quote:
Let's see if we can find common ground.
Can a mask on a healthy person reduce the risk of catching covid 19?

Just reply yes or no.

Can a mask on an asymptomatic person reduce the risk of spreading covid 19?

Just a yes or no is fine.

This is intellectually dishonest, though, because there's way more complexity to each question.

1. If I'm healthy, and I wear a mask, I can still get COVID if a sick person coughs or sneezes near/on me because billions upon billions of microscopic particles/droplets can still go through my mask or around the mask through gaps in the side when I inhale. Especially a surgical mask or bandana mask, which the overwhelming vast majority of people are wearing.

2. At the same time, I could be asphyxiating myself and causing pseudo-hypoxia, or inhaling harmful bacteria I've created in the mask, or inhaling polypropylene particles that the mask is made of that have broken off the mask, or reduced the strength of my immune system, or damaged my sympathetic system, and at the very least irritating my skin and causing unsightly rashes on my face.

3. Oh, and lets try also looking at the psychological aspect of all this. Face covering like a burka is dehumanizing and designed to force restraint, reduced non-verbal communication, reduced social interactions especially simple conversations and meeting new people and touching/human contact, muffled speech when you do talk to someone, reduced sexual/kissing interactions, fear of being shamed/cancelled/losing job/losing social acquaintances, fear of being legally cited for not wearing a mask and forced to pay a fine, increased seclusion/isolation, demoralization from forced compliance....

You can't make this a yes/no thing since there are so many possible extenuating circumstances that can be argued pro and con. Not to mention the fact that this virus treats demographics of people differently, you can't make a one-size-fits-all blanket recommendation/mandate across the board. Old people=vulnerable, respiratory/renal/vascular pre-ex=vulnerable, under-35=virtually immune, healthy/active under-60=virtually immune, black=more susceptible, white=less susceptible... etc. etc. etc.

And, lastly, when and where does it end?

We're already down to 0.3% mortality rate (and dropping) and 255k nationwide hospitalizations (with the average age being 77), out of 40 million people tested and 3.5 million of those being positive (<9%). So like a 7% hospitalization rate, which won't last as it will also go down eventually as more testing is done.

Which are all surely grave over-rates as there's clearly way more than 3.5 million people who have had this virus, as barely 12% of the population has even been tested.

So when do we go, "Okay, we're done with masks and social distancing. It's time to get back to normal."

When we've tested 330 million people and realize 30 million were infected and the mortality rate is actually 0.1% and the hospitalization rate is less than 1% per year?

Or is this permanent?

The hospitals are no where close to being full. They are barely at 10% occupancy. We have plenty of PPE. Plenty of ventilators. Children are virtually immune.

When does it end?

And what about the vaccines? Around 50 million people get the flu each year and yet there's around 0.3% hospitalizations and 0.1% deaths, even with a vaccine.

Are we going to get forced into compliance to get a vaccine for COVID when it's numbers are only slightly worse than the flu?

When and where does this shite fricking end?

This post was edited on 7/10/20 at 3:00 pm