The SF Anti-Mask League of 1919
twitter.com
twitter.com
https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/community-deve...
same-day effect, especially on the number of deaths, of the masks? To me it sounds like it peaked and started to decline before any effects from the masks as the masks effect on the death number would take a few days at least. I mean i'm not against the masks, i do think they have positive effect, it is just in that case it seems that the mask ordinance came too late. It was already something like 2 months of the raging second wave.
One bomb, which would have killed maybe low-single-digit numbers of people if it had worked; and a demonstration which erased the effects of maybe a half a week of compulsory mask-wearing.
The flu can stay viable in air for hours, and the individual exhaled airborne particles are vastly smaller than the holes in gauze -- it's "breathable" (allows moisture droplets to pass)
I suspect the mechanism of action is inconveniencing people into not leaving home at all, a no-pants order would probably have worked as well or better
And handwashing frequently is supposed to stop Covid-19 dead in its tracks. That's what our leaders told us.
I think it's reasonable to say we don't understand Covid-19 completely, and that the information we do receive is often filtered. So for now, I am taking basic precautions against all-of-the-above, until we have hard data to the contrary: contact, large droplets, and aerosol.
Probably wise. I take the same approach.
Placebo or coincidence?
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/well/live/coronavirus-fac...
"Even a simple mask is very effective at trapping droplets from your coughs and sneezes. A recent study published in Nature from the University of Hong Kong and the University of Maryland asked 111 people, infected with various viral illnesses (influenza, rhinovirus and a more-mild coronavirus), to exhale into a giant funnel. Sometimes their noses and mouths weren’t covered; other times they used a simple, not-particularly-well-fitted mask.
Without the masks, the infected people exhaled contagious droplets and aerosols, tiny particles that linger in the air, about 30 percent of the time they were tested. When the infected patients wore a mask, it blocked nearly 100 percent of viral droplets and some of the aerosol particles."
https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764367/effectiveness-sur...
If people are going to wear masks we need to make sure that they don't touch the mask or their face, or that they wash their hands immediately after doing so.
But they also say this: "The median viral loads after coughs without a mask, with a surgical mask, and with a cotton mask were 2.56 log copies/mL, 2.42 log copies/mL, and 1.85 log copies/mL, respectively."
That seems like a significant reduction in transmitted viral load? I would think that masks can have a positive impact even if they aren't perfect filters. If you look at their table of data, the reduction trend is consistent across their tests. But between the small number of patients(4) and samples, and the number of Petri dishes that came back as 'Not Detected', it seems like a pretty low powered study. :-/
They are also explicitly testing coughs. I wonder about the effects on filtering droplets generated from normal breathing and talking.
That is when behavior comes in. If people are more likely to ignore social distancing if they wear a mask then you might get the opposite effect, as social distancing is seen as better protective measure than masks.
This is one of the reasons why the health department in my nation only recommend masks for risk groups, like if you are working with elderly people.
I recall reading some interesting research on this when it comes to playgrounds: these days unforgiving concrete is being replaced with bouncy rubber, and the compensation/homeostasis theory is that kids are playing in riskier ways because small tumbles don't hurt them any more.
It is not a black and white issue of seat belt where there is ample proven evidence that in basically any car crash a seat belt is better than no seat belt. There is no shortage of seat belts, nor has there ever been one. The focus of car safety has also primarily focused on speed, where the survivable limit goes up if the driver has a seat belt, but even that higher limit is still much lower than the speed of many drivers. Thus the message there is to inform drivers the importance of both the benefit of seat belts, but also the critical message that speed more or less determine if a person is going to live or die. Even if people would risk compensate and go from the survivable speed without seat belt and increase their speed to survivable speed with seat belt, it would still be lower than what many people already drive their cars at. The worst case scenario of seat belts would thus be an improvement. We can not say the same thing about social distancing, where going out sick with a mask on is still a very bad idea.
