Covid, Phase II. Commonsense is the order of the day. | Page 50 | Vital Football

Covid, Phase II. Commonsense is the order of the day.

Japan may be a better model. Being there's some honesty there, and some success in dealing with this type of thing.

Haven't look at their data anytime recently, but earlier it was quite good.

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Spursex said:
Does Wearing a Face Mask Reduce Oxygen—and Can It Increase CO2 Levels? Here's What Experts Say
Why carbon dioxide toxicity is making headlines right now.
By Claire Gillespie
May 13, 2020
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Now that we've all been wearing face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, some people say that wearing a mask is reducing their intake of oxygen—or forcing them to breathe in their own carbon dioxide. This leaves them feeling faint, light-headed, or "smothered." They're also concerned about how dangerous this is, and how less oxygen and more carbon dioxide might affect their health.
One driver who crashed his SUV into a pole in Lincoln Park, New Jersey, on April 23 actually blamed his collision on his mask. He told police he passed out because he’d been wearing an N95 mask for too long. Initially, the investigating officers believed him, writing in a Facebook post that he was the only person in the car and passed out due to “insufficient oxygen intake/excessive carbon dioxide intake.”
The post was shared more than 2,700 times and received hundreds of comments, with a few sharing their own experiences of feeling smothered by this type of mask. The police department later updated their post, stating that they didn’t know “with 100% certainty” that “excessive wearing” of an N95 mask was a contributing factor to the accident. They added that “it is certainly possible that some other medical reason could’ve contributed to the driver passing out.”
So is it possible that wearing a face mask as part of social distancing can cause someone to build up so much carbon dioxide and get so little oxygen that they pass out, or worse? Carbon dioxide is a natural by-product of the body’s respiration process, something we all breathe in and out every day. How harmful can it be?
In rare cases, it can actually be pretty dangerous, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They say that inhaling high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be life-threatening. Hypercapnia (carbon dioxide toxicity) can also cause headache, vertigo, double vision, inability to concentrate, tinnitus (hearing a noise, like a ringing or buzzing, that’s not caused by an outside source), seizures, or suffocation due to displacement of air.
But the emphasis here should be on high levels. “It has to be a pretty high concentration to be capable of causing harm,” Bill Carroll, PhD, an adjunct professor of chemistry at Indiana University, Bloomington, tells Health. “CO2 is present in the atmosphere at a level of about 0.04%. It is dangerous in an atmosphere when it is greater than about 10%.”
It’s also possible to have too little CO2. “This is when you exhale too fast or too often,” Dr. Carroll says. “If you hold your breath, you wind up with too much CO2. The core issue is that CO2 regulates the pH of the blood—too much CO2 and the blood becomes too acidic; too little and it becomes too basic (alkaline). In either case, your body detects the change in acidity and you pass out, which is the body’s way of saying, ‘please stop fooling with me and breathe normally.’”
When it comes to face masks, we know they’re not all made equally. The extent to which a mask could affect CO2 levels depends on what it’s made of, and how tightly it fits.
“If you put a plastic bag over your head and tie it tight around your neck, no coronavirus could get in, but neither could any oxygen and you would suffocate, so we obviously don’t recommend that,” says Carroll. “I think it’s highly unlikely that you would pass out from a lack of oxygen with a cloth mask, which generally doesn’t fit tightly to your face. When you exhale or inhale, air can go around the mask as well through the pores in the material. This is why a cloth mask does not absolutely protect you from inhaling the virus, but by disturbing your exhalation flow it tends to protect those around you from aerosols in your breath.”
Carroll doubts that any cloth face covering would ever fit against the face so tight that someone would pass out from a lack of oxygen. “You’d take it off because it’s uncomfortable well before that happens,” he says.
But what about the guy in the New Jersey car crash? He was wearing an N95 mask, after all, not just a regular cloth mask.
“Someone wearing an N95 mask for a prolonged period of time may have alterations in their blood chemistry that could lead to changes in level of consciousness if severe,” infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Maryland, tells Health. But it’s most likely to happen to those who are already predisposed to breathing difficulties, such as smoker, obese people, or individuals with COPD or emphysema.
Kelli Randell, MD, an internist and medical advisor at Aeroflow Healthcare, tells Health that prolonged use of any face mask, including the N95 respirator, has not been shown to cause carbon dioxide toxicity in healthy people. “Because breathing is slightly harder with a mask, I do recommend that people who suffer from severe COPD or other lung diseases that make breathing difficult carefully consider the use of face masks,” says Dr. Randell.
Dr. Adalja adds that there’s absolutely no need for any member of the general public to be wearing an N95 respirator, which is a type of personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to protect health care workers and the patients they care for. “It’s uncomfortable to wear, and it does restrict your breathing,” he says. “When I wear one to take care of patients I try to keep it on only for as long as I have to.”
The bottom line? The N95 might be uncomfortable and restrictive to the point where it affects your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels...but you really shouldn’t be wearing that anyway. As for cloth face coverings (either store-bought or homemade), there’s even less of a chance of breathing issues, and it’s definitely not an excuse for going out without one. Make sure your mask covers your nose and mouth but feels loose, rather than so tight you really can't breathe. If you continue to feel like your airways are cut off, consider other possible causes, such as a panic attack, which can trigger sudden feelings of suffocation and breathlessness.
The information in this story is accurate as of press time. However, as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, it's possible that some data have changed since publication. While Health is trying to keep our stories as up-to-date as possible, we also encourage readers to stay informed on news and recommendations for their own communities by using the CDC, WHO, and their local public health department as resources.
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Well I have had a permanent head ache since wearing one for long periods of time so with that evidence I would say it is reducing the amount of oxygen I am taking in.
 
