising people to wash their hands to stop the spread. We know this doesn't matter, but people keep saying it.

I really can't figure out the mask situation. Orange County, right next to LA county, doesn't have mask mandates but LA county does. It appears that their covid problems are no different than LA's. Why is that?

My daughter attends the local public high school and they are required to wear masks. They have been in session for about a month now, and there are about 2500 students and staff. The cumulative cases for the last month is: 7. Staff is 93% vaxxed and students are about 85% vaxxed. Plus, our town has a very low number of cases in the first place. I think having only 7 cases in a month is pretty darn good! Should I attribute this to masking? Vaxxes? Low incidence in the community? Luck?

I am not a conspiracy theory believer. I do think that there is a lot of misinformation that is being repeated as dogma. I want to know what is BS so that I, and my family, can live our lives, and I don't waste energy tilting at windmills.

I think my little rant here is relevant to this thread because Israel has been held up as the model place -- and yet despite their vaccinations, their masks, and their vax passes, they still have outbreaks that are worse than before. But I should be careful with the word outbreaks as that is the number of cases, not necessarily that their hospitals are overwhelmed or that they have a large number of deaths to go with the cases.