Masks Are Back, Maybe for the Long Term
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I don't like that as much as the next person, but if I'm visiting a hospital or a nursing home anytime soon, i'll mask up.
If a celebrity many different people per week, 20% vulnerability is still a lot. Its better than no protection, but still put the person at a pretty high risk.
Parties like the above can be problematic in a time of an pandemic even if one disregard covid. Any illness that can spread has the risk of causing additional stress on the health care system. I know for example some sport activities which has decided to reduce activity on the ground that the sport has the potential of accidents which would then put unnecessary pressure on an already heavily pressured health care system.
Data point: I'm fully vaccinated, and I'm wearing a mask out in public.
Also, big-box hardware stories (at least) have real N95s back in stock (not KN95 substitutes), as of a couple months ago.
Others' perceptions of me are arbitrary and socially defined, and who is so worried about fitting in at the grocery store? If people were grounded in any type of reality, they'd realize that a chemical warzone requires, at minimum, a full face respirator and chemical cartridges.
This gave me a chuckle. I don't think that is common knowledge in this day and age. Does make me wonder if covid can infect through the eyes. Ill make sure to engage my safety squints.
It was never common knowledge. It's a little anti-social to suggest that it's 'common sense' in any way that people would know how to react in a chemical warfare situation.
Anti-social in the sense that implies a lack of understanding of common social knowledge and behaviour.
Staying at home doesn't protect you unless you live in total isolation, and most people don't. 'Family' is in fact a primary vector of spread.
Wearing N100's is also not remotely feasible all of the time, nor will it entirely protect you.
The vaccine gives you almost 100% prevention against death and is by far the best protective measure and it largely frees you from worry, concerns over unwittingly infecting others, and reduces the need to do things like 'total isolation' and 'wear n100 all of the time'.
"If people were grounded in any type of reality" ... there's no reason for anyone to have a realistic understanding of what living in a 'chemical warzone' would be.
Get a vaccine, keep some degree of social distancing, be prepared to wear an n95 sometimes, don't go inside to events with large numbers of people ... if everyone does 'mostly' that we'll be 'mostly fine' over the coming months and can 'mostly' get on with our lives.
Genuinely curious - Did you wear a mask prior? Would you continue to wear a mask past the epidemic, even for the rest of your life, to protect the 3% vulnerable?
Reacting to COVID differently than you react to the flu, or a cold, is a wholly reasonable response.
All I know is brain fog is a career killer and my quality of life would decrease significantly if everything I ate tasted absolutely foul and disgusting. Seems a reasonable precaution to continue wearing a mask when out in public even though I'm completely vaccinated. Note that's a purely selfish argument for the vaccinated to continue mask wearing. The fact I may be saving someone else's life is additional incentive.
It was directed at those that wear a mask because they're helping to save lives.
Did you wore a mask prior to COVID? Will you continue to wear a mask, post COVID, to help save lives?
Beyond that, it's not clear that mass enforcement of nonpharmaceutical interventions - ie masks, lockdowns, etc - will be a net win for public health. For example, the next winter or two could present a very bad flu season, all due to the mass isolation and hyper-sanitizatoin we've come to be familiar with through the pandemic [1].
[1] The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections https://www.pnas.org/content/117/48/30547
There are various studies demonstrating the effectiveness of masks even for those not infected.
So even a school mask mandate is entirely useless.
Even if it's a country were rules and laws are rarely followed.
Saying this in a place were buses don't stop at bus stops, while they consistently stop in front "no bus stop" signs.
If the Covid situation were transposed onto drugs, it's as if hard drugs were legal but still discouraged, and we had an entire political movement turning themselves and their kids into junkies just to spite public health.
And to make it worse - these mask mandates are preventing a lot of social venues from happening because very few people want to go to some of these social venues with a mask on.
It’ll likely be two years since I’ve been able to go to a social dance by the time we are getting back to “normal”. Tons of events people were planning for September are now back to cancelled indefinitely. People aren’t able to commit to big events anymore because now the government is acting unpredictably and causing a lot of panic among people.
Dancing is a super high risk venue. And btw - people are cancelling these events when they required all attendees to be vaccinated. So, it’s fucking over people who are 100% vaccinated and take plenty of precautions.
We're all just trying to get through our days and be friendly.
I want to see smiles. I can't even tell if someone is laughing at my jokes. Tones are muffled.
They're awful.
And eventually I will just stop.
My time is finite. Eventually I will just experience life how I want to, and stop living indefinitely for some other vague, "we're all in this together" goal.
It's not 'vague' - it's completely stark - it's a pandemic and it affects us all, systematically.
It's more 'math' than 'vague'.
The question posed was 'why are people vehemently opposed' and the context is 'a pandemic'.