10Hoddle said:
In August/Sept more and more doctors/professors etc in Belgium and USA declaring that they've recently "cured" Covid patients with Hydroxychloroquiene and Zinc.
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If only their claims stood up to scrutiny or their was some empirical evidence to support their claims, sadly there is neither.
 
10Hoddle said:
In August/Sept more and more doctors/professors etc in Belgium and USA declaring that they've recently "cured" Covid patients with Hydroxychloroquiene and Zinc.
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Spursex said:
If only their claims stood up to scrutiny or their was some empirical evidence to support their claims, sadly there is neither.
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What I don't get, is what would be the motivation for ignoring a cure, or even a therapeutic treatment, that is already well out into the medi-sphere?

If it were that simple, and we were being hidden from that truth, well that sounds nefarious, so to what ends??

And by whom exactly??

.
 
Spursex said:
If only their claims stood up to scrutiny or their was some empirical evidence to support their claims, sadly there is neither.
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Sorry Ex, in this case you are incorrect. Massive evidence. Just dig a little deeper than the standard rubbish we're being fed.
 
xvausch said:
What I don't get, is what would be the motivation for ignoring a cure, or even a therapeutic treatment, that is already well out into the medi-sphere?

If it were that simple, and we were being hidden from that truth, well that sounds nefarious, so to what ends??

And by whom exactly??

.
Click to expand...


These are the questions being asked by the Sky News team who have the evidence from the doctors & professors.

You won't hear about this on mainstream news.
 
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Open Letter from Medical Doctors and Health Professionals to All Belgian Authorities and All Belgian Media


Masks
Oral masks belong in contexts where contacts with proven at-risk groups or people with upper respiratory complaints take place, and in a medical context/hospital-retirement home setting. They reduce the risk of droplet infection by sneezing or coughing. Oral masks in healthy individuals are ineffective against the spread of viral infections. 29 30 31

Wearing a mask is not without side effects. 32 33 Oxygen deficiency (headache, nausea, fatigue, loss of concentration) occurs fairly quickly, an effect similar to altitude sickness. Every day we now see patients complaining of headaches, sinus problems, respiratory problems and hyperventilation due to wearing masks. In addition, the accumulated CO2 leads to a toxic acidification of the organism which affects our immunity. Some experts even warn of an increased transmission of the virus in case of inappropriate use of the mask.34

Our Labour Code (Codex 6) refers to a CO2 content (ventilation in workplaces) of 900 ppm, maximum 1200 ppm in special circumstances. After wearing a mask for one minute, this toxic limit is considerably exceeded to values that are three to four times higher than these maximum values. Anyone who wears a mask is therefore in an extreme poorly ventilated room. 35

Inappropriate use of masks without a comprehensive medical cardio-pulmonary test file is therefore not recommended by recognised safety specialists for workers.

