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Even if 10 years from now we discover that wearing a mask was a completely pointless endeavor .... the cost of wearing a mask is SO LOW that it is worth doing i

Even if 10 years from now we discover that wearing a mask was a completely pointless endeavor .... the cost of wearing a mask is SO LOW that it is worth doing it. But it is scientifically proven to limit the rate of the spread, which is the least I can do to protect myself and those around me. I don't care if I get covid ... I don't think it will kill me based on my vitals. However, we don't fully understand the long term physical and mental health implications of having it (both neurological and psychological), we don't understand it from a 'pre-existing condition' standpoint, and hey who knows it could hit me like a train and do me serious harm or kill me. Plus, I would like to further the goal of eliminating the virus entirely, and not spreading it to others helps that. I can't believe there are still people out there clamoring to the idea that there is any other way.

Claudus 6y ago
Scientifically proven to limit the rate of spread? Are you sure about that? Do you think COVID is airborne? Do you think saliva droplets large enough to collect on the mask are “airborne”? Do you think saliva carries viral particles? Do you think breathing through a saliva saturated mask can cause those viral particles to become airborne? If someone with COVID sneezed into a handkerchief and then draped it over a small fan to dry, would you be comfortable sitting in front of it? Can wearing a mask improperly increase the chance of spreading COVID? What percentage of people wear their masks properly? What new evidence or scientific studies were presented that caused the switch from “no, don’t wear masks” to “yes, do wear masks”? What does it say about the reasoning behind beliefs when people feel the need to downvote someone for questioning them?
drcross 6y ago
There's significant risks to wearing masks: https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1296837214429683714?s=20 https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1296837214429683714?...
- jasonlaramburu 6y ago
  No there are not
  - drcross 6y ago
    I just linked to a thread containing multiple sources. It sounds like wearing a mask isn't simply putting some cloth in front of you face and in fact you've politicised it. How amusing.
    - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
      Your comment was flagged because it’s nonsense. Nobody disputes that N95>surgical mask>cloth face covering. However the administration failed to provide N95s so we work with what we have. Show me a peer reviewed study on the ‘dangers’ of masking, not some crackpot on Twitter.
matz1 6y ago
>cost of wearing a mask is SO LOW that it is worth doing it tell that to people work in warehouse/food service. Its makes they already hard job even more harder.
- jasonlaramburu 6y ago
  So does catching covid
  - matz1 6y ago
    Of course it possible, I didn't say there is 0 risk of catching covid.
- irscott 6y ago
  I work a super physical job in a warehouse and the mask hasn't affected my job in any way.
veemjeem 6y ago
I think the pre-existing condition is what scares me the most. There have been studies on people who recovered from SARS, and these people still suffer from fatigue and brain fog over 4 years later.
guenthert 6y ago
The cost is the alarming sight, causing the economic crisis. In Santa Clara/CA so far only some 400 people died of COVID-19, i.e. about 2 a day, while some 40 a day die of unrelated causes. Yet, if you step outside, you might think the Zombie apocalypse is happening.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  I find people not wearing masks much more alarming than people not wearing them. I am much more alarmed at the prospect of mass death than people wearing jaunty masks.
  - guenthert 6y ago
    In Sweden, where there's little mandated, so far only some 6000 out of 10 million died of COVID-19. That is significant (in the statistical sense), but hardly mass death (given that in the relevant time frame some 40000 died of unrelated causes). Masks alone don't cause the widespread panic, mass media did their part.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      Ah, but I don't live in Sweden, I live in NYC. So, mass death is on my mind. Nobody here panicked in February, or the first week of March. We were more or less going about our daily lives like normal, because that's what the state health people told us to do. Nobody wore masks, nobody social distanced. By April 1st, NYC was seeing 500 deaths a day and increasing. It's the largest mass casualty event in NYC since 9/11, and was much worse, in body-count terms. It was comparable to the 1918 flu epidemic. https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20200821/excess-mortality-from-covid19-in-nyc-comparable-to-peak-of-1918-flu-pandemic https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20200821/exce... Of course, a NYC-level of mass death is absolutely not guaranteed to happen elsewhere. Different populations, different habits, luck- there's variables. But do not tell me that it's media hysteria when you didn't listen to ambulance sirens for a month.
    - triceratops 6y ago
smileysteve 6y ago
What I don't get, is even for the people saying that the symptoms are like the flu. Clearly they don't remember having the flu, because if I can wear a mask to avoid any fever, that is a reasonable cost to me.
- tonywastaken 6y ago
  Yeah, last time I had the flu it sucked. And I'm relatively young.
eej71 6y ago
A counter point to consider - and one that I consider to be a little more rational - is that - what if in the messaging to get people to wear masks - we have inadvertantly encouraged riskier behavior? As an analogy, I'd explain it like this. What if in the process to encourage people to wear seatbelts, drivers who did that then felt entitled to drive even faster thus resulting in even worse accidents and more frequent ones at that. Of course, no driver would actually think like that. While I wear my mask, I do wonder about its overall effectiveness especially if in total we all engage in riskier behavior that we wouldn't have otherwise if we simply lived with the basic fear that you have to stay away from everyone. Masks "help", but maybe they "help" most by thinking of them as not a help at all. It's a tough paradox to encode into public health messaging.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  Everyone wears masks in NYC and there was no COVID uptick until the last month or so. even if it encourages risky behavior, there's no evidence that it does it enough to translate to higher spread overall, which is what matters. As long as the net impact doesn't increase transmission, they're not a problem.
  - telcal 6y ago
    "Everyone" wears masks in NYC? I don't know where exactly you're talking about but that's definitely not true. Certain neighborhoods are better than others but even so there are tons who don't.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      There are neighborhoods that are much less mask-compliant than others, but in my day-to-day, the vast majority of people I see are in masks. It's certainly enough to say that wearing masks doesn't make COVID spread worse at a population level. The worst neighborhoods for COVID over the summer were ones that were known for poor mask compliance, anyway.
- gustavo_duarte 6y ago

