Andy

@gregvegas @KelleyKga I don't think we will ever know how much masks mattered if at all before vaccines, but what we know was crazy was making kids wear them well into 2022.

@andyaschmidt @KelleyKga “Wear a mask. But not a KN95; save those for the health professionals.” So protect yourself from this lethal virus, but only to a degree. It’s like saying “Get a first aid kit, but not one with compress dressings. Save those for people who ride motorcycles.”

A question for everyone: survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers.

@ZalinskyS @Kazanjy And to potentially realize you don't want to go to college. It really makes a ton of sense except the parents can't get over ourselves and interfere.

@Kazanjy The correct way to play the game is to go to community College freshman year and then transfer when all these schools have gaping holes in their sophomore classes from failouts.

45% of the UC Berkeley applicants from Mission High School, a school with 42% reading proficiency, get admitted because the UC isn't an institute of higher learning any longer, but instead is now another form of welfare.

@Kazanjy @x10eng @dmalcolmcarson Mangled German

@andyaschmidt @x10eng @dmalcolmcarson Is that English?

@Android_Actions @Andy_Bloch @congressdj @elonmusk For the record I'm a different Andy. I think we can say that the Telsa perceived the bus messing up and correctly slowed and then realized the bus would stop in time and kept going.

@andyaschmidt @Andy_Bloch @congressdj @elonmusk You're making a bit more sense to me now You're about 50% right. Bus did stop before getting directly in path of Tesla But the bus was driving a bit too fast and failed to stop before the white intersection line. Thats illegal technically (esp. for a Bus) So FSD did its job

Tesla FSD saves a school bus full of children! My Model Y Performance braked so hard that everything on my seats ended up on the floor. It infuriates me that school bus drivers are allowed to be this bad at driving. In an autonomous future, more lives will be saved like this.

@Kazanjy @x10eng @dmalcolmcarson We don't reserve the public park for the very best softball players. But they should be trying to educate the future leaders like the overs who could see your basic statistical slight of hand

@x10eng @dmalcolmcarson sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/…

@Android_Actions @Andy_Bloch @congressdj @elonmusk Yeah but that isn't relevant to what he said. The bus stopped before it got in the Telsas path so it is irrelevant what the Tesla did. That doesn't mean the bus driver shouldn't be evaluated.

@Andy_Bloch @congressdj @elonmusk Can't believe how stupid ppl like you are Andy Take a goddamn look at the bus tires as they clearly and illegally cross the white intersection line that was marked and visible! " stopped 5 - 10 feet before the intersection" - My Ass (bullshit) Shame on you fool

@WHTWalkerOld @KelleyKga @conor64 But there really was information coming from the right too. If we had taken no precautions socially (Mandate or no) a lot of people would have died. But we still have to balance that against kids interests and try to find reasonable path.

@KelleyKga @conor64 Some of my past residents were rather vocal about Covid being mild and not getting vaccines after having had the illness. They were kicked off facebook for "misinformation."

@KelleyKga @conor64 And then they kept doing it with masks after the pandemic was over. That study about mask policy in Boston area that ignored geographical differences in natural immunity took the cake.

I've written a lot about the loss of trust in public health during Covid in various articles and threads over the years, but I'll attempt to consolidate my thoughts here... For me, my trust in public health was tested early on with the complete lack of consideration for the risks and benefits of lockdowns, masks, school closures, etc. Prior to March 2020, cost-benefit analysis was a major component of developing public health policy, and then suddenly... it wasn't. The one main exception to this, of course, was public health bending over backward to support George Floyd protests. As a parent of a middle schooler, my main concern was for children. I started identifying significant errors in data from the CDC and other doctors and scientists, particularly around exaggerating the risks of Covid to kids. The strong age gradient of Covid harms was known early on, but it was consistently downplayed by public health. I spent a lot of time pointing out often blatant errors in Covid data, mostly being ignored by those responsible. And I argued extensively in support of school reopening. My own daughter was back in person in early August 2020, along with much of Georgia, so I knew it could be done. Then came the vaccine, which was delayed by the left for political purposes. During the vaccine rollout, we witnessed the denial of natural immunity, a refusal to prioritize the elderly for vaccines, dishonesty about vaccine effectiveness, efforts to downplay and deny myocarditis risks, the rush for vaccine approval to enable mandates, vaccine mandates being pushed for the young and healthy (those least at risk), and more false claims from CDC and others about the risk of Covid to children (including faulty mortality statistics on the CDC's data tracker and the "top 5 killer of children" falsehood). Overall, it was clear to many of us that studies and data were being published to push a predetermined narrative, rather than to test a hypothesis and then come to an objective conclusion. That's not how science is supposed to work, and yet we were being beaten over the head with the mantra "follow the science." Meanwhile, public health was feeding journalists all of this propaganda, and the media for the most part was all too happy to help by parroting the official public health position and attempting to discredit anyone who dared to offer another perspective.

@justdad7 Americans can't help but think everything is about us. While at the same time somehow not noticing when we do mess everything up.

