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Comment by wtt604 | Hacker News Reader

I look forward to people telling surgeons not to bother masking up when they go for surgery in the future. I. Sure that will work out great /s

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The article does cover this point. It's likely that the right kind of masks are effective if used properly – which is something you can reasonably expected in the context of surgery. The question is whether it was ever realistic to think that a mask mandate, in the US, would be complied with sufficiently to make a difference. That is, how many people can one reasonably legally require to wear the right kind of masks correctly most of the time?

Anecdotally, in London, I saw lots of people wearing masks in an obviously ineffective way on the Tube (e.g. not covering their nose), and lots of people wearing basic cloth masks. So what are you going to do? Arrest all these people? There are limits to what you can realistically do in a non-authoritarian society.

What I increasingly wonder, is what can the government reasonably legally require anyone to do anymore? Wearing a mask over your nose seems pretty simple to me. Increasingly the law just seems like a collective fiction that is evaporating.

It's a reasonable thing to require someone to do, but it's not a realistic thing to enforce. It's like, say, throwing trash in the trash can. It's not unreasonable to require people not to throw trash all over the street. But it is unrealistic to try to enforce that requirement by authoritarian means. At least, unrealistic in certain social contexts and given a certain level of tolerance for authority (I know there are countries where you will be more or less hanged for dropping a plastic bottle).

Yes, I wonder if it has become more unrealistic to enforce requirements via authoritarian means in the US. Like for instance it seems that vagrancy and shoplifting are not exactly tolerated in more cities in the US now, but I suppose seen as simple background noise that one deals with living in a large city. I've found myself increasingly skeptical of the medical system and find it much simpler to simply order drugs and medical supplies on my own through one source or another. I'm not even sure if this is legal or not, but frankly I doubt any authority cares enough to bother with me. And they shouldn't have to.

The point of masks during surgery is to prevent large droplets of spittle from making their way into open wounds on the operating table. It's a completely ridiculous comparison to jump from that to trying to reduce the spread of airborne respiratory infections.

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