Hospitals have a sterile environment in their operating rooms where staff wear masks and there is precise regulation of humidity / temperature with appropriately monitored oxygen flow to compensate for this, thus meeting strict safety standards. 36
 
EW STUDY : Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc Greatly Reduces COVID-19 Health Risk
NEW YORK - Researchers at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine found patients given the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine along with zinc sulphate and the antibiotic azithromycin were 44 percent less likely to die from the coronavirus.
The study looked at the records of 932 COVID-19 patients treated at local hospitals with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
More than 400 of them were also given 100 milligrams of zinc daily.
Researchers said the patients given zinc were one and a half times more likely to recover, decreasing their need for intensive care.
One theory is that hydroxychloroquine may aid a cell’s ability to absorb the zinc which has antiviral properties and responds to the infection.
"It sort of boosts the zinc activity which is one of the reasons we thought to look at zinc here and in this observational study we did see a difference suggesting that maybe that boosting activity of the hydroxychloroquine with the zinc helps the zinc to work better and lead to a benefit," Rahimian said.
Dr. Rahimian says patients in the more critical stages of infection did not fare as well.
https://principia-scientific.org/new-study.../
This study seem to be consistent with other studies which finds the treatment effective when started immediately after diagnosis - but not so effective is started late in the treatment.
Meanwhile researchers are struggling to come up with a treatment for TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) a severe mental illness that prohibits logical thought.
A recent symptom of TDS is also being noted - when a TDS effected person reads about a medical practitioner reporting success with the use hydroxychloroquine, that the TDS sufferer experiences fits of rage, they deny the scientific findings, they demand that the research must be censored, and they are upset that people treated with hydroxychloroquine didn’t die.
 
Nick Real Deal said:
440,000 new infections worldwide today. France had 41,000 of those, we had 21,000. That's with a tiered restriction system.
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The infection rates today are a consequence of events beginning weeks ago. The benefits (if there are any) of the tiered system won't be evident for a couple of weeks yet.
 
It seems a 100 fans are to be allowed to watch West Ham's game against Man City this weekend at a cinema very close to the ground. But no fans in the significantly safer outdoor environment of the stadium?
 
10Hoddle said:
These are the questions being asked by the Sky News team who have the evidence from the doctors & professors.

You won't hear about this on mainstream news.
Click to expand...

See, this is the prob with these massive conspiracy theories. Once put to a simple question, the "answer" is to point to other spurious conspiratorial wonderings. I can find all the fringe ramblings I need all over the net.

What I'm not finding, is any of these same people presenting some rational justification for this worldwide effort to keep COVID cure/treatments from the people.

So I ask again, what pray tell is the motivation behind this Great Secret?

.
 
xvausch said:
See, this is the prob with these massive conspiracy theories. Once put to a simple question, the "answer" is to point to other spurious conspiratorial wonderings. I can find all the fringe ramblings I need all over the net.

What I'm not finding, is any of these same people presenting some rational justification for this worldwide effort to keep COVID cure/treatments from the people.

So I ask again, what pray tell is the motivation behind this Great Secret?

.
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Plausability. - The 'solution' and efficacy of the claimms for this drug cannot be replicated in any controlled trial - 4 major trials all conducted by different groups - all confirm that it does more harm than good.

Probability. - The odds are that those making claims have other motives or are seeing other drug interactions and treatment interventions and aren't capturing the data in a controlled manner and are guessing. ON my NHS trust we don't us it, as it's not a standard of care, but we are achieving much higher than they quote survivability rates.

Certain groups are claiming it's our locally made gin and the botanticals that it's made with.

Profitability. - I have been part of groups that have debunked many conspiracies and or conspiratorial theories, and when you do get close to the willing believers sooner or later you find the rationale for much of this is to make money out of the gullible, either because they don't understand the monitorisation of social media (a friend makes 250k a year by being an 'influencer' on social media), and some of the Amercian Conspracy theorists have literally made a career out of it along with making themselves millionaires from it.

The preprint servers of the the World are now (rightly being pushed to the limited) with papers and this should be so, as serious science groups look at their tehories or findings for empirical evidence (i.e. evidence that their guesses.theories.findings can be replicated).

IN hydro's case, that has been done and found completely wanting - so who's pushing it? There are several non-pharma manufacturers in the US who make it outside of a licence because they make no claim as to it being a medicine - and so it sits in the same category of effectiveness as vitamins, but not made to the same standard.

These companies are absolutely coining iin with huge massive leaps in revenues since this all started.

The first ever claim for it was in treating cancer - and I know this as it was recommended to me when my wife was being treated for cancer, by a credible specilalist, later it was found he was making all sorts of claims for it and making a small fortune out of doing so.