1/ While both the liberal media and Trump himself are crediting the IOC policy on protection of women's sports to pressure from the Trump administration, this is one of the cases where both sides are wrong. x.com/FoxNews/status…

@nwcodad @DeepNotShallow It actually does make it harder to meet everyone than if you live in a flat square state. But in either case you actually meet people at county fairs and whatnot and let them come the final 20 miles.

@DeepNotShallow Longest coastline though.

In no way is Maine considered a "massive state" . . . it is TINY. It's actually the 11th smallest state in the country.... East coast people have such skewed perceptions of reality.

@conor64 For me the final straw was the Boston area school mask study in NEJM. They intentionally ignored the much higher levels of infection derived immunity in poor schools that kept masks compared to rich schools.

@LizHighleyman @conor64 Exactly. And they started to pretends that their political choices were "the science" instead of providing scientific insight for us to use to democratically make tradeoffs. Obviously the undermined trust in science.

Early on, most everyone agreed the goal was "flatten the curve" -- temporarily reduce transmission enough to stay below hospital capacity while capacity was increased & the population developed enough immunity to prevent severe illness & death. But at some point -- without it being explicitly stated -- the goal shifted to "zero COVID," which was always going to be impossible. I was also disappointed that some health officials, politicians & pundits insisted we couldn't even question things like COVID origin (which I think still remains an open question). Plus, too many of my health journalism colleagues acted more like PR for public health agencies rather than objective reporters, worsened by the fact that many journalists with no background in health & statistics -- even those covering things like sports & arts -- were thrown onto the COVID beat without adequate preparation.

@benryanwriter The intersex athletes in developed world will know their conditions in childhood or at least by late teens and can try out in the correct category.

Caraballo predicts that the 2028 Olympics could see 15-20 athletes entering the female category revealed to be biologically male, resulting in ruined careers and upended lives.

Harvard Law School clinical instructor and trans activist Alejandra Caraballo, who objects to the IOC’s rule barring biological males from women’s sports, predicts: “The first time some blonde white woman who’s also a major sports star gets disqualified for being intersex, all hell is going to break loose.”

@BrianSuttererMD because it is medical nonsense in any country with basic medical care for girls and women. They will already know.

Oo boy…should have known what I was stepping into

@CremeDeLaLeem @Saulcialist @DeepNotShallow She hadn't just moved here (unlike Nirav Shah running for governor now). But it is true that it is harder for women born elsewhere to be perceived as authentic than men like Angus King who can just wear flannel and everyone forgets he's from DC area and Ivy league.

@Saulcialist @DeepNotShallow she wasnt born in Maine and just had moved here. She stood no chance

Maine is a VERY small state. At this rate he’s going to meet every voter personally before Election Day. For context, fewer people live in Maine than live in the Bronx. A Maine Senate primary race is basically the scale of a Denver City Council race.

@DeepNotShallow This is actually true. I once was sitting down listening to music in a neighborhood backyard performance and realized Senator King was right next to me, and we just talked about how his mom was friends with my grandmother back in the day. These things happen all the time.

@Lerianis1 @PopBase You have this exactly wrong. Nikki Hiltz runs in the women category based on biological sex.

@PopBase HE is a MENTALLY ILL BIOLOGICAL MALE AND NOTHING ELSE! Time to stop with the nonsense and we do not know who is competing as a FEMALE and is actually a BIOLOGICAL MALE just not being HONEST about it.

Nikki Hiltz, a transgender & non-binary Olympian, speaks out against the event’s new anti-trans policy: “I don't know who needs to hear this but ZERO trans women competed in the Paris Olympics. Only ONE trans woman weightlifter competed in Tokyo 2021 and she did not win a medal. Can we please stop obsessing over trans people? And idk maybe focus our time, energy, and resources into real problems women's sports face?”

@CoryM2424 @PaulSpacey exactly. If that kid had been playing American football or Rugby he would have kept going, to the detriment of his team!

@PaulSpacey Fair enough, late starters that play other sports first can’t grasp the diving haha

“Late starters can catch up.” Bullshit. Soccer windows slam shut faster than any other sport.

@BrianSuttererMD @stevemagness But you know this isn't right. In the US if a girl hasn't menstruated by late teens they are going to get tested. Same thing with anyone showing up at the WNBA from a developing country.

That’s a lot, and it’s just 1 sport Add in basketball, winter sports, etc I won’t be surprised to see more cases. Even if there’s just 3-5 athletes who are newly banned for the upcoming Olympics, that could rock that sports world depending on who it is. Imagine if a single WNBA player tests positive? That would absolutely rock that sport. Not saying it’s good/bad, but it will very clearly have implications for that individual and the sport

I don’t think the sports world is ready for how many unexpected positive tests they are going to find if every athlete is tested. Especially anxious to see how this plays out in sports like women’s basketball, where genetic gender testing isn’t done If they are truly going to do genetic testing on every female athlete, guaranteed there will be unexpected positives that will have a major life impact in the athlete who may have had no idea.

@JosephONeillx It doesn't matter what Mills does. Democratic voters will see the writing on the wall.

Probably time for Mills to quit, get behind Platner. Certainly time to stop defaming him.