It would be 'vehemently ridiculous' for people to arbitrarily wear masks, but missing your swimming instructors smile is a relatively small price to pay for controlling a pandemic which is still unfortunately ongoing, and which has major consequences.
If wearing masks for 6 more months can materially push COVID out of business, then the trade off is a 'no brainer'.
The arguments made here seem to really lack context, it doesn't give confidence. We already know wearing masks sucks, that's not the point. The point is wearing them in the context of a deflating but nevertheless persisting public health crisis.
I’ve been in countries with outdoor mask mandates almost since the start of this thing, and I don’t really understand this. How has it become a chore? Don’t you just pick up a mask from a pack or a reusable one as you leave your home? I haven’t noticed any difference in sense of smell, albeit my sense of smell is very keen.
But again, what’s the chore here? It just feels like habit
That's as close to the meaning of chore as one could expect in a comment, and why are you extending your own experience to others who are explicitly telling you that they find it uncomfortable and a nuisance? I can't imagine that kind of thing working with any other article of clothing but masks seem to have their own special status, even though they affect breathing.
It's not a serious position to take.
Especially if you have young kids. Airports are an absolute nightmare now with a 2-year-old that doesn't like wearing a mask.
My nephew also goes nuts when he is strapped into a car seat, but sometimes you just need to deal with meltdowns and teach kids that they can't always get their way.
We're already at a point in terms of wealth and technology that Amazon could deliver all of our durable goods and nonperishables, Instacart could deliver all of our groceries, and schooling and most jobs can be completed online.
Every family of average or greater means can already afford to buy everything from these two companies.
Every family of below-average means could be supported by a government stipend to enable them to receive goods this way.
We have the ability to build a society where most people leave their homes only a few times per year.
Surely this is just a small price to pay in the fight against a virus that could leave vulnerable people on a ventilator or worse, right?
It was a small price to pay in 2020 before there was a vaccine, and I paid it. Now that the vaccine is available I wonder why said vulnerable people are choosing to not get the vaccine and putting undue burden on me and my family and so I tend to think it is is not worth paying that price anymore. If said vulnerable person is unable to get the vaccine for medical reasons... those types of people are exceedingly rare and have always had to be super careful. For them I recommend just sheltering in place indefinitely or something like https://microclimate.com/ in public.
But I'm glad the unprecedented nature of this event has given you the opportunity to regurgitate low level quips.
The vaccination campaign was always going to be a failure.
> My guess is that you couldn't be less qualified to make such an evaluation.
I'm as qualified as the president or any governor. I'm capable of understanding facts and making a decision like any other person on the planet.
The vaccinated half of the population is faring much better than the unvaccinated half. How can you call that a failure?
Getting to that state was the goal of the earlier protection measures.
Basically the US gov made it easy for a couple of groups that were already distrustful of the government to justify their distrust.
You say this based on what, exactly?
On the contrary, if the general public had more broadly acceded to these mandates they would simply have been cemented in place, and more aggressive ones would have been rolled out already. We'd already have the no-fly lists and hospital bans for the unvaccinated, instead they're having to manufacture the consent for this stuff with a big propaganda campaign.
This isn't an anti-vaccination comment. The vaccines are showing great results at what they were intended to do, reducing hospitalizations and deaths.
I guess most people who complain do it "out of principle" because they want to see themselves as the type of person who cannot be forced to do anything by authorities. Weirdly other believes are really authotarian.
Are you really free when you don't use your own head but reflexively do/don't do something just because you like/dislike the person which says it?
Not quite sure what is the point you are trying to make. If you ask somebody why they don't want to do something for you and one replies "Fuck you, that's why!" do you imply that this person is not free because he or she denied your request based on personal animosity and not "using own head"? Or is it something else you wanted to say?
That is a valid question in this day and age, with a death toll attached.
Sure they will not always do the opposite of what their opposition party says, but the constructive "we don't care what the libs say, we do it because it is the right thing"-topics are kinda rare these days.
As for masking, I for one don't wear a mask because I read the studies [1], I have not heard the "authoritative leader" advertising them one way or another and certainly not because I think they are beneficial for me but I want to own the libs. Can't say for everyone but I suspect a lot of people are like me, not necessarily reading studies but do what they think benefits them.
1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25903751/
2. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/16/politics/donald-trump-covid-1...
Also: the consequence of your study shouldn't be not to wear masks, but to wear masks that work (the study just shows evidence for plain cloth masks, which at least everybody on central europe stopped wearing in the second wave).