So I have exhaustively invesitigated this drug and those who manufacture it - just so that you all know it was originally created by the Chinese during the Korean war as a cheap 'help drug' to combat malaria and was billed as such for many many years with all sorts of incredible claims for what it could do. It was mainly to convince their own troops that they shouldn't fear getting a life long disease i.e. malaria and should make the forest/woods swamps their 'home' in the fight against the American's. The Amercians couldn't understand how the Chinese never seemed affected by Malaria - of course they were, but the Amercians never understand that the Chinese had even bigger reserves than they figured, so whilst Malaria affected their fighting strength, it never seemed to affect the Chinese and so, the 'legend' of this drug began...

After the Korean and Vietnam war, guess what the Chinese had to do with the 50 years of stocks it had accumulated?

They started dumping it in the west after having run a viral campaign that made utterly ridiculous claims for efficacy - as they did so, they tightened supplies and watched the tablet selling price increase by a factor of 80.- the lore/the legend was now unassailliable and has endured ..the Chinese must have laughed their heads of when Trump gave it the sort of push they could have spent billions on trying to make happen..

the drug has been invesitgated by credible scientists and global Pharma's many times and every time the claims made for it have been found to have absolutely no substance - as I found to my cost.
 
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I Lost My Best Friend To QAnon
Qanon might be an American conspiracy, but cases like my friend show we here in Britain can no longer consider this a faraway, absurd fascination.



Like many other people, Tim (not his real name) had always maintained a casual interest in conspiracy theories. After all, who hasn’t indulged in hypotheses about UFOs over a pint?
But this one was different.


It was cultish, involved real people, and made claims that were deeply anti-semitic and damaging. This one was QAnon, the rapidly spreading conspiracy theory that, after originating online in the US, is now reportedly gaining ground here in the UK. Said to be led by an anonymous leader called Q, the repeatedly debunked conspiracy primarily revolves around the idea that President Trump is a patriot secretly working against the ‘deep state’ to reveal an extensive, elite network of child abusers, baselessly accusing high-profile figures from Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks to Chrissy Teigen.

