One of these days; a few thousand Richard Dreyfuss types are going to remove their masks...
Posted on 09/21/2020 4:57:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
Our family’s visit to a Virginia restaurant the other day wasn’t particularly unusual in the coronavirus era, although that state’s requirements are more stringent than most. The staff were all wearing masks and, in this case, plastic gloves as well. The iced tea bin was behind the counter where customers couldn’t touch it, and Virginia restaurants are apparently required to give customers a new plastic cup for every refill. (Somehow, the left went from banning plastic straws to probably tripling the amount of plastic waste generated by restaurants but hey, there could be a .000001% less chance of someone possibly catching the WORSTEST VIRUS EVER, so screw the environment, right?)
Anyway, I won't name the restaurant, but it was one of those places where you walk in, place your order, get your drinks, pay, then sit down and wait for your food to come up at the counter, at which point they call your order number. Of course, you had to shout through the giant plexiglass screen, then bend your head just to hear the muffled voice of the cashier, who was asking questions and punching buttons with one ungloved finger on an otherwise gloved hand. From the stains as well as the home-cut finger opening (so he could push the buttons), it was obvious he hadn't changed his gloves in quite some time, and certainly not for the two customers in line before us.
Even more disturbingly, as he spoke to us the cashier adjusted his obviously moist, stained mask with his gloved hand at least five times, at one point putting his thumb and forefinger across his entire mouth and moving the mask farther up the bridge of his nose. Thank God we were ‘spared’ any potential ‘droplets’ from his nose (because we all know how those nose droplets barrel through plexiglass), but it did come at the cost of spreading whatever nastiness was on his mask to pretty much everything else he touched.
We placed our order, paid with a credit card, then then watched the cashier grab our cups from the stack and proceed to put his gloved fingers inside (INSIDE, I kid you not) three of them at once as he made his way to the ice maker and tea bin to get our drinks (COVID restrictions in Virginia apparently do not allow us to get our own tea … you know, for ‘safety’).
Now the last thing I’m trying to do is bash hard-working restaurant employees. I’ve been one myself and I know how hard and thankless the work is. I won’t go into any more detail on the incident above, but suffice it to say I wouldn’t have dreamed of being rude to him. What I am trying to point out, however, is how supposedly well-meaning COVID restrictions - and even restaurants trying to 'help' by going above and beyond, as the gloves seemed to be - have turned our reality into a place where the 'letter of the law' (or mandate) is more important than common sense or actual results.
Indeed, if you had told me in 2019 that there would come a day when virtually the entire world would seriously believe there are absolutely no negatives to wearing a moist, bacteria-laden germ-collector on one’s face and breathing through it all day, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet, here we are, where even the esteemed head of the Center for Disease Control is telling people with a straight face that masks - yes masks - are MORE protective than a vaccine. At this point, face burqas have become more than simply a talisman to encourage the public to venture out and engage the economy - they have become a religious cult. Dare to question it in any way, and they’ll shut you down - or attempt to - and they typically won’t even bother to try to respond to any of the points you make.
Take last week, for example, when I attempted to post that amazing mask article by Daniel Horowitz I mentioned in last week’s post on my own humble personal Facebook page. (I typically don’t plug this page, but lately I’ve gotten in the habit of posting some great clips and COVID-related news items there, so you’re welcome to visit and follow it if you like.) After a few days, the “fact-checker” bot discovered and flagged the post as “partly false information.” Why, you ask? Because Big Tech has apparently deemed fit to decide that this is “settled science,” or something. “Masks work,” don’t you know, and that’s all there is to it. To ‘refute’ the post, Facebook oddly linked to an article written by healthfeedback.org in May responding to an entirely different anti-mask post. It goes through the usual ridiculous model-based “studies” to ‘prove’ that mask-wearing ‘works,’ but then it also notably says this:
“The post is correct in stating that improper handling of face masks or cloth coverings creates a risk for infection, as infectious droplets may potentially contaminate the external and internal surfaces. However, this is far from an insurmountable obstacle, as this risk can be minimized by exercising caution when removing the mask. The CDC has advised that individuals should wash their hands and avoid touching their eyes, nose and mouth after removing their mask, and that cloth masks should be regularly washed.”
