8 ms·

Oregon governor Kate Brown announces outdoor mask mandate

13 points by AndrewBissell 5y ago

tailius 5y ago
I isolated for a year, had 3M N95 masks from a natural disaster, and bought a P100 full face mask for airline travel. This is an unwise, extreme, panic-driven, overreach lacking in evidence. This display of lack of common-sense makes public health look arbitrary, capricious, petty, authoritarian controlling rather than concerned with health, and untrustworthy.
hamburgerwah 5y ago
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary increase in government power.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  No no, this will all go away when we get the vaccination rate to 70%. ... I mean 80% ... actually make that 90% ...
  - 650 5y ago
    BC Canada is at 85% vaxxed age 12+. We just had a mask mandate announced regardless of vax status, as well as a vax 'passport' for access to restaurants, gyms, etc. (Temporary until Jan 31, 2022 of course with the possibility of extensions.)
phendrenad2 5y ago
This is all about enforcement, and using social pressure to make people mask up. If you have to mask up outdoors, it's harder to "forget" your mask when you pop into a shop or pub.
- 650 5y ago
  If you have to mask up inside your own household, and you know there are government vaccine enforcement officials (GVEO's) coming to check at random, you are more likely to have one when you pop outside, and later pop into a shop or pub. /s. Vehemently disagree with your logic.
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    It's not my logic, so I don't know what to tell you.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  > This is all about enforcement, and using social pressure to make people mask up. That's a nice euphemistic way of looking at having cops harass people who aren't wearing masks outside. It's just "social pressure!" If there was widespread buy-in for this nonsense of the sort that could create social pressure, they wouldn't need the mandate to get people to do it.
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    You act like social pressure is a switch you flip. It's a gradient. You can increase or decrease it. Also it's effects aren't a light bulb. You don't suddenly reach a threshold and everyone is "social pressured". It's an effect that increases the number of people wearing masks. Just because a large number of people are not wearing masks, you think that social pressure is useless. It's like saying the titanic shouldn't have had lifeboats, because most people didn't make it onto them, so they must not work.
jaredcwhite 5y ago
This is going to go over like a lead balloon. Think the anti-mask/vax rioters are a nuisance? They're going to have a field day with this one.
opwieurposiu 5y ago
N95 masks have proven to be effective. Surgical masks and cloth masks have not proven to be effective. https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-e...
- egberts1 5y ago
  … ; N95 with air vent port on the front, not so much.
Bostonian 5y ago
A Reason magazine post https://reason.com/2021/08/24/oregon-masks-mandate-covid-vaccine-kate-brown/ https://reason.com/2021/08/24/oregon-masks-mandate-covid-vac... explains why this is unjustified (the article has links): "At this point in the pandemic, forcing vaccinated people to wear masks outside is an unjustifiable act of overreach on the part of government officials. It's also contrary to existing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which holds that masks are generally not necessary in outdoor settings. The CDC does state that people may wish to voluntarily wear masks during particularly crowded outdoor gatherings out of an abundance of caution, but we know that confirmed outdoor superspreader events are so rare as to be practically nonexistent. A recent outbreak at Oregon's Pendleton Whisky Music Fest seems to have spooked local authorities; 66 of the 12,000 attendees later tested positive for COVID-19, according to Oregon Live. However, it's far from clear that the infections occurred during the outdoor portions of the event, and 61 of the 66 infected individuals were unvaccinated. It does not make much sense to require all people to wear masks outdoors when only the unvaccinated are at significant risk of being hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19. ..."
TurkishPoptart 5y ago
This decision is not rooted in science. There's little-to-no evidence that simply passing by someone on the sidewalk is enough contact to contract a respiratory illness. Basically you have to sit in a room with someone for 15 minutes and talk face-to-face for this to happen.
- detaro 5y ago
  Yeah, outside maybe very limited circumstances mask mandates outside seem like a bad idea: won't do much, and annoys people. (Around here they've only been required outside for events with large dense crowds of people)
kbelder 5y ago
Hm. I'm an Oregonian, and I'm afraid I'm going to be forced into a being a conscientious objector. It's like the pressure keeps on being ratcheted up until you break, to one side or another. They force you to be a 'loony reactionary' or a 'subservient lapdog', driving out any possibility to remain moderate.