Explained
As lockdown took hold, Tim gradually phased from reposting funny TikToks to sharing outlandish posts on Facebook from unverifiable sources. During our weekly chats, I gently refuted his posts with news reports disproving his sources. But, without irony, he would always angrily tell me I was “brainwashed”, and that my consumption of mainstream media made me “part of the problem.” I was hurt and shocked, of course, but also alarmed: we’d had our fair share of arguments over the years, but never have I seen him be this combative. Over the next few weeks I continued trying to reason with him, to no avail. Eventually I was unfriended and blocked from viewing his Facebook profile. My calls and messages to him went ignored.
Just like that, a friendship of fifteen years ended. Not hearing from him after the first week sent me into a daze, considering we had exchanged memes nearly every day for years. I was overcome with pangs of guilt, wondering if I did enough to persuade him, or could have perhaps attempted my reasoning with him in a less overwhelming manner.
For Tim, it was only in the last six months that his obsession with QAnon really took hold. Having lost his job at the start of lockdown, he spiralled into frustration and anxiety and sought solace on Facebook groups and forums.​
I also felt conflicted, wondering how much of this indoctrination was actually his doing. Conspiracy theories tend to spread more easily during uncertain times, often as a means for people to gain control and make sense of what’s happening in their lives. Understandably, many have become vulnerable during a pandemic that has thrown life as we know it into disarray. For Tim, it was only in the last six months that his obsession with QAnon really took hold. Having lost his job at the start of lockdown, he spiralled into frustration and anxiety and sought solace on Facebook groups and forums, eventually joining those with a focus on QAnon and similarly outlandish conspiracy theories.
After losing Tim’s friendship I, too, found support online – on the Reddit forum r/QAnonCasualties. Consisting of close to 30,000 members, the group has been a place for many around the world to vent their frustrations about estranged family members and friends lost to QAnon. I’d initially chanced upon the site whilst researching ways to get through to QAnon believers, but after it became clear that Tim was a lost cause, I found myself coming back to the forum to find communal empathy and make the process of grieving my friendship feel less isolating. No one else in my social circles had ever experienced anything remotely similar.
Worryingly, I’ve seen an increase in posts from others in the UK. The large attendance at the anti-lockdown protest in London last month was testament to the delusion of QAnon gaining ground in Britain, where a number of signs bearing the unmistakable “Q” logo and their slogan “Where we go one, we go all” (or “WWG1WGA”) were spotted in a largely maskless crowd that also supported conspiracy theories such as 5G causing coronavirus, coronavirus being a hoax, and vaccines causing autism.
QAnon is also being propelled to the mainstream by a growing number of Instagram influencers and self-styled wellness gurus, with followers numbering in the multimillions, not to mention Donald Trump himself, who has given implicit approval of the conspiracy by claiming they are people who “love our country”.
This mainstream credibility of QAnon has threatened the safety of innocent people, as individuals claiming to be or know the anonymous “Q” have accused people who have openly disagreed with Trump of being “deep state operatives”. Of course, these are outlandish claims, and anyone can claim or manufacture this “knowledge”. But given the increasing ubiquity of QAnon, I fear that these claims will come to be recognised as legitimate, when in reality they are simply disguises by disingenuous trolls to propagate racist and anti-Semitic views, even amongst unwitting (I hope) pawns like Tim.
We are living in one of the most socially and politically fraught moments in our lifetime, and conspiracy theories like this threaten to widen the divide even more.​
News that major platforms such as Facebook, Etsy, and Depop have committed to banning QAnon-related posts and products may seem like good news. Yet knowing Tim’s deeply held anti-media beliefs – yet another product of QAnon – a part of me fears that any official action to combat its presence on these sites may be used to reinforce the self-styled “Q Army” claims of censorship by the media, and therefore only strengthening their mistrust of mainstream news and society.
I also worry such commitments may be too little, too late. As has come to be the norm for social media platforms, rules have been inadequately and unevenly applied. In the case of QAnon many Facebook groups remain active, and individual high-profile accounts are unaffected by this ban. Though I’m frustrated that I may have intervened too late to be able to dissuade Tim, I’m angry at these platforms for having allowed such misinformation to spread as quickly as it has. Investigations have revealed that Facebook’s recommendation algorithm had routinely pointed users who had expressed interest in other conspiracy theories to QAnon groups.
As it becomes mainstream, no longer can we consider QAnon a faraway, absurd fascination. Increasingly we will find people in our lives impacted in some way by these baseless accusations. We are living in one of the most socially and politically fraught moments in our lifetime, and conspiracy theories like this threaten to widen the divide even more.
Never would I have imagined someone in their 20s – let alone my own best friend – would have their lives taken over by such an improbable conspiracy, to such an extraordinary extent. Tim’s internet savvy was not enough to prevent him falling into this trap, and I fear that anyone, young or old, could be next.
Laura is a freelance writer, writing under a pseudonym
 
Spursex said:
I Lost My Best Friend To QAnon
Qanon might be an American conspiracy, but cases like my friend show we here in Britain can no longer consider this a faraway, absurd fascination.



Like many other people, Tim (not his real name) had always maintained a casual interest in conspiracy theories. After all, who hasn’t indulged in hypotheses about UFOs over a pint?
But this one was different.


It was cultish, involved real people, and made claims that were deeply anti-semitic and damaging. This one was QAnon, the rapidly spreading conspiracy theory that, after originating online in the US, is now reportedly gaining ground here in the UK. Said to be led by an anonymous leader called Q, the repeatedly debunked conspiracy primarily revolves around the idea that President Trump is a patriot secretly working against the ‘deep state’ to reveal an extensive, elite network of child abusers, baselessly accusing high-profile figures from Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks to Chrissy Teigen.

