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You forgot the step where left-wing intellectual elites ridiculed people for wearing masks as it "doesn't protect anyway and creates a false sense of security".

You forgot the step where left-wing intellectual elites ridiculed people for wearing masks as it "doesn't protect anyway and creates a false sense of security". If anything, I would imagine masks to be a prepper thing, so I would have thought more popular on the right, but I guess there is no logic anymore.

lisper 6y ago
Masks don't protect the person who wears them, they protect the people around the people who wear them, so they only work if everyone wears them. In the early days of the pandemic there weren't enough masks for the general public (because the Trump administration had sent a significant portion of the U.S. supply to China [1]) so there was a desire to reserve the limited remaining supply for health care workers. Comments like yours which obfuscate basic facts like this are a perfect example of the kind of politicization I'm talking about. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/
- naasking 6y ago
  Of course masks protect people who wear them. Perhaps the protection is "minimal", but that's not zero.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Oh, good grief. So I left out the word "mainly". That in no way refutes my point, which is that this entire discussion has been politicized. And the fact that you are picking at such a tiny nit just further proves my point.
    - naasking 6y ago
      I agree it's been politicized, which is why being precise is important. The fact that medical authorities made claims that blatantly contradict all common sense and basic scientific facts erodes the public confidence. This has happened numerous times since the pandemic began. I'm Canadian, so I frankly have no direct stake in US politics, but if people on both sides can't agree on basic facts, then there's no hope. Finally, I don't think the protection afforded is really all that "minimal" for numerous reasons, but the degree of protection wasn't the main thrust point of my post so I didn't (and still don't) want to go into it.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > I didn't (and still don't) want to go into it. And yet you just did.
        naasking 6y ago
        "Going into it" is an idiom for presenting and deconstructing an argument, in case you weren't aware. I asserted my point, I didn't argue for it.
      - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
        The medical community has war gamed pandemics for years. I wasn't surprised to see the "masks don't help" line because that's been part of the lessons learned from these war games. They knew there would be panic buying so they had this bit of subterfuge ready to go when a pandemic hit. The problem is that it is a bee-sting solution: one use only. Now that COVID19 has turned out to be far less dire than predicted, that bee-sting solution is gone and wasted. When we get a much more deadly pandemic, and we will, that tool will no longer be available. It's a shame it was used for this situation. Sure, we could learn from this to always have enough PPE in stock but once this pandemic is over, every year there is going to be pressure on budgets on every level to cut the size (and cost) of PPE storage until it eventually shrinks down to what it was when this pandemic started. If the medical community wants to regain some of its credibility it needs to stop circling the wagons and pretending this wasn't an intentional but well meaning lie they told the public. The longer it takes them to stop spinning the issue, the longer it is going to take them to regain the trust of the public, which will be detrimental to public health.
- addicted 6y ago
  Also we didn’t know that masks protect. At the time the thinking was the virus was spreading through surfaces so the guidance was to wipe down all surfaces, etc. But since then we’ve discovered that the overwhelming majority of spread has been due to direct transfer of the virus usually through water droplets. The virus is too small for masks to stop them. But most masks are good enough to stop water droplets.
orf 6y ago
> If anything, I would imagine masks to be a prepper thing, so I would have thought more popular on the right You can _think_ that, or you can look outside at who’s protesting masks and which president is discouraging their usage.

lisper 6y ago

Masks don't protect the person who wears them, they protect the people around the people who wear them, so they only work if everyone wears them. In the early days of the pandemic there weren't enough masks for the general public (because the Trump administration had sent a significant portion of the U.S. supply to China [1]) so there was a desire to reserve the limited remaining supply for health care workers. Comments like yours which obfuscate basic facts like this are a perfect example of the kind of politicization I'm talking about. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/

naasking 6y ago
Of course masks protect people who wear them. Perhaps the protection is "minimal", but that's not zero.
- lisper 6y ago
  Oh, good grief. So I left out the word "mainly". That in no way refutes my point, which is that this entire discussion has been politicized. And the fact that you are picking at such a tiny nit just further proves my point.
  - naasking 6y ago
    I agree it's been politicized, which is why being precise is important. The fact that medical authorities made claims that blatantly contradict all common sense and basic scientific facts erodes the public confidence. This has happened numerous times since the pandemic began. I'm Canadian, so I frankly have no direct stake in US politics, but if people on both sides can't agree on basic facts, then there's no hope. Finally, I don't think the protection afforded is really all that "minimal" for numerous reasons, but the degree of protection wasn't the main thrust point of my post so I didn't (and still don't) want to go into it.
    - lisper 6y ago
      > I didn't (and still don't) want to go into it. And yet you just did.
      - naasking 6y ago
        "Going into it" is an idiom for presenting and deconstructing an argument, in case you weren't aware. I asserted my point, I didn't argue for it.
    - Mountain_Skies 6y ago
      The medical community has war gamed pandemics for years. I wasn't surprised to see the "masks don't help" line because that's been part of the lessons learned from these war games. They knew there would be panic buying so they had this bit of subterfuge ready to go when a pandemic hit. The problem is that it is a bee-sting solution: one use only. Now that COVID19 has turned out to be far less dire than predicted, that bee-sting solution is gone and wasted. When we get a much more deadly pandemic, and we will, that tool will no longer be available. It's a shame it was used for this situation. Sure, we could learn from this to always have enough PPE in stock but once this pandemic is over, every year there is going to be pressure on budgets on every level to cut the size (and cost) of PPE storage until it eventually shrinks down to what it was when this pandemic started. If the medical community wants to regain some of its credibility it needs to stop circling the wagons and pretending this wasn't an intentional but well meaning lie they told the public. The longer it takes them to stop spinning the issue, the longer it is going to take them to regain the trust of the public, which will be detrimental to public health.
addicted 6y ago
Also we didn’t know that masks protect. At the time the thinking was the virus was spreading through surfaces so the guidance was to wipe down all surfaces, etc. But since then we’ve discovered that the overwhelming majority of spread has been due to direct transfer of the virus usually through water droplets. The virus is too small for masks to stop them. But most masks are good enough to stop water droplets.

orf 6y ago

> If anything, I would imagine masks to be a prepper thing, so I would have thought more popular on the right You can _think_ that, or you can look outside at who’s protesting masks and which president is discouraging their usage.