"At this point in the pandemic, forcing vaccinated people to wear masks outside is an unjustifiable act of overreach on the part of government officials. It's also contrary to existing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which holds that masks are generally not necessary in outdoor settings. The CDC does state that people may wish to voluntarily wear masks during particularly crowded outdoor gatherings out of an abundance of caution, but we know that confirmed outdoor superspreader events are so rare as to be practically nonexistent.
A recent outbreak at Oregon's Pendleton Whisky Music Fest seems to have spooked local authorities; 66 of the 12,000 attendees later tested positive for COVID-19, according to Oregon Live. However, it's far from clear that the infections occurred during the outdoor portions of the event, and 61 of the 66 infected individuals were unvaccinated. It does not make much sense to require all people to wear masks outdoors when only the unvaccinated are at significant risk of being hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19.
This decision is not rooted in science. There's little-to-no evidence that simply passing by someone on the sidewalk is enough contact to contract a respiratory illness. Basically you have to sit in a room with someone for 15 minutes and talk face-to-face for this to happen.
Yeah, outside maybe very limited circumstances mask mandates outside seem like a bad idea: won't do much, and annoys people. (Around here they've only been required outside for events with large dense crowds of people)
Hm. I'm an Oregonian, and I'm afraid I'm going to be forced into a being a conscientious objector.
It's like the pressure keeps on being ratcheted up until you break, to one side or another. They force you to be a 'loony reactionary' or a 'subservient lapdog', driving out any possibility to remain moderate.
I isolated for a year, had 3M N95 masks from a natural disaster, and bought a P100 full face mask for airline travel.
This is an unwise, extreme, panic-driven, overreach lacking in evidence. This display of lack of common-sense makes public health look arbitrary, capricious, petty, authoritarian controlling rather than concerned with health, and untrustworthy.
BC Canada is at 85% vaxxed age 12+. We just had a mask mandate announced regardless of vax status, as well as a vax 'passport' for access to restaurants, gyms, etc.
(Temporary until Jan 31, 2022 of course with the possibility of extensions.)
This is all about enforcement, and using social pressure to make people mask up. If you have to mask up outdoors, it's harder to "forget" your mask when you pop into a shop or pub.
If you have to mask up inside your own household, and you know there are government vaccine enforcement officials (GVEO's) coming to check at random, you are more likely to have one when you pop outside, and later pop into a shop or pub.
You act like social pressure is a switch you flip. It's a gradient. You can increase or decrease it.
Also it's effects aren't a light bulb. You don't suddenly reach a threshold and everyone is "social pressured". It's an effect that increases the number of people wearing masks. Just because a large number of people are not wearing masks, you think that social pressure is useless. It's like saying the titanic shouldn't have had lifeboats, because most people didn't make it onto them, so they must not work.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 21.2 ms ] threadSurgical masks and cloth masks have not proven to be effective.
https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-e...
"At this point in the pandemic, forcing vaccinated people to wear masks outside is an unjustifiable act of overreach on the part of government officials. It's also contrary to existing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which holds that masks are generally not necessary in outdoor settings. The CDC does state that people may wish to voluntarily wear masks during particularly crowded outdoor gatherings out of an abundance of caution, but we know that confirmed outdoor superspreader events are so rare as to be practically nonexistent.
A recent outbreak at Oregon's Pendleton Whisky Music Fest seems to have spooked local authorities; 66 of the 12,000 attendees later tested positive for COVID-19, according to Oregon Live. However, it's far from clear that the infections occurred during the outdoor portions of the event, and 61 of the 66 infected individuals were unvaccinated. It does not make much sense to require all people to wear masks outdoors when only the unvaccinated are at significant risk of being hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19.
..."
It's like the pressure keeps on being ratcheted up until you break, to one side or another. They force you to be a 'loony reactionary' or a 'subservient lapdog', driving out any possibility to remain moderate.
This is an unwise, extreme, panic-driven, overreach lacking in evidence. This display of lack of common-sense makes public health look arbitrary, capricious, petty, authoritarian controlling rather than concerned with health, and untrustworthy.
... I mean 80%
... actually make that 90%
...
(Temporary until Jan 31, 2022 of course with the possibility of extensions.)
/s.
Vehemently disagree with your logic.
That's a nice euphemistic way of looking at having cops harass people who aren't wearing masks outside. It's just "social pressure!"
If there was widespread buy-in for this nonsense of the sort that could create social pressure, they wouldn't need the mandate to get people to do it.
Also it's effects aren't a light bulb. You don't suddenly reach a threshold and everyone is "social pressured". It's an effect that increases the number of people wearing masks. Just because a large number of people are not wearing masks, you think that social pressure is useless. It's like saying the titanic shouldn't have had lifeboats, because most people didn't make it onto them, so they must not work.