It became a point of civic religion to believe that the virus was catastrophically dangerous. Disagreement was not just mistaken but evil.
A mask is such a cheap and trivial precaution I don’t get the resistance. Masks are not even close to 100% effective, but the goal is to shave as many points off the viral R-factor as possible.
As for police state tactics, I don’t think they’d be considered if people were just smart and took precautions. They’re on the table because too many people insist on refusing to do simple things.
As for general questioning, yes in the abstract everything should be questioned. But when most of the people raising questions seem to be acting in bad faith, then eventually the questions they're asking are going to be reflexively rejected. That creates an irrational blind spot for sure, but that's still a smaller rationality disruption than letting the bad faith questioners continue to destroy the discourse. Given the way herds work, I definitely agree that there could be something wrong with the specifics of the mask consensus. But my general prioritization heuristic asks why that would be someone's focus when there are significantly more pressing issues. And so any argument has a very high bar to clear, probably to the level of conclusive studies showing mask wearing is actively harmful, and not just simple conjecture on the mechanics from first principles.
> As for police state tactics, I don’t think they’d be considered if people were just smart and took precautions. They’re on the table because too many people insist on refusing to do simple things.
This is the real pisser. Being a libertarian myself, it galls me how much damage has been done to freedom, supposedly in the name of freedom. Allowing a pandemic to spread unchecked, meaning I need to treat everyone I come into contact with as potentially infected (including wearing a mask in my own house as I've got healthcare visiting), has been a grave damage to my freedom. I can only conclude the covidiots see "freedom" as the ability to behave like spoiled children, rather than the opportunity to make responsible choices.
Public figureheads preaching harmful nonsense that leads herds of people to harming themselves and their communities is about as far from the enlightened-individual libertarian ideal as possible.
I distrust magic, and I dislike the cognitive dissonance that comes with trying to do as I'm told while being denied basic information about the value of that behavior.
I have read the article. It's mostly a comparison between medical and non-medical cloth masks, in addition to reviewing basic properties and measures of effectiveness for masks in-general.
Until a cloth mask design is proven to be equally effective as a medical or N95 mask, wearing cloth masks should not be mandated for healthcare workers. In community settings, however, cloth masks may be used to prevent community spread of infections by sick or asymptomatically infected persons, and the public should be educated about their correct use.
This may well be true. The basis for such a distinction would be a deep point and counter-intuitive. I'm not sure it's present here, though. There is very little on the absolute benefits or effectiveness of non-medical masks. Here's what I could find:
Participants made masks from different materials, and all masks tested showed some ability to block the microbial aerosol challenges although less than that of medical masks (11). Another study found that homemade cloth masks may also reduce aerosol exposure although less so than medical masks and respirators (12).
and
Cloth masks can be made in large quantities in a short time. They can be reused after being decontaminated by various techniques, ideally washing in hot water with soap. Other methods or products include using bleach, isopropyl alcohol, or hydrogen peroxide; autoclaving or microwaving; and application of ultraviolet radiation or dry heat (16).
Also from this article, which are relevant to claims that mask-mandates have zero cost:
The general public should be educated about mask use because cloth masks may give users a false sense of protection because of their limited protection against acquiring infection (16). Correctly putting on and taking off cloth masks improves protection (Table). Taking a mask off is a high-risk process (34) because pathogens may be present on the outer surface of the mask and may result in self-contamination during removal (31).
What an absurdly twisted bit of authoritarian reasoning. The very point of a free society is that you should be able to refuse certain things without being forced into them for the act of refusing.
https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/42/4/717/5901977
"Deaths among adults 65 and older accounted for 80% of excess YLL in April but only 36% of excess YLL in June. Since April, working age adults 20-64 have accounted for 47% of excess YLL, and males 20 to 64 have contributed 34%."
https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/the-impact-of-...
For example, if a person dies at age 50, and life expectancy at age 50 is more 25 years, then the YLL is 25. In contrast, if a person dies at age 80 and life expectancy at 80 is 2 more years, then YLL is 2.
https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/the-impact-of-...
Stipulation: if the baseline life-length is 80 years and a ninety year old dies, then the YLL is 0 and not -10.
No, of course it isn't.
A 90-year old isn't expected to instantly die. They have some remaining live expectancy, maybe two or three years, even if they have passed median live expectancy.
clarification for the downvoters: questioning in the sense of asking a question, not engaging in anti-mask advocacy. Sorry if not being a blindly obedient serf makes me evil. Should I kill myself now and save you the trouble of forming the firing squad?
We aren't gonna get proper RCTs and hard evidence any time soon. But it's such a simple and plausible intervention, we do have good reasons to believe they help and they don't hurt anyone. It's all just so infantile
What's the double blinded placebo for a mask?
Assuming you could even get an ethics committee to sign of on the experiment.
I agree the data could be helpful, but I don't think that's the 'right' way to get it.
I'm totally fine with the structure of the argument with respect to mask mandates as it's typically made. Assuming no costs and at least some benefits, sure, I don't see a problem - this is within basic morality territory so far. But if the parameters are in question? My datapoint: mask mandates have effectively destroyed a familiar relationship, because it put me in the position of asking a good-faith question to a zealot. I judge the costs to me to be extremely, life-changingly high while the benefits remain uncertain.
Simply put, a 3 point restraint that's much easier to put on provides a decent amount of protection in the event of a crash. On the other hand, if one is engaged in motor sports, racing, etc., then the other safety measures are necessary. Just like one would use additional safety measures when working in a healthcare setting.
I'm guessing you have an equally ridiculous slippery-slope follow-up as well?
Arguing that this isn’t a significant risk just begs the question: without positive data for effectiveness, nobody has any idea.
The social costs are nonzero, so I wouldn't say it's free.
But aren’t you actually agreeing with the US federal government’s actual response? Aren’t the people saying that you should wear masks the ones going against the grain here?
Doesn’t that make _you_ the obedient surf?
S[n]ide note: I live in Australia so I have no skin in this game. Along with NZ, we’ve had very few deaths from CV19 relative to large cities in the rest of the Anglosphere, and our economies are basically open. I suppose the “police state style intervention” you speak of did reduce our short term freedom - we had 3 months of hard lockdown - but I’m writing this from our summer holiday beach AirBNB, and it sure feels like freedom to me.
Blindly obedient to who?
Isn't that always the case though, particularly with politics and operating systems?