Now let’s put aside the other arguments, many if not most of which I have covered in past posts, and just get real for a second with some gold old-fashioned common sense. Does anyone sincerely think that most of the public, who are non-medical professionals, handle masks correctly? Just take a look at the masks on most restaurant employees or even people you pass in the street. People are constantly touching them and they’re often visibly dirty, which suggests they aren’t being laundered daily or even regularly. Most people I know carry them around in their cars, in and out of their pockets, and leave them lying around wherever with little regard for the biohazards they are. Instead of potentially dangerous droplets falling to the ground where they’ve fallen for the entirety of human history, we’ve chosen to catch them in one ‘convenient’ place so they can then be distributed to surfaces humans touch on a regular basis.
In other words, even IF correctly used masking worked to stop the spread of coronavirus in theory - a goal I’m not even sure we should have in the first place (as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed) - the practice and subsequent real-world results are an entirely different thing. This could be why in place after place that has instituted mandatory masking, from California to Israel to Peru to Columbia to India to countless others, the virus continues to spread unabated and seemingly even faster than in non-masked places, only finishing when it runs its course at 15 to 25 percent seroprevalence.
Please consider staying informed with the latest and BEST COVID-19-related information by joining the over 2,100 people already following my brand-new COVID ‘Team Reality’ list. It’s a great first step in the long-haul fight against corona fascism!
For studies that focus on mask effectiveness, please see my original comment’s study and the three studies I linked here: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3886112/posts?page=60#60
As for Arkansas, your argument is not with masks; it’s with mask mandates. A mandate doesn’t make the problem disappear. If it did, we wouldn’t see any shootings in “gun-free school zones”. A mandate doesn’t reduce the risk of viral transmission. Most or all of the population wearing a properly made, properly worn mask the entire time they’re in a situation where it makes sense to do so (indoors in a public place, outside doesn’t matter since it doesn’t spread much at all there) reduces the risk of transmission.
The face diapers people have been wearing are good only as cues to remember to keep your distance and your grubby paws out of your face.
BTW, our doc says the same.
And I'm bloody well not gonna run around in MOPP gear to avoid getting WuFlu. Right now more people in my neck of the woods are dying in MVAs and from lead poisoning than from WuFlu.
I have HAD IT with this crap.
The total duration of mask mandates during the Spanish Flu pandemic was 4-6 weeks. We’re zooming past six months on our way to eighteen.
Why?
Just 175 days (so far) to flatten the curve.
Not sure what the intention of posting that link was, but it does state repeatedly that mask wearing was found to be effective in reducing the risk of transmission with both Influenza and SARS-CoV-1. They even models how effective it would be to have various amounts of the population wearing masks and found there would even be some minimal benefit to just 10% of the population wearing only a surgical mask. Benefits improved dramatically as the ratio of masked persons increased and the quality of the masks (e.g. moving from surgical masks to N95 masks) improved.
Wearing a mask and keeping 6 feet of distance from those outside your household while in an indoor public environment represent a minimal burden to each of us while providing a benefit in the form of reducing the risk of transmission, which reduces the total number of cases, which reduces the reach of SARS-CoV-2, thus reducing the risk of it reaching individuals who will die from it.
Because we’re attempting to slow the transmission rate to reducing the risk of it reaching those who would suffer permanent injury or death from catching it until we can wrap up work on safe and effective vaccines and deploy them.
Wearing a mask while indoors in public places and maintaining >6 feet of distance between individuals from different households is a reasonable way to reduce the risk of transmission and slow the disease’s progress through the population. Shutdowns and lockdowns are completely unreasonable given the relative risk. It all ends once we have enough people inoculated, which is why President Trump has spent months pushing to streamline the process to get safe and effective vaccines into the hands of the American people.
Trust the president. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s about to turn this whole COVID mess right on top of the Democrats right before the election.
It has been 3 months. They don’t work here.
I don’t want a study. I want real world results not bullshit studies that require a perfect setting.
Just now looking at the study — I should have done so before replying. Nothing has changed my mind yet.
The purpose of studies is to demonstrate what might not be immediately obvious. For example, fish oil is well studied, and we know it has benefits for joint health. Now if you start taking fish oil supplements, will all your joints suddenly work like you’re 15 years old again? No. In fact, your joints might show little or no improvement at all. What the study says is that if you give fish oil supplements to 50,000 people, the overall joint health of that population improves significantly and you see fewer joint injuries and better joint function. But WITHIN that population, specific INDIVIDUALS will see very different results.
