Every time I leave the bay area to go somewhere hiking, the towns I pass through are full of both (a) Trump flags and (b) people not wearing masks. Two weeks ago, employees at local bakeries near Mt. Shasta weren't wearing masks in the kitchen. Even the employees at Taco Bell Drive Thru near Mt. Shasta weren't wearing masks (they had their masks off their nose). Complained via Taco Bell website and got no response. That's America in a nutshell.
Or they've been influenced by a broad array of politicians and media figures into believing that COVID is essentially over and there was nothing to worry about in the first place.
For most people, regular consumption of Taco Bell is probably a worse health risk than COVID-19. Obesity and hypertension are known killers on their own, and also increase the risk of a bad COVID-19 outcome.
Although I agree with you about the health risk of regular consumption of fast food, I'm not a regular consumer of Taco Bell, and occasional consumption of fast food is not a significant health risk to most people. I only hoped that when I passed through the area that a nationwide chain would have slightly better COVID sanitation standards than the local establishments I passed by at first. It turned out not to be the case.
I'm not confined to my house, I'm just taking effortless precautions like wearing a mask. I'm doing this more for my elderly grandparents, and people like them, not some strawman who eats too many Doritos.
Hold on a second, 42.4% obesity in the US must play into the danger of COVID to the US population. That's a very weird dismissal that doesn't really make sense.
The paper cites this website: https://covid19.healthdata.org/global?view=mask-use&tab=tren..., which reports 60% (self-reported) of people consistently wear masks. "Required" isn't the same as followed. Furthermore, I think this paper is modeling COVID19 deaths everywhere, not just in dense areas.
They'd have to wear the things over Thanksgiving Dinner. Good luck seeing that happen - everyone knows you catch COVID only when out in public, but never over dinner with your friends.
When scientific evidence about a possible low-cost preventative measure is mixed, the upside would be saved lives, and there is virtually no downside to using that preventative measure, the scientifically best thing to do would be to temporarily use that preventative measure until there is better data.
There are downsides, like when the government threatens violence against its citizens for not complying with a preventative measure with mixed efficacy at best.
I guess anything that is fined or outlaws is eventually "enforced by violence" but it's still a silly argument. If a store asks you to leave, and you don't, and the store calls the police to arrest you, you aren't being arrested for not wearing a mask. You're being arrested for not leaving when asked.
Do you really think the businesses are enforcing masks for the sake of public health? I encourage you to ask them -- 9 times out of 10 they will say they are fearful of the government fining them and shutting down their business. Trust me, I ask them every time they ask me to leave and it's always the same answer. If they resist the government, it will eventually result in violence.
I wear masks (N95 when I visit my elderly relatives) and am not against them. I plan on wearing masks until I have personally been vaccinated and test positive for antibodies. But not after that.
Where it gets weird is when 30% of people won't take a vaccine in the future, the vaccine is somewhere south of 70% effective, and none of the current phase 3 vaccines are seeking approval for use by children either. So what if COVID-19 sticks around for a while as a result. What if you can't tell who has had a vaccine and who hasn't?
Do you plan on wearing a mask everywhere for the next 5 years long after you've tested positive for antibodies? Because I don't.
I have hope that with so many research resources being directed to the problem, we'll have better vaccines, better cures, OR better management of symptoms so that there isn't a death risk or long term complications, well before 5 years. It really takes only one of the 3 to bring life back to normal.
Perhaps my point was too subtle but this appears to be the emergence of a new form of secular "ritual purification" among a subset of the population, and it's only loosely tied to real science. Mask wearing can certainly be helpful for reducing the risk of contagion in some limited close contact situations but it's also become a form of virtue signaling. I see people wearing masks while driving alone or walking outside with no one else nearby, which is just silly.
I'm unsure why you wouldn't consider wearing a mask to "be the right thing"
I don't think anybody is saying that masks are a panacea - that would be "everybody stay home until we have a working vaccine".
However, they seem a completely sensible thing that you can do that reduces transmission (so some extent at least), whilst allowing you to go about your normal life relatively unimpeded.
