‘Maskless flash mob’ marches through Target shouting ‘Take off that mask’

A rowdy group of anti-maskers marched through a Target in Florida and shouted at other shoppers to “Take off that mask,” viral video shows.

Footage on Twitter Tuesday showed the crowd parading around the aisles of the store — located in Ft. Lauderdale, according to HuffPost — and disregarding the store’s face mask requirement as one of them exclaims, “We’re not going to take it anymore!”

“Anti-maskers in Florida invade a Target,” wrote a user who shared the video, which has received more than 6.6 million views as of Wednesday afternoon.

Another video posted to YouTube showed the same group singing and dancing to the Twisted Sister song “We’re Not Going to Take It,” as other customers filmed the wild encounter on their phones.

“In celebration of Burn Your Mask Day we decided to spread some freedom dust over the shoppers and employees of Target!” user Chris Nelson wrote in the description of “Maskless Flash Mob at Target!”

“That’s the only way it’s going to work — if we all unite,” the woman said. “It’s all about choice.”

The number of people on here who are triggered by my refusal to toe the flubro/flubra line and subsequent choice to wear a mask just proves my point: that they are banging on the table because the facts aren't on their side.

"A larger study is needed to definitively establish noninferiority of no mask use."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/

""There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission. There are fewer data to support the use of masks or respirators to prevent becoming infected."

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/face-masks-to-prevent-transmission-of-influenza-virus-a-systematic-review/64D368496EBDE0AFCC6639CCC9D8BC05

""One household trial found that mask wearing coupled with hand sanitiser use reduced secondary transmission of upper respiratory infection inﬂuenza-like illness laboratory-conﬁrmed inﬂuenza compared with education;hand sanitiser alone resulted in no reduction...Eight of nine retrospective observational studies found that mask and ⁄ or respirator use was independently associated with a reduced risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)....Some evidence suggests that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package of personal protection especially hand hygiene. The effectiveness of masks and respirators is likely linked to early,consistent and correct usage."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00307.x

The effectiveness of masks and respirators is likely linked to early,consistent and correct usage."

And do you know what consistent and correct usage is?

It involves lots of things, that a normal person doesn't do most of. That people in places that legitimately wear a mask/respirator, often don't completely follow. I know, I worked at Valspar (paint manufacturer) back in high school, and you'd often see guys with paint marks on their face - where their mask should have covered.

- Not touching the mask at all while it's being worn.
- Keeping a good seal on the mask - meaning you don't have a beard, it's fitted to your face, and there is no exhalation valve.
- Replacing the mask with a clean, sanitary one every so often (most N95s are rated for no longer than eight hours of use, and usually suggest replacement after about two hours of wear).
- NOT re-wearing the same mask once you've removed it.
- Proper decon procedures to remove the mask without contaminating your hands, face, or other surfaces.
- Proper disposal - after all, as deadly as all these environmental viri and bacteria that your mask has collected are, the mask is a biohazard, is it not? (IE not tossing it in the grocery store parking lot, like many people apparently do.)

- WEARING A PROPER MASK. If this was a real emergency, and people were serious about masks actually being an effective infection deterrent, everyone would be wearing a real mask. N99 at minimum. How many people do you see using a scarf or bandanna? What good do those do? I've seen one or two people wearing actual respirators, with no canisters on it! All these blue/white surgical masks? They're almost useless, ~70-80% of their filtration efficiency is zero - breath flows around the edges of the mask, not through it.

Read through those studies and get to the actual conclusion, not just a bit of the middle - most of them say that they conclude that masks cannot be tied to a definitive "yes" on helping prevent influenza spread. Even your short excerpts from the pro-part of the study: "larger study is needed to [actually prove our point]", "some evidence ... may help", "retrospective observational studies", "some evidence suggests [using more than just masks]".

I'll look at that last link since that's the first one my mouse reached when I scrolled to your post. It wasn't a real study, it was a "study of studies", and only looked at 17 others, at least 8 of which were hospital settings (not very similar to wearing one around town). Look at page 3/11, first sentence in the "Discussion" section: None of the studies we reviewed established a conclusive relationship between mask ⁄ respirator use and protection against inﬂuenza infection.
Keep reading to the green boxen, and that lists out several of the studies' results (first five say mask/no mask is the same), and then comments on the study, many of which list the several factors the studies didn't control that they should have. IE, several of the studies had very low scientific standards, but many are from China (the SARS outbreak), so poor practice is expected there.

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