Also: there are manyfold reason to do something of course. I'd be highly interested in the rational explaination of the GOP policy on all things covid tho (first the virus didn't exist and simulataneously was just like the flu for example). This might not have been the common joes opinion, but watching capa it certainly painted a clear picture
> the consequence of your study shouldn't be
Well, you are free to make your own conclusions and I am free to make mine. I repeat myself, but this is an example of people actually "using their head" as you suggested instead of doing the opposite just to piss you off.
>I'd be highly interested in the rational explaination of the GOP policy
Sure, direct me (e.g. provide with a link or some other reference) to the points of the GOP policy you are interested in. Ones that you mentioned do not seem to appear in any GOP policy I could find, to the contrary, "the virus does not exist" had been the topic of the Left in November 19-February 20 e.g. https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/079-20/mayor-d... or is this the old HN's trope "Ah, I am an European so all Americans are GOP to me, that's how far to the left we are in Europe!"?.
Do you have a source?
That's a weak reason. Only 349 people below 18 have died of corona in the US since the start of the pandemic.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2019-2020/2019-20-pediatr...
(Not to say that each of the 349 isn't a tragedy, only that the coronavirus is unequivocally not dangerous to children without preexisting conditions.)
Also - if you're considering it, please save the "long covid" histrionics. We used to call that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and there's no reason to believe "long covid" is different, scarier, or more prevalent than CFS. I have a strong suspicion that the patient's psychological suggestibility and media consumption are greater predictors of "long covid" than infection.
For me the sense of suffocation is strong and despite dozens of hours in one I have not grown accustomed to it, or even more tolerant of it. It's bad enough that while I'm willing to mask up for an emergency, as a permanent thing I would rather accept a bit more risk of a terrible disease or death. The size of the acceptable risk for me has only grown over time.
Given the number of people who insist on wearing a mask in a way that gives nobody any protection, I'm not alone in this.
Also, doctors? Nurses? Different types of contractors? They've been doing this a while.
Kids generally have higher metabolisms than adults, which made me feel particularly horrified about the mask mandates in schools. The sad thing is kids don't know any better, and trust older people who are telling them what to do, so there's probably many who feel noticeably worse and don't know why.
When you inhale, your diaphragm contracts and creates a negative pressure inside your thoracic cavity (relative to the outside atmosphere's 101.3 kPa). This pressure, ordinarily, is proportional to the force with which your diaphragm contracts. Adding a layer of fabric restricts the outside air's ability to flow into your thoracic cavity and equalize the pressure. It's like having a congested nose but being unable to open your mouth to bypass the congestion.
There's also the problem of carbon dioxide buildup within the mask. Your unconscious breathing effort is ordinarily controlled by the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in your blood. Carbon dioxide levels, not oxygen levels, are what make you feel "out of breath". The lungs may hold almost a liter of air, but an ordinary unconscious breath exchanges only a tiny fraction of this. That unconscious breath is so small that a large percentage of it may come from air trapped inside your mask, and your alveoli end up being faced with a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide in the air into which they are trying to exhaust carbon dioxide from your blood.
Problems all around.
[edit] I'm not sure what people are opposed to here. I am as I said happy to comply with public health measures that work and are supported by evidence.
The gist of it is the stigma.
People feel marked. Dehumanized. Forced to wear the stuff by people that they don't respect or trust.
COVID is as much a health crisis as it's a trust crisis: people in charge have exhausted their credibility during the last decades of misbehavior, and citizens don't want to wear a mask because the message comes from those they have nothing but disrespect for.
The condescending tone of the citizens than are actually defending masking and vaccinating doesn't help either. I'm vaccinated, but if you call anti-vax names, you are part of the problem.
People have been screwed over for years, covid communication has been fubar, and we are all under a lot of pressure, so be compassionate. They have more chance to join the team if you understand their grudge than if you insult them.
Given that context it’s pretty easy to see that this debate about visible public rituals is a proxy fight about other things, for both sides.
Someone wearing a bandana loosely over his face is conforming to the social norms. That it does nothing for preventing covid 19 isn’t the point.
In my case it's driven because of a) evidence for their being effective at all is lacking[1], and b) as you rightly put it “they are annoying”.
I'm not sure why I wouldn't be against that. Additionally, I live in Japan where the kind of mask-adherence those back in the west can only have wet dreams about is the norm here, and there's no evidence it's helped here either. You may have noticed the lack of crowds at the Olympics as Tokyo is under a state of emergency due to a wave of cases. Masks just don't seem to have any effect against the delta variant. I'm not surprised.
[1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...
Per https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.h...:
Japan: 818 all time cases per 100k capita.
US: 10,793 all time cases per 100k capita.
I don't think that's "no evidence it's helped here either." It's is evidence that masks didn't completely solve the problem. But mitigations aren't bad.
You have to keep in mind that different places have different ideas of what "failure looks like." Many Americans seem to think failure is only when they, as an individual, are personally dying of COVID right now.
