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The elephant in the room regarding masking that is almost never mentioned is the financial aspect. With the economy in the US as well as many other places now floundering under covid restrictions there has been born a new industry that has grown into a multi-billion dollar behemoth overnight...masking. It is certain that there are individals who are making bank in a big way from sales of personal PPE.
Potential health issues of the debate aside, I'm willing to venture that a good number of those beneficiaries could be found at all including the highest levels of public health, government and politics in the US and abroad.
I don't know, most of the masks I am seeing are from apparel companies large and small who are trying to make up for some of the lost revenue from the economy shut down. Looks like people are just taking their scraps or headstock fabric and turning it into a mask. Might be a boon for fabric waste actually.
I don't know, most of the masks I am seeing are from apparel companies large and small who are trying to make up for some of the lost revenue from the economy shut down. Looks like people are just taking their scraps or headstock fabric and turning it into a mask. Might be a boon for fabric waste actually.
We're using clothes that haven't been picked up for a decade from our dry cleaning store. We never got paid and the limit is 60 days anyway so...now we have masks.
I’ll probably start wearing a mask on flights during flu season. I was already doing frequent hand washing, hand sanitizer, and shower/change clothes after a flight. I stopped getting sick all the time from frequent businesses travel. That would be a single use N95 mask to protect me. Not the 3 layer mask I wear now to chop the COVID-19 transmission rate down.
Do you sleep in your face mask? Do you wear them in your home? Do you wear them when driving? Yes, certain people must have a face mask when working in a public setting for hours at a time but most of us probably average 30 minutes or less a day. It is not a hardship to put on a mask to do your grocery shopping once a week or to go into Wal-Mart on occasion.
However, the idea that we can send masked kids to school to sit in a classroom with 25-30 other kids and listen to a teacher mumble through a face mask all day and actually learn something is pretty far fetched. It simply isn't going to work.
I agree but i am wondering how many kids will perish and or teachers because we sent them back too soon and what would be the acceptable death rate for schools ? one kid ? ten kids ? 5 teachers ? 20 teachers ? you all get where im going . I pray to God this never happens but we do need to expect it to happen , just be prepared is all one can hope for right now .
This is one of the best, most rational discussions of the "mask question" I have ever seen. Props to the thread OP.
I have also been pondering if we did not just accidentally "safety-fear" ourselves into a new permanent policy ala Patriot Act. I know there is skepticism here that such a policy would be worth any politician's time, but you have to consider how people have essentially been re-wired by all the rampant fear.
Just look at what underpins the discussion here - "if you don't do this, you will kill people, maybe dozens". At the foundation of this is the idea that we must be afraid of each other's presence. This is not a minor change to how we, as a species, live. If we arrive at a place like this, we must make sure it's borne out by the facts. Is it?
To me, a factual discussion would distinguish the types of interactions that might require masking. Are there facts that indicate the virus does not transmit well in the absence of sustained proximal contact, or outdoors at all? Do we take these facts into consideration? Or are masks the norm everywhere, at all times, the moment you step outdoors, even if you're alone on the street walking the dog - or alone in your car?
In my experience, your answer will differ with your geography. Maybe part of that is because of population density. Or maybe it's because fear is preventing the application of facts. (Or the eternally less salacious, more correct answer: it's both.)
Thing is, if we've gotten into this new norm through fear, an irrational response, how do we get out of it? One might hope that factually informed discussion saves the day: that we look to studies and data analysis, rather than knee-jerk responsiveness to media anecdotes. But fear tends to be a one-way on-ramp.
To me, the danger is in treating the mask as a holy relic. What happens if everyone masks up and the virus runs rampant anyway? In California, which made masking a mandate at the end of May, there are signs this is exactly what's happening.
At that point, you have only two choices: you re-assess whether too little a difference is being made by this abrogation of freedom (rational choice- and maybe it's still worth it- but at least you asked) or you choose to sacrifice two virgins next season since one alone didn't end the drought (irrational, fear-driven choice). You decide, prior to actual evidence, that it must be because not enough people are wearing masks (I saw it on the news! They were in a bar elbow-to-elbow! The news would never misrepresent rare one-offs as things happening everywhere!) or that it must be better than it would without the masks.
