4 ms·

Literally, if every single person starting today, wears a mask when they are within 15 feet of another person, and all the time indoors, this virus would be gon

Literally, if every single person starting today, wears a mask when they are within 15 feet of another person, and all the time indoors, this virus would be gone from the entire United States in 2 months. No additional shutdown needed.

eloff 6y ago
You're probably right. It worked in Japan. It's a lot harder for the virus to make it through two masks (the one on the sick person is the especially important one) and it seems if you don't get a exposed to a high enough viral load at the start, you don't get it nearly as bad. I think universal mask wearing would bring R0 below 1, and the pandemic would end. Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.) If you don't have one, they will give you one (and an admonition to save it for the next visit.) I feel safer shopping there than any other store right now.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  I agree on Costco, on top of that I am also selective at where I shop based on other customer behavior. For example, I am avoiding Walmart and hardware stores because almost nobody wears a mask, including even the staff, whereas in Target and Kroger it is 50% or higher. Recently McDonald's actually removed the sneeze guards they had installed for some inexplicable reason and their staff stopped wearing masks, and in a related note due to increasing numbers we're likely to re-enter lock-down soon (per the state health board). I cannot imagine any justification for EVER removing the sneeze guards, it isn't like flu and the common cold are disappearing. Let alone now.
- goatforce5 6y ago
  > Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.) We went to a Costco in Toronto, Canada a couple of days ago. If you didn't have a mask on, they pointed you at a table off to the side where they had free masks, hand sanitizer, etc. Some people would accept the free mask, but others went in maskless. A staffer at the front door appeared to be keeping tally of people without masks using a sheet of paper (as opposed to the standard front door person who counts everyone going in with a little clicker thing). I'd say about 15-20% of people in the store weren't wearing masks.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Well that's rather pointless then. What's wrong with Western culture where people are making a political thing out of wearing a mask, I.e. Not being a dick and looking out for the health of the people around you.
    - iamstupidsimple 6y ago
      What's wrong is people have lost faith in our institutions (academia, media) because they lost that trust. Now half the population believes they're total liars and do the opposite. We brought this on ourselves.
fzeroracer 6y ago
Unfortunately, there are a significant amount of Americans it seems that have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism. So here we are, dealing with the fallout of people demanding that we end the shutdown while doing nothing to mitigate the disease. Or worse, they're openly antagonizing people who wear masks or stores that ask them to wear one because they're psychotic in their ideals.
- erichocean 6y ago
  > Americans [...] have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism They're not wrong. Enacting pro-social policies that restrict most individuals in small ways—but benefit society-as-a-whole in large ways—is one of the core things Fascists did that was actually effective at improving lives—just like forcing everyone to wear masks in the United States would also be effective at improving lives. So yeah, Fascists would absolutely have forced individuals to wear masks for the good of everyone—but that doesn't make the policy "bad", it's just one of the rare policy areas where Fascists tend to get good results. The actual problem is that people today believe literally anything Fascists would have done is, by definition, "bad/wrong/evil." That kind of simplistic thinking is all too common.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Yes, they are. Societies of all stripes and sorts restrict individuals in small ways. Just because fascism restricts individual freedoms doesn't mean that all restrictions are a symptom of fascism. Conflating mask requirements with fascism is to ignore the real history and motivations behind fascist movements.
    - erichocean 6y ago
      You seem to be confusing the idea that something "is a Fascist policy" with the idea that something "is ONLY a Fascist policy." Lots of similar policies are promoted by seemingly different forms of government. Even the most cursory inspection of our world today (or history) is sufficient to demonstrate this point. Forcing individuals to wear masks is absolutely something Fascists would do, and they would do so for 100% ideological reasons, so the statement "forcing people to wear masks is a Fascist policy" is 100% accurate. It's also a current US policy, a current communist policy, etc. etc. so it's clearly not limited just to Fascists.
mcv 6y ago
A mask is no substitute for distance. It does help, but in hospitals, where people know how to use masks properly, a lot of people still got infected. Many people do not know how to use masks properly. What you want is masks + distance. The mask is really a stop-gap measure when keeping distance fails. Also: gloves.
- henryl 6y ago
  That’s because many of the patients refuse to wear masks as well.
  - antisthenes 6y ago
    It's hard to wear a mask when you have a tube down your throat and/or have trouble breathing.
- dudul 6y ago
  I find it really unfair to downvote this comment because it is right. A lot of people don't know how to use masks. A lot of people don't know that they need to cover their nose, a lot of people remove them incorrectly and end up touching the front with their fingers. That being said, even used incorrectly they would definitely drastically help.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Substandard usage would be a huge problem in a hospital setting where you get extreme exposure and even a single-digit percentage loss in protection effectivity means sure infection. For day to day civilians however, even if they lose half the protection, if everybody has that other half it's almost enough to stop the wave. Losing ten percent of three nines is huge, losing ten percent of coin flip reliability is negligible. (but a coin flip reduction in everyday infection rates would still be huge). I strongly believe that unnecessary fretting over clinical hygiene rules of mask handling is responsible for a massive adoption delay, or adoption gap even today.
    - 6y ago

eloff 6y ago

You're probably right. It worked in Japan. It's a lot harder for the virus to make it through two masks (the one on the sick person is the especially important one) and it seems if you don't get a exposed to a high enough viral load at the start, you don't get it nearly as bad. I think universal mask wearing would bring R0 below 1, and the pandemic would end. Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.) If you don't have one, they will give you one (and an admonition to save it for the next visit.) I feel safer shopping there than any other store right now.