I support wearing a mask for individuals who are symptomatic or have a positive test result.
Beyond that, it's likely that mandatory nonpharmaceutical interventions such as masks and lockdowns will be bad for public health in the long run.
Consider the possibility that all the masking and isolation we've done is setting us up for an extremely bad flu season in the coming year or two [1]. We see the same pattern in forest management, where by constantly preventing the small natural forest fires, we unintentionally set the stage for massive record breaking wildfires.
[1] The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections https://www.pnas.org/content/117/48/30547
> Consider the possibility that all the masking and isolation we've done is setting us up for an extremely bad flu season in the coming year or two [1].
That logic is frankly messed up. That's like saying better die now, because if don't you're just setting yourself up to die later. In most situations, that extra span of life is worth it.
Even if that's true about the next flu season, it's not an argument against masks. It's a warning not to declare premature victory.
If anything, this is a better argument for continuing the mitigations and slowly removing them over time rather than going all in on removing all restrictions like some jurisdictions are doing.
But you do accumulate protection against pathogens by being exposed to them.
> as long as we continue social distancing and masking
The source I cited mentions that one of the primary risks is overwhelming medical facilities with huge waves of people who are all sick at the same time with endemic illnesses like the flu, RSV, etc.
> this is a better argument for continuing the mitigations and slowly removing them over time
An idea worth exploring for sure, but I think it will be difficult to achieve practically. At some point in that process there is going to be a majority of people out living their lives and not adhering to the mitigations, which is when the aforementioned consequences of these NPI's will become relevant.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
If you don't like the fact that the studies show no evidence that masks are of benefit, that's your problem, but don't try and attribute any fallacy to me without providing a damn sight more reasoning and evidence as it gives the appearance of you wishing to smear me to cover up what you lack, a valid, considered, and persuasive argument.
* or worse, being used to mislead, which I don't think was happening from @tablespoon but I wouldn't put it past those who'd jump in with ad hominem and think it was a worthy contribution to the debate.
On the other hand, we have good evidence[1] that obesity levels have a huge impact on cases:
> Professor Rachel Batterham, Royal College of Physicians' lead adviser on obesity, said:
> “The link between high levels of obesity and deaths from COVID-19 in the UK is indisputable, as is the urgent need to address the factors that lead so many people to be living with obesity.
> “With 30% of COVID-19 hospitalisations in the UK directly attributed to overweight and obesity, and three quarters of all critically ill patients having overweight or obesity, the human and financial costs are high.
From just the opening page of the report[2] itself:
> We show that in those countries where overweight affects only a minority of the adult population, the rates of death from COVID-19 are typically less than one tenth the levels found in countries where overweight affects the majority of adults.
> We also show that the drivers of overweight – especially high levels of consumption of processed foods – are associated with mortality from COVID-19.
From the report's country profiles:
Adult overweight BMI >25kg/m2 (2016) US : 67.9 UK : 63.7 Japan : 27.2
Adult obesity BMI >30kg/m2 (2016) US : 36.2 UK : 27.8 Japan : 4.3
Insufficient physical activity % adults (2016) US : 40.0 UK : 35.9 Japan : 35.5
Pulses per capita kg/pa (2014-2017) US : 3.6 UK : 3.7 Japan : 1.5
Root vegetables per capita kg/pa (2014-2017) US : 55.5 UK : 88.5 Japan : 24.9
Vegetable oil per capita kg/pa (2014-2017) US : 19.5 UK : 13.1 Japan : 15.5
Animal fat per capita kg/pa (2014-2017) US : 3.3 UK : 5.6 Japan : 1.0
Sugar per capita kg/pa (2014-2017) US : 66.2 UK : 37.8 Japan : 26.9
Sugar energy per capita kcal/pd (2014-2017) US : 607 UK : 342 Japan : 252
Sugar-sweetened beverage per capita l/pa (2015) US : 236.6 UK : 124.0 Japan : 144.3
There is much more in that report, it's well worth a read.
This CDC report[3] states:
> Among 4,899,447 hospitalized adults in PHD-SR, 540,667 (11.0%) were patients with COVID-19, of whom 94.9% had at least 1 underlying medical condition
> Certain underlying conditions and the number of conditions were associated with severe COVID-19 illness. Hypertension and disorders of lipid metabolism were the most frequent, whereas obesity, diabetes with complication, and anxiety disorders were the strongest risk factors for severe COVID-19 illness.
Cases are most frequently discovered due to severity of symptoms as being symptomatic will lead to testing. Thus the link between confirmed cases and underlying health conditions is easy to see. It goes on to state:
> The analysis also shows that the total number of underlying conditions is strongly associated with severe COVID-19 illness.