A bit like speed limits on the road - something legally enforceable that 'generally' reduces risk for us all. You can make exceptions as to why you don't feel you need to comply "There was nobody else on the road", "I'm a great driver", "My car has auto-braking" or "German autobahns don't have limits and are safer" - but most of the world has decided it's safer that most roads should have a limit.
Why someone would trust a libertarian think tank when it comes to epidemiology is beyond me. You'd like to know: what do the Koch brothers do? We know that they say, but do they take their own medicine?
I just did.
Seems 'fine' - more lenient that I'd go, but I'd agree that interminable lock-down of low-risk people is a bad idea. But we don't have that. Doesn't mention masks at all.
An article written by an expert in biology and disease and the director of the National Institutes of Health, which summarizes an a article that was published in a peer-reviewed medical journal and written by another accomplished medical doctor, isn't scientific enough for you.
Why? Because Sweden didn't mandate masks. First, Sweden had more deaths per capital than most countries. Second, even if it had very good numbers, that would not mean that masks aren't effective.
I can not read the parent post since it was deleted, but...
> First, Sweden had more deaths per capital than most countries.
Then again, most of those deaths occurred in care homes where the infection was spread by personnel who did not follow the personal protection mandates because they could not read the (Swedish) instructions. The number and outcome of infections outside of these facilities does not seem to be markedly different from that in states which have strong masking mandates, Italy being a good example of such.
> Second, even if it had very good numbers, that would not mean that masks aren't effective.
The fact of Swedish numbers - outside of the care facilities which I mentioned above - not being markedly worse than those in places with strong masking mandates does indicate that masking is not an effective way of limiting the spread of the disease, unless those places with strong masking mandates have other practices which lead to increased infection rates which level out the gains from masking compared to Swedish numbers.
There is no doubt that the correct use of the correct type of masks can help limit the spread of aerosol-borne infectious agents. The problem with masking mandates is that most people do not know how to correctly use masks, nor do most people have access to the correct type of mask. Re-using masks, handling potentially infected masks without care, storing used masks together with unused ones in coat pockets, there are many ways in which a masking mandate can negate any potential benefits from masks or even lead to a worse outcome. This is also one of the reasons for the different opinion on whether to implement masking mandates in different countries, e.g. Anders Tegnell (who leads the SARS2-campaign in Sweden) does not support a masking mandate. Fauci did not support masking but has changed his opinion on the matter for reasons as of yet unknown.
Masks do not save lives. Masks can save lives when of the correct type, used correctly. This is a big difference.
I can't buy it, European citizens almost all have to wear masks and we can clearly see that this measure alone doesn't seem to have an impact on the epidemic as the speed of the increase of cases is more or less the same that what we had in march. And nobody was wearing masks at that time.
That is a good point which is worth discussing. From an opposite point of view Czech Republic mandated masks early on which seemed to work. Now they are in a bad state which is being blamed on relaxing the restrictions they had in place.
Hypothesis: Wearing a mask is a physical reminder that we're in a pandemic, which helps folks remember to do other things which reduce their risk (avoid touching things unnecessarily, wash hands more often, staying at home unless necessary, etc)
Also, I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about the virus, and the mask reminds me of it.
I can't count how many hours I have personally wasted thinking about the virus this year. That surely must go into the bottom line of prevention measures.
This is rich. This throwaway account is going around posting short dismissals that don't add to the discussion, which is against site guidelines because it causes problems with reasonable discussions, and then uses these guidelines to try and protect themselves after injecting flamebait, which also happens against the site guidelines for the exact same reasons.
It would be impossible for the poster to not be aware of what they are doing.
There are striking differences in infection rates between countries. If you think masks are not effective, then go find out what is effective and argue for the merits of that instead of just lazily spreading FUD about currently accepted best practices.
(At some point we need to start viewing these types of comments as likely coming from Anti-American disinformation farms.)
That's a nice hypothesis, but until it has been tested, that's what it remains. If Sweden is testing it that's nice for everyone else, but there's no need to run the experiment multiple times in parallel.