Thus the recommendation from the health department is right now that masks should go to those in risk groups and people who are sick should stay home. If research later show that people without symptoms reduces risk of infecting others by wearing a medical mask, and the supply of masks increases, then they will likely change their recommendation based on the changed situation and facts.
(Small meta comment, but it is interesting how skeptical people are of the medical department that is responsible for handling the pandemic. It is true that critical questioning any government recommendation is useful, but maybe a bit more open minded discussion would be better).
In any case, the large number of NDs (not detected) everywhere in the table, but especially inside the masks after the patient just coughed in them (which the authors struggle to explain), makes this entire experiment very suspect. (Just look at the reported results for patient 4, which make no sense at all!)
There is no such thing as a symbiotic virus.
I will rephrase you:
> If people are going not to wear masks we need to make sure that they don't touch their face or that they wash their hands immediately after being in contact with anything anything would be in contact too.
Same thing, the washing hands and keeping distance is stuff you are supposed to whether you wear mask or not. Mask is not putting you into additional danger as far as I know. We don't need to put special additional conditions on masks wearing.
Sure. Masks have a plausible mechanism of action. Now show me using good evidence that masks i) don't increase risk and ii) decrease risk.
At the moment the mechanism for increased risk is as plausible as the mechanism for decreased risk. Masks are uncomfortable and people need to adjust them during the day -- this is an increase in face touching, and masks are by definition contaminated.
> the washing hands and keeping distance is stuff you are supposed to whether you wear mask or not
The only point of wearing masks is when you cannot socially distance yourself from other people. That's why masks are being pushed so hard now -- to end the lockdowns and get people back into work.
1) masks decrease the spread of disease by decreasing your germy breath from spreading and by decreasing you from breathing someone else's germy breath
2) masks increase the spread of disease by causing you to touch your mask with your germy hand, which increases the chance that germs can spread from your hand to your mouth?
and that the benefits of (1) do not outweigh the downsides of (2)?
I think that could be easily proven by showing that it's very unlikely to spread germs through the air but very likely to spread germs via touch.
One of the fun highlights of this disease has been the official advice to not touch your face, followed immediately by the realization that we all touch our faces a lot. The idea that masks specifically cause you to touch your face more than we already are doesn’t pass the sniff test.
It does not seem to me. There is like no study that shows masks increase risk of spreading infection and I have seen multiple that show it takes it at least somehow down. (I am lazy to search it down again. In pretty much all these discussions someone linked.)
> Masks are uncomfortable and people need to adjust them during the day -- this is an increase in face touching, and masks are by definition contaminated.
Even if this was true, you are still less likely to infect others if you are asymptomatic. It is not just about you. And as someone who was wearing mask for multiple weeks (they were mandated here), it is not some kind of horrible uncomfortable.
> The only point of wearing masks is when you cannot socially distance yourself from other people. That's why masks are being pushed so hard now -- to end the lockdowns and get people back into work.
You are also meeting people in stores, in public transport, when walking on the street anywhere. Even in lockdown, people still need to eat. Sure you don't need mask when you are alone in the forrest. You dont need to wash hands there either and can touch your face as much as you like (at least not due to coronavirus).
When I am alone in my house with supplies, I dont need to do anything special and I can touch my face as much as I want. All other measures apply only when you are in space shared with other people.
Which is part of why the anti-mask narrative has been so harmful. Recommended mask wearing should have started back in early March so that everyone could gain experience before the virus was so widespread - knowing how to adjust their mask so it was comfortable, becoming used to it and not fidgeting, and learning how to incorporate mask donning/doffing into their overall hygiene procedures.
It also would have been nice to get data on the growth of cases with mask usage but without shutdown. Now we're left with the decision of whether we're ready for cases to start growing at some unknown faster rate.
So why don't we try to do our best and wear masks of any type that we can, and prevent the spread no matter how small? I am just sad people like you have really hurt countries. I know in America we should have been pushing the agenda that we should be wearing masks outside, we should not be hoarding medical masks, we should be washing our hands, and even more importantly we should be taking body temps before entering buildings.