Which would win the day? If fear - governance via media anecdotes and social media one-offs - was the first on-ramp, then unfortunately, it will also be the second on-ramp.
Perhaps our energy would be better served enacting national sick leave - for part-time as well as full-time workers - so that we can end the uniquely American phenomenon of being pressured to come in to work even when you're sick. Give me a choice between higher taxes to make that happen, or an evergreen national mask mandate, and I'll take the former in a heartbeat - not just on personal preference, but it would obviate so many of the situations where masking might help reduce transmission anyway.
Or perhaps our energy would be better spent examining what's wrong with our LTC industry and why they were death factories, especially here in the Northeast. But that would mean some serious self-reflection about how we treat our elderly. That's dangerously close to "collective guilt" territory. We don't want that. We want to watch the news and see stories about people in bars not wearing masks and feel morally superior.
I wonder if the best way forward isn't a compromise. Let people living in cities keep the masks forever, and let the smaller towns choose what they want. Relocate to your preference and carry on.
One place where I can't resist getting political: you want an easy way to make sure masks aren't permanent? Have Trump declare tomorrow, by executive order, masks are nationally mandated at all times outside the house, under penalty of fine, until he feels otherwise. Watch which side protests this as tyrannical overreach, and get ready for the whiplash.
To me, the danger is in treating the mask as a holy relic. What happens if everyone masks up and the virus runs rampant anyway? In California, which made masking a mandate at the end of May, there are signs this is exactly what's happening.
My fear is that even though the response has been too little and too late, a lot of people will look at that and say "but we did mask up, and it didn't work". It doesn't do any good to close the barn door after the horse is gone, which is about where we are with masks right now in a lot of places. I don't think anyone is going to treat this as a holy relic, I really don't think it will become law. I do think that it will become more common to see this in crowded public spaces after this pandemic is over, but only because as more people are personally affected will they decide that masks might afford some measure of protection after all.
My fear is that even though the response has been too little and too late, a lot of people will look at that and say "but we did mask up, and it didn't work". It doesn't do any good to close the barn door after the horse is gone, ....
The "too little, too late" is precisely why it feels imperative to keep persisting. An onerous thing done briefly, in timely way, can be stopped or rescinded. But if we as a society feel collective guilt, that we were too slow, too proud, too obsessed with individualism or whatever, well, now we need to do penance, by being extra-cautious and extra deferential to imposed mandates.
Recall how after 9/11 there was rampant hand-wringing that America had gotten too complacent in that magical peacetime of 1989-2001... a decade of global interconnectedness, free trade, repudiation of authoritarianism, and unquestioned American hegemony. The recompense, as goes the commentary, was especially harsh, because the naive belief in perpetual peace and prosperity, was so excessive. Were Americans more vigilant about global threats in the decade after the Cold War, then the terrorist threat wouldn't have been so dire, in 2001. America got punished, as it were, for having taken a holiday from necessary vigilance. The result was an intrusive security-state in the decades since.
So too, today. America has ostensibly taken a holiday from civic-mindedness or a willingness to personally sacrifice for the greater good. Now it feels like there's ample cause to feel guilty and to be receiving a bitterly harsh education. This means, among other things, unrelenting wearing of masks, as scarlet letters for having committed the offense of going about our ways merrily in January-February 2000, and more broadly, in being so individualistic.
Most masks are manufactured disposable products. Rising energy costs will shut that down like anything else in our disposable culture. Simple pieces of cloth wrapped around faces may continue indefinitely, but be less tolerable in increasing heat and humidity with climate change.
This is the one thing that terrifies me more than anything, the idea of having to wear masks forever.
I simply won't do it. If it means I have to go live in the north woods, totally isolated from the rest of humanity, I'll do it.
In the meantime, I'm not doing anything optional which requires a mask. That includes restaurants, shops and anything for entertainment. I'll wear a mask where required, but only for necessary purposes only - such as grocery stores, medical appointments and home stores, to carry out home repairs. Nothing else.
If they ever make masks mandatory for outdoors, I'll go into full rebel mode and organize anti-mask protests.
Thinking of doing that anyway come September - this is such a B.S. way to live.
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