It's amazing to me that people so purportedly pro-freedom eagerly want the government to perform a public health experiment on the entire country. That's quite totalitarian if you ask me.
BTW by saying that mask wearing is opposed to herd immunity, you are tacitly agreeing that masks work to slow the spread.
Deciding to run a large scale experiment of whether herd immunity is a worthwhile strategy for a novel disease is itself a top-down decision. It's not less government per se, just different government action.
But herd immunity should not equal a rising number of cases, which is what mindslight said. Your reply therefore doesn't actually answer the parent's claim.
Why the death rate? If people are getting new cases, doesn't that mean that they weren't immune? And if the number of new cases is rising, doesn't that mean that the herd isn't immune?
I mean, yes, ultimately we care about deaths. But why do you think that deaths are the measure of herd immunity?
There is no real evidence of a significant herd immunity effect in Sweden yet. Swedish government policy has consistently focused on sustainable pandemic control measures based on the assumption that the virus will be with us for a long time to come. Their low death rate over the past 3 months is probably mostly a result of effective measures to protect the elderly. And the harvesting effect: many of the frailest people already died during the first wave.
This is an exceptionally silly perspective to have. You feel entitled to put others in danger because you don't like being reminded of reality.
Edit: Pick your favorite example by using the following: "It's actually very annoying to [trivial activity]. I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about the [dangerous, potentially fatal thing], and the [benign preventative measure] reminds me of it". I think my favorite would be "It's actually very annoying to drive in a single lane on the road. I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about other cars on the road hitting me, and the lines on the road reminds me of it".
If you are going to wear a mask get a p100 [0]. Removes 99.97% of all particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter or larger. The lame part is covid is: 0.06 microns to .14 microns [1]. In theory though covid will be attached to a larger particle.
You can close those valves with a simple “hack”. The N95 woodworker mask I have has a plastic guard over the valve. Cut the guard and use an adhesive (I use Sugru) to close the valve. Ugly but effective, and visibly shows the valve has been shut...
I had faith in my fellow americans to wear a mask, but after filling in a week for our front desk salesperson I'm increasingly confounded by the lack of simple human compassion a lot of people seem to exhibit. customers who dont wear masks and are told to leave almost always have a long-winded presidential speach ready for anyone in earshot...rambling discourse about freedom, communism, china, asthma, you name it...anything they can think of so as to avoid accountability for their poor decision.
Masks seem to me to be a polite way of saying to front-facing retail employees and government workers that I realize your exposure is much greater than mine, I appreciate the risk you are taking, and I will do this small/large gesture to keep you safe. Might help me too, who knows...
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] thread[1] https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-2...
Some uncertainty in one's beliefs can be beneficial sometimes.
COVID-19 lockdowns are predicated on the vulnerable which includes the obese and chronically ill.
Hold on a second, 42.4% obesity in the US must play into the danger of COVID to the US population. That's a very weird dismissal that doesn't really make sense.
Where it gets weird is when 30% of people won't take a vaccine in the future, the vaccine is somewhere south of 70% effective, and none of the current phase 3 vaccines are seeking approval for use by children either. So what if COVID-19 sticks around for a while as a result. What if you can't tell who has had a vaccine and who hasn't?
Do you plan on wearing a mask everywhere for the next 5 years long after you've tested positive for antibodies? Because I don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purification
It gives one some insight into how certain religious rituals might have started. They give people the illusion of control.
I'm a layman, but the citations at the end of this article seem compelling.
I don't think anybody is saying that masks are a panacea - that would be "everybody stay home until we have a working vaccine".
However, they seem a completely sensible thing that you can do that reduces transmission (so some extent at least), whilst allowing you to go about your normal life relatively unimpeded.
A bit like speed limits on the road - something legally enforceable that 'generally' reduces risk for us all. You can make exceptions as to why you don't feel you need to comply "There was nobody else on the road", "I'm a great driver", "My car has auto-braking" or "German autobahns don't have limits and are safer" - but most of the world has decided it's safer that most roads should have a limit.