13 points by AndrewBissell 5y ago

I isolated for a year, had 3M N95 masks from a natural disaster, and bought a P100 full face mask for airline travel. This is an unwise, extreme, panic-driven, overreach lacking in evidence. This display of lack of common-sense makes public health look arbitrary, capricious, petty, authoritarian controlling rather than concerned with health, and untrustworthy.

hamburgerwah 5y ago

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary increase in government power.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
No no, this will all go away when we get the vaccination rate to 70%. ... I mean 80% ... actually make that 90% ...
- 650 5y ago
  BC Canada is at 85% vaxxed age 12+. We just had a mask mandate announced regardless of vax status, as well as a vax 'passport' for access to restaurants, gyms, etc. (Temporary until Jan 31, 2022 of course with the possibility of extensions.)

phendrenad2 5y ago

This is all about enforcement, and using social pressure to make people mask up. If you have to mask up outdoors, it's harder to "forget" your mask when you pop into a shop or pub.

650 5y ago
If you have to mask up inside your own household, and you know there are government vaccine enforcement officials (GVEO's) coming to check at random, you are more likely to have one when you pop outside, and later pop into a shop or pub. /s. Vehemently disagree with your logic.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  It's not my logic, so I don't know what to tell you.
AndrewBissell 5y ago
> This is all about enforcement, and using social pressure to make people mask up. That's a nice euphemistic way of looking at having cops harass people who aren't wearing masks outside. It's just "social pressure!" If there was widespread buy-in for this nonsense of the sort that could create social pressure, they wouldn't need the mandate to get people to do it.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  You act like social pressure is a switch you flip. It's a gradient. You can increase or decrease it. Also it's effects aren't a light bulb. You don't suddenly reach a threshold and everyone is "social pressured". It's an effect that increases the number of people wearing masks. Just because a large number of people are not wearing masks, you think that social pressure is useless. It's like saying the titanic shouldn't have had lifeboats, because most people didn't make it onto them, so they must not work.

jaredcwhite 5y ago

This is going to go over like a lead balloon. Think the anti-mask/vax rioters are a nuisance? They're going to have a field day with this one.

opwieurposiu 5y ago

N95 masks have proven to be effective. Surgical masks and cloth masks have not proven to be effective. https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-e...

egberts1 5y ago
… ; N95 with air vent port on the front, not so much.

Bostonian 5y ago

A Reason magazine post https://reason.com/2021/08/24/oregon-masks-mandate-covid-vaccine-kate-brown/ https://reason.com/2021/08/24/oregon-masks-mandate-covid-vac... explains why this is unjustified (the article has links): "At this point in the pandemic, forcing vaccinated people to wear masks outside is an unjustifiable act of overreach on the part of government officials. It's also contrary to existing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which holds that masks are generally not necessary in outdoor settings. The CDC does state that people may wish to voluntarily wear masks during particularly crowded outdoor gatherings out of an abundance of caution, but we know that confirmed outdoor superspreader events are so rare as to be practically nonexistent. A recent outbreak at Oregon's Pendleton Whisky Music Fest seems to have spooked local authorities; 66 of the 12,000 attendees later tested positive for COVID-19, according to Oregon Live. However, it's far from clear that the infections occurred during the outdoor portions of the event, and 61 of the 66 infected individuals were unvaccinated. It does not make much sense to require all people to wear masks outdoors when only the unvaccinated are at significant risk of being hospitalized with or dying from COVID-19. ..."

TurkishPoptart 5y ago

This decision is not rooted in science. There's little-to-no evidence that simply passing by someone on the sidewalk is enough contact to contract a respiratory illness. Basically you have to sit in a room with someone for 15 minutes and talk face-to-face for this to happen.

detaro 5y ago
Yeah, outside maybe very limited circumstances mask mandates outside seem like a bad idea: won't do much, and annoys people. (Around here they've only been required outside for events with large dense crowds of people)

kbelder 5y ago

Hm. I'm an Oregonian, and I'm afraid I'm going to be forced into a being a conscientious objector. It's like the pressure keeps on being ratcheted up until you break, to one side or another. They force you to be a 'loony reactionary' or a 'subservient lapdog', driving out any possibility to remain moderate.