What good do the masks do, really?

We are seeing jurisdictions everywhere imposing mask bans at a rate that approaches the number of bars being threatened with liquor license revocation for failing to enforce social distancing. If that sentence seems complicated, then you are beginning to appreciate just how confusing all the arguments are about face coverings. After all, we have N95s, surgical masks, homemade cloth masks .. and the classic train robber bandana. Just for good measure, as I wore my cup-style dust mask on my last pass through Costco, I saw staff members wearing required face coverings that came from lathe section at Woodcraft.

It should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that these masks are not all identical in their intended use and possible function against viruses. .. The bandana blocks the good guys from seeing who the bad guy is. In both cases, breathing around them is very easy, and aerosols aren't blocked.

I wore surgical masks daily for 36 years as an anesthesiologist. Their purpose was to reduce the chance that I would infect an open wound with bacteria from my mouth. ... If staff who are working outside of the immediate sterile field do not wear masks, there is no increase in wound infections.

The outside world is the safest place you can be. The state of Florida has zero cases of COVID-19 that can be traced to outside transmission. During the day, solar UV kills all viruses very quickly, and there's always enough air movement to disperse aerosols, making them non-infective. .. six-foot spacing doesn't help

Caregivers in a high-intensity environment should have all the fitted N95s they need. Beyond that, it's time to recognize that the only person who should be wearing a mask is the Lone Ranger.

You’re lucky. Normal N95 type disposable respirators are not sufficient for vapors.

For my job, I occasionally need a cartridge respirator and I must use a specific cartridge for similar vapors.

As far as I know, only one company makes a disposable one for vapors and it’s not a Home Depot type item.

Plus, yours probably had an exhalation valve. It’s just blowing pure exhaled air out, thus making the “I’m protecting you from me” argument null and void.

“...runs its course and eventually weakens.”

Misnomer, imho. The very nature of these types of viruses is that once they are in the environment, they’re ALWAYS in the environment. I sincerely doubt that any vaccine will prove BOTH effective & safe. 2003 SARS was an outlier; MERS as well...both of which are a discussion of their own.

Thus we are left with only 3 options:

1. Hide like a little bitch in sequestration and a metaphorical bubble, severely-compromising integrity of immune defenses, lending to a very disastrous next pandemic,
2. Treatments for those who experience complications, currently limited to fringe applications such as Hydroxychloroquine therapy and my own proffered propylene glycol therapy due to the control exerted by a combination of the Left & big pharma,
3. Herd immunity.

Since treatments are wholly-lacking, we’re left with herd immunity. But there are 2 distinct problems:
1. Certain asshats’ insistence upon projecting fear & thereby insulating the healthy from becoming exposed for no other reason than to protect others (rather asinine logic),
2. The very nature of this type of virus is that, like the many cold viruses out there, it may NEVER disappear.
Considering both its virulence and still-anecdotal evidence that it may be zoonotic (it’s been found to infect both dogs & cats), this [assuredly-manufactured] virus may be around until it infects every living person on the planet, making it - insofar as its most-affected demographic is concerned - potentially one of the greatest cullings in human history. The latter is why I avoid discussing that aspect, as it is no pleasant discussion to assert that every diseased person must die to make everyone else safe.

But there it is.

Thus my biting critique of those who proffer that “we must wear masks to protect others”...analogous to banning peanuts to protect those with deadly peanut allergies.

THAT is the level of idiocy we’re dealing with.

I am absolutely done with anyone asserting that “I” or anyone else needs to do ANYTHING to protect others, flying in the face of the premise of personal responsibility and, ironically, demonstrating the antithesis of Conservative values.

Cold hard fact: If a person is at risk or “fearful” of infection, wearing a mask for yourself combined with whatever isolation you deem necessary to protect yourself and those actions are not sufficient, leading to your own perverted hypocrisy which rationalizes that EVERYONE ELSE must act to protect you, then you are assuredly downrange with all the other useful idiots and are deserved of what’s coming your way, virally, metaphorically or ballistically.

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