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I think there would be more compliance if we could have an adult conversation about the conditions under which masks will no longer be required. Given endemic

I think there would be more compliance if we could have an adult conversation about the conditions under which masks will no longer be required. Given endemic seasonal viruses that already kill people in waves all year every year, one could argue masks should be required forever. However, I think there’s a real value to smiles in public, and the community and goodwill they engender. The moralism that has defined the conversation to date gives me no hope we’ll ever find our way out. And it quickly begins to appear less about helping people in an extraordinary time of crisis and more about virtue signaling. That, I think, is what breeds the hostility to mask mandates. People want to help one another, but there is a wide range of individual risk profiles that are completely rational, that politicians routinely ignore. “Science” can’t tell you how much death is an OK amount of death. Life requires we impose non-zero risk of death on others.

zeta0134 6y ago
For this particular disease, my personal threshold is something like, "A vaccine exists, and most of the vulnerable population at least has access to it." This kind of lockdown seems wildly inappropriate for most other yearly diseases.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  That threshold has become more realistic as vaccines have taken much less time than usual, but it’s a decent suggestion, and in my view is precisely the kind of conversation decision makers should be having publicly. There are tradeoffs to weigh, and some humility is warranted. Instead, the Oregon governor (at least) specializes in shaming and finger wagging, which I think exacerbates hostility to her proposals.
- tzs 6y ago
  > For this particular disease, my personal threshold is something like, "A vaccine exists, and most of the vulnerable population at least has access to it." As far as masks and distancing go in the US, we might need to keep it up longer than that. Consider the annual flu vaccinations in the US. Typically less than 50% of adults get it even though they are widely available and are fully covered under most health plans (and are not hard to get for free if you do not have health insurance). There are a lot of people who believe the propaganda about COVID being no worse than a mild flu, so I expect that a lot of the people who do not get flu vaccinations will also not get COVID vaccinations. There are also a fair number of people who believe COVID is hoax. I expect that a lot of them won't get a COVID vaccination even if they do get flu vaccinations. Sure, once you get vaccinated and wait the couple of weeks or whatever for it to provide protection for you, there is no medical reason that you need to wear a mask or distance any more. But I don't think it is going to be practical to have a mask/distancing mandate that only applies to people who are not vaccinated (or immune through already having had it), at least in places that are open to the general public. Unless we are just going to write them off, those people who fell for the propaganda still need to be wearing masks and distancing when they are around other such people, and so to have a practical mask/distancing mandate that will work with them we will probably need it to apply to everyone, at least in places open to the general public.
ls612 6y ago
The reason that conversation isn’t being had is because the intention from a lot of these public health folks is to never end the mask mandates, since as you said they are such an effective tribal signaling mechanism.
- rayuela 6y ago
  This might honestly be one of the dumbest takes on mask use I think I've seen so far. Let's just ignore the fact that masks limit the propagation of an airborne virus and conclude that the only interest in advocating for their use is virtue signaling during a FUCKING PANDEMIC!!!! Your argument here is either being completely made in bad faith, you forgot your "/s" sarcasm marker or you're a complete moron.
  - solarkraft 6y ago
    (Meta, I know ...) It's tempting to get angry at bad faith arguments, but that's pretty much what "feeding the trolls" means. This hurts the discussion as well.
  - dang 6y ago
    This comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are.
pintxo 6y ago
On the one hand, this is a fair question. On the other hand, isn't it blindingly obvious, what the condition will be? Essentials, most countries are trying to flatten the curve [1]. Mandating masks is one layer of a swiss cheese [2] security model to try to keep the curve as flat as needed to prevent overloading of the health care systems. Isn't it obvious we will need to follow the mask mandate as long as there is a risk that the curve crosses the capacity of our health care systems? Leaving us with essentially four possible reasons why we can stop wearing masks: a) We reach sufficient immunity through vaccination b) We have successfully eradicated the virus c) We have a cure for the infection d) Everyone (epidemiologically speaking, so a relevant proportion of the population) has had the virus and we have developed sufficient immunity through exposure [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
- clairity 6y ago
  masks were never necessary for the masses, as opposed to care workers and others who deal with the public in the course of their work. they're very marginal for common interaction scenarios we see day-to-day, but a huge political distraction keeping us from honing in on the main sensible measure we need to "flatten the curve", which is reasonable distancing at private social gatherings, not any of the additional political noise of mask-wearing outside for signaling or social pressure, and limiting certain businesses from operating but not others. mask mandates were only essential for politicians to show that they were tackling the problem, not to actually reduce infection rates.
  - pintxo 6y ago
    Obviously distancing is the best possible option we have right now. If we could perfectly distance from each other for 2 weeks, we would eradicate the virus altogether. Unfortunately, this is not feasible, if we also want to maintain society as is. Don't you think that masks can be a useful tools in cases where keeping distance is not possible?
    - 6y ago
jrochkind1 6y ago
I agree there hasn't been enough discussion of this sort of thing -- what sorts of conditions call for what kinds of control measures -- in part because we've (in the US) never gotten it together to have a coordinated rational calm response, it's seemed like "got to struggle just to get people to do ANYTHING" the whole time. If we were to have that discussion, I'd think the way "conditions in which this control measure is needed" is dicussed is in terms of current observed covid case numbers -- what else could it be? Say, when positive cases per population or per test given are below X, for instance. It's likely that the 'right' number that makes sense for not having masks is pretty low, and possibly lower than will be realistically gotten to without widespread effective vaccine or other significant change in the landscape. (Some countries like Australia or New Zealand got there without a vaccine; we've missed that boat, if it was ever possible here). The "right" number for masks should be pretty low because the social/economic/etc "cost" of masks -- while I agree it is non-zero -- is lower than about any other effective measures. Closing schools or businesses, for instance. You'd want to resort to universal mask use before closing schools, because the social/economic cost of closing schools is so much higher. Masks are pretty effective at comparatively much lower cost, so make sense to be a much earlier resort. (although I agree non-zero; I find masks very uncomfortable and hard to breathe in myself). At this point in the US, numbers are bad enough that masks are a no-brainer and we need a lot more than that. Those against wearing masks might also be contributing to a rational conversation about costs and benefits more if they talked about under what conditions they thin masks would be appropriate -- say, what number of covid cases diagnosed per 100K population would make masks well-advised? I wonder how many people against wearing masks basically think there are no conditions under which masks are advisable though.