> The percentage of the US adult population known to have 2 or more underlying medical conditions ranges from approximately 38% to 64% by state (12). Previous studies demonstrated that patients with medically attended COVID-19 often had multiple underlying medical conditions (6). However, studies have rarely focused on the effect of the number of conditions on severe COVID-19 illness. We found that the risk of death, IMV, and ICU admission was often incrementally higher with a higher number of underlying medical conditions. Our finding that the number of underlying medical conditions is itself a risk factor for severe disease from COVID-19 identifies a population that has not been clearly described in previous literature.
As I pointed out in another comment, the lack of testing in Japan keeps its number of confirmed cases low (which has seemed convenient given the government's clear desire for the Olympics to proceed), but the country is experiencing a huge uptick in cases right now - is this because of people suddenly dispensing with masks? I haven't noticed it, it's close to 100% compliance among adults even outdoors. Is there anything on this graph[4] to suggest that masks have efficacy at all? Why do randomised controlled trials repeatedly fail to show a positive effect?
As to population density, Japan is only 41st on this list[5]. If being packed into a train is the problem then why the uptick now and not before? There's no lockdowns here and working from home is still not the norm. Did masks slow down the spread just until this point yet could not be held back any longer?
So I say again, where is the evidence like this for masks? There is none.
[1] https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/rcp-responds-world-obesity-...
[2] https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-an...
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0123.htm
[4] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...
- fervently wear a mask
it is a social signal that you are 100% on board with any/all government public health mandates.
- fervently don't wear a mask
it is a social signal that you are 100% NOT on board with any/all government public health mandates
- wear a mask depending on if the people around you are wearing a mask
it is a social signal that you don't have strong opinions either way and that you don't want to offend anyone or get called out so you just follow the crowd to blend in
I can deduce whether someone thinks like me based on if they use a mask like me.
I do not wear them outside but I do wear them indoors at grocery stores or small spaces that are poorly ventilated.
Very little, probably, but I don't think anyone can say. I've read the same statistics as you. But our understanding is immature, no?
For example, we're seeing now that young people, who were infected with COVID-19 but who had extremely mild cases / symptoms, are now experiencing / developing so-called long COVID. Here's a piece in the NY Times from yesterday [0] and similarly in Yahoo! News (not behind the paywall) [1] . In addition, pediatric cases of COVID-19 are currently on the rise.
Here's an excerpt:
> An April study by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found that 9.8% of 2-11-year-olds and 13% of 12-16-year-olds infected with the coronavirus reported continuing symptoms five weeks later. After 12 weeks, rates remained significant: 7.4% in the younger group and 8.2% in the older group.
That sounds much worse than the flu:
> In another U.K. study, 4.4% of 1,734 children had symptoms more than four weeks post-COVID, over four times as high as the percentage with symptoms four weeks after non-COVID illnesses like flu.
So, this aspect of the pandemic actually is much worse than the flu.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/08/world/covid-delta-va...
[1]: https://news.yahoo.com/really-scary-kids-struggle-long-11541...
edit/ Typos and words.
Not saying there is no risk, but I wish there were some clearer statistics about it. There should be enough data by now.
I personally think that if there really was a significant risk for kids, it would have been clearly communicated by now.
I sure don't have a high degree of trust in our officials to communicate clearly. Not after the last 19 months.
edit/ Words.
Most people follow basic public health policy guidelines, almost everyone begrudgingly so on some level, as nobody actually wants to wear a mask obviously.
Outside of required guidelines, some may wear a little more often than others, surely older people might be more likely, and those who are vaccinate less likely.
That's it.
It's not a social signal or an indicator of anything.
You can't deduce anything from someone's mask unless they are doing something truly awkward like literally not wearing a mask when they are clearly supposed to, or over protecting such as wearing an N100 while alone in a public space. Otherwise, it's just a normal thing we are resigned to doing in certain situations.
In short, I think the push to require the wearing of masks is rooted more in personal ego than it is in actual health benefits.
It contributes to a sense of permanent emergency which should be gone by now given that the vast majority of the at-risk population is vaccinated. At this point I don't see the purpose of attempting to stop or slow the spread of an endemic respiratory virus, that is just a fool's errand at this point.
They also probably don't work, or at least not very well. People used to point to the Asian countries that hadn't had big outbreaks as evidence that population-wide mask compliance could work to prevent transmission, but that is no longer the case as they have all had big outbreaks. Even China had to halt traffic in and out of Wuhan recently.
Even if the hoop you're told to jump through is low and large, you still feel like a caged animal forced to do tricks.
Rage Against the Machine explains the mindset in a more emotional way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ
On the other hand there are legitimate scientific & public health concerns regarding mass enforcement of nonpharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns, masks, etc [1].
