Posted on 04/06/2021 4:36:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
When I see people walking outside, often alone with no one anywhere near them, wearing a mask, my primary reactions are disappointment and sadness.
I am disappointed because I expected better from my fellow Americans. I never thought most Americans would be governed by irrational fears and unquestioning obedience to authority. I have come to realize that I had a somewhat romanticized view of my countrymen.
Had you told me a year ago that nearly every American in nearly every metropolitan area would cover their faces for over a year because one man, one political party and the media told them to, I would have responded that you underestimate the strength of the American character.
But here we are, over a year later, and where I live (the Los Angeles area), I am usually the only person on the street not wearing a mask. (For the record, I wear a mask in stores and when entering the building in which I work, out of courtesy to those who think a person not wearing a mask poses a lethal threat.)
On the rare occasions I pass people not wearing a mask, I thank and praise them. They are invariably enthused by my reaction.
You do not need medical or scientific expertise to understand the foolishness of outdoor mask-wearing. Common sense, that great unused guide to life, suffices.
If you wear a mask, you do so in the belief that you are protecting yourself (and others) from COVID-19. So, then, why do you care if I don't wear a mask? Doesn't your mask protect you? If it does, my not wearing a mask may irritate you because you resent my assertion of freedom, my obvious lack of respect for government and medical authorities, and my alleged selfishness, but there would be no rational medical -- that is, "science-based" -- reason for your objecting to my not wearing a mask.
And if masks protect us and others, why have people been refused the right to visit a loved one as he or she lay dying alone? Why couldn't a person -- wearing the same mask a doctor, nurse or any health care worker wears when entering your parent's room -- enter that room? There are two possible answers: One is it's a tacit admission that masks are essentially useless. You were prevented from visiting your dying father because the hospital believes your loved one or others in the hospital might contract the virus from you, even though you were wearing a mask. Which means those running the hospital don't believe masks actually work. The other is that the medical establishment and lay authorities have abandoned elementary human decency in the name of AOC, or "Abundance of Caution." Forcing hundreds of thousands of people to die alone will go down as one of the cruelest policies ever adopted by American medical and political authorities.
The problem is most Americans who went to college learned to unquestioningly obey "experts." This is why common sense, logic and reason mean little to the well-educated -- and, increasingly, to everyone else, because everyone is taught by the well-educated. All we need to know is what the "experts" say. That plus a fanatical adherence to the rule of AOC have crushed logic and reason.
The irony, however, is that "the science" doesn't justify the fanatical commitment to mask-wearing. There are plenty of experts with evidence-based views to the contrary. Here are but a few examples:
Dr. Anthony Fauci himself told the truth about the uselessness of mask-wearing on "60 Minutes" on March 8, 2020: "Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks. ... There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences: People keep fiddling with the mask, and they keep touching their face."
Dr. Ramin Oskoui, a cardiologist in Washington at a Senate hearing in December 2020, testified under oath: "Masks do not work." (The New York Times, Dec. 8, 2020.)
The Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 11, 2020: "The projected number of lives saved, and the implied case for a mask mandate, are based on a faulty statistic."
Dr. Paul E. Alexander, a Canadian epidemiologist, wrote: "Surgical and cloth masks, used as they currently are, have absolutely no impact on controlling the transmission of Covid-19 virus, and current evidence implies that face masks can be actually harmful." (American Institute for Economic Research, Feb. 11, 2021.)
Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Riverside, wrote: "A 'mask,' and that term usually refers to either a SURGICAL mask or N95 mask, has no benefit in the general population and is only useful in controlled clinical settings. Further, it has been considered a greater transmission risk than a benefit in the general population. ... In the open environment, no one should be wearing face coverings." (American Institute for Economic Research, Oct. 16, 2020.)
Finally, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 21, 2020, concluded: "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic."
Contrary to mainstream media misinformation, the doctors who wrote that report did not later retract anything they wrote.
People say they "follow the science." They rarely do. They follow the scientists the media tell them to follow.
You need a pretty heavy load to get Covid. It’s why wearing a mask in a grocery store is ridiculous. Your level of exposure is too slight. Riding to the store in a car with people is where you get it.
All of our contact tracing pointed towards gatherings or at home. Some haircuts showed up. A few carpools. But we found people largely got it from people they were hanging around who were symptomatic.
