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Of all the things dividing us right now, the most ridiculous is the debate over whether to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. It doesn’t help that there are screaming banshees on both sides. It also doesn’t help that our government financed scientists have lied (pointing my finger at you, Dr. Fauci) from the beginning.
Yesterday, some elitist, Act Blue, hack writer by the name of Will Bunch wrote a long column making fun of Americans who are vehemently anti-mask. He telegraphs his disdain with the title, “America is drunk on a warped idea of freedom, and now it’s killing people”. From a middle paragraph:
It was another great day for liberty — and yet a horrible one for tens of thousands of Americans who now may die needlessly because so many cling to a warped idea of freedom that apparently means not caring whether others in your community get sick. The reality is that those devil-worshiping elected officials and their mad scientists are trying to mandate masks in public for the same reasons they don’t let 12-year-olds drive and they close bars at 2 a.m.: They actually want to keep their constituents alive.
Because I am a Libertarian-leaning, Constitution-loving, Republican, I don’t see these fellow Americans as uncaring or warped in their idea of freedom. I see them as skeptical of a government that has lied to them too often. Remember in those daily briefings when Dr. Anthony Fauci used to tell us masks don’t work or when he went on 60 Minutes to tell us there was no reason to be walking around wearing a mask? Let’s check out the video:
That was early March. Of course, Fauci later said that we were told masks didn’t work so that healthcare workers would be able to get them. Guess what existed back in March? Bandanas, bandanas existed then. Also, sewing machines. That’s lie number one.
Lie number two was the initial forecast U.S. deaths. The forecast said that 200,000 to 1.7 million Americans would die. Today, we are at 128,000 deaths. Had Governors like Cuomo of New York not sent Covid-19 positive patients into nursing homes the death toll would be lower. Will Bunch, who claims that Americans are “drunk on a warped idea of freedom”, praised Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. I called Cuomo “feckless” back in March. Lies and mishandling by government officials don’t inspire confidence in most Americans.
Mandating that Americans must wear masks is a non-starter. The federal government can mandate masks on federal property. States can mandate masks on state property. Local governments can mandate masks on local government property. Private business can mandate masks in their business. The federal government cannot mandate that we wear masks in public all the time. It’s a federalism thing.
I would like to speak to my fellow, anti-mask, Americans. I really intensely dislike wearing a mask. It’s not normal. My breathing changes. I cannot read visual cues from the faces of others. I can’t understand people who do not enunciate clearly. I wear a mask when I cannot be assured that I can be socially distant from others. I do it because I don’t want to get sick. Here is a scenario for you: Grocery store. Produce aisle. Random loser leans past me to get an artichoke. Loser sneezes. Is the sneeze allergies? Is the sneeze Covid-19. I don’t know. I can grab an anti-bacterial wipe from my purse and wipe myself down, but if the Coronavirus has gotten into my mucous membranes, too late. That’s why I wear my sunglasses or readers in the store, too. Your eyes are very vulnerable.
I wear the mask because my dear daughter-in-love has an auto-immune disease. I want to be around her, my son and my granddaughter. I wear a mask because my husband is over 65 years of age. He is the picture of health, but I am not taking any chances with him.
Have you ever had a breathing episode. I have. Mine had no long lasting damage because it was caused by pollen. Not being able to breath is terrifying. That is one of the symptoms of Covid-19. I wouldn’t wish that on Nancy Pelosi.
Now on to you mask scolds. Ready. Please be more gentle. Maybe the non-mask wearing moron is uneducated. Maybe the moron is afraid. Or maybe the non-mask wearer isn’t a moron but has some other auto-immune disorder like eczema. The person may be unaware that face shields are easily available and may not be aware that the shield would work the same as a mask.
We need to be kinder to each other. We need to be a little less judgmental. We don’t need more elitist hacks like Will Bunch.
Cover your face. Wash your hands. Be kind. Be well.
Featured Image: Randy von Liski/Flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Our governor just decreed that beginning last Friday we must wear masks when out in public. Our local sheriff announced that they will not enforce it and pointed out how unreasonable it is for the government to expect and require private businesses to act as the enforcer for its laws.