Claudus 6y ago

Scientifically proven to limit the rate of spread? Are you sure about that? Do you think COVID is airborne? Do you think saliva droplets large enough to collect on the mask are “airborne”? Do you think saliva carries viral particles? Do you think breathing through a saliva saturated mask can cause those viral particles to become airborne? If someone with COVID sneezed into a handkerchief and then draped it over a small fan to dry, would you be comfortable sitting in front of it? Can wearing a mask improperly increase the chance of spreading COVID? What percentage of people wear their masks properly? What new evidence or scientific studies were presented that caused the switch from “no, don’t wear masks” to “yes, do wear masks”? What does it say about the reasoning behind beliefs when people feel the need to downvote someone for questioning them?

drcross 6y ago

There's significant risks to wearing masks: https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1296837214429683714?s=20 https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1296837214429683714?...

jasonlaramburu 6y ago
No there are not
- drcross 6y ago
  I just linked to a thread containing multiple sources. It sounds like wearing a mask isn't simply putting some cloth in front of you face and in fact you've politicised it. How amusing.
  - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
    Your comment was flagged because it’s nonsense. Nobody disputes that N95>surgical mask>cloth face covering. However the administration failed to provide N95s so we work with what we have. Show me a peer reviewed study on the ‘dangers’ of masking, not some crackpot on Twitter.

matz1 6y ago

>cost of wearing a mask is SO LOW that it is worth doing it tell that to people work in warehouse/food service. Its makes they already hard job even more harder.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago
So does catching covid
- matz1 6y ago
  Of course it possible, I didn't say there is 0 risk of catching covid.
irscott 6y ago
I work a super physical job in a warehouse and the mask hasn't affected my job in any way.

veemjeem 6y ago

I think the pre-existing condition is what scares me the most. There have been studies on people who recovered from SARS, and these people still suffer from fatigue and brain fog over 4 years later.

guenthert 6y ago

The cost is the alarming sight, causing the economic crisis. In Santa Clara/CA so far only some 400 people died of COVID-19, i.e. about 2 a day, while some 40 a day die of unrelated causes. Yet, if you step outside, you might think the Zombie apocalypse is happening.

roywiggins 6y ago
I find people not wearing masks much more alarming than people not wearing them. I am much more alarmed at the prospect of mass death than people wearing jaunty masks.
- guenthert 6y ago
  In Sweden, where there's little mandated, so far only some 6000 out of 10 million died of COVID-19. That is significant (in the statistical sense), but hardly mass death (given that in the relevant time frame some 40000 died of unrelated causes). Masks alone don't cause the widespread panic, mass media did their part.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    Ah, but I don't live in Sweden, I live in NYC. So, mass death is on my mind. Nobody here panicked in February, or the first week of March. We were more or less going about our daily lives like normal, because that's what the state health people told us to do. Nobody wore masks, nobody social distanced. By April 1st, NYC was seeing 500 deaths a day and increasing. It's the largest mass casualty event in NYC since 9/11, and was much worse, in body-count terms. It was comparable to the 1918 flu epidemic. https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20200821/excess-mortality-from-covid19-in-nyc-comparable-to-peak-of-1918-flu-pandemic https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20200821/exce... Of course, a NYC-level of mass death is absolutely not guaranteed to happen elsewhere. Different populations, different habits, luck- there's variables. But do not tell me that it's media hysteria when you didn't listen to ambulance sirens for a month.
  - triceratops 6y ago

smileysteve 6y ago

What I don't get, is even for the people saying that the symptoms are like the flu. Clearly they don't remember having the flu, because if I can wear a mask to avoid any fever, that is a reasonable cost to me.

tonywastaken 6y ago
Yeah, last time I had the flu it sucked. And I'm relatively young.

eej71 6y ago

A counter point to consider - and one that I consider to be a little more rational - is that - what if in the messaging to get people to wear masks - we have inadvertantly encouraged riskier behavior? As an analogy, I'd explain it like this. What if in the process to encourage people to wear seatbelts, drivers who did that then felt entitled to drive even faster thus resulting in even worse accidents and more frequent ones at that. Of course, no driver would actually think like that. While I wear my mask, I do wonder about its overall effectiveness especially if in total we all engage in riskier behavior that we wouldn't have otherwise if we simply lived with the basic fear that you have to stay away from everyone. Masks "help", but maybe they "help" most by thinking of them as not a help at all. It's a tough paradox to encode into public health messaging.

roywiggins 6y ago
Everyone wears masks in NYC and there was no COVID uptick until the last month or so. even if it encourages risky behavior, there's no evidence that it does it enough to translate to higher spread overall, which is what matters. As long as the net impact doesn't increase transmission, they're not a problem.
- telcal 6y ago
  "Everyone" wears masks in NYC? I don't know where exactly you're talking about but that's definitely not true. Certain neighborhoods are better than others but even so there are tons who don't.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    There are neighborhoods that are much less mask-compliant than others, but in my day-to-day, the vast majority of people I see are in masks. It's certainly enough to say that wearing masks doesn't make COVID spread worse at a population level. The worst neighborhoods for COVID over the summer were ones that were known for poor mask compliance, anyway.
gustavo_duarte 6y ago