Count me in as a member of that group.
And there we have a perfect example.
Because you disagree with the mask, you will be made out as an idiot that denies there is a virus killing people.
I, like you, believe the mask to a waste of time.
It’s a pacifier for adults.
Most people don’t wash their cloth masks. Most cloth masks don’t work (not enough filtration), nor did the N95 masks with a big exhaust valve ever do anything. People do not change out their masks when wet (ideally every 20 minutes since your breath contains moisture).
***It makes people feel safer and in control.*** It gives people the simple fix they always long for. It gives some political figures the appearance as if they are “taking action in crisis” which today is leadership even if the crisis is make belief (global warming) or about as effective as charging at wind mills like Don Quixote with their mask solution. But if you’re a politician you “have to show action.” If you’re a government agency you need to “take action.” It’s expected of you, even if this action makes about as much sense as regulating sun spots or outlawing the magnetic pole reversal.
There is no true rational argument other than a superficial one that appears to make sense if not further investigated. At face value it sort of makes sense, a mask would help, right? Not really, because in the end, all that will really matter is the total number that are exposed and eventually the disease not having the ability to spread. That is why the lock down only caused a delay and once we open up it starts spreading again. Herd immunity is a real argument, not only when they are trying to peddle off an ineffective flu vaccine. Even without a vaccine, the same principal is true and if you look at the seasonal cold, flu, and many other commutable diseases in the past, that is exactly what happened. The disease came, a certain percent got it, and then it disappeared.
What we did accomplish is to expose those at highest risk to the disease may it be Quomo by ordering Covid-19 positive folks need to be taken back into senior living facilities, or the delay which caused for this disease to take a protracted course and thereby creating a higher probability of exposure for those with Cancer on chemo, AIDS, over 80... We should have sheltered those at risk, and for the rest of us it should have been business as usual. But stating that means I am an idiot and deny there is a virus, right? LOL
It sucks. The question is how we make it suck less. Our actions will not stop this disease, but it did kill more folks at risk, economically decimate us, and cause for all sorts of other issues... Telling people that this disease will run it’s course and 180,000 people will die from it ultimately, is not a politically tenable stance. So, now to appease the social, psychological and political Gods, we need to wear masks just like you were forced to buy a CFL years ago, or to recycle glass in some places: DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING!!!