It’s possible to get it from your hands but highly unlikely. You would get it through the eyes most likely.
We also found the best type of mask is a Trump mask. It was most effective at pissing off liberals.
Report: Only 1 out of about 20 semi drivers will not wear a mask in the truck stop. I'm one of them, but then I'm a willful red head who wasn't afraid as a kid of getting expelled from Christian schools for standing up to faculty who I thought were wrong. Again, from my own observation, 19 out of 20 big rough tough truckers are mask/revolution compliant. And almost nobody has said anything to me about it.
I live in a over 55 community and unfortunately it is chock full of Karens who will email the HOA board everytime they see somebody outdoors without a mask on. I know that I am the target of some of these complaints because I go out walking just about every day and I will absolutely not wear a mask when I am outdoors. Just like the author of this article, I keep one stuffed in my pocket so that I can wear one indoors as a courtesy to those who are caught up in the fear and panic. But outdoors...no way.
Fortunately the HOA board sticks up for me and others and defends our right to go maskless outdoors "so long as we maintain the social distance." Which is fine by me because honestly I don't want to be within 15 feet of these mindless sheep.
Fortunately there are many others in my community who are on my side.
A year into this madness, I don't think this is ever going away. A large segment of our population is obviously greatly enjoying all the masking up and the huddling indoors. They never want things to "go back to normal", that is obvious.
Korea used contract tracing when the bug first kicked off. They have no issues with providing personal information. As a matter of fact all Koreans leave their cell phone numbers on their windshields. By using contacts tracing and mass notifications via cellular they were able to isolate hot spots. They also wear mask quite a bit because of the Yellow Dust from China so the masks may be a little bit better than a cloth mask.
The other day, I saw a guy cutting his lawn wearing a mask. I should have stopped the car and taken a photo. An image of crazy times, or something like that.
You’re implying masks work?
Many of us on this site have been addressing the foolishness of masking for a year or so...
Distancing does nothing with a virus.
I’m so tired of people not having basic common sense.
Are you being serious? They kicked COVID by tracking everyone everywhere. We don't do that kind of thing here, and when China takes over in Taiwan you'll know why.
(same idea as touching your face)
Baaaaa.
Here in rural MO and likely most rural Midwest, we’re not wearing masks. For the most part, the only people wearing them are store cashiers. We’re also not social distancing all that much. I’ve never been one to stand real close to the next person in line. I even shook a guy’s hand the other day. Walmart shoppers are more apt to wear masks than any other store. Probably 40% of shoppers at walmart. Sometimes none at our little grocery store. Feed stores, nope, not even workers. Local gun/pawn/Stihl shop, nope. Small limber/hardware store, nope. Even at Subway hear the interstate, the only person wearing a mask was the sandwich maker. Two other employees and a dozen customers, no masks. School’s been back in for months and the kids are not masked.
We should all be dead according to some people but for some strange reason we’re not. Hospitals should be at full capacity but they’re not.
For many months, St Louis had over 90% of the state’s cases. Many thousands of people from St Louis visit my area for recreation on the weekends and most of them stayed here for the whole three weeks of lockdown and they didn’t wear masks while here. They also cleaned out the meat dept shelves every weekend. It did not cause a covid outbreak here. We stayed at zero cases here that whole time. What that tells me is that dem voters who work at or run hospitals lied to get that $14k per covid death that fedgov gives out. I bet every blue city hospital/coroner did the same. We have a political party that lies criminally and that includes the voters. Vote early and often has been a running joke with them for years. As a bonus, they got to get rid of Trump with all the panic and faked/baked numbers.
I’m going to go work outside and vaccinate myself with the sun and fresh air now.
“ The other day, I saw a guy cutting his lawn wearing a mask.”
I saw a guy out on his mower wearing a mask the other day. Down here pollen is unbelievable. You can see clouds of the stuff blowing off trees. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Other solo mask wearers, particularly those who mask up their kids, not so much.
Even as COVID winds down, the cult of the Branch Covidians continues to spread...make no mistake; they ARE a cult.
^
I saw that before the pandemic. The guy must have been prescient!
Maybe a third of our contact cases said they must have gotten it from a gas pump but a third of our cases initially lied to us about where they had been. One person said they never left the house and later said they went to the beach twice just before getting sick.
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