I was referring to the groupthink of
a) using cloth masks or even medical masks that explicitly say they are not virus-safe - are quickly contaminated, even dirtied through daily use and a casual approach to washing or replacement or even no approach at all ie they are reused well past any point of effectiveness and may even damage the health of the wearer.
b) masks as the NEXT panacea. Lockdown anyone? Mid-March? Ring any bells? Flatten the curve? 15 days? 30 days? What was achieved? Less than nothing if you’re a virus fearmonger watching cases go up. Less than nothing if you’re a virus skeptic who knew then and knows now that a lockdown was not a stop button but merely a pause button.
Herd immunity remains the only true solution. Lockdowns and, to a lesser extent, masks delay herd immunity therefore they are not solutions but hindrances. Vaccines may speed up herd immunity but they are months or years away.
Of course the mask is a political strategy if only because it’s become the new false god of coronabros.
He may be a wise, honest leader but he wants very much to be reelected and to dispute the mask silliness would be political suicide. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to buy into it.
Masks most certainly DO hinder employment in certain sectors if the population have had the living hell scared out of them by a cynical media and a politically-slanted medical ‘expert’ community. Restaurants are already at 25-50% capacity but even those tables are mostly empty. Retailers are closing left and right despite Herculean efforts to sanitize and ‘follow protocol’ (what an Orwellian term) - because the public are living in a state of induced fear, convinced that to open their front door involves the risk of INSTANT DEATH.
“I was referring to the groupthink of ...”
My main feeling about masks is that they are harmless compared with other measures being used to combat the virus spread.
I’m not going to object to politicians wanting us to wear masks.
I think you are correct thinking that masks don’t do a lot of good. I base that belief on a study that was in one of the prominent medical journals which says they are helpful only in hospitals where they’ve been used for years.
Also we could say that herd immunity is what’s kept us around for the last million or so years. That and natural selection.