Although you never actually got back to me when I read your suggestion and pointed out they didn't say we shouldn't be wearing masks.
Why? Because Sweden didn't mandate masks. First, Sweden had more deaths per capital than most countries. Second, even if it had very good numbers, that would not mean that masks aren't effective.
Masks save lives (1) (2) (3) (4)
(1) https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou...
(2) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
(3) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7
(4) https://directorsblog.nih.gov/author/collinsfs/
I can not read the parent post since it was deleted, but...
> First, Sweden had more deaths per capital than most countries.
Then again, most of those deaths occurred in care homes where the infection was spread by personnel who did not follow the personal protection mandates because they could not read the (Swedish) instructions. The number and outcome of infections outside of these facilities does not seem to be markedly different from that in states which have strong masking mandates, Italy being a good example of such.
> Second, even if it had very good numbers, that would not mean that masks aren't effective.
The fact of Swedish numbers - outside of the care facilities which I mentioned above - not being markedly worse than those in places with strong masking mandates does indicate that masking is not an effective way of limiting the spread of the disease, unless those places with strong masking mandates have other practices which lead to increased infection rates which level out the gains from masking compared to Swedish numbers.
There is no doubt that the correct use of the correct type of masks can help limit the spread of aerosol-borne infectious agents. The problem with masking mandates is that most people do not know how to correctly use masks, nor do most people have access to the correct type of mask. Re-using masks, handling potentially infected masks without care, storing used masks together with unused ones in coat pockets, there are many ways in which a masking mandate can negate any potential benefits from masks or even lead to a worse outcome. This is also one of the reasons for the different opinion on whether to implement masking mandates in different countries, e.g. Anders Tegnell (who leads the SARS2-campaign in Sweden) does not support a masking mandate. Fauci did not support masking but has changed his opinion on the matter for reasons as of yet unknown.
Masks do not save lives. Masks can save lives when of the correct type, used correctly. This is a big difference.
This post links to an article showing masks don't work (N95 masks that are worn properly do work, though).
"The Most Masked European Countries Have the Biggest Coronavirus Surges"
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/most-masked-europea...
Hypothesis: Wearing a mask is a physical reminder that we're in a pandemic, which helps folks remember to do other things which reduce their risk (avoid touching things unnecessarily, wash hands more often, staying at home unless necessary, etc)
Since the number of infected people have increased, the rate of infection should also increase. If it remains same, then there is an actual reduction
the last paragraph clearly states:
> To do so, each of us needs to follow these three W’s: Wear a mask. Watch your distance (stay 6 feet apart). Wash your hands often.
This post links to an article showing masks don't work (N95 masks that are worn properly do work, though).
"The Most Masked European Countries Have the Biggest Coronavirus Surges"
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/most-masked-europea...
Also, I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about the virus, and the mask reminds me of it.
I can't count how many hours I have personally wasted thinking about the virus this year. That surely must go into the bottom line of prevention measures.
Annoying to a thousand people is better than even one lost life that could have been prevented.
(In all honesty THIS idea of selfish freedom is why western countries all fared so poorly during this pandemic.)
It would be impossible for the poster to not be aware of what they are doing.
(At some point we need to start viewing these types of comments as likely coming from Anti-American disinformation farms.)
It's amazing to me that people so purportedly pro-freedom eagerly want the government to perform a public health experiment on the entire country. That's quite totalitarian if you ask me.
BTW by saying that mask wearing is opposed to herd immunity, you are tacitly agreeing that masks work to slow the spread.
I mean, yes, ultimately we care about deaths. But why do you think that deaths are the measure of herd immunity?
Edit: Pick your favorite example by using the following: "It's actually very annoying to [trivial activity]. I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about the [dangerous, potentially fatal thing], and the [benign preventative measure] reminds me of it". I think my favorite would be "It's actually very annoying to drive in a single lane on the road. I don't want to be thinking 24/7 about other cars on the road hitting me, and the lines on the road reminds me of it".
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/11/fac...
If the wearer is infectious, it doesn't protect people they encounter.