The study in the NYT article is using non-woven paper masks, which act a decent barrier to ballistic particles. Gauze would be way less effective than even loose woven fabric at stoping the 5um particles they're measuring. Like the paper masks, it would be completely ineffective at stopping the influenza-carrying aerosols.
"nearly 100%" is a pretty big misstatement of the study as well, while it showed a statistically significant difference between the groups, so much of the no-mask control group recorded 0 virus load from droplets that the size of the effect can't be meaningfully quantified
> “On Jan 17, the day the masking ordinance went into effect, the # of new cases/deaths declined, the first decline in quite some time. > > This continued until the epidemic faded, a signal that the mask ordinance had helped wipe out the Spanish Flu in San Francisco”
Why on earth would anybody believe it was the masks that helped when reading the “evidence” in the first paragraph? The cases dropped the very same day the law was passed! So I’m supposed to believe that in just a few hours, the law had a measurable effect?! I don’t think so.
My guess is that people had already seen the cases and deaths rising again in newspaper reports and had stopped going out as much again. Perhaps they had even started wearing masks again.
I’m not trying to say masks are pointless. I’m trying to say that this narrative is absurd.
People wearing masks constantly touch the mask, often without washing their hands afterwards.
The virus will not go through your hands or face. Wear a mask, avoid touching your eyes (wear glasses?) and you're most of the way there. Keep washing your hands anyway though.
I touch my face way less with one and think about it each time i do. yes i rearrange the mask sometimes, but then i go wash my hands.. and as i wear a mask more, my need to rearrange it drops.
it also is a social cue for anyone around me to think about the hygiene issues if they see me touch the mask which they don't get when i am not wearing a mask.
Because people associate wearing a mask with disease, restrictions, illness and so on. A mask taps into beliefs and deep-seated fears about society, the wider world, uncertainty, personal freedom, body autonomy and public health. As such, in Western culture, wearing masks carries widespread stigma:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/america...
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/wearing-a-mask-while-a...
Wearing a mask is a stark wake up call whereas many people simply want to go to business-as-usual as before. During the 1918 pandemic, SF ordered people to wear masks several times. At one point, some people were fed up and started an "anti-mask league".
Today, washing your hands is not questioned, and social norms dictate that one washes their hands at various times. It's something you get taught to do from a young age. That wasn't always the case, as washing hands was heavily opposed in the 19th century when it was first suggested by Ignaz Semmelweiss and Florence Nightingale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
It took time, campaigning and a lot of education across several generations to get to this point.
A hypothetical mask that reduces the chance of someone else catching a disease from you by 30% would provide a significant drag on the R0 of the disease, hastening the end of the epidemic.
Also, infection rates of several types of viruses, including flu and enterovirus, dropped significantly in southeast asian countries that moved to universal mask wearing during this pandemic. Since most people weren’t wearing N95 PPE, that implies that even surgical masks are effective at slowing the spread of several types of viruses.
Also, you know, there is a reason why surgeons wear them.
Originally, we were told masks wouldn't help. Now, we're told they will. Obviously, the science here isn't settled. Mask use is more political than anything.
Here's an article: "Cloth masks – dangerous to your health?"
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/cloth-masks-–-dange...
And then there's this:
"Sweeping mask recommendations—as many have proposed—will not reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, as evidenced by the widespread practice of wearing such masks in Hubei province, China, before and during its mass COVID-19 transmission experience earlier this year."
And, further on down:
"[An experimental study] seeking a reason for the failure of cloth masks required for the public in stopping the 1918 influenza pandemic, found that the number of cloth layers needed to achieve acceptable efficiency made them difficult to breathe through and caused leakage around the mask."
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commenta...
>https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/cloth-masks-–-dange....
Jesus, how do people get away with articles and studies like this. The control they used was:
>‘standard practice’, which comprised mask use in a high proportion of participants.