It's really not clear that mask mandates will be a net win for society if we begin to see the predictions in [1] play out - we'll just have to see how bad the flu season is in the coming winters.
[1] The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections https://www.pnas.org/content/117/48/30547
Because they want to prove that America is weak, because it cannot deal with any serious problem that requires a small personal sacrifice.
Alternatively, they want to prove America is weak, because they want to prove that a bunch of partisan shit-stirrers can turn any issue into a culture-war debacle and that the marketplace of ideas doesn't work.
Now it feels like a temporary annoyance is being turned into a long term one even after many of us wore masks, social distanced and got vaccinated.
> why is this the hill so many people are determined to die on?
As someone who hates emoting facially, I love the mask norm. However it's also important to remember the popular phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." This phrase is popular because it expresses the way many Americans, including myself, treasure freedom above all else, so any sacrifices of freedom should be done slowly or not at all if possible. Compulsory mask-wearing is as anti-freedom as compulsory haircuts (Chinese queue, Russian beard tax). Your argument is insincere or uninformed because it can be used to justify huge changes in society by singling out a minor facet of a larger issue, calling it a tiny hill that's not worth dying on, then moving on to another minor facet, until the whole landscape has been traversed.
That's a bad quote to reason from. The key word there is actually "essential" and is left totally undefined. This also demonstrates America's Achilles' heel, because that sentiment can easily be twisted into an argument against any kind of responsibility or sacrifice.
I know many non-Americans, and the pandemic has disillusioned them towards America. They used to admire it a lot, but now they've seen so many Americans use liberty-rhetoric to justify acting in stupid and selfish ways that they think much less highly of it and those so-called ideals. America was supposed to prove the value of its ideals by being better at handling the pandemic than other countries, instead it's used those ideals as a justification for its failure, which is not a good look from any angle.
Wearing a helmet when riding in a car is likely safer, with appropriate seat belts, but we don't wear helmets and 5-point harnesses in passenger cars.
To turn around your question: Why do so many people insist on turning masks into a hill?
Masks are just one of many ways humanity can be marginally safer in an incredibly annoying fashion. Like wearing helmets in every passenger car.
I’d have one in my sports car but unfortunately the factory hasn’t made it easy to fit. Doing it properly requires new racing seats and a full custom roll cage. It’s easily >$10k worth of work.
Masks are a proxy, standing in for all the other ways non-pharmaceutical interventions are disrupting our lives.
After all, it'd be absurd for me to wear a mask while sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers in a packed theatre. A world in which I must wear a mask is a world in which I must not go to the theatre.
It's understandable that people are salty about the loss of concerts and music festivals and exercise classes and knitting groups and nightclubs and mass transit and dating and fine dining and protests and tourism and visiting friends and gyms and casual sex and theatre and nonessential flights and the entire college experience.
I'm vaccinated. I social distance. I have good personal hygiene. I've made efforts to mitigate the risks to my family and others we might encounter.
I respect your right to decide for yourself. I respect a brick-and-mortar business deciding it would only prefer to serve people who wear masks. I respect a workplace defining whether its employees should wear a mask (while providing reasonable accommodations to those would prefer otherwise).
But I have genuine doubts about the efficacy of the masks that are widely sold, used, and accepted. When I see selective enforcement and selective outrage, it's hard not to see so many of our government leaders as blatant hypocrites. When I see absolutely no sense of humility from our policy makers on what they actually know and don't know, it's hard not to completely lose trust in their leadership. And then, when so many peer appeals to mask or vaccinate don't come from a place of genuine concern or care but of a "you are irresponsible and brought this on yourself" or "you deserve to be punished", it's as if many are desperate to confirm the worst stereotypes that they are just authoritarian nannies.
And as a result of all that, it's difficult not to have an impulsive response of 'mind your own business'. I'm open to data. I'm open to discussion. But those who only bring condescension can go **** themselves.
A good mask, N95 or above, can prevent covid transmission and contraction. Cloth and surgical masks on the other hand are like trying to stop mosquitos with a chain link fence.
People that have the vaccine and walk around indoor spaces without a mask are actually causing their own eventual demise, as they will be giving the virus hosts (themselves included), allowing the virus to mutate to its next more virulent form that vaccines have no chance against.
I know it's painful to wear a good mask as you cannot show off your pretty face. Do it for your country, for Biden and for our hero Fauci. :-)
Unvaccinated people, because they would be homebound (or killed) by the more virulent strains, must be allowed to go about their business maskless. This way, we'll achieve herd immunity by spreading less virulent strains around. Sort of like an airborne live attenuated vaccine.
IMO that's a situation that deserves masking, but perhaps the other rational you mentioned is a stronger factor in your decision.