The studies tell us there are benefits overall, even when mom or dad or Aunt Susan say they can’t tell a difference. Those benefits improve quality of life for many people and reduce healthcare costs associated with joint issues.
Same with the masks. What the studies can tell us is that if people actually wear good masks and wear them properly in situations where they’re useful, there’s an overall benefit. Now, if someone is walking around Walmart while infected, it’s still entirely possible they’re infecting others even if everyone is wearing a good mask properly. But what the studies say is that if they would have infected 10 people in that Walmart, they might only infect 6 if people are wearing masks (particularly the infected individual). So it made no difference to the 6 who still got infected, but the four who didn’t aren’t spreading it to others, and those people aren’t spreading it to others, and so on. It’s a cumulative effect. And some of those who would have gotten infected who now aren’t will (statistically speaking) be among those who would die or suffer permanent injury from a fight with COVID-19.
The key take-away here is that wearing masks and social distancing are not magic and do not halt all infections. They simply reduce risk. They do so with minimal cost in terms of time, effort, or financial expense. But they’re only really useful when enough people are doing it properly. That means wearing a mask that’s actually effective (not a mesh mask, or a bandana, or something with holes cut in it, or a mask worn around the chin, etc.) and wearing it properly while indoors in public places. It isn’t going to help if only 10% of the people are actually following through with that consistently. Educating is a big part of that, and that’s sadly been as much a failure so far as most other public education run by the government.
‘Wearing a mask while indoors in public places and maintaining >6 feet of distance between individuals from different households is a reasonable way to reduce the risk of transmission...’
is it your belief that unmasked people passing each other in a public place without stopping are going to pass infection between them...? based merely on normal, non exaggerated inhalations from the nostrils...?
if so, then why does the covid test require a thrust into the nasal passage to capture enough material to formulate a diagnosis? for that matter, if this is such a virulent pathogen, why do we need to be tested to determine whether we have it nor not...?
Masks work. This has been documented in numerous scientific papers. They do not have to work perfectly, they only need to decrease disease transmission. The goal is to achieve 60% protection, which is equivalent to herd immunity. The fact that new case numbers have been steadily dropping since their peak in mid-July is a good indicator that measures such as mandatory mask use and social distancing work.
This could be why in place after place that has instituted mandatory masking, from California to Israel to Peru to Columbia to India to countless others, the virus continues to spread unabated and seemingly even faster than in non-masked places, only finishing when it runs its course at 15 to 25 percent seroprevalence.
Where does this even come from? There is no place in the world where there is 15 to 25 percent seroprevalence of Covid-19. Fewer than 0.4% of the world population has ever caught Covid-19. Even if the seroprevalence were that high, it would still be far below the number needed to achieve herd immunity. The measure of how contagious Covid-19 is, or R-nought (R0), is 2.5 (each infected person infects, on average, 2.5 other people). The formula to determine the level of herd immunity or protection that must be achieved in the population is 1-1/R0 (x 100 to make a percent). Since R0 is 2.5, the level of protection must be 1-1/2.5, or 0.6 (60%). In no case has Covid-19 "run its course" anywhere. It has been controlled by strict social distancing, masking requirements, etc., but never by just letting it spread uncontrolled.
This kind of misinformation helps the virus to spread, because people who believe it is no big deal don't take proper precautions. Covid is a killer. Even though the death rate has been dropping, it is still close to 3%--that is, one out of every thirty who catch it will die. It truly is not something we can just allow to circulate unopposed.
I thought we were slowing the transmission rate so as not to overwhelm the system. You know, fifteen days to flatten the curve? Six months ago?
I have one; a blue one upon which I have drawn Dracula teeth.
So far; any particles 'trapped' in it have not clogged it enough to make it impermeable.
One of these days; a few thousand Richard Dreyfuss types are going to remove their masks...
Sorry kid; but that mask ain't gonna save you from the vacuum!
Does the virus also exit the body thru the other orifice?
Huh?
All that 'stuff' was already inside my body!
How does being now on the outside tend to make it worse?
At my local Walmart; the door sign says you can wear a homemade mask/face covering.
SURELY this tells us something!
CHOICE (abortion) has been with us for over 40 years.
This is NOT about ‘protecting lives’!!!
No
no
It's to keep our medical facilities from being overwhelmed by the number of victims!!!
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