So ultimately they're comparing cloth masks to surgical masks and, no shit, surgical masks are better. How they draw the conclusion that cloth masks are dangerous is beyond me.
People will have to plan their trips, put the mask on, come home and wash them in the sink. In the meantime, they shouldn't be putting the mask in their pockets, purses, etc. People are not going to be handling and using their masks properly. Because doing so will be a "pain in the ass."
And, keep in mind, in NY the governor has explicitly said that "face coverings" are okay, if you don't have a mask. You just need something. That "makes sense." So, you have people wearing kerchiefs and such.
Mask orders are going to end up offering no significant protection, give people a false sense of security, and perhaps end up making some people more sick. Just watch!
"The study found respiratory infection was much higher among healthcare workers wearing cloth masks.
"The penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% compared to medical masks with 44%."
That doesn't mean they are dangerous compared to wearing no mask.
Wearing the masks was seen as uncomfortable and so people didn’t want to do it.
I think of at meat processing plant in South Dakota that had a large outbreak, and why, when a plant was still able to run, management didn't take drastic measures to ensure that employees wouldn't get sick and bring about a full stoppage. Same thing is Halle I gotta at hospitals and other places too, all around the country.
People may feel we live in unique times, but yet again, not much has changed since 1919.
This is a great reminder of the inevitable tragedy of knowledge lost across generations. Could we as a species do better?
The 1919 SF Chronicle was easier to read.
The author above says civil libertarians were worried about a slippery slope, where mask laws could lead to forced vaccines "or any experiment or indignity." I think anti-mask concern is more interesting in that context.
I want to live in a world where these things aren't legally mandated, but everyone does them because they're good ideas. Apparently that world is impossible.
It's similar to the people that don't wear their seatbelt to somehow stick it to the government. Apparently their driving is so lame that they've never appreciated the seatbelt while cornering? Sigh.
Helmet laws in the several US states are a good example, I grew up in SoCal, where its mandated for bikes/motorcycles, but more importantly spent a lot of time in 4 wheel motorsports and saw their efficacy on more occasions than I can count. I used to be the only one to wear one during canyon carving as well as track events.
I didn't ride a motorcycle until I got to CO, where helmets are optional, and despite that I would never swing a leg over a bike without one. The only people I ever see ignore helmets are harley riding guys with bare skin exposed all over, often way older, as most of the sport bike community understand that gear is everything in even a low speed, low side if they've been in one.
After a lowside myself with cheap gear, except my helmet as that was a $700 write off, due to a negligent driver and inexperience on my part (specifically: how not to panic towards that as it frequently occurs on the street) I learned the hard way how important 'dressing for the crash' really is and not just a helmet only priority.
The only time I ever rode without a helmet was riding my motorcycle from one end of the parking lot to my storage unit (maybe 1/2 mile, if that) during my first incoming snap frost/blizzard and it felt so incredibly stupid at 10MPH in 1st gear feathering the throttle I'd never do it again.
I'm not sure what serious lack of self preservation you must have to ever willingly ride at speed without one, but perhaps its not so bad to weed that out of the gene pool and not having it expedites the process?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHmDeqdRdLk
I'm so glad I moved out for good this time, its sadly a pro military and Trump part of Southern Orange County that happens to have some of the most beautiful coast lines and best surfing on the mainland... I just looked into to it and it seems its also happening in Colorado Springs, which is also deeply pro Military and is dependent on its economy.
Which is odd, because in the Northern part we have people calling the police to tell them about the influx of out of state plates that been seen recently.
First, California is still on partial lock-down, not full lock down. You're still allowed to go outside for exercise and essential shopping with social distancing in the best case scenario. That's farm from ideal, but way more relaxed then most of the World when trying to tackle the spread of COVID. Several posters here are from Spain or Italy, they couldn't/cannot leave their homes at all!
