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I might wear masks when sick going forward. I don't mind them and it isn't political. I don’t know why caring about the next (hu)man has gotten so political.
The reason I am being such an anal retentive stickler about this is that I do not want a scenario where a vaccine happens and the goal posts move even further. Masks can go away once a vaccine does what? Ends the pandemic per the CDC definition? (but what if it "technically" ends earlier than that?) Brings the population to 65% immunity? Ensures that deaths stay below a certain level for a certain period of time? Ends all cases/transmission of the virus forever?
Either we have an end goal or we don't. And heck, I'm doing all the legwork for you, here. Just pick one and move on. If you can't, then what you're saying is "the exit criteria for mask mandates is once I feel safer".
You're on to something there. The end-goal is one of psychological quietude, and this is necessarily a squishy and amorphous and subjective criterion. If people are scared, then to become un-scared is not a matter of statistics going some way, or a demonstrable trend, but of worry about some unlikely but ghastly thing happening to us personally. So long as the possibility remains, however remote, the fear remains.
I can see some wearing masks in the future for a bad flu season that might happen.
I think once the vaccine is distributed, all the mask mandates will be dropped but maybe 2 percent of the population will continue to wear them all the time and maybe 15 percent during flu season. It will no longer look "strange" to wear one like it was during Covid. Some women may even wear stylish masks just as fashion statements.
I think once the vaccine is distributed, all the mask mandates will be dropped but maybe 2 percent of the population will continue to wear them all the time and maybe 15 percent during flu season. It will no longer look "strange" to wear one like it was during Covid. Some women may even wear stylish masks just as fashion statements.
The "strangeness" shouldn't be an issue. It's louche and idiotic to fault people for choosing to take personal precautions, so long as those precautions are indeed personal. The issue is where such personal precaution is mandatory, and the mandate has no expiration.
I'm not sanguine about possibility of a vaccine. Assuredly, if one is available, I have no qualms about getting it, even if it is "experimental". What troubles me is not mass requirements to take the vaccine, but the simple fact, that a vaccine is unlikely to be possible at all, or even if possible, that it would not meet the standards of what's necessary to sunset the mask-wearing laws.
The "strangeness" shouldn't be an issue. It's louche and idiotic to fault people for choosing to take personal precautions, so long as those precautions are indeed personal. The issue is where such personal precaution is mandatory, and the mandate has no expiration.
I'm not sanguine about possibility of a vaccine. Assuredly, if one is available, I have no qualms about getting it, even if it is "experimental". What troubles me is not mass requirements to take the vaccine, but the simple fact, that a vaccine is unlikely to be possible at all, or even if possible, that it would not meet the standards of what's necessary to sunset the mask-wearing laws.
A vaccine is very possible and will likely reduce some spread and quite possibly reduce the severity of the disease among a non-trivial amount of people who get vaccinated and then exposed to the virus.
However, will it be magic force-field potion that will give us 100% immunity and prevent all deaths due to covid19? No. The biggest problem I see is that we're condensing down to months what normally takes years. No matter how much money we throw at it, a matter of months is simply not enough time for the scientists to evaluate the studies. Vaccine development normally takes more or less 5 years to get right. These things take time.
You've been unable to offer a "trigger point" as to when a "set-in concrete number" becomes fair to ask for, or justification as to why no number can be availed earlier than that point.
By bringing up a vaccine, are you postulating that the masks have to stay until there's a vaccine? I'm fine with that so long as you can account for:
- what happens if a vaccine takes longer than we hope for
- what happens if a vaccine never happens (I think this is extremely unlikely, but this is how risk planning works: at this broad of a level, you don't leave stones unturned)
- what it is that you need a vaccine to do
The reason I am being such an anal retentive stickler about this is that I do not want a scenario where a vaccine happens and the goal posts move even further. Masks can go away once a vaccine does what? Ends the pandemic per the CDC definition? (but what if it "technically" ends earlier than that?) Brings the population to 65% immunity? Ensures that deaths stay below a certain level for a certain period of time? Ends all cases/transmission of the virus forever?
Either we have an end goal or we don't. And heck, I'm doing all the legwork for you, here. Just pick one and move on. If you can't, then what you're saying is "the exit criteria for mask mandates is once I feel safer".
And that's YOUR fear, one that I find completely unfounded as it pertains to making masks something permanently required and punishable by law. You see how that goes both ways?
How long? Maybe when the risk of catching the virus are substantially lower, whether that's through some kind of herd immunity, a vaccine, or a mutation in the virus itself. Maybe when treatment improves to the point that a high risk patient who becomes infected can go to the hospital and have a good chance of coming home. Maybe when we know more about the after effects of Covid19 and how serious/long lasting those complications are, and whether that's actually a bigger problem we need to protect against than we realize right now.
So you tell me, what's a good number for those? What's acceptable? Do we say that if one of every ten patients admitted to the hospital survives we're good to go? If fewer than sixty percent of hospitalized patients develop lasting, debilitating complications we declare that as the magic number and decide that taking further precautions is pointless? How far into the future do you think we might hit whatever the magic numbers are, and can you estimate a date for me on that?
I think once the vaccine is distributed, all the mask mandates will be dropped but maybe 2 percent of the population will continue to wear them all the time and maybe 15 percent during flu season. It will no longer look "strange" to wear one like it was during Covid. Some women may even wear stylish masks just as fashion statements.
Only mask mandates around here are store requirements and they are not even enforced by the stores. However, I do agree now that people are used to wearing a mask it might be worn more often like in some Asian countries.
However, if our government ever comes out and says masks must be worn when outside; I will not wear a mask and take that ticket to court as will millions of others.
A vaccine is very possible and will likely reduce some spread and quite possibly reduce the severity of the disease among a non-trivial amount of people who get vaccinated and then exposed to the virus.
However, will it be magic force-field potion that will give us 100% immunity and prevent all deaths due to covid19? No. The biggest problem I see is that we're condensing down to months what normally takes years. No matter how much money we throw at it, a matter of months is simply not enough time for the scientists to evaluate the studies. Vaccine development normally takes more or less 5 years to get right. These things take time.
But you have to balance that with thousands of people dying.
Scientists want perfect science.
People want to stop dying.
But you have to balance that with thousands of people dying.
Scientists want perfect science.
People want to stop dying.
Scientists understand that "perfection" is impossible. They want evidence-based inferences, that are progressively solidified through further experimentation. It's the general public that's more leery of both merely incremental progress, and tentative conclusions. That is a combination for failure.
Some people may "want to stop dying". Others are just fine with dying, and instead want for the restrictions to stop. A vaccine serves the desires of both. I'm all in favor of rushing a vaccine to mass-production and deployment. But the cover-your-posterior crowd, may not.
Our impediments now - whether scientific, or social - are mainly about aversion to risk. It's the same problem that precludes us sending astronauts to Mars, or building a supersonic aircraft, or making seminal advances in medicine, or - more to our current topic - doing something definitive about the 'rona. People are worried about side-effects, lawsuits, unintended consequences... in other words, risk.
A risk-averse people can not advance. It's as simple as that.
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