Covid is undoubtedly serious and responsible people should take measures in cases where they are a genuine risk to others. But it is unscientific, immature, and stupid to simply assume people are a risk despite any evidence to the contrary.
...
> I'm open to data. I'm open to discussion.
These statements sure seem to be in conflict, so I'm genuinely curious: Are you, though? Open to discussion?
You seem to have made up your mind. You've decided you won't believe "government leaders". You won't believe "policy makers".
I'm going go ahead and guess, based on the tone of your comment, that you are similarly distrusting of information from the medical community.
That would seem to rule out any and all potential sources of data that might demonstrate "the efficacy of the masks that are widely sold, used, and accepted" (e.g. https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 - "The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained.").
So... are you really open to data and discussion? Or are you just saying that because it seems like the right thing to say?
And no, I'm not trying to be a snide smart-ass. I'm trying to reveal what you're actually thinking and feeling. Because I'll be honest, I don't think what you've written here reflects your actual, deep-down feelings on the topic.
Tone? Your Hacker News clearly works in ways mine does not.
I socialize with a number of physicians, surgeons, and medical professionals. I seek medical help and advice when I'm sick. I seek medical help and advice when my kids are sick. I pursued a vaccine expressly because those same medical professionals were vaccinated themselves. But I also don't believe a physician has some magical ability to discern truth that other intelligent people cannot.
I also trust the science of the efficacy of masks people are wearing. I trust the science that examines how the way they wear their masks sabotages any utility they might provide. I trust the science that suggests there are negative psychological and sociological consequences to an entire society not able to see the faces of their peers.
I trust the science that suggests, despite breakthrough cases, the vaccines don't have unmanageable side effects and work as intended. I trust the data that has revealed of 100 "breakthrough" Covid deaths in Massachusetts, the median age of those who died is 82.5 and ~75% had underlying issues. I trust the data that has revealed of the ~9000 who have died of Covid here in Texas since February, only 43 were vaccinated.
I trust that masks and distancing have clearly had positive side effects to limit the spread of other illnesses, such as the flu. My children have all had RSV since society mostly opened back up but not before (talk to a pediatrician - it's particularly nasty this year and is spreading in the summer months unlike it has in memory).
But I also trust my eyes that have seen states and communities with draconian lockdowns faring no better (or worse!) than states and communities that are largely open. Here in my community some schools required everyone to mask. Others, not at all. And neither fared measurably better or worse than the other. And given all that (and more), I've come to the conclusion that it is unlikely that masks make much of a difference.
And above all else, I trust that you know better how to keep yourself and your family safe than I do. And vice-versa.
Because I'll be honest, I don't think what you've written here reflects your actual, deep-down feelings on the topic.
Careful everyone! We've got a mind reader, here!
Seriously though, I know it's tough to resist the arrogant urge to compartmentalize all the wrongthinkers into stereotypes. But resist anyway, because it makes you seem like a condescending, dishonest, disingenuous investigator who is just building a strawman.
Or are you just saying that because it seems like the right thing to say?
Right thing to say? I don't even know what that means. I said what I genuinely believe. I've even attached my name to it. I've changed my mind on many subjects when presented evidence to the contrary - it's a useful skill when you solve problems for a living.
What i’m worried about is social distancing. Online school. Making it harder to meet people. Cancelling and postponing events. Even large gatherings of vaxxed individuals. And honestly, needing to wear masks at said gatherings.
Correct me if i’m wrong, but the chance of a large vaxxed party causing someone serious illness or significantly spreading the virus to the unvaxxed is still very low. From what i’ve heard, Delta does infect vaccinated people but it’s usually mild.
Moreover, if you ban these sorts of events you’re probably banning them long-term. Humans are social creatures, and it’s one thing to minimize social interaction for a year to save lives, it’s another to minimize for years (someone’s entire adolescence), especially when you’re not saving many lives anyways.
Honestly, i’m an introverted person, i don’t even like crowded parties. But i feel for people who do. Moreover, if schools / colleges stay online or even hybrid it’s going to hurt students’ education and social development. If jobs are online and vacations are cancelled it’s going to make finding and maintaining friends as an adult harder, and afaik that’s already hard. Some things really are better virtual (e.g. virtual meetings), but some are effectively useless.
It looks like right now this isn’t an issue, since i see events like lollapalooza and cruises which require proof of vaccination. And schools are starting in-person (although i’m worried for those under 12, the FDA should really approve the vaccine asap). But yeah, masks aren’t much of an issue, this is much more concerning.
What if we had an affordable, comfortable mask that worked so well that you have no practical chance of contracting an airborne virus while wearing it? I get that current N95 and surgical masks are not that, but I don't see why it would be impossible to create one within the physical laws of the universe, especially if you put power and air supplies on the table. Scuba gear and air-supplied biohazard suits seem to be existence proofs, the question is whether they can be made practical.
