Posted on 07/03/2020 5:37:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
Anytime things go from widely disputed to sudden, virtually-overnight national “scientific consensus,” it’s probably a good idea to be a wee bit skeptical. So it goes with the forced universal masking issue. We’ve obviously run quite the gamut on this, from being told not to wear them at all while the pandemic was at its peak -- and everyone and their neighbor was crowding and swapping moisture particles in Lowe’s and Walmart aisles across America -- to the now almost cultlike, lockstep message from politicians, the media and every leftist still too frightened to come out of their basement that not wearing masks in every possible setting is pretty much the equivalent to stabbing grandma in the heart.
It’s all a farce, of course -- absurd theater forced upon us by people who would have probably believed in witches a few centuries ago. Now that the Karen-caucus has managed to browbeat most Republican lawmakers and even President Trump into some degree of at least verbal submission, they apparently expect the rest of us rubes to take their word for it and follow along. They think if they condescendingly say the words “I wear the mask to protect you and you wear the mask to protect me” enough, everyone will mindlessly obey. And if you don’t, they want to use the force of law to punish you severely.
No, the ongoing, relentless, unceasing crusade to force every American to wear masks to “stop the spread” of coronavirus isn’t about to end anytime soon, if ever. Even with deaths declining, they keep the pot stirred up with panic porn about spikes in new cases and hospitalizations in southern and western states. Nevermind the fact that the so-called “surge” in hospitalizations in Texas turned out to be, as Fox News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel noted, mostly people getting “elective” surgeries that had long been delayed due to coronavirus. So yeah, if you’re a dishonest media hack I guess you could call those “coronavirus-related.” However, the reality isn’t what the media panic-inducers want to convey, which is probably why you thought the hospitals were getting filled with actual, life-threatening COVID-19 cases until you read this.
As far as whether or not masking actually works to “stop the spread” of coronavirus, I can point to studies (assuming - and this is a big assumption - that Big Tech allows them to remain online), and the masking proponents can as well. We can go back and forth on the potential long-term dangers posed by non-medically trained people wearing, breathing through, touching and constantly fiddling with veritable Petri dishes for several hours a day (I’m right, they’re wrong, but whatever …). We can even debate whether forced-masking is truly an infringement on personal freedoms (it is) or discuss the validity of the view, popular among many go-along-to-get-along Christians these days, that masking is somehow the key to “loving your neighbor” (it’s not).
Does masking work? (Maybe.) How well? (Hard to say.) Is it 100 percent safe? (Doubt it. Even assuming you’re getting enough oxygen, how can breathing in your own germs all the time be ‘safe’?) Does God say one must put on a face diaper to properly “love your neighbor”? (LOL Uh, no.) Should freedom-centric societies force it on their citizens who aren’t obviously sick? (Hell no!) Certainly, we can argue over any of those issues and maybe never come to an agreement. I’ll admit it has become a politicized issue. Either position can sound convincing when considered without looking at the other side, and people generally have by-and-large made up their minds before even weighing the other side of their own view.
However, what most advocates ignore is one key observation that makes forced universal masking an insane and unnecessary policy choice in most situations, and that is this: even if masking worked, wasn’t dangerous at all and was not seen by millions as a pernicious tool of social control, I see no valid reason why we would want to stop the spread of the virus at this point.
There, I said it. The most powerful argument against universal masking is that it could in fact work to slow the spread of coronavirus. Please stay with me. I’m not saying we shouldn’t protect those who are vulnerable to the virus. Had we properly protected those in nursing homes, for example, we could have saved half the people who actually have died from this thing. Nevertheless, the facts are these: the virus is spreading at a rapid rate, but deaths have not spiked and have even decreased. The average age of those who are getting it is significantly younger than it was two months ago. And we’re not sure about this yet, but it also seems to have mutated into a weaker version that is more transmissible but less lethal than the version we saw in April.