Explained
As lockdown took hold, Tim gradually phased from reposting funny TikToks to sharing outlandish posts on Facebook from unverifiable sources. During our weekly chats, I gently refuted his posts with news reports disproving his sources. But, without irony, he would always angrily tell me I was “brainwashed”, and that my consumption of mainstream media made me “part of the problem.” I was hurt and shocked, of course, but also alarmed: we’d had our fair share of arguments over the years, but never have I seen him be this combative. Over the next few weeks I continued trying to reason with him, to no avail. Eventually I was unfriended and blocked from viewing his Facebook profile. My calls and messages to him went ignored.
Just like that, a friendship of fifteen years ended. Not hearing from him after the first week sent me into a daze, considering we had exchanged memes nearly every day for years. I was overcome with pangs of guilt, wondering if I did enough to persuade him, or could have perhaps attempted my reasoning with him in a less overwhelming manner.
For Tim, it was only in the last six months that his obsession with QAnon really took hold. Having lost his job at the start of lockdown, he spiralled into frustration and anxiety and sought solace on Facebook groups and forums.​
I also felt conflicted, wondering how much of this indoctrination was actually his doing. Conspiracy theories tend to spread more easily during uncertain times, often as a means for people to gain control and make sense of what’s happening in their lives. Understandably, many have become vulnerable during a pandemic that has thrown life as we know it into disarray. For Tim, it was only in the last six months that his obsession with QAnon really took hold. Having lost his job at the start of lockdown, he spiralled into frustration and anxiety and sought solace on Facebook groups and forums, eventually joining those with a focus on QAnon and similarly outlandish conspiracy theories.
After losing Tim’s friendship I, too, found support online – on the Reddit forum r/QAnonCasualties. Consisting of close to 30,000 members, the group has been a place for many around the world to vent their frustrations about estranged family members and friends lost to QAnon. I’d initially chanced upon the site whilst researching ways to get through to QAnon believers, but after it became clear that Tim was a lost cause, I found myself coming back to the forum to find communal empathy and make the process of grieving my friendship feel less isolating. No one else in my social circles had ever experienced anything remotely similar.
Worryingly, I’ve seen an increase in posts from others in the UK. The large attendance at the anti-lockdown protest in London last month was testament to the delusion of QAnon gaining ground in Britain, where a number of signs bearing the unmistakable “Q” logo and their slogan “Where we go one, we go all” (or “WWG1WGA”) were spotted in a largely maskless crowd that also supported conspiracy theories such as 5G causing coronavirus, coronavirus being a hoax, and vaccines causing autism.
QAnon is also being propelled to the mainstream by a growing number of Instagram influencers and self-styled wellness gurus, with followers numbering in the multimillions, not to mention Donald Trump himself, who has given implicit approval of the conspiracy by claiming they are people who “love our country”.
This mainstream credibility of QAnon has threatened the safety of innocent people, as individuals claiming to be or know the anonymous “Q” have accused people who have openly disagreed with Trump of being “deep state operatives”. Of course, these are outlandish claims, and anyone can claim or manufacture this “knowledge”. But given the increasing ubiquity of QAnon, I fear that these claims will come to be recognised as legitimate, when in reality they are simply disguises by disingenuous trolls to propagate racist and anti-Semitic views, even amongst unwitting (I hope) pawns like Tim.
We are living in one of the most socially and politically fraught moments in our lifetime, and conspiracy theories like this threaten to widen the divide even more.​
News that major platforms such as Facebook, Etsy, and Depop have committed to banning QAnon-related posts and products may seem like good news. Yet knowing Tim’s deeply held anti-media beliefs – yet another product of QAnon – a part of me fears that any official action to combat its presence on these sites may be used to reinforce the self-styled “Q Army” claims of censorship by the media, and therefore only strengthening their mistrust of mainstream news and society.
I also worry such commitments may be too little, too late. As has come to be the norm for social media platforms, rules have been inadequately and unevenly applied. In the case of QAnon many Facebook groups remain active, and individual high-profile accounts are unaffected by this ban. Though I’m frustrated that I may have intervened too late to be able to dissuade Tim, I’m angry at these platforms for having allowed such misinformation to spread as quickly as it has. Investigations have revealed that Facebook’s recommendation algorithm had routinely pointed users who had expressed interest in other conspiracy theories to QAnon groups.
As it becomes mainstream, no longer can we consider QAnon a faraway, absurd fascination. Increasingly we will find people in our lives impacted in some way by these baseless accusations. We are living in one of the most socially and politically fraught moments in our lifetime, and conspiracy theories like this threaten to widen the divide even more.
Never would I have imagined someone in their 20s – let alone my own best friend – would have their lives taken over by such an improbable conspiracy, to such an extraordinary extent. Tim’s internet savvy was not enough to prevent him falling into this trap, and I fear that anyone, young or old, could be next.
Laura is a freelance writer, writing under a pseudonym
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Leaving QAnon to one side, what is currently happening with the MSM and Tech giants of Twitter and Facebook in the USA is not imaginary but real censorship in an attempt to interfere with the election....how any responsible news media outlet can ignore the evidence against Joe Biden to the extent of completely suppressing the story is beyond belief....the US is on the road to 1984, just a few years behind.
 
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