DT says: But not one fact – not one THING – on how effective masks are at stopping the spread of this, or any virus. So, instead of a banal appeal to emotion, that is, fear – how about stating well researched, published facts! Then we can have a conversation on altruism, freedom, sacrifice and other lovely concepts. Otherwise, your whole libertarian leaning Republican, sick mother, auto-immune deficient child shtick is just a … shtick.
GWB says: No, there are plenty of facts out there about how effective masks are. And, like so many things, they get biased based on which facts are represented.
But, clearly, masks do lower the viral load potential that other people may receive. They also – if you wear it properly – reduce the viral load you may receive. There’s plenty of foolishness about them not stopping viruses. No shit, Sherlock. Even an N95 only stops 95%. But they reduce the viral load potential. Which is a huge part of epidemiology.
The kids and mother and such are partly an emotional appeal, yes. But emotional appeals founded on facts are not totally baseless. Note that Toni did NOT say “Do you want Grandma to DIE?!” She said she wears a mask for them.
keep me safe mommygov says: I want a hermetically sealed bubble courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Pavlovian obedience training for soft week sheep.
I laugh while at the Sack N’ Save and seeing people still wearing masks.
The new religions of Covid-1984 and some are more equal than others BLM are lame.
Tony says: I think the challenge is that there is a contingent of people who fundamentally disagree with the current approach. When it comes to the infectious diseases, the knee jerk reaction is always going to be to keep everyone in a bubble and take draconian measures. Things like “we need to test everyone”, or “everyone must wear a mask” or “shut everything down” just isn’t practical; especially given real data now showing the relatively low risk of the disease; the original models were bogus.
I am in the camp of letting this work it’s way through, towards herd immunity. Again, I stress we should we isolate our most vulnerable (elderly and people with previous illness) and at the same time let healthy people develop herd immunity which is the best defense.
We don’t have to violate liberty, the 1st amendment (freedom of assembly) and destroy the economy. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I am encouraging everyone to read the primary research literature which is the most important for understanding the true nature of the threat. Most news briefings do not cover these important facts.
This primary research shows how almost 640,000 die every year worldwide of the seasonal flu, which is much worse than the COVID statistics. Should we shut the economy down every year for the seasonal flu? https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)33293-2/fulltext
This article in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates that COVID is more like influenza..
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032?query=RP
Stanford article
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.
In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 10 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
“ We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
“since it does not provide protection from droplets that may enter the eyes or from fomites on the patient or in the environment that providers may pick up on their hands and carry to their mucous membranes.”
GWB says: When it comes to the infectious diseases, the knee jerk reaction is always going to be to keep everyone in a bubble and take draconian measures.
I would say that “…the Safetyist’s reaction is always…”. I don’t think a lot of GPs – who actually deal with patients and have to balance risks daily – panicked like the bureaucrats and academics did.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Well, most of us can. The ones who can’t are the ones used as examples for the control and Safetyism overreach.
which is much worse than the COVID statistics
I’m not sure it’s “much” worse, if you look at global COVID deaths (and guesstimate the toll in places like NK). (And, I’m assuming the reported numbers are actually correct, discounting the stupid we know is going on in the US.)
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.
Given the rest of that paragraph, that sentence should read “… little, if any, additional protection…”. It’s rather idiotic to claim they offer no protection, given the physics and biology of the matter.
But I’ll wholeheartedly agree with the last sentence (QFT):
the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
Cribdawg says: Nope..the mask makes me sick. Be nice , be kind and mind your own business.
Kate says: There is one problem about wearing a mask to avoid illness from other people, with that kind of logic perhaps we should all wear face masks forever. Logically it would mean that people would be so protected they would never have a cold or flu ever again.What a fantasy idiotic idea.
GWB says: And they’ve already begun the next assault with headlines yesterday about a “new swine flu” and suggesting it could become another pandemic.