In the worst case its almost entirely unchanged: I've seen several examples of Youtube celebrities coming in from out of state on their motorcycles to to do a mini tour, ride while the roads are practically empty and the weather is good (Maxwrist) to shoot new videos for their channels; to professional motorcycle riders extending their stays (Scott Redding) in SoCal to take advantage of weather and riding conditions under relaxed lock-down conditions as opposed to Europe where they're from to prepare for what, if it is done at all, will be a very short but intense season.
With that said, the sooner this ends the sooner we can try and get back to trying to rebuild our lives. I personally was on Round 2 at SpaceX.
Its useless to protest under these conditions, and only further increases contagion which will put a strain on the local economy further. As well as hospitals and all essential workers within them and will extend the stay at home orders.
Personally, this is one of the things I can't stand about being home in California anymore; for most, Nature doesn't bite back often enough, so most people think they can do as they please and seldom experience just how harsh Nature can be so that gives them a sense of entitlement and a false sense of confidence that they're immune to consequence.
Those of us that were born there and span several generations are acutely aware that earthquakes, fires, and torrential floods are game-changers and has significantly impacted every single generation so its best to conduct oneself with that in mind so we can get on with living our lives as soon as possible.
The weather is such a double edged sword. I highly doubt these people would be out pulling this stunt if they got the 10 inches of snow we got this week in CO.
https://denver.cbslocal.com/video/4519624-hundreds-gather-at...
I even saw it became a meme to call them 'Karen' on social media, and I don't even follow SM, as you can see them in action during this 'protest' making an unnecessary scene in the middle of the street:
https://twitter.com/eugenegu/status/1252099015891496960
Yes, that's a nurse she is racially berating; the same people dealing with medical supplies shortages, patient exposure, and being over worked during this pandemic.
Maybe that would get the point across?
I'm not sure I would "look forward" to that, if you mean that in the colloquial sense.
I think if you combine it with a cycling cap/baseball hat it's more effective, since cameras are usually placed higher than one's eyes.
I made a video which shows that masks are the answer, there is no shortage, and that our government leaders were wrong in telling us not to wear them:
https://old.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/g3sw2l/the_user_udr...
lots of new facebook groups like pages asking for reopening, then retweeted by the president
crowds are so weird
https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/i_simply_c...
Many of these so-called grassroots movements are not spontaneous.
One might call it subturfuge.
Sorry I’ll delete my account.
Any disinterested search for truth here would involve reams of original-source facts. This is probably not the right forum for that.
FWIW I did not make the claim for which you are requesting evidence. I just don't think asking for evidence in this case will be very fruitful.
* Black Lives Matter was a grassroots movement, where a bunch of individual people across the country organically discovered the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and felt it summarized their thoughts on current events.
* Black Lives Matter was a organized effort by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to drum up public support for their preferred economic and social policies. They learned how to do this at BOLD, a little-known organization teaching people how to shape the public's anger in ways that serve their political goals.
While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right.
…
It was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which Michigan state corporate filings show has also operated under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans. It was also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to the Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.
…
In fact the man is Phil Robinson, the prime mover in a group called the Michigan Liberty Militia, whose Facebook page features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.
…
The protest has been heavily promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which counts among its donors “dark money” funds linked to the Koch brothers such as Donors Capital Fund, and Castle Rock, a foundation seeded with part of the fortune of Adolph Coors, the rightwing beer magnate.
…
The event is also being promoted on a website dedicated to attacking Little for his response to Covid-19. That website was set up by the Idaho businessman, pastor and one-time Republican state senate candidate, Diego Rodriguez.
Rodriguez launched the website at an Easter service held in defiance of the governor’s orders on Easter Sunday, which was also addressed by Ammon Bundy, the leader of the militia occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016 that become a rallying point for the anti-government right in the US.
…
Included in that number are members of the 3% of Washington, a group which has held a series of open-carry rallies in Seattle, featuring speeches from the far-right protest leader, Joey Gibson.
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coro...
