This might make you even more surprised about my existence, but I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the "ideological" types. Let me put it another way: why weren

This might make you even more surprised about my existence, but I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the "ideological" types. Let me put it another way: why weren't you wearing a mask during flu season every year? Or, given that Covid will probably exist in some form for many years to come (even with a vaccine), when will you stop wearing one? Because you could make a case for mandatory mask wearing at all times, forever, using the same logic that's currently being employed: "it's only a minor inconvenience and if it saves even one life, it's worth it". Presumably you won't wear a mask forever: you'll make a personal decision, based on data or gut feeling, that the "effect size" of mask wearing is no longer worth the inconvenience. You were already making that calculation, implicitly, when you chose not to wear a mask during flu season last year. That calculation will be different for every individual. Which is why I don't think any of us is really in a position to judge another person when the parameters of the calculation are different for them. Ultimately, the differing parameters of that calculation are what we call "ideology". To return to my original point, it's also why we vitally need an open discussion on the "effect size" of wearing a mask. If it's large (I suspect it is not), then it gives more weight to the idea that all the Karens should just shut up and wear one. If it's small, there's a lot more room for personal choice.