zeta0134 6y ago

For this particular disease, my personal threshold is something like, "A vaccine exists, and most of the vulnerable population at least has access to it." This kind of lockdown seems wildly inappropriate for most other yearly diseases.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hcurtiss 6y ago
That threshold has become more realistic as vaccines have taken much less time than usual, but it’s a decent suggestion, and in my view is precisely the kind of conversation decision makers should be having publicly. There are tradeoffs to weigh, and some humility is warranted. Instead, the Oregon governor (at least) specializes in shaming and finger wagging, which I think exacerbates hostility to her proposals.
tzs 6y ago
> For this particular disease, my personal threshold is something like, "A vaccine exists, and most of the vulnerable population at least has access to it." As far as masks and distancing go in the US, we might need to keep it up longer than that. Consider the annual flu vaccinations in the US. Typically less than 50% of adults get it even though they are widely available and are fully covered under most health plans (and are not hard to get for free if you do not have health insurance). There are a lot of people who believe the propaganda about COVID being no worse than a mild flu, so I expect that a lot of the people who do not get flu vaccinations will also not get COVID vaccinations. There are also a fair number of people who believe COVID is hoax. I expect that a lot of them won't get a COVID vaccination even if they do get flu vaccinations. Sure, once you get vaccinated and wait the couple of weeks or whatever for it to provide protection for you, there is no medical reason that you need to wear a mask or distance any more. But I don't think it is going to be practical to have a mask/distancing mandate that only applies to people who are not vaccinated (or immune through already having had it), at least in places that are open to the general public. Unless we are just going to write them off, those people who fell for the propaganda still need to be wearing masks and distancing when they are around other such people, and so to have a practical mask/distancing mandate that will work with them we will probably need it to apply to everyone, at least in places open to the general public.

