What a world we live in.
I sorta "get" why some people don't want to. But why get angry at folks minding their business. Are they just projecting their fears of being wrong?
I'd believe this answer if someone told me :). It's the same thing that fuels all of the fanboi-ism in tech. The "I'm insecure about my choice so I need to attack all of the other choices to feel better" behavior.
We've also had incidents of utility workers being attacked by people who think 5G towers are being used to spread the (imaginary????) coronavirus, so that's a thing.
These aren't hypothetical questions. I genuinely do not understand these people or their behavior on any level and I never see any attempt at an explanation anywhere - here, social media, mainstream media, documentaries - you name it.
I think the key for conspiracy theories is that they find a kernel of truth that powerful people don't readily admit, and then fill in the information gaps with their own narrative.
In these people, I theorize it's a badge of honor for them to be contrarian, and to be 'independent thinkers'. Which, in the abstract, is a good thing I guess - but where is the line? It's all phrased in a way that there is no 'proof' possible, because there is always an extra layer of 'but that's just what THEY want you to think!'.
I was at a (responsibly socially distanced, thank you) bbq yesterday where several highly intelligent, respected professionals were spouting... let's say... things with dubious intellectual justification. But hey, with some in that company being literally antifa t-shirt wearing activists, at least it's entertaining!
We're hearing about this now because conspiracy theories about covid are _dangerous_ in a way that belief that the earth is flat are largely not. Another worrying one potentially coming up; a lot of people believe various conspiracy theories about vaccines, and this may become a serious issue if a viable covid vaccine becomes available.
Also, one man's "animosity" is another's protest.
Obviously this does not justify boorish behavior, but I can certainly empathize with their sentiments.
If a school demands a dress code, people go nuts. It's immediately suspected to be unfair, overly broad, racist, sexist, and ableist, probably invented by perverts who think too much about adolescent sexuality. If you tell them the dress code is a courtesy to others, kids and parents will get in your face and protest it. [0]
Masks solve a (big) problem in some (limited) situations -- mostly close contact. But the rules are written to be over-inclusive and inconsistent. It's a protection against the chance you're infected and don't know it. Some municipalities are demanding them outdoors, in sparsely-populated areas, and indoors with your family. You don't get to present your body how you want, and your communication is stifled.
Masks are a dress code for the face. I wear them. But some people are going to get angry.
[0] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/13/17847542/students-wa...
But I think you hit the mark closer with that little hedge of "and conduct", at the beginning. This isn't about dress codes per se, it's about rules - many Americans simply hate rules and reflexively rebel against them. Any suggestion that one should make a sacrifice for the collective good is invariably met, from some quarters, with a kind of moral outrage - often accompanied with self-righteous rhetoric giving frequent mention to "freedom" and "liberty", and often "the Constitution" and "founding fathers" as well. The inability to make collective sacrifice is a huge social weakness that interferes with the formation of a civil society, and in my opinion it is, more than anything else, the reason America is handling the pandemic so poorly - not just in terms of the acute response, but also the very structure of society. For example, due to overwhelming distaste for the idea of paying to fix other people's problems even if it's manifestly better for society as a whole, there's no socialized healthcare, or functioning social safety net - both of which cause people in low-paying service jobs to drag themselves to work while fighting COVID-19.
Many would be angry about the overinclusive rule. It would be more about the message to others about safety than actual safety. “Let them help themselves, if they’re so risk averse,“ you might say.
In at least some places, “masks all the time” isn’t entirely about function. Do masks really work better in casinos and schools, but not churches and funerals? Or, as in Maryland this week, do they work differently in public schools and private schools?
People sense that the mask in some situations is partly about a certain kind of authority and conformity — and they don’t like to conform with their face and body.
> But in the more general case, people can use moral decisions to signal how moral they are. In this case, they choose a disastrous decision based on some moral principle. The more suffering and destruction they support, and the more obscure a principle it is, the more obviously it shows their commitment to following their moral principles absolutely. For example, Immanuel Kant claims that if an axe murderer asks you where your best friend is, obviously intending to murder her when he finds her, you should tell the axe murderer the full truth, because lying is wrong. This is effective at showing how moral a person you are – no one would ever doubt your commitment to honesty after that – but it’s sure not a very good result for your friend.
Letting people die of disease shows their commitment to "freedom" from ... masks and scientists.
Some people are just inherently reactive to threats, and respond better to request. A governmental recommendation and public awareness campaign would likely be more effective with these people than a law.
You have to use their natural rebelliousness to your advantage.
The various underlying reasons that brought these socioeconomic conditions forth (failing countries to the south of the US, exploitation of cheap labor in the US, endemic political infighting in the US, dependence of the countries on these people sending money back) make it unlikely that the US will ever control the virus.
It would require combative parties to come together to fix a whole host of issues that they failed to fix for over 40 years. The host of issues have just piled up and by now are a mile high.