The fact is, for all the suffering COVID-19 has caused among the elderly and immunocompromised, the actual death rate currently stands at less than half a percent and is declining rapidly as antibody studies come to light. The CDC recently estimated that 10 times the known cases have likely had the disease already and recovered. That’s probably a lowball estimate, but it equates to upwards of 10 percent of the U.S. population. As young people spread this seemingly milder version around while older folks take precautions, we’re ever closer to reaching herd immunity, which one recent study said can be attained with as little as 43 percent contracting the disease. That may still be a few months away, but in all honesty, it could be our only way out of this. They keep talking about vaccines, but no successful coronavirus vaccine has ever been produced and there’s little reason to think it will be now, nor that anything they roll out this quickly will be truly safe anyway.
So, if we aren’t overwhelming hospitals and people aren’t dying in droves, community spread is actually a good thing, especially when most cases are either mild or asymptomatic. Yes, it would take several months to get any degree of herd immunity, but that would surely be better than living forever like we've been living the past three months, no? What’s the alternative, living with this virus on the prowl for years, even decades? Masks forever? Endless, rotating shutdowns? The end of mass gatherings and sports? And if Democrats win, God forbid, an ever-encroaching police state hellbent on using this virus to torment us and our liberties until their Bolshevik dreams become a reality?
Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center, also made the case during a recent Fox News appearance: “We like the fact that there’s a lot of cases in low-risk populations because that’s exactly how we are going to get herd immunity, population immunity. When low-risk people with no significant problem handling this virus, which is basically 99% of people, get this and they become immune ... they block the pathways of connectivity to more contagious, older, sicker people.”
Truly, is there any logical reason why those who are elderly, immunocompromised or even frightened about the virus couldn’t wear a mask that really protects them, like an n95, and let everyone else live their lives? Like it or not, herd immunity could be our only way out of this mess, our only way back to any sense of normalcy. The quicker that arrives, the safer those truly vulnerable to this epidemic will be.
Will the Dem mayors force the arrest of "protesters" not wearing masks?
this will only end at the election box, common sense people like you have to start running for office and throw these morons out.
Author spends six verbose paragraphs bitching about sociopolitical crap before getting to the ridiculous claim that avoiding masks will slow spread by accelerating spread.
It’s a disease. It’s a nasty disease that kills people. Cultures that normalized mask wearing beat COVID fast. Too many just use masks (for or against) as a point of virtue signaling.
Why do people not accept that the masks stop droplets and the droplets spread the virus? That doesn’t seem hard to understand.
Why do people not accept that the masks stop droplets and the droplets spread the virus? That doesn’t seem hard to understand.
Why do people not accept that if you're worried about it, then you can wear the damn mask and the rest of us can go on about our lives?
Why do people not accept that the masks stop droplets and the droplets spread the virus? That doesn’t seem hard to understand.
Why do people not accept that if you’re worried about it, then you can wear the damn mask and the rest of us can go on about our lives?
______________________________________
If you’re that afraid of the greatest pandemic and deadliest disease ever to hit the shores of America, STAY HOME. For every 2bit scientist out their extolling the “science” of mask wearing there are 10 who disagree. Look to countries that have zero problems with Covid-Dem and you’ll see the low rates of it. Herd immunity will be the only thing that halts this “plandemic”. I know that word offends, but...it’s planned to take out Trump, pure and simple. And I won’t wear a mask. Make me.
masking has never been proven to do anything to stop the spread. And yes it is a nasty virus for some. For most is is the sniffles or less
“getting to the ridiculous claim that avoiding masks will slow spread by accelerating spread”
Doubt masks have ANY impact on the spread of the ChinaVirus, but it is NOT ridiculous to point out that spreading the virus among the young and healthy will cut off lines of transmission to the elderly and high risk. In the absence of a vaccine, that is the ONLY way to go back to normal!
“Cultures that normalized mask wearing beat COVID fast”
They did NOT put on masks and beat the problem. They did extensive testing, tracing and most are island nations with tightly controlled borders.
Meanwhile, Texas has a darn good track record with an open society.
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Except he never said that.
It’s a disease. It’s a nasty disease that kills people.
Like hundreds of other nasty diseases that kill people too.
Cultures that normalized mask wearing beat COVID fast.
Nope.
Well, Texas had a good record.. until.their governor got freaked out by the press and ordered masks for the entire state. I wonder how that’s going to go over with Texans?
As for the medical usefulness, people who really fall for the hype and who believe in masks are welcome to wear them, because if they’re so effective, then presumably they’re effective in both directions and will prevent viruses from entering, right?