I know the character limit is a part of Twitter's ethos, but given that it is now a place where important information of longer character lengths is published, and given that it's a nightmare to read (or write) a thread of two dozen tweets, I really wish they'd consider giving some sort of better-suited home for this kind of content. Maybe they leave tweets at the current character length, but introduce some new product where longer stuff can be posted.
I know there will a long list of replies of the opinion that this would kill twitter. There's no way to know except to try it and I wish they would. The 280 character limit is a net negative for society at large and I feel they already have the eyes so letting people write longer replies will only increase engagement IMO.
(I also suspect immutability simplifies their infrastructure a lot)
Socially, Twitter is more of a public forum than Facebook, though. That could change how people use and perceive the feature on the different platforms.
starting in Sept 2018 San Francisco suffered from Spanish Flu pandemic
Being opposed to keeping crowds off of beaches and people from infecting one another in restaurants is akin to advocating against vaccinations or seatbelt use.
Right now we are in the middle of a flaming inferno and there is a vital role for our democratically elected government to play in mandating mask use and other measures. This is very much a war like moment and we should unify in our resolve to defeat our shared enemy.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-di...
So when the situation changed, his view also changed.
Your source possibly supports "ambivalently-mask," but even that would be debatable.
His comments seem fair given the situation and knowledge at the time, as well as the political balance he was striking with his public comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...
I think since February we’ve learned more and more that people without symptoms are contagious. The only way to follow Fauci’s advice in that case is to wear a mask because we don’t know if we have the virus or not.
See this email from a government doctor on Feb 23: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-r...
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/11/us/politics/11dc-...
Here's an article from January[1]:
> "There's no doubt after reading this paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "This study lays the question to rest."
I've noticed a lot of excuses for poor decisions, as well as rewriting of history that's only a couple of months old. I doubt we're going to see much accountability for the way the pandemic was mishandled.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomat...
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/report-of-asympto...
Current thinking is that there's statistical evidence for pre-symptomatic transmission about 2-3 days before symptoms appear:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138665322...
It's easy to look back in time and say "Someone knew the right answer."
It's very hard to stand in the present and say "Of the 20 people who each have a different answer they believe is right, I am going to select the really right one."
Often, the optimal decision is to hedge and delay until information becomes clearer.
The evidence for effectiveness of other kinds of masks in the prevention of virus transmission is weak, at best.
He was shocked to learn of the asymptomatic transmission in mid-late February. This is a key person in determining the US strategy. Not rewriting history, it’s a email that was sent at the time.
As someone else pointed out, that preliminary report from Jan 30 Fauci referred to was debunked within a few days as that specific person actually was showing symptoms.
IT's deadly primarily in populations of people(usually elderly) who can afford the health care needed to keep chronic health issues managed through medication.
the failure of covid-19 to materialize in the slums of Nairobi or poor rural districts of Thailand caused a lot of complacency among western planners who presumed that if it did not hit there it would not affect them.
Also, from the post it says that masks were useful in stopping the Spanish Flu. It's amazing that we didn't learn that in 100 years.
It's a reasonable low-value point in the broader discussion, however it's absurd as a reference of much consequence, given the outcomes in Japan and Singapore have been nothing less than extraordinary.
Compared to the US and Europe, Japan is sitting next to Wuhan. They have the oldest large population on earth. They have 127 million people. They have a per 100k persons Covid mortality rate of 0.17 --- 1/30th that of Germany, 1/68th that of the US, 1/169th that of France.
Read that again. Japan's per capita mortality rate is 1/169th that of France. Not a typo.
Mask up accordingly.
Comparing mortality rates per capita at the start of a crisis when it hasn't spread at the same time/rate in all countries isn't very illuminating (and yes we are at the start, not the middle and certainly not the end). It needs to get to a certain number of cases before it can start to spread exponentially.