Someone1234 6y ago
I agree on Costco, on top of that I am also selective at where I shop based on other customer behavior. For example, I am avoiding Walmart and hardware stores because almost nobody wears a mask, including even the staff, whereas in Target and Kroger it is 50% or higher. Recently McDonald's actually removed the sneeze guards they had installed for some inexplicable reason and their staff stopped wearing masks, and in a related note due to increasing numbers we're likely to re-enter lock-down soon (per the state health board). I cannot imagine any justification for EVER removing the sneeze guards, it isn't like flu and the common cold are disappearing. Let alone now.
goatforce5 6y ago
> Costco requires a mask to shop in their stores (at least where I am.) We went to a Costco in Toronto, Canada a couple of days ago. If you didn't have a mask on, they pointed you at a table off to the side where they had free masks, hand sanitizer, etc. Some people would accept the free mask, but others went in maskless. A staffer at the front door appeared to be keeping tally of people without masks using a sheet of paper (as opposed to the standard front door person who counts everyone going in with a little clicker thing). I'd say about 15-20% of people in the store weren't wearing masks.
- eloff 6y ago
  Well that's rather pointless then. What's wrong with Western culture where people are making a political thing out of wearing a mask, I.e. Not being a dick and looking out for the health of the people around you.
  - iamstupidsimple 6y ago
    What's wrong is people have lost faith in our institutions (academia, media) because they lost that trust. Now half the population believes they're total liars and do the opposite. We brought this on ourselves.

fzeroracer 6y ago

Unfortunately, there are a significant amount of Americans it seems that have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism. So here we are, dealing with the fallout of people demanding that we end the shutdown while doing nothing to mitigate the disease. Or worse, they're openly antagonizing people who wear masks or stores that ask them to wear one because they're psychotic in their ideals.

erichocean 6y ago
> Americans [...] have bought into the narrative that wearing masks is fascism They're not wrong. Enacting pro-social policies that restrict most individuals in small ways—but benefit society-as-a-whole in large ways—is one of the core things Fascists did that was actually effective at improving lives—just like forcing everyone to wear masks in the United States would also be effective at improving lives. So yeah, Fascists would absolutely have forced individuals to wear masks for the good of everyone—but that doesn't make the policy "bad", it's just one of the rare policy areas where Fascists tend to get good results. The actual problem is that people today believe literally anything Fascists would have done is, by definition, "bad/wrong/evil." That kind of simplistic thinking is all too common.
- greedo 6y ago
  Yes, they are. Societies of all stripes and sorts restrict individuals in small ways. Just because fascism restricts individual freedoms doesn't mean that all restrictions are a symptom of fascism. Conflating mask requirements with fascism is to ignore the real history and motivations behind fascist movements.
  - erichocean 6y ago
    You seem to be confusing the idea that something "is a Fascist policy" with the idea that something "is ONLY a Fascist policy." Lots of similar policies are promoted by seemingly different forms of government. Even the most cursory inspection of our world today (or history) is sufficient to demonstrate this point. Forcing individuals to wear masks is absolutely something Fascists would do, and they would do so for 100% ideological reasons, so the statement "forcing people to wear masks is a Fascist policy" is 100% accurate. It's also a current US policy, a current communist policy, etc. etc. so it's clearly not limited just to Fascists.

mcv 6y ago

A mask is no substitute for distance. It does help, but in hospitals, where people know how to use masks properly, a lot of people still got infected. Many people do not know how to use masks properly. What you want is masks + distance. The mask is really a stop-gap measure when keeping distance fails. Also: gloves.

henryl 6y ago
That’s because many of the patients refuse to wear masks as well.
- antisthenes 6y ago
  It's hard to wear a mask when you have a tube down your throat and/or have trouble breathing.
dudul 6y ago
I find it really unfair to downvote this comment because it is right. A lot of people don't know how to use masks. A lot of people don't know that they need to cover their nose, a lot of people remove them incorrectly and end up touching the front with their fingers. That being said, even used incorrectly they would definitely drastically help.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Substandard usage would be a huge problem in a hospital setting where you get extreme exposure and even a single-digit percentage loss in protection effectivity means sure infection. For day to day civilians however, even if they lose half the protection, if everybody has that other half it's almost enough to stop the wave. Losing ten percent of three nines is huge, losing ten percent of coin flip reliability is negligible. (but a coin flip reduction in everyday infection rates would still be huge). I strongly believe that unnecessary fretting over clinical hygiene rules of mask handling is responsible for a massive adoption delay, or adoption gap even today.
  - 6y ago