If everyone had such a mask, we would have a new strategy available for controlling delta and any other variant that emerges in the future: everyone could mask up full-time when outside the house _for a limited amount of time_ until transmission drops to a low level. From that point, local outbreaks could be controlled by local bouts of masking, plus aggressive testing and contact tracing.
I get that anti-masking would be an obstacle, but part of the difficulty has been messaging risk and uncertainty to people who start from a skeptical place. A mask that _positively_ protects the wearer, and that can remove the need for restrictions within a finite, predictable time, would be an easier sell, especially after the strategy is seen to work once or twice.
1: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
2: https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.htm...
"I feel that being vaccinated is good enough criteria to stop wearing a mask or social distance"
The problem is that the goalposts keep shifting with this pandemic. Biden said earlier that if you got vaccinated you wouldn't need a mask any more. That was true for maybe 1 month here in Maryland. Goalposts have since shifted. What is the endgame? Nobody seems to know. It's just a nebulous incoherent mixture of random arguments involving protecting the unvaccinated, preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed, protecting children and immunocompromised, preventing covid from mutating, etc. Heavy handed public health policies aren't free. You might accomplish some public health goal, but at the cost of increased social discord, decreased citizen morale, increased mistrust of the government, increased illwill toward the government, or other factors which could have far worse long term consequences.
So while the masks will reduce transmission of COVID-19, it will also reduce the transmission of other endemic illnesses like the seasonal flu. And while you might think that's a good thing, it's likely to backfire as we set the stage for massive outbreaks during the flu season, which puts further pressure on limited healthcare resources, and so on.
The same patterns can be seen in forest management, where by constantly putting out all the small natural forest fires, we set the stage for record breaking wildfires that cannot be contained.
[1] The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections https://www.pnas.org/content/117/48/30547
I like the idea of air systems and UV light that I see in some of these indoor play places.
1 www.whitehouse.gov
3 covid.cdc.gov
2 www.nytimes.com
13 www.theatlantic.com
1 twitter.com
1 jamanetwork.com
1 spiral.imperial.ac.uk
1 www.doherty.edu.au
1 www.medrxiv.org
2 www.nejm.org
1 www.thelancet.com
1 www.yalemedicine.org
nearly every state https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
struggling to get more shots into arms https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/unvaccina...
once again mask in public indoor spaces https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/cdc-coron...
in places where the virus is surging https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/delta-tra...
controversially dispensed with in May https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/cdc-guidel...
a scientifically powerful pairing https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/cdc-coron...
Nearly 60 percent https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
holding their own https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/anatomy-...
all known forms https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccine-compariso...
contract the pathogen https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/90800/2/reac...
pass it on https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v...
come down with disease https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891
the wiliest version of the virus to date https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/06/coronavi...
might also be likelier to land people in the hospital https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
set vaccinated immune systems up for success https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/cdc-coron...
protect vulnerable people in the vicinity https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/fully-vac...
the government said they could https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
as the CDC stipulates https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view
even 90s https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/141558717094187417...
a bit of a hit https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891
a nasal spray https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-nasal-...
Recent modeling work https://www.doherty.edu.au/news-events/news/doherty-institut...
backs this logic up https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
might slip on socially or seasonally https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/05/mask-mand...
boosters https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/06/covid-19...
other airway viruses as well https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/02/covid-19...
long been commonplace elsewhere https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/america...
As it is, with vaccination rates so low, I expect COVID is going to be forever. I don't mind wearing a mask to protect unvaccinated people and help out our medical professionals keep numbers down. But, it's going to be rough. I was so happy, I thought we were done.
I'm curious if we know this for a fact. We started out with attainable numbers for herd immunity (which I think is pretty much equivalent to R<1). But that was based on an apparent overestimation of the sterilizing immunity of the vaccines. The alternative appears to be an endemic virus with occasional booster vaccinations for certain populations.
I think a big factor was July 4th. Summer vacation kept cases low until now. Then the big family gatherings really ramped things up. Now we're going back to school soon.
Vaccination reduces transmission but not 100%. Notice I said 70-80% and not 100%. I don't think anyone expected it to be 100% effective at preventing breakthrough infections.
I'm hoping we don't have to eat that additional 20% with regular infection. Delta is NASTY.
On the other hand, if immunity decreases over time, we might need something like 90-95% vaccinated or infected during the past 3 months (just as an example).
I'm not sure that we know where along those dimensions we are.
Edit: I’ve now flagged it.
It's pretty easy to find more of such comments by typing some keywords in Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=hackernews+downvote+disagree...