It isn’t just covid-19 that the US is fighting against.
This is what has just happened in Melbourne, where private security services were apparently lax in their monitoring of people in COVID19 quarantine hotels, allowing it to spread to the community [1]
I'm very worried about friends and family in the Central Valley who have complicating health conditions.
Having said that, I have a question. Why does anybody think that masks actually help? I've basically been under the impression that masks are health theater that allows people to go on with life without being scared, though it doesn't actually do much of anything. Apparently I'm in the minority in thinking that.
But I put on a surgical mask, twist the side ear loop so that air comes out the side instead of the top (right at my eyes), and I ask myself what in the world it is supposed to be accomplishing. It's not like people are wearing properly fitted N95 masks, and even then, the way people are talking about micro droplets seems like they might get through just fine.
From the summary of results: "Medical masks were not effective, and cloth masks even less effective." I'm assuming that is referring to in hospital settings, but still... somehow they magically they work "in the community." Has anybody proposed or tested a reason for why they would work in one setting but not the other?
I saw no mention of controlling for how much time the participants (college students) spent with other people. Can we truly assume that wearing a mask had no other effect on the behavior of young people who are incredibly image-conscious and facing intense peer pressure to fit in? If I had to guess, the only thing they proved is that college students asked to wear masks will stay alone in their rooms more often than those not asked to wear masks. Of course, indirect benefits are still benefits. It is possible that something like this could happen when masks are mandated in public today. Meaning, mask mandates lead to people staying home more, which is obviously going to be effective. However, see next paragraph.
Another problem I saw immediately is that they were required to wear masks for long periods when in their dwelling, but not required outside of their dwelling. This, of course, is the opposite of what we are doing. What is the result of inverting the study practices?
They were studies on the flu. Can we assume the same effect on Coronaviruses?
From one study... "Generalizability limited to similar settings and age groups." Ok... so we're ignoring the paper's warnings about what we can learn from it?
In one study they were able to measure a decrease in flu-like-illnesses(ILI) with mask use, but it wasn't statistically significant, and it was only in the second half of the study (weeks 4-6). The summary ends with: "Neither face mask use and hand hygiene nor face mask use alone was associated with a significant reduction in the rate of ILI cumulatively." It then proceeds in the next sentence (the conclusion summary), to say, "These findings suggest that face masks and hand hygiene may reduce respiratory illnesses in shared living settings and mitigate the impact of the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic." Isn't this an example of a study what normally would be lampooned on this site? How exactly does the conclusion follow from the data?
Another study saw statistically significant reductions in ILI, but again, only in the second half of the study, and did not find statistically significant reduction in actual positive flu tests. It is summarized by: "Face masks and hand hygiene combined may reduce the rate of ILI and confirmed influenza in community settings. These non-pharmaceutical measures should be recommended in crowded settings at the start of an influenza pandemic." However, there was no control group that was just hand washing. Doesn't it seem much more reasonable to assume that the benefits are from hand-washing, rather than hand-washing and masks combined, since the mask-only group saw little to no benefit? And if so, why are we using this paper to prove that masks work?
Most of the studies have been done in high risk, high exposure situations. The high concentration and repeated exposure over extended periods of time greatly increase the chance of infection. This does not reflect the lower concentrations and shorter duration of most civilian exposures. It generally takes more than a single virus to actually result in infection.
Since there are indications that wearing masks does give you some protection and does give significant protection to those around you, why not accept the minor inconvenience and wear one?
This is precisely what I'm trying to find evidence of. So far, I've clicked through to one summary of the research, followed by three papers linked in there, which supposedly support the claim, and found that there is almost no support for those claims.
And as I already said above, I do wear one.
Edited to add: Also, I've been reading more and more articles questioning the claim that Coronavirus is mostly limited to the larger droplets.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8583925/The-land-no...
Not remotely surprising. The fake masks are basically dirty sponges stuck in the most important air stream.
That said, at this point wearing/'believing in' face masks is a political issue, not an evidence based rational choice. It's tribal signaling. Noboby really knows a or b, but choosing to believe a or b has become (yet another) aspect of identity politics. Which is what worries me the most, because now that position has become entrenched, regardless of whether we reach any conclusive findings at some point in the future.
Masks are tremendously effective. They protect you from others a small amount, but protect others from you a huge amount. They are absolutely not theatrical.
When it comes to stopping transmission, we don't have to get 100% effectiveness. We just need to get the r-value below 1 and the disease will die out. It's a game if probabilities, not absolutes. Masks have a very low cost for the tremendous benefit they confer.
If you know of scientific studies that show that masks don't make a significant difference, please share them.
Here's a list of 70 scientific papers (including reviews/meta-analysis and individual studies) on the efficacy of masks: https://threader.app/thread/1279144399897866248
[1] https://twitter.com/vaccinologist/status/1247510457323343874...
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016344532...