ls612 6y ago

The reason that conversation isn’t being had is because the intention from a lot of these public health folks is to never end the mask mandates, since as you said they are such an effective tribal signaling mechanism.

rayuela 6y ago
This might honestly be one of the dumbest takes on mask use I think I've seen so far. Let's just ignore the fact that masks limit the propagation of an airborne virus and conclude that the only interest in advocating for their use is virtue signaling during a FUCKING PANDEMIC!!!! Your argument here is either being completely made in bad faith, you forgot your "/s" sarcasm marker or you're a complete moron.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  (Meta, I know ...) It's tempting to get angry at bad faith arguments, but that's pretty much what "feeding the trolls" means. This hurts the discussion as well.
- dang 6y ago
  This comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are.

pintxo 6y ago

On the one hand, this is a fair question. On the other hand, isn't it blindingly obvious, what the condition will be? Essentials, most countries are trying to flatten the curve [1]. Mandating masks is one layer of a swiss cheese [2] security model to try to keep the curve as flat as needed to prevent overloading of the health care systems. Isn't it obvious we will need to follow the mask mandate as long as there is a risk that the curve crosses the capacity of our health care systems? Leaving us with essentially four possible reasons why we can stop wearing masks: a) We reach sufficient immunity through vaccination b) We have successfully eradicated the virus c) We have a cure for the infection d) Everyone (epidemiologically speaking, so a relevant proportion of the population) has had the virus and we have developed sufficient immunity through exposure [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

clairity 6y ago
masks were never necessary for the masses, as opposed to care workers and others who deal with the public in the course of their work. they're very marginal for common interaction scenarios we see day-to-day, but a huge political distraction keeping us from honing in on the main sensible measure we need to "flatten the curve", which is reasonable distancing at private social gatherings, not any of the additional political noise of mask-wearing outside for signaling or social pressure, and limiting certain businesses from operating but not others. mask mandates were only essential for politicians to show that they were tackling the problem, not to actually reduce infection rates.
- pintxo 6y ago
  Obviously distancing is the best possible option we have right now. If we could perfectly distance from each other for 2 weeks, we would eradicate the virus altogether. Unfortunately, this is not feasible, if we also want to maintain society as is. Don't you think that masks can be a useful tools in cases where keeping distance is not possible?
  - 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

I agree there hasn't been enough discussion of this sort of thing -- what sorts of conditions call for what kinds of control measures -- in part because we've (in the US) never gotten it together to have a coordinated rational calm response, it's seemed like "got to struggle just to get people to do ANYTHING" the whole time. If we were to have that discussion, I'd think the way "conditions in which this control measure is needed" is dicussed is in terms of current observed covid case numbers -- what else could it be? Say, when positive cases per population or per test given are below X, for instance. It's likely that the 'right' number that makes sense for not having masks is pretty low, and possibly lower than will be realistically gotten to without widespread effective vaccine or other significant change in the landscape. (Some countries like Australia or New Zealand got there without a vaccine; we've missed that boat, if it was ever possible here). The "right" number for masks should be pretty low because the social/economic/etc "cost" of masks -- while I agree it is non-zero -- is lower than about any other effective measures. Closing schools or businesses, for instance. You'd want to resort to universal mask use before closing schools, because the social/economic cost of closing schools is so much higher. Masks are pretty effective at comparatively much lower cost, so make sense to be a much earlier resort. (although I agree non-zero; I find masks very uncomfortable and hard to breathe in myself). At this point in the US, numbers are bad enough that masks are a no-brainer and we need a lot more than that. Those against wearing masks might also be contributing to a rational conversation about costs and benefits more if they talked about under what conditions they thin masks would be appropriate -- say, what number of covid cases diagnosed per 100K population would make masks well-advised? I wonder how many people against wearing masks basically think there are no conditions under which masks are advisable though.