After a slow start Japan now has an out of control outbreak and has just declared a state of emergency - it's probably too late to contain it in cities like Tokyo. I sincerely hope they do manage to get it under control because as you say they have an elderly population but apparently hospitals are already close to overwhelmed in Tokyo and a resurgence has happened in Hokaido.
I think New Zealand (where mask wearing is not prevalent) is also a counter-example to your thesis that mask wearing has significantly changed outcomes. Not even hard lockdowns have helped in Europe (though they probably help get it under control). Test and tracing to eliminate outbreaks in detail has definitely been the most significant factor IMO, as practiced in both in New Zealand and South Korea, and interestingly Germany - which has probably seen as many early cases as France/Italy/Spain/UK due to being at the centre of Europe but has kept this relatively under control so far without tight lockdowns and without mask wearing.
There will certainly be a lot of interesting studies after this is all over comparing mitigation measures - at the moment it is not so clear which ones work, and at which stage in outbreaks they are most useful.
So many variables. I wonder how clear things will become even in hindsight. Of course, it doesn't keep people today from being very certain and very dogmatic and very strident today about the right things to do on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere.
https://bgr.com/2020/03/26/coronavirus-testing-explains-germ...
Whereas the advice from the WHO and their dependents has been muddled, illogical, and inconsistent, with increasing amounts of 'wriggle room'
Also the hospitals where there are zero cases of staff infection and care homes free of infection spread are using PPE levels well above what the WHO recommends.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcbJdRb6mds [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7trxYtMzY
And then there is messaging. There are still not nearly enough PPE going around for medical professionals, back in february it was even worse. Calling for people to wear masks would have made this situation even worse. Now, this kind comes around to bite officials, it was still the right thing to do, if you ask me.
And then, back in February, Europe had a lot less cases.
The measures taken might be completely right from an medical science perspective but we have moved away from a system where an enlightened monarch or central committee makes decisions on behaf of the ignorant people because history have shown that such systems always devolve into conspiracies against the many by the powerful few, so we cannot respond to every minor crisis by having the government adopt the tactics and language of an benevolent dictatorship and must govern by consent, ie it's the scientists job to make the public understand the risks/benefits not dictate solutions.
Go read any constitution of a democratic state, they all contain protection of activities that is being restricted as a part of the corona containment measures, and in many cases without any legislative process let alone that needed to change an constitution.
Representative Democracy always contains an explicit contract on where the governments mandate to regulate ends, which is often as important to the freedom of it's public then the mere presence of an vote for representatives.
The second and third paragraphs in your comment, I'm sorry, appear to be just fluff. Which specific constitution? What do the words actually say? We can read the real words in an actual constitution ... or we can generalize and, I'm sorry, in my opinion that amounts to blowing smoke.
You no longer have the right of assembly(article 20), nor freedom if movement(article 13) there is good reasons why this is restricted doing an pandemic but it's still an restriction of an fundamental right.
The us constitution without post 1965 caselaw and amendments is not defining an modern democracy as and modern civics almost universally equate the term democracy with the UN Charter of Human Rights.
Of cause you could use the old definition where any system of voting(even one where only 10% of the public have the right to vote) is an democracy but that would be pointless in an modern context.
> (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
So after layout out various high-minded (if occasionally contradictory) ideals, they immediately follow up by saying that these "rights", which are apparently not universal and thus not really rights at all, are subject to broadly-defined "limitations" which amount to a laundry-list of excuses states have used throughout history to justify denying people their fundamental rights: "morality, public order and the general welfare". Has there ever been any infringement of the rights of speech, assembly, movement, or property which wasn't justified (publically, at least) on the basis of one of those categories?
If you strike out Article 29 as well as the "attacks upon his honour and reputation" part of Article 12 (which is directly contrary to freedom of speech), the "arbitrary" qualifiers in Articles 14, 15, and 17 which render the surrounding statements meaningless, the frankly irrelevant opinion statement "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society" in Article 16, and Articles 22 through 27—in their entirety—then you would actually have a Universal Declaration of Human Rights worthy of the name. The authors started out reasonably well but failed to resist the impulse to throw in one contradictory article after another toward the end. You can see this reflected in the style of the text: the early articles are short and to the point, but as you read further down the document they get longer and more complicated, and start talking more about obligations and limitations than actual rights.