But of course they’re not effective, and everybody knows they’re just symbolic of your submission to the Dem-promoted hysteria.
Science. Its hard thing to beat evidence when it comes to actually observing what happens rather than just accepting what you are told.
To work, the mask has to be sealed. Not worn over your mouth and not your nose, and no leaking out the sides or fogging your glasses. And thats just to protect others. But, the darn thing concentrates any virus particles that you happen to catch in it so it increases your virus exposure and the likelihood you will die.
Mostly, if you aren’t wearing an N95 mask properly sealed, its just theater.
If masks have any relevance it is contextual, not general, not universal.
Wearing a mask while driving the car, casually walking down the street, even with friends or family, working in your yard and many other things where your only contact with someone may be random and fleeting has zero relevance at all. And if you are outside and standing in a line six feet away from anyone else, the mask is also then not relevant beyond a fashion statement that is meant to say “see, I’m a good person, I’m wearing a mask”.
Infection is not obtained by random fleeting contact with someone, particularly not someone who is not exhibiting any illness symptoms. Infection is made in closed quarters with some period of sustained contact with someone who is infected, someone who is infected and in spite of that and knowing that does not keep themselves masked to help protect others. As far as is known now, asymptomatic persons do not exhibit a viral load, or symptom activity that is going to expel a viral load, sufficient to cause an infection for someone else and most importantly not when contact is not in closed quarters and/or sustained contact for some period of time.
That knowledge can be applied to all activities, to see where the context meets the need for a mask, or not. Universal one rule fits all occasions are intentionally not rational, because their goal is that no one should think, just be a rule follower.
Abbot thinks he is king of Texas now. He needs to be primaryed.
He’s gone all cartman: “You will respect my athoritah!”
In AZ doctors are freaking out {like they have never dealt with a mass casualty situation} because they may have to triage patients duo the lack resources to care for everyone.
FACT: It is illegal in the United States to sell, offer for sale or promote via any means that touches interstate commerce (which would include any communications form that crosses a state line) any drug or device intended to treat, prevent or cure any disease or disorder of the human body without proof in the form of random clinical trials which are then submitted and analyzed by the FDA.
This is controlled under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (Title 21 USC.) The government goes after sellers of supplements and devices on this basis all the time. The law is crystal clear in this regard; both safety and efficacy must be scientifically proved, reviewed and then formally approved by the FDA
The Covid virus was supposed to be contained in the kind of lab where people wear astronaut suits and go through triple sealed doors. It is a con of massive proportion to assert that now, having escaped those environs, a bandana will magically do the trick.
After all, size matters.*
The pore size of cloth face coverings range from ~ 20-100 microns. The Covid virus is 200-1000x smaller than that, at 0.1 microns. Putting up a chain link fence will not keep out a mosquito. Even the most esteemed medical journals admit their purpose is to calm anxiety. “Expanded masking protocols’ greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety …”
*Simone Gold, MD, JD, FABEM, is a board certified emergency physician. She graduated from Chicago Medical School before attending Stanford University Law School to earn her Juris Doctorate degree. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York. Dr. Gold worked in Washington D.C. for the Surgeon General, as well as for the Chairman of the Labor & Human Resources Committee.
She works as an emergency physician on the frontlines whether or not there is a pandemic. Her clinical work serves all Americans: from urban-inner city, to suburban, to the IHS. Her legal work has focused on conflicts between hospitals and insurers. She writes on a number of policy issues relating to law and medicine. She always leads with the facts. Read more at The Gold Opinion.
A company that makes ear loop masks, tells its users, their mask will not protect users from
Corona 19 Viruses:
https://media.thedonald.win/thedonald/post/XGdfOknn.jpeg
Doesn’t it depend on how much actual protection from spread the mask provides? It seems to be commonly accepted that masks don’t protect you from getting it, at least that’s what the mask boxes say.
If that’s true, then how can the mask protect you from spreading it, in the slight chance that you happen to be covid positive but pre-symptomatic that day?
How can the mask prevent spread from exhalation but not from inhalation?
https://commonsenseevaluation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-Mask.png
https://media.thedonald.win/thedonald/post/tY3fDNw6.png
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