Scott says: In a way, that announcement reminds me of the morning of 9/11. When I heard that one plane had hit the World Trade Centers, the first thought was ” could be an accident”, when the second pane hit, it was obvious “this is intentional”…
Same thing here, one “pandemic” could be accidental, two back to back? Not so much…
Truth Over Facts says: Ditto DT and thanks Tony for the push back and insight. One other thought. You might want to consider or rethink your over broad “The federal government can mandate masks on federal property. States can mandate masks on state property. Local governments can mandate masks on local government property. Private business can mandate masks in their business .” I agree with the private businesses portion simply because … private property. Otherwise, under what authority can they do that? I recently researched a local government mandating masks, masks, as far as the eye can see ;>} Unfortunately the only authority they cited was the State granted ability to “quarantine” persons suspected of carrying some disease until confirmed or denied. A far cry from “everybody must wear a mask regardless.” I suspect, as in our state, most states are similarly limited in statutory authority to supersede the Constitution [state and federal] without more than general “it’s for the health” declarations. Again, I would like to emphasize DT’s point that without an unambiguous or conclusive study re the efficacy of widespread mask usage mandates [and certainly not just bandannas or other homemade cutesy cloth coverings], this is all a fear and emotion appeal on the “mask Karens'” part. Back to you Toni.
GWB says: It doesn’t help
It also doesn’t help that many folks are simply screaming to shut up and do whatever someone in authority tells you to do. Which brings us to the freedom aspect…
America is drunk on a warped idea of freedom, and now it’s killing people
No. Some Americans are drunk on power. And freedom isn’t killing people. No, life kills people. Freedom allows people to live as they see fit until then.
(Oh, and it’s you who has a warped view of freedom.)
tens of thousands of Americans who now may die needlessly
Ummmm…. how many people die “needfully”? “Needless deaths” is one of those idiotic phrases that appeals to the emotion and tries to blind reason. And this is deliberately ignoring the low death rate of COVID cases, and attempting to instill more fear to justify gov’t control.
trying to mandate masks in public for the same reasons they don’t let 12-year-olds drive and they close bars at 2 a.m.
Yes: control and safetyism. (Mostly we don’t let 12yos drive because they can’t see over the steering wheel, and they have poor impulse control.) Better to compare to DUI laws that make you guilty if you’re sleeping off a few drinks in the parking lot of the bar. Or to bans on merry-go-rounds in playgrounds. Or to “hate speech” codes. It’s about control and a zer-risk mentality.
The forecast said that 200,000 to 1.7 million Americans would die.
This is like the weather guy telling you “It’s somewhere between a 10 and 95% chance of rain today. Or we might have a hurricane. And the high will be somewhere above 80. Maybe as high as 125F.”
praised Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
Another point against the dude’s article. Sheesh.
I wear the mask because
Which is fine. But we have other methods of dealing with this thing now. We shouldn’t be forever afraid of it. We have several treatments available that are MUCH more effective than ventilators. And some of them are CHEAP and plentiful. Treating it after people get it and demonstrate symptoms is a much more effective strategy than an attempt at perpetual sanitization. There’s also the aspect of herd immunity, which is significantly weakened by trying to stop the spread of the virus entirely (ain’t gonna happen, anyway).
BTW, my main issue with people wearing masks is the number of them doing it solely out of fear and without thinking. The number of people wearing masks in their own cars (not for the 2 minutes to the store, but a half hour commute on the highway) is amazing. People wearing masks outside, in the park. People simply doing as their told, like sheep, without thinking, simply accepting the control of their “betters”. (BTW, that includes a lot of bosses, too – political, military, and business – simply tossing out edicts to be “on the safe side”.) THAT is my main issue with masks.
Scott says: “There’s also the aspect of herd immunity, which is significantly weakened by trying to stop the spread of the virus entirely (ain’t gonna happen, anyway).”.. Don’t forget that isolation form all pathogens also weakens the immune system, making you more susceptible when you do come in contact with something, as well as increasing the likelihood that the immune system will overreact when it comes in contact with something (this is how we got the explosion of peanut and other allergies).
As to the fools wearing masks in their cars, etc, agree 100% they are incapable of critical thinking (or any independent thought), and just do what they’re told.
Perhaps a day late to this post, but nevertheless, there are innumerable studies from reputable sources indicating that masks are USELESS against viruses, they are intended to minimize bacteria from open wounds as in operating rooms. They provide a false sense of security and, as one University of Minnesota stated, if masks were effective, why is there so much of this virus spreading throughout Asia where masks have been worn for years.
GWB says: I wouldn’t say “innumerable”. There are some.
And masks are ALSO used to prevent the spread of infection from patient to patient in infectious wards (along with other PPE). I don’t think they exclude viruses from that role.
Most of the statements I’ve seen denigrating the uselessness of masks show a lack of understanding of reducing viral load, as well as overstating the idea of virii floating about like dust motes in the air.
Mind you, I’m not a fan of masks. I think they’re not as necessary as some seem to think. But I don’t believe they’re useless.
Sam says: And not once have I seen a muzzle wearing sheep address the concern about masks increasing your own viral load and leading to very, very serious problems in the very demographics proving most vulnerable to the Wuhan Virus. Not once. It’s ok, given global-warming-cum-climate change-cum-climate chaos-cum-climate change I’ve gotten used to western elites cherry picking data, ignoring counter-intuitive data, and outright lying to justify authoritarianism. So long as it’s for the planet-er…people’s safety, don’t you know?
Hey! You know what we’re NOT talking about? How much the Chinese government is responsible for this and what we’re going to do about it. Funny, that. Be sure to muzzle yourself lest you succumb to the death cloud waiting for you in churches, parks, and bars, and civic celebrations* though.
*But thankfully not banks, Wal-Marts, protests (blacks only), Uber delivery drivers and hospitals. Whew! Can you imagine how utterly inconvenient it would be if the virus was transmissible in those places?!? Why, we might have to wear actual PPE and miss out on wearing that sweet freedom loving patriot-themed cloth bandanas all my boomer friends compliment me on.
GWB says: You need to look at the logic on that “increasing your own viral load” bit. By definition, it’s already your viral load. If your body is making the little bastards, sucking a few back in from your mask isn’t really going to cause you any more problems than you already have.
About the only logical complaint you might have is the virus transition from, say, your mouth to your nasal passages. That might happen faster with a mask. But if you have enough load to shed some, you’re likely already headed that way, even without a mask.
(Oh, and you do have to wear PPE as a worker in WalMart or an Uber driver. So do the customers. While we certainly have a problem with inconsistent demands from the gov’t, those places have demanded masks for months for that very reason. And yes, a mask is PPE – it might not be professional/medical level, but it is PPE.)
Sam says: 1) It’s not my logic, it’s what I’ve heard from doctors and medical professionals. (Where you got your info from, right?) That their voices have been ignored or outright banned from the same platforms that are happy to trumpet people agreeing with you is pure coincidence, I’m sure. Good thing too, otherwise we might have something less than “scientific consensus” on the matter and might be tempted to make up our own minds about the risk.
2) Masks that aren’t at the “medical level” and worn with anything less than medical precision are not PPE any more than a condom made of wax paper is birth control. Again, not simply my common sense but the advice of doctors going back to the Before Times. A true killer disease hyped to this degree would not need government to force people to wear facial coverings (as most jurisdictions term them, so there goes any hope of “medical level” equipment out of the gate). If anything we would be throwing taxpayer money at people willing to venture out and keep our society going, not the other way around. And we certainly wouldn’t allow the custom-made disease vectors that are children to venture outside, because expecting them to follow proper PPE procedures is a fool’s errand. The myriad exceptions don’t seem to phase your faith in face diapers, even when they are explicitly in racial terms.
3) Wal-Mart condoms (keeping with the theme) are still allowed to be sold during the fiercest lockdowns, whereas The Fuzzy Clam Sex Emporium’s condoms pose too great a risk. Yet another phenomenon barely, if ever, addressed by the death cloud cult.
If I were on Team Scared – well and truly on it – I would not settle for these half-assed measures and ineffective equipment, and would hardly if ever venture out, preferring others risk their life and health so me and my family has food, water, power, etc (ahem, not that anyone behaves that way). I might be a full-fledged Karen, too, chastising people for their half-assed procedures and equipment, but at least I wouldn’t be a flaming hypocrite for my loose and selective definition of what constitutes good public health practices.
GWB says: Masks that aren’t at the “medical level” and worn with anything less than medical precision are not PPE any more than a condom made of wax paper is birth control.
You obviously don’t know what “PPE” means. As with much else of what you write.
And, yes, doctors can be wrong.
Harlan says: After only twenty minutes wearing a mask last weekend I came to this exact, same conclusion…
https://technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/
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