The US Constitution may not be perfect but at least it didn't fall into the trap of trying to carve out exceptions and limitations, pre-justifying the infringement of fundamental rights whenever the exercise of that right becomes inconvenient for the state, or enshrining an entitlement to a certain standard of living or to specific goods or services which can only be provided by infringing on the rights of others.
At what point will it ever be legal again to break isolation, and where were the constitutional process that allowed the government to restrict fundamental rights no simple parliamentary majority can interfere with?
This is the problem you have an government making decree's it never had the authority to do because of an "crisis" with no clear star/end condition, which basic sociology predicts will lead to people getting contrarian views and reactions especially if the response to criticism is an "call to authority" no matter how deserved that call is.
The masks are not to protect you - it’s to protect others from you!
Let me put it this way: every infected person who wears a mask reduces R0. The outbreaks and pandemic can be stopped. The quarantines and economic damage won’t be needed.
We don’t know who’s infected, so everyone has to wear masks and washing hands when entering a building. People should be fined by private businesses and buildings for violating this.
And on a public level, this is like getting a DUI.
I'm gonna suggest that normal functioning of our normal system of government might be something we all just have to live with for now. If folks want to argue that we live in a monarchy, I think the place to start is to bring a little bit of civics to the table and explain why they think that idea is plausible.
It is not a slippery slope to authoritarianism, it is an extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures (i.e. wartime, smallpox). As a nation, we’ve long ago decided and upheld the idea that public health is more valuable than individual liberty, in times like these.
If you’re curious, the case is Jacobson v Massachusetts. Excerpted from Wikipedia:
> Harlan ruled that Massachusetts was justified in mandating vaccination: "there are manifold restraints to which each person is necessarily subject for the common good". While Harlan supported such restraints, he also warned that if the state targeted specific individuals or populations to unnecessary restrictions, the court might have to step in to protect them.
> That was a few years after Wong Wai v. Williamson in which a federal circuit court injunction in San Francisco was overturned. It required all Chinese residents of San Francisco to get a dangerous bubonic plague inoculation if they wished to leave the city, which Judge William Morrow ruled was "boldly directed against the Asiatic or Mongolian race as a class".
This might be the one time the crisis is real and not invented but how do we make sure that all of the emergency measures including all new surveillance tech deployed is mothballed under seal. the second it's no longer an emergency and that an correct review happens afterwards.
The us supreme court have an long tradition of reading the us constitution with an very open mind to the needs of the state itself, especially in rulings that predate the US signing the UN Charter of Human rights.
You want to know who the snowflakes are now - its the angry crowds that can't spend time at home with their own thoughts, without working themselves into a froth.
While the measures might be fully correct(mostly i agree with them) "the shut up and listen to your betters" mentality/rhetoric is only going to make the group of people fed up with the way they have been ignored for decades go even more rogue as they gather more and more "evidence" that their rights are being actively trampled on and become more willing to "fight the power!!" regardless of the "collateral damage" for doing so.
They seek consensus. The consensus this time just happened to be different than your personal opinion. That's an indictment against egotism, not against government.
When you cant even get the head of state to fully endorse the consensus and face major dissent then what basis have we to claim it was an consensus to begin with.
The problem is of cause that the panic induced rush to do something let to an consensus without quorum. And while the rush might have been justified it needs validation by an actual quorate consensus on an near daily basis as emergency decisions to suspect rights have an lifetime of days not months.
Lockdown is after all also how authoritarian states typically respond to political unrest, so we need to keep being vigilant that they only exists for the purpose of spreading and actively expanding epidemic.
I guess you could have a policy of just letting them die if they get into